Speaking recently on the RTÉ GAA podcast, Meath legend Colm O'Rourke said that Leinster football was in "crisis."
He argued that Dublin's dominance at the top was covering over a lot of the cracks in the province, and disproportionately boosting the province's performance average over the decade.
The two-time All-Ireland winner feared that both Dublin and Kildare might be relegated, and that we would end up with no side from the province in Division of the Allianz League in 2023. That, of course, subsequently happened last month.
O'Rourke went on to say that, "The Leinster Championship... could be actually competitive this year, albeit at a lower level."
And while the return of the round-robin provincial championships to hurling has been welcomed by followers of the game around the country, the question must be asked, is Leinster hurling in a similar predicament to its big ball cousin?
Kilkenny are a bit like Dublin were in football. They're the exception that brings the average performance of the province up. They're going for their first three in a row in Leinster this year since they completed a seven in a row of titles back in 2011.
But since a Leinster county other than Kilkenny last reached an All-Ireland final - Offaly in 2000 - Munster sides have on average been far stronger than the hurling counties in the east.
All five sides that will compete in the southern provincial championship this year have reached the Liam MacCarthy match at least twice since, while four of them have won at least one All-Ireland in that time.
This point was put to Shane Dowling this week as he helped to launch RTÉ's The Sunday Game coverage for the 2022 season.
"I think the Leinster Championship, you will get games where they won't be competitive," he said.
"You probably won't see that so much in Munster, but you’ll get some extremely competitive games.
"It is what it is but I think Leinster is very competitive in the majority of the games and it's up to the Dublins and the Wexfords and all the other teams there and they’re plenty good enough. For me, I don’t see any concern with it anyway."
Wexford's last appearance in the final came in 1996, when they won a first All-Ireland in 28 years, but the crossroads in the sunny south-east have been noticeably quieter since then. Leinster titles came in 1997, 2004 and 2019, but they've been the exception rather than the rule.
Dublin, despite all the work that has been done in the capital, haven't managed to really break through the glass ceiling to become one of the elite counties.
An NHL title and a Leinster crown aside, the Dubs have been in the lower echelons of the top tier this century. An improvement, granted, on where they were between the 1960s and the late 2000s, but it's still 1961 since they last reached an All-Ireland final.
While Offaly, who in that big defeat to the Cats in 2000 were appearing in their fourth All-Ireland final in seven seasons, have fallen away with their recent relegation taking some of the wind out of their sails once more.
Galway were moved into the province in 2009 and their arrival, as Malachy Clerkin wrote in The Irish Times ten years later, has certainly been good for them. They've lifted the Bob O'Keefe Cup more than all of the other counties in Leinster (bar Kilkenny) combined and they finally ended their MacCarthy drought in 2017.
Galway playing more matches during the summer months has certainly been good for the spectacle of the game. They've been involved in so many of the great tussles over the last decade, so there are no complaints there.
But what has it done for hurling in the province? Kilkenny have been given bigger battles by the Tribesmen, but realistically Dublin and Wexford are not getting any closer to taking the ultimate step and bringing Liam MacCarthy Liffey or Slaneyside.
Looking at the duo's recent record against Munster counties, it's poor.
Wexford last beat a county from the southern province in 2016 when they sent Cork packing in the qualifiers. Since then they've played Munster opposition six times, and lost all of those games.
The All-Ireland semi-final three years ago was when they realistically had their best chance as they led Tipperary by six points with 10 minutes to go, and had an extra man on the field, but they couldn't see it out.
Tipp would go on to win well against Kilkenny in the final, so the view was that Wexford were within a score of the All-Ireland champions, and as such should be able to push on.
Wexford's recent record against Munster opposition:
2016 AI QF: Waterford 0-21 Wexford 0-11
2017 AI QF: Waterford 1-23 Wexford 1-19
2018 AI QF: Clare 0-27 Wexford 1-17
2019 AI SF: Tipperary 1-28 Wexford 3-20
2020 Qual R2: Clare 1-21 Wexford 0-17
2021 Qual R1: Clare 2-25 Wexford 2-22
Since then though, the Yellowbellies have stagnated, Davy Fitzgerald has departed, and Darragh Egan has taken the reins at Chadwicks Wexford Park. While they've managed two wins over Kilkenny in Leinster, after some dark days in the period from 2005-2015, their most recent championship win against Galway, who they face this weekend, came back in 1996.
For recently retired Wexford All-Ireland winner Ursula Jacob, the gap between the provinces isn't so pronounced.
"Wexford were probably very, very close to beating Tipp a couple of years ago," she said.
"Just because they're not getting over the line, I wouldn’t say that Leinster isn’t going to be competitive."
Dublin's record is similarly poor since they beat Limerick to reach the All-Ireland quarter-finals back in 2015. Their five meetings with Munster opposition since have all ended in defeat, including a real trouncing against Tipperary in 2017 that cost then manager Ger Cunningham his job.
If you're to look at Westmeath or Laois, neither is likely to get the victories they need to emerge from the Leinster round robin. When the O'Moore men shocked Dublin in 2019 after winning the Joe McDonagh Cup, they were beaten by Tipperary by 10 points in the All-Ireland quarter final the following week.
So the issue then becomes, is it fair for one of Dublin, Wexford, Westmeath or Laois to have a route through to an All-Ireland quarter final, while the fourth placed team in Munster is finished come 22 May?
If you were to swap Dublin or Wexford into the Munster Championship, and replace them with any of the five teams competing for the Munster Cup, would they finish in the top three in Munster? Would one of Limerick, Cork, Tipperary, Clare or Waterford finish outside the top three in Leinster?
Is an attempt to maintain a traditional Munster competition holding counties from the province back? We already have Galway playing in Leinster, with the potential for Antrim or Kerry to end up there over the coming years.
Dublin's recent record against Munster opposition:
2015 AI QF: Waterford 2-21 Dublin 1-19
2016 Qual R1: Cork 1-26 Dublin 1-23
2017 Qual R2: Tipperary 6-26 Dublin 1-19
2020 Qual R1: Cork 1-25 Dublin 0-22
2021 AI QF: Cork 2-26 Dublin 0-24
So why persist with a format that, although it brings us competitive games, doesn't give the best teams the fairest chance of going far in the competition? In any sport, you want the best teams reaching the latter stages and playing one another.
With the Leinster Championship already containing a team from Connacht, might it be time to introduce a more open draw to create groups? Munster teams would still face one another, with everything that goes with it, but they would have a better chance of reaching the knockout stages, based upon recent clashes between sides from the two provinces.
Not for former Tipperary supremo Liam Sheedy. Speaking on RTÉ's GAA Podcast, he argued that getting rid of one of the few competitions left will not do anything for the game.
"I wouldn't be for ditching Munster," he said.
"I would place a place a huge value on a provincial championship. I was delighted in my first stint that we won two Munsters in '08 and '09. One of the disappointments of my second stint in charge was that, although we got to two finals, we never managed to get across the line.
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"There's not many trophies that these guys can play for. Look at the way the Tipperary footballers celebrated, or Cavan - there's such something about a provincial [title].
"I always looked at it and said we're getting two games at home, two games away, with three of the five teams going to quality into the knockout stages.
"If my team isn't good enough to get to the top three out of five then so be it, cash in your chips and focus on next year."
With the start of the championship around the corner, any change to the provincial formats is not going to happen this year. But it'll be interesting to see if, come the first weekend of July, there's more than just one Leinster county competing in the All-Ireland semi-finals.
Follow Waterford v Tipperary and Cork v Limerick via our live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and RTÉ News app, watch live on RTÉ 2 and RTÉ Player or listen to national radio commentary on RTÉ Radio 1's Sunday Sport.
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