Super 14 still possible says Sheridan

County Board chairman Sean Sheridan says that he is confident that Westmeath can convince Croke Park to expand the new national hurling league format to a ‘Super 14’ style set.
Up until late last week it looked as if Westmeath, Carlow and London were going to be only teams competing in the Liam MacCarthy Cup to be excluded from the proposed reorganisation of the Allianz Hurling League into a 12-team top tier, of two sub-groups of six.
However, Westmeath and Carlow have put together an alternative proposal of a 14 team top tier of two groups of seven, or one group of six and one of eight. Officials from both counties met senior GAA officials including Liam O’Neill and Paraic Duffy in Croke Park on Saturday to put forward their plans.
Speaking afterwards, Mr Sheridan said that the meeting in Croke Park got “hot and heavy” at times but that the counter proposal had the support of a number of counties.
“We are putting lot of work into hurling in Westmeath and also a lot of funding. To be treated like this is very unfair. We won’t take this lying down. We are competing in the MacCarthy Cup. We need to be competing at a high level and will fight hard for that,” he said.
If Central Council decided to stick with the 12 team format, Mr Sheridan said that it will have a negative impact on the sport of hurling.
“The godfathers of the GAA wouldn’t tolerate this. They would turn in their graves if they thought hurling was only for the Super 12 teams. We are putting up a hard fight and we are confident that they would listen to us,” added the Tyrrellspass man.