Hurling Championship Pools 2017

Next Saturday 22nd April sees the start of the 2017 hurling championship beginning with the Christy Ring, Nicky Rackard and Lory Meagher Cups.

Those who have frequented past Pools competitions will be fairly familiar with the rules, but all newcomers are more than welcome to compete. Here are the rules.

1. Each Monday I will post up the fixtures for the coming week and by Tuesday or Wednesday I should have the league table of posters and points for the previous week just gone.

2. Late comers will be accepted but points will be forfeited for any games missed.

3. Predictions will be accepted and valid by throw-in time of the first game of the weekend.
Your prediction for this game must be in by this time or it won't be counted. Obviously any other predictions for games that haven't started will still be counted.

4. The points system is pretty much the same as that used in the NHL pools. You get 2 points for predicting the winner of the game.
Should a poster predict within 2 points of the winning margin,that poster will receive 1 bonus point.
Should a poster predict a draw,the poster will receive 3 points and where a poster predicts a team to win but the result is a draw,the poster will get 1 point ONLY if the poster has predicted a winning margin of no more than 2 points.
One point will be awarded if a person predicts a draw yet the result is a 1 or 2 point win for either side.
Needless to say if you predict a team to win and they lose you get no points.
Note: Only the result after 70 minutes will be counted. If a game goes to extra time, the result will be counted as a draw regardless of the result after extra time.

5. Bonus points will be awarded at the end of the championship for the following correct predictions:
Munster and Leinster Champions.
All Ireland Champions and Runnners Up
Team relegated to Christy Ring
Christy Ring champions and runners up
Team relegated to Nicky Rackard
Nicky Rackard Champions and runner up
Team relegated to Lory Meagher
Lory Meagher champions.
Note: I know there are promotion/relegation playoffs in each section, but for the purposes of this competition the team from the higher tier involved in these games will be considered to be "relegated" regardless of the result.

6. Posters must predict provincial/AI/other cup champions and runners in their first post.

7. To cut out a lot of time, if posters consistently fail to post their weekly predictions, they will be removed from the overall tables.

If anyone has any comments/suggestions on the rules, by all means let me know here or PM me.

If a poster makes two (or more) predictions for the same game week, the latest of the predictions will count regardless of the score of each set of predictions.