Alan Good
THE domestic hockey season comes to an end in unusual fashion this weekend, as the senior and junior interprovincials take place at two Dublin venues.
Normally slated for a March date, the interpros were pushed back two months by the adverse winter weather that caused havoc with the schedules.
Traditionally a competition which pits the country’s best players against each other in a packed tournament setting, this year’s senior interpros will be without some star performers, for differing reasons.
On the men’s side, Munster and Leinster have opted not to select from their exiles who have been playing their club hockey in Spain, Holland, Belgium and Germany this term. Ulster have bucked that trend, however, with Santander’s Geoff McCabe and Mikey Watt, plus Reading’s EHL hero Chris Cargo, among a strong panel featuring 10 internationals.
The timing of the tournament is unfortunate in that it has ruled out a couple of players - and one of Ireland's best up-and-coming umpires in Malcolm Coombes - due to exams, while much like the Irish teams, it's not necessarily the best players that fill the interpro squads, but the ones who are the most committed.
This is notably true in Munster; few would quarrel, for example, with the selection of Cork Harlequins triumvirate Mark Black, Paul Lombard and Jason Black in an interpro squad. They are still among the best players in the province, but are into their 30s and have given plenty of blood, sweat, tears and years to the provincial and Irish cause. Family and work lives presumably take precedence now; facts of life in an amateur sport.
The landscape is a little different for the women's senior competition; Ireland senior women’s coach Gene Muller has opted not to release players from his squad for this tournament.
Muller has been working more closely than ever with his players via the much-debated central preparation programme (CPP) instigated last October, and has opted to keep his players' powder dry here with a big summer of international and European competition looming.
It's a move that doesn't do much to quieten those who have criticised the interpro competitions in recent years; former Cork Harlequins coach Pat Dawson branded the senior, junior and U21 events as a “waste of time and resources” in 2008, insisting tradition was the only reason the competitions were still being played.
He and others argued that the intensification and expansion of the Irish national setups to include more sessions and development panels rendered the interpros – once a treasured chance to see all the country's top players lock horns at once – irrelevant.
Conversely, Irish senior men's coach Paul Revington believes the interpros must be valued more - provided certain conditions and standards are met regarding squad preparation and tournament structure, amongst other issues.
The relevance of the interpros came under further scrutiny last September when the Irish Hockey Association scrapped the U21 competition for this year, effectively amalgamating it with the senior competition. Such scaling down is arguably necessary and sensible in such austere times, but differing attitudes and the lack of financial capital appears to be finding a middle ground which suits no-one.
At the other end of the interpro scale is the junior competition, which runs alongside the senior tournament at Grange Road this weekend.
This offers a carrot to lower-division players who may never otherwise get to wear their provincial colours; once more, commitment is an issue but finances are less so, with the players fundraising and paying the balance of the costs out of their own pocket.
For the first time, I'll be one of those taking part this weekend. Never in a million years did I suspect I'd pull on the red of Munster in any sporting code - as they say in journalism, those that can't do, write - but win or lose, I intend to make the most of the experience.
Like its senior counterpart, it's not a perfect system, nor a perfect tournament - but the sport would be worse off without it.
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/QcFtYLBlN6I/post.aspx
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