The 2018 All Ireland Hurling Championship is in line for a major shake up after details of a proposal to produce more games, greater drama and all in a shorter timeframe were unveiled yesterday afternoon.
The new proposal will see the Munster Championship become a Round Robin event with each of the five big guns playing each other, and the top two going forward to contest the Munster Final.
A similar Round Robin of five teams, including Galway, would compete for the Leinster championship while developing counties would have their own Round Robin, played at the same time as the main events, with the opportunity for the winner of this group to gain ‘promotion’ to the Leinster or Munster Championship the following season.
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The Round Robins would be played out over a period of five weeks with each country playing two home and two away matches. This would be a major boost for Galway in particular who have not been permitted to play home games since joining the ‘Leinster’ Championship.
The winning Provincial Champions would go straight through to an All Ireland Semi Final as is currently the case.
The losing Provincial finalists and two from three of the third place finishers in those groups and the winner of the third group would meet in two quarter finals.
The proposal will be put to the Central Council of the GAA in June with a view to holding a special Congress to give approval for a three year trial of the new format from 2018.
This would bring the new format into line with the new ‘Super 8’ format for the Football Championship and remove the fear expressed in some quarters that hurling would be overshadowed.
A stronger narrative, more regional games and more games between the biggest counties would doubtless find favour with Bord Gáis Energy and Littlewoods Ireland who are Championship first time sponsors in 2017 and with Centra who renewed their deal through to 2019 last year.
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The new condensed timetable would also free up more time for Club Championships and games to be played. There would be a three week window after the Allianz League Hurling Finals in April through to the start of the Championship.
The GAA has published a sample timetable of how the Round Robin events and the All Ireland Series could look in 2018. This would see the five round robin weeks running from the weekend of May 13th to June 10th; the Leinster and Munster Finals on June 24th and July 1st, the All Ireland Quarter Finals on July 15th, Semi Finals two weeks after and the All Ireland Hurling Final on Sunday August 19th.
There would be some degree of overlap with the Football Championship but no more than is currently the case and the whole of the inter county Championship season would be complete in four months, with all bar the top two in each code being free to return to clubs by early August at the latest.
The challenge of creating meaningful competition at the top flight and at the same time giving more space and visibility to club competition is one that has not been easy but which is clearly moving in the right direction.
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