Carlow manager Pat Bennett says Croke Park "doesn't care" about raising standards for hurling counties outside the top 10 teams.
Following a nine-point defeat to Kildare at the weekend, only a highly unlikely sequence of results in the final round of games in 1B will see Carlow avoid relegation.
Kildare had 12 points on the board before their first wide, with Bennett admitting the hosts at Cedral St Conleth's Park were "very well drilled" and a "grade above" the Barrowsiders on the day.
In his first season in charge, Waterford native Bennett has played 29 players across five league games, including opportunities for seven Under-20 players.
With a shallow playing pool to pick from – the Carlow hurling championship comprises of six teams – Bennett has little option but to give youth its chance.
Mount Leinster Rangers provided eight of the match-day 26 on Sunday, with the manager stating that 19 players from his panel of 32 are drawn from just two clubs.
Bennett believes more needs to be done to raise the standard of the side trying to reach and compete at the highest level.
"The Tipperarys, the Corks, the Galways, they are going to keep churning out players," he told RTÉ Sport. "The Carlows, Laois’ and Westmeaths aren’t. They need to be helped.
"If Kildare go straight back down again (from his year’s Leinster championship), is that going to help them? No. They need to be up there.
"My thing is, they don’t really care in Croke Park. It doesn’t really make a difference what we do, or what we try to do.
"They don’t care about a Carlow, a Kildare…if Kildare go down from the Leinster championship, do they worry? They don’t worry.
"That’s the way they run it. They don’t really care too much so we just keep doing our best."
