After thrilling ends to both provincial championships, hurling fans have been eagerly anticipating the start of the All-Ireland series. That part of the competition should burst into life later this week, although it got underway last weekend with the games in Tullamore and Carlow.
The game between Offaly and Tipperary at O'Connor Park was a non-contest, with Tipp racking up the biggest score in championship history as they ran out winners on a scoreline of 7-38 to 3-18. Carlow put up a better effort in their game against Dublin, although they would eventually lose out on a scoreline of 2-25 to 0-21.
This was the latest example of the preliminary quarter-finals producing lopsided contest, something that has been a theme in recent years. The Joe McDonagh Cup finalists often struggle to match the third-placed teams from the provincial competitions, leading some to question if the format should be changed going forward.
Shane McGrath suggests change to hurling championship format
In the past, many have wondered if it serves the Joe McDonagh Cup finalists to go into the All-Ireland series. After all, they put everything into that competition only to then play soon after the final against a very high level of opposition.
As a result, we could see them removed from the preliminary quarter-finals in the near future. If that turns out to be the case, what would the new format look like?
Writing in his column for RTÉ, former Tipperary star Shane McGrath suggested one way the GAA could go about making this change in the hurling championship.
What happened at O'Connor Park adds buckets of fuel to the burning question: should the McDonagh finalists still be playing in these preliminary quarter finals?
Fourth place in Leinster and Munster could have been involved in these clashes against Offaly and Carlow, this year that would be Cork and Wexford, and then let the winners of those games play Tipp or Dublin.
So in your quarter finals you would have, for example's sake, Tipp v Wexford and Cork v Dublin. Neutral venues or a double header somewhere.
Ok, people will say more games than week on week for the fourth place teams, but if I went to Pat Ryan or Darragh Egan with this right now they’d bite the hand off ya for another shot at it. That’s my solution.
Does it have flaws? I’m sure it does, but lets have more solutions folks and less problems to these things.
Allowing the fourth-placed teams in Munster and Leinster to advance from the group is something that has been suggested by a few people in recent weeks. It seemed particularly applicable this year, where an excellent Cork team was knocked out of the championship so early on.
Those fixtures would probably be more competitive than the ones we saw last weekend, although it could devalue the provincial round robin format somewhat if four teams advance each season.
It will be interesting to see what the GAA do to shake up this aspect of the hurling championship. It seems obvious that some sort of change is needed.
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