Niall Moran says the GAA will need to increase the gap between the National Hurling League and the Championship if they want counties to take it more seriously.
Until recently the old Division 1A of the league was seen as a real bear pit with six of the top counties battling to avoid relegation. The quality of the games that 1A provided set the teams in 1B, according to the wisdom of the day, at a disadvantage heading into the summer.
When Davy Fitzgerald took over Wexford ahead of the 2017 season he set promotion to 1A as one of his main targets to help get the Yellowbellies back at hurling's top table. Victories over Limerick and Galway would see him achieve it with his new squad in his first year.
The following year the Munster and Leinster championships were turned into round-robins which, when combined with the introduction of the split season last year, means that Division 1 finalists will only have two weeks to prepare their provincial opener.
Moran, who retired from Limerick in 2015, believes that this proximity the competition has to the championship makes it more difficult for teams to give the league a proper go.
"Ever since 1997 we've been betwixt and between, in terms of the structure of our national league," he said on RTÉ's Game On.
"This year's installment is the most worrying, in terms of how we set out our national league. With the round robin element of the Munster and Leinster championships it's meant the national league has lost some of its importance.
"Going back to when we would have played national league, you would have always looked for that period between the end of your league campaign and the start of the championship. There was always six-eight weeks, depending on when you finished up the league.
"In terms if your individual preparation as a player, that was when you looked to be winding down your heavy training. You were looking for that bit of freshness, and in that six-eight week period you'd have had played a few hot challenges behind closed doors.
"That's where you got yourself into physical prime condition. The biggest hinderance I see is the timeframe you have now between the latter stages of the national league and the start of the championship on 23 April."
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2023 is year two of the GAA's new split season format, which sees inter-county action wrapped up by late July, thus leaving the remaining five months of the year to club action.
Some have argued that the narrowing of the inter-county window is Croke Park cutting off its nose to spite its face, as the profile of big championship games is lost at a time when the rugby and soccer seasons are just getting underway.
Others have pointed out that another "league" competition - the American Football NFL season - is only four months long, but it doesn't do any damage to the sport in terms of grassroots involvement.
Moran however doesn't feel that taking back August or September for inter-county is the answer. Instead, he sees the extension of the league before Christmas as a potential solution to give Division 1 back its mojo.
"We have teams that are going to be out of inter-county championship from the first week of July, best case scenario," he continued.
"They're going to be back training, with the exception of club guys still involved, by the first week of October. So why are we waiting until the end of January to start competition?
"If you're going to be in impeccable condition, and most guys now are athletes 12 months of the year - not carrying timber that we all once would have carried - why not start this league campaign in the middle of November?
"Pitches mightn't be hectic, but spread it out a little bit more, play three rounds of the national league in November/December, and then give lads three weeks off around Christmas.
"Comeback, spread it out in January and February, and take the pressure of the Fitzgibbon Cup competitions. You've allowed enough space between league games to allow guys play Fitzgibbon.
"You could wrap up your league finals on Paddy's weekend, or earlier, and then you're allowing for six weeks of preparation that I spoke about, and you're not interfering with the club player. It's something that worked in years gone by.
"Spectators will still come out to watch games in November. There was such an apathy there in round 5 of the National League, I don't think there'll be any less apathy playing a first round of the league in November."
