All-Star Kilkenny goalkeeper Eoin Murphy says the GAA's split season and concertinaed fixture list has forced teams to use the Allianz Hurling League period as their pre-season.
Kilkenny, who can secure their league semi-final place by beating Waterford on Saturday, hope to ultimately reach the final though that would leave them with just two weeks before the Leinster championship begins.
And when the Championship starts it will be a hectic period with five games scheduled across six weekends between 21 April and 26 May. There is the strong chance of a Leinster final also for the four-in-a-row provincial winners.
Speaking at the launch of the John West Féile 2024, four-time All-Star Murphy said teams have no option now but to use the first three months of the year for heavy training in order to peak in the early summer.
"I'm a huge fan of the split season - probably not a huge fan of such a short break between the league and championship though because you're in such a hard block of training now," said Murphy.
"And look, it is relatively easy for me because I'm not doing the same volume of running out the field as lads are in matches. But it's a block of training that you're in now and it's your pre-season and it's quite tough on the guys. There are no excuses because you still want to perform on matchday but it's really about prepping for the Leinster championship."
The amount of players used by teams after just four games in Division 1 underlines just how management teams have been more focused on building and experimenting for the summer than chasing league success.
Tipperary have already used a whopping 37 players, Limerick are on 35 while the return of TJ Reid against Clare in Round 4 swelled Kilkenny's number to 33.
The lower ranked counties, who don't have the same playing resources and who have had to field strong teams to remain competitive, have used much less players.
Darren Gleeson, for example, has only used 24 Antrim players so far, one less than Westmeath.
For the top teams, the league increasingly appears to be diminishing in importance. Murphy agreed that it's essentially clashing with their pre-season now.
"That's been pretty much it," he said. "But I think every team is sort of involved in that so I'm not just saying that is the approach Kilkenny are taking. If you're trying to go into these matches now having had those peaks and troughs and taking your down time as you would maybe between championship games and preparing for games, then you're not going to be up to the speed of the championship when that comes around in mid-April. It's a delicate one for the strength and conditioning teams to manage.
"And look, you don't approach a league game not wanting to win it. You absolutely want to win it because you don't want to be leaving a team thinking they have any sort of advantage over you when you might be meeting them later in the year.
"So you do want to win because it's a national competition and there's no disrespect towards it whatsoever but I think teams certainly in the last couple of years are taking a more delicate approach to it just because of that window now after the league is so small."
Antrim will be keeping a close eye on Kilkenny's form in advance of that provincial opener at UPMC Nowlan Park on 21 April.
"It's been a bit of a mixed bag," said Murphy of Kilkenny's form with league wins over Cork and Offaly, a draw with Wexford and a most recent loss to Clare last weekend. "We hurled pretty well in pretty much all of our games but it's about trying to find that bit of consistency as well.
"Even at the weekend against Clare, it was 20 minutes good, 20 minutes poor and 20 minutes sort of average. It's finding that bit of consistency and that will be the big thing over the next couple of weeks."
