However, Catholic Institute have opted not to follow suit after a  consensus was reached at a club  committee meeting tonight that they remain in Division One of the  Munster Senior Men’s League.

The Limerick outfit’s decision to stay put means the nightmare scenario of seeing the league contested between the first and second teams of Bandon, Cork Harlequins and Cork Church of Ireland has been avoided.

However, Ballincollig-based Belvedere’s absence from Division One will cause fixture headaches, with teams now facing free weekends and loss of revenue.

Munster Branch president John Rose told Southern Fried that the branch had granted Belvedere’s request to drop a division at a meeting on Monday night.

“We met with Belvedere last night, they asked us if their men’s team could drop a division as they try to consolidate their men’s section, and in the interests of hockey we said yes,” he explained. “Hopefully, they’ll take this step back to eventually take two or three steps forward.”

Both Belvedere and Limerick outfit Institute have shipped heavy defeats to the big guns of Quins and C of I in recent years in a severely unbalanced league. It was widely acknowledged that nobody benefited from these games, with the smaller outfits demoralised by occasional double-digit hammerings, while the big two’s national ambitions suffered with a lack of competitive hockey on their doorstep.

Belvedere won't have to endure double-digit hammerings from the likes of Cork Harlequins when they play in Division Two this season. Picture: Des Barry/Irish Examiner

Belvedere captain Paul Hayes said he believed men’s hockey at the club may have died a death had they stayed in Division One.

“It has probably been coming over the last couple of years – we’ve had dwindling resources on the player side, and in the last two years we’ve had a few people move away to Dublin and London,” he explained.

“It hasn’t been great. We were quite lucky over the past couple of years, scraping results in the last two or three games of the season to keep us up.

“We didnt think we had enough quality players to compete in the Division One, so we all took the decision to rally around and move down to the second division.

“It is very disappointing, but we had to take stock. If we had stuck it out and been beaten 12-0 or 14-0 every week, even by the second teams, I think men’s hockey in Belvedere would probably have ceased.”

Initially located in Tower, Belvedere was traditionally served by the Mayfield and Douglas community schools, both of which have long since ceased playing hockey.

The need for an astro-turf pitch prompted a move to Ballincollig, where they are attempting to foster hockey in Ballincollig Community School to secure the club’s future.

However, IHA western development officer Phil Oakley admitted it has been a slow process in an area where rugby is the current sport du jour.

“We’re trying our level best to get boys playing in the two schools, which is what Belvedere really needs,” he explained.

“The club’s biggest problem is that it used to be fed from the UCC men’s team, and that has just dried up; a lot of players don’t stay in Cork anymore.”

“It was a choice of dropping down a division or losing the club completely, and I think the branch has made the right decision. Now we need to focus on getting young guys playing.”

Oakley pointed to the example of Limerick HC, whose senior side entered at Division One level but folded within a couple of years.

He said the club has rebuilt from the bottom up with the help of dedicated volunteers, and comfortably won Division Three last year.

He added that to compete with other sports, hockey would benefit from the exposure of Ireland qualifying for a major championship.

“Look at the cricketers, they beat Pakistan and qualified for the Super Eights. After that, I saw kids out playing cricket with a hurley and three sticks in the ground. We were unlucky with the Olympic qualification this time around, but hopefully we can get to 2012 in London and the 2010 World Cup.”

Lack of player depth is an issue for all clubs in Munster bar the ‘big two’ and Bandon, who benefit from the hockey nurseries at Ashton and Bandon Grammar, and have established youth programmes.

Belvedere and Institute are now both likely to drop their second teams down a division, in order to blood young players in a less competitive arena.

According to John Rose, Belvedere’s plight highlights similar imbalances in schoolboy hockey. He believes the dominance of Bandon Grammar and Ashton – who joined the Leinster Senior Schools League in recent years in search of more competitive hockey – has had a knock-on effect at senior club level.

“There are probably several contributing factors [to clubs dropping divisions], but one of the main ones is that over the past five to seven years the schools development hasn’t been great,” he said.

“The advent of two Munster schools going to play in Leinster certainly didn’t help. It became a very unhealthy situation, insofar as the interest totaly diminished when Ashton and Bandon Grammar left.

“The onus is now on clubs to produce their own players [as a result], and the coaching at youth level by the clubs themselves is becoming more and more important.”

Indeed, a glance at the the current men’s Irish squad shows that all of the Munster representatives are products of both schools. David Hobbs, Mark Black, John Jermyn and Karl Burns are Ashton alumni, while twins Conor and David Harte and Jason Lynch won an All-Ireland Schools title with Bandon Grammar in 2004. It’s the same story with the last Munster interpro squad, selected minus internationals.

Even below elite level, the majority of decent schools players are members of Quins, Bandon or C of I, with a few playing for top clubs elsewhere when they move to university – Lynch is plying his trade with Lisnagarvey while at Queen’s University, Bandon graduate Patrick Shanahan has joined Three Rock Rovers and the Hartes are at Pembroke.

It leaves the likes of Belvedere scrapping around for players who can’t get into the first or second sides at Quins, Bandon and C of I. Meanwhile, Limerick’s lack of competitive schoolboys hockey means Institute must grow their own, only to see the best inevitably leave for greener pastures in Cork and Dublin.