After many meetings and much soul-searching, we eventually agreed . . . unanimously . . . that scrapping the Munster championship was not a solution. Were we wrong? As I took my seat in Semple Stadium, I pondered the question yet again.

Over 48,000 spectators were present at what was one of the best-attended sporting events in Europe that day. The atmosphere was fantastic. The fans and the hundreds of thousands of TV viewers were treated to a splendid contest to which every man, including the referee Seamus Roche, contributed generously.

The showdown between two counties who hadn't met at this level for 73 years capped one of the most enjoyable, most eventful and most competitive Munster championships of all time.

At 6pm last Sunday, that championship was over for another year. Was it successful? Taking everything into account, there's only one conceivable answer. Of course it was.

Similarly, there was only one conceivable answer to the question I'd asked myself prior to throw-in. Sitting there among the excited Waterford and Limerick folk, I knew the HDC had reached the correct conclusion. We couldn't justify doing away with the Munster championship for many, many reasons.

We couldn't give the slightest guarantee that we'd be able to replace it with a competition of an equal or better standard. We couldn't tell the 48,000 spectators at Semple Stadium and the people of Munster in general that their pride and joy must be scrapped because all the hurling counties of Leinster, bar one, are simply not good enough right now and that this is somehow Munster's problem. We couldn't make them pay for Galway's intractability. We couldn't point out to them that the solution to a problem they don't actually have is to introduce a Champions League-type competition that would see, say, Limerick, Waterford, Offaly and Wexford pitted in the same group and playing each other home and away, and that such an innovation would somehow be more exciting than what they already have.

Why should we do any of that? Because of Wexford's failure to be competitive in their province? Because of Offaly's inability to build on what they achieved in the 1990s? Because Dublin allowed hurling to decline? Because Laois did too? Because Galway don't even want to discuss being part of the solution to the problem?

Because of all this, we should shoot the Munster championship? No way.

Scrapping the Munster championship would be an attempted quick fix, not an honest answer . . . and because it wouldn't be an honest answer, it would inevitably fail. The risks are too great. Remove one of its foundation stones and hurling itself could go the way of once-famous competitions like the Oireachtas and the Railway Cup.

So too, indeed, could Galway. To me they've been gambling with their very future as a result of their unwillingness to join the Leinster championship. Past and present Galway managements and players have called for them to do so, but still the county's officials dig their heels in. Those officials may wish to consider what straits Galway will be in if Kilkenny beat them next weekend.

Wexford, one of the leading counties from the late 1940s to the late 1970s, are a shining example of what can go wrong. Lack of real commitment to the game has Wexford where we are today. Small as it is, the hurling world . . . and Kilkenny in particular . . .

passed us by as we failed to focus properly on a sport we say we love. Nobody set out to destroy Wexford hurling.

That's what makes the situation even worse.

Until we grasp the nettle and install playing structures which ensure high standards, what happened in Croke Park a fortnight ago will keep happening. For all the terrific work being done at long last at underage level, what is being sown may not be reaped unless players have regular hurling to grow into as they grow older. It's now mid-July and clubs in Wexford have played only one meaningful match this year; their counterparts in Kilkenny have played seven. Now extend this graph over the course of the next 10 years and imagine the bottom line. Any wonder that Leinster finals aren't what they used to be?

Kilkenny people are not superior to Wexford people, Dublin people, Offaly people or Laois people. They just play more hurling, therefore standards rise year on year.

And forget the "oh, but we've football to cater for as well" nonsense being peddled in many counties; this is merely a smokescreen for bad management and lack of leadership. Hurling is a specialist game that requires top-class structures from childhood to adulthood.

Football requires structures too, but it's a case of different strokes for different folks. Witness Kieran Quinn, the Sligo midfielder last Sunday who only took the game up overseas when he was 19.

That wouldn't be possible in hurling.

Hurling's problems are not Munster's problems. Abandoning the Munster championship would lower the very standards we're trying to uphold so that others can reach them. The problem is not that our aim is too high and we fail to reach the target, but rather that it's too low and we're in mortal danger of reaching it.

Congratulations to Waterford on their third provincial triumph in the space of six years. Well done also to Limerick, who should take great heart from their conquerors: they now are where Waterford were a few years ago. Justin McCarthy's team have shaken up the old order down south; Richie Bennis's (right) team can shake it up a little more in the coming years and ensure that the Munster championship retains its interest. Kill it off? Never!