Better off without: Tipperary manager Liam Sheedy might decide Munster isn't worth winning next year if he wants his side to win an All Ireland inpho

There was no such thing as being neutral watching events from Croke Park last Sunday. To be neutral was to be thrilled for Waterford; whatever sympathy one felt for Tipperary could not possibly balance the emotional scales. A week on though, look at it coldly. The same day Waterford qualified for their first All Ireland final in 45 years, the Munster champions, the national league champions, lost their first game of the year. It was Tipperary's first game in five weeks – and Waterford's third. Which begs a question or two. If you're over a Munster team next year, if you're Liam Sheedy, how do you go about the 2009 Munster championship? How do you set about qualifying for the All Ireland semi-final and final?

Because let one thing be clear. If the Munster championship remains as it is – and whatever HDC proposals are accepted at Special Congress on 4 October, Munster is virtually certain to remain as it is – the odds are stacked against the Munster champions winning its All Ireland semi-final. Because the schedule is likely to be stacked against them. By the time the qualifiers and All Ireland quarter-finals are run off, you're looking at a five-week lay-off. And as the football experience shows, even four weeks is more disadvantageous than a break of two or three weeks, the kind your opponent will enjoy.

It's a debate that hasn't had much of an airing this past week for two reasons. Firstly, the Déise delight factor; if ever a side deserved to avail of Tipp's dilemma, it was Waterford, who three times previously as Munster champions were given either a ridiculously long or short run-in to their All Ireland semi-finals. And two, the fact Kilkenny demolished Cork. Kilkenny though are the exception because they're exceptional, the greatest machine the game has witnessed in over 40 years. After 2001, they've mastered the lay-off. They're accustomed to it, annually. In Munster, no one enjoys that privilege, because no one is or can be that dominant. By the time your county wins another Munster, either the system or your manager has changed.

The facts are irrefutable. Five times the Munster hurling champions have had a five or six week lay-off for their All Ireland semi-final and all five times they've failed to win that next game. Waterford were foiled in 2002 and 2004, as Tipperary were last week. Tipperary and Cork were taken to replays by Wexford in 2001 and 2003. The rust shaken off, both won those replays by double figures, but they could so easily have been disposed of the first day. Contrast that to 2005 and 2007 when provincial champions were obliged to play All Ireland quarter-finals within a month of their provincial success. In all six games, the provincial champions survived. Five of them won at the first attempt, while last year Waterford drew with a Cork side gunning to make its fifth All Ireland final on the trot. Do you think Waterford would have escaped had they another two-week wait? Of course, those provincial champions were playing sides that had already lost twice in the championship, but were Waterford 2005 and Cork 2007 that inferior to the Wexford sides of 2001 and 2003? Can that discrepancy in quarter-final and semi-final opposition fully explain how the Munster and Leinster champions have only a 30 per cent win rate when they've had a lay-off of five or six weeks, and an 88 per cent win rate when they've been inactive for just three or four?

A similar, if not as blatant, imbalance prevails in football. Four times this decade the provincial champions have had a lay-off of five weeks or more, with the count standing at two wins and two losses. Even in the cases of those two wins, the system did the provincial champions no favours. Kerry had a six-week break entering last year's quarter-final with Monaghan and barely survived, while this year Cork were fortunate that Kildare were playing their fourth game in 21 days. Anthony Lynch said as much during the week. "That five-week lay-off we had, after three weeks it was fine, but by week four and five you're going, 'Are we getting a bit rusty now?' Dublin had a long lay-off as well and they're better than they showed. You can't beat championship games."

It was an argument that could have been advanced by Liam Sheedy and one strengthened by mentioning Dublin. Clearly Tyrone are better than them, but clearly Dublin are better than last weekend. When the game was pushed out to accommodate all provincial champions in Croke Park, it gave Tyrone an extra seven days to recuperate from their qualifier against Mayo, and extended Dublin's lay-off into the amber zone that is four weeks. Again, the stats tell the tale. The All Ireland quarter-final record of provincial champions with a four-week layoff is: Played 15 Won 4 Drew 4 Lost 7, a win rate of just 27 per cent. When they've been waiting only two to three weeks it jumps to 46 per cent – Played 13 Won 6 Drew 3 Lost 4.

They've been lucky it's been that high. Of those 10 provincial champions who have won their quarter-final after a two to four week lay-off, five of them had been taken to a replay in their provincial final, thus shortening their lay-off. You get the picture now – if you win your provincial final the system is geared towards you losing your next game. It's incredible. Half the summer is taken up by the provincial championships, yet the authorities who retain them are diminishing their status by how they treat and schedule its champions.

What to do? Well, it means giving further consideration to Mickey Harte's suggestion that the four provincial football champions play off, with the two winners advancing to the All Ireland semi-final and the two losers playing two qualifier opponents in the quarter-finals. Not only would that offer provincial champions a safety net, but they wouldn't be dormant for so long.

In hurling, they can't keep punishing the provincial champions; whatever advantage there is in avoiding an All Ireland quarter-final is offset by waiting so long for the semi-final. Tipperary tried to control everything they could this year. Even as they were watching Waterford get games and momentum in the qualifiers, they looked to the positives, reminding themselves they had lengthy lay-offs between the league final and the win in Cork and then the Munster final. But in early summer, there are more challenge games on offer. Who could Sheedy have got a game against in late July? Cody?!

At least it was Waterford who benefitted. At the start of 2007 they identified the best passage to an All Ireland semi-final was winning Munster. They'd be playing every two or three weeks, a rhythm Justin McCarthy noted was critical to their marvellous 2004 Munster championship success. As Paul Flynn would note at start of this year's championship though, "We finished the year basically playing three semi-finals in 14 days. When you consider you could be six weeks without a game, it's a bit lopsided."

With some imagination and will power, the authorities can address that imbalance but have they those qualities? With the Christy Ring Cup, they went to the other extreme. The scandal of that competition wasn't that its final was played outside of Croke Park but that its winners, Carlow, had to turn around the following week and face Laois in a play-off to determine who participated in next year's All Ireland series. It was effectively their All Ireland final – and their fifth game in 28 days. Lunacy.

The formula is clear. The optimum time to be playing a game in late summer is every two to three weeks, not every week, not every five weeks. So, you're Liam Sheedy. Do you go again for Munster and risk that long lay-off? Or do you lay off Munster and take your chances in the qualifiers and on what Loughnane calls Culling Day? Paraic Duffy and Nickey Brennan might – and should – be able to answer him that.

kshannon@tribune.ie