New Hurling Calendar

randd1

I put this up on other forums. Given the hysteria over the Super 8 in football, I think this could work for hurling.

Here's my restructured year for the laugh.

First off, there would be no pre-season competitions for senior.

- The provincial championships would be removed from the AI championship and be a straight knockout, finish on the day cup competition played alongside the league.

- The league and championship would be linked.

- The league would be a 12 team league, with two groups of 6 of equal standing. Open draw. The league would consist of two phases. Phase 1 would consist of a round robin across the two groups. The placing of each team would determine their group in Phase 2.

In Phase 2 each team would have a neutral (as part of a double header), home and away game for fairness.

The top two of each group would qualify for a mini group of four with the the league champions the top team of the mini group. Rankings would be 1st to 4th. The top 3 would be the top seeds of the championship draw, with the fourth team placed as a second seed team in the championship draw.

The 3rd and 4th teams of each group go into a second mini group. The top two of this group would be made second seeds for the championship. Rankings would be 5th to 8th.

The 5th and 6th teams of each group would go into the third group with the bottom team automatically relegated for next years league. Rankings would be 9th to 12th. The bottom 3 of this group would also play off against the top 3 of Division 2, with the winners of the playoffs playing Liam McCarthy, the losers playing Christy Ring.

- For the championship, you would have 3 groups of 4 with the seedlings as such:
1st seeds - 1st, 2nd and 3rd of the league.
2nd seeds - 4th, 5th and 6th of the league.
3rd seeds - 7th, 8th and 9th of the league, plus the three playoff winners.

The top team of each group would qualify for the AI QFs as top seeds along with the best placed second team. The other two second placed teams would be joined by the two best 3rd placed sides as second seeds on the AI QFs. The remaining four teams go into an open draw shield competition.

The QFs would be a home and away two leg tie. And would be series based. 2 wins or a win and a draw you go through. A win and a loss, or two draws would result in extra time of the second game with the score reset to 0-00, with 1v1 penalties to separate the teams if level after that.

Here's how the set calendar would play out.

Week 1 - League P1 R1
Week 2 - League P1 R2
Week 3 - League P1 R3
Week 4 - Cup Prov QFs
Week 5 - League P1 R4
Week 6 - Cup Prov SFs
Week 7 - League P1 R5
Week 8 - Cup Prov Finals
Week 9 - League P2 R1
Week 10 - Cup SFs
Week 11 - League P2 R2
Week 12 - League P2 R3
Week 13 - Cup Final / Championship Playoffs
Week 14 - Clubs / Rest (Optional per County)
Week 15 - Clubs
Week 16 - Clubs
Week 17 - Clubs
Week 18 - Rest
Week 19 - Championship Group Phase R1
Week 20 - Championship Group Phase R2
Week 21 - Championship Group Phase R3
Week 22 - Clubs
Week 23 - Rest
Week 24 - AI QFs Leg 1 / McCarthy Sh SFs
Week 25 - AI QFs Leg 2 / McCarthy Sh Final
Week 26 - Clubs
Week 27 - Rest
Week 28 - AI SFs
Week 29 - Clubs
Week 30 - Rest
Week 31 - AI Final

Pro's:
- If the Cup Final was on the first Sunday of May, then with that calendar the first round of the league would be on the first weekend of February and the AI Final on the first Sunday in September. The sport has almost full exposure for the year.
- There would be 6 weekends set aside for the clubs throughout the year.
- The league would be linked to the championship, making it more important, with every side having something to play for in the mini group.
- There are now three national competitions to win.
- The provincial championships return to straight knockout.
- Every team gets 4 games in the summer, minimum.
- With the 2 leg QFs, every side has 2 championship and 3/4 league games at home a year.
- Every player, club and county would know when they're playing.
- The championship playoffs based on league position would give lower league counties a shot at McCarthy Cup level.

Cons:
- More games, more expense for the fans unless prices are reduced.
- Players almost certainly wouldn't be able to play the other code for their club until their county is knocked out.
- U21 would either have to be played pre-season or midweek during the league, played without senior players or scrapped altogether.

What do ye think?

Last Stop

Completely agree with the concept of 2 groups of 6.
This is the way the Kilkenny league/championship is run.

I would be in favour of basing the groups on the provinces.
So the 6 Munster teams (including Kerry) in group 1 and
the 6 best Leinster teams in group 2.

The decision on which teams would be in Leinster group would be decided on the results of the previous years Leinster championship round robin.

The groups would play in a round robin format the same as the league, with home advantage alternating each year.

The top 2 teams in each group would then play in their respective provincial finals as well as progressing directly to the AI QF's

Team 3 in G1 would play team 4 in G2
Team 4 in G1 would play team 3 in G2
The winner would progress to the AI QFs

Team 5 in G1 would play team 6 in G2
Team 6 in G1 would play team 5 in G2
The winner would progress to the AI QFs
The losers would face each other in a relegation play off.

The 4 provincial finalists would be seeded for the quarter finals with the provincial winners seeded for the semis.