The league became a pointless competition once the championship was largely made into a league competition.
Hurling is essentially a summer sport. For the 20 years or so prior to the round robin, league pretty much ran from early March to final on May Bank Holiday Sunday. Last two years, league has been run primarily as a winter competition from late January to late March. And even before Coronavirus struck, there was a heavy volume of predictable cancellations due to adverse winter weather this year, as there was last year.
What I really don’t like about round robin is how hurried and rushed it all is. It’s starting up the second weekend in May (when the large body of players that are still in college are doing end of year exams), there’s 20 matches every week over 5-6 weeks and before you’ve even reached the middle of June, there’s only 7 meaningful matches left in the year. And even at that, they now play Leinster and Munster finals on same day, there’s the farce of extra time in quarter and semi finals to get it all out of the way as quickly as possible.
This is patently untrue, the hurling league ran from October to May with at least 3 rounds being played before Christmas.
Tipp played Galway in a league semi final in Ennis in 1997 2 weeks before the AI Hurling Final.
the joe mcdonagh format is very good where the 2 finalists get a crack at the big guns in the Liam McCarthy. I d love to a see a full house in Tralee for a Kerry v Dublin or whoever in an all Ireland prelim qf. Kerry have it in their grasp to be in a McDonagh final
back in 2002 or was it 2003 Kerry very nearly bt Limerick in Tralee - Shane Brick Kerry’s leading forward at the time struck a bullet like 21 yard free at one stage which some how a Limerick defender got a hurley to. I have convinced myself if that went in Kerry would have pushed on to win!
Brick has Brian Geary in bother, and Liam Boyle scored 4 points from play off Mark Foley.
cant recall fully how the hell it came about that they met, Kerry played in munster that year I think and had a run in the qualifiers against teams of their own standard from leinster before meeting Limerick
@Mullach_Ide, the angriest man on the forum still very angry approaching 2am, screeching about patent untruths.
I referred to the 20 years or so prior to the introduction of the round robin. The round robin was introduced in 2018. 1997 was the first year of the calendar league. Congress in 1996 scrapped the winter league, or more specifically the early rounds that ran prior to Christmas. The quarter finals and semi final in 1997 were played during the championship season in July and August with the final in 1997 the first Sunday in October. That was a one off. From 1998 onwards, they continued with the calendar year league, with the final mostly played onthe May Bank holiday weekend almost every year from 1998 to 2017.
Far from angry, clearly not screeching, suitably admonished, admitting to having misread your initial post to read back door rather than round robin, due to current crisis, I’m breaking my golden rule and apologising on the internet.
Preferred the league when it did start in October.
Whatever the format at least one of KK, Cork & Tipp will nearly always be at the business end of the championship. So it always was, so it probably always will be.
I love the new format. More games, home and away instead of a trip to Thurles for “attractive” double headers, more hurling in general. The amount of rose tinted nonsense spoken about the munster championship (in particular) really grinds my gears. There was an abundance of shite matches in the old system
It’s not perfect, there could definitely be some tweaks made (Munster & Leinster finals on the same day, as @ChairmanDan also mentioned, really grinds my gears) but it is a miles better format than what was there.
That would be mildly interesting if it didn’t start off with then teams and six qualified out of the ten For the knock out stages. It’s almost impossible to get knocked out off and will just suit teams with money. It’s an awful format that’ll end up finishing the game in a lot of counties as they simply won’t have the money nor the numbers to compete. The championship should be straight knock out. A lot of the games by round 3 and 4 are farcical with so many players simply falling apart due to lack of fitness. Waterford v cork last year and limerick v tipp spring to mind too as incredibly boring games as almost nothing was at stake. It’ll ruin the game for the finish. There was a novelty factor the first year alright where teams didn’t really know what way to approach it but last year was miserable and it’ll only get worse.
If there is no championship and I doubt there will be this year, Limerick are the real losers as they have the best players and were most likely winners.
I’d really not be overly confident of that mate, it depends entirely upon events outside the control of the GAA.
Anyhow, it may have been asked already, but if the championship goes ahead as a foreshortened straight knock out. Should it be open draw, seeded open draw, or based on the old provincial system?
