SHC Draws

[Lone Shark]

I'm wholly in favour of this new format but only on the proviso that an iron fist is applied with regards to the fixtures. The group games, many though they are, should all be played on the allotted dates. No delays, to do so would lead to a reprehensible backlog and periods without games worse than last year. And last year was pretty bad (100 days). With a firm hand, this system could be pretty good, successful even. Without it and disrepute would surely follow.

As an aside, I personally would have no issue with the group games being run during the inter county season. Even if the big teams such as Birr and Coolderry are missing a few players and loose a few games they still will not be knocked out. Let them have their full complement back then when the knock out stages begin and may the best team win as they say. Now numerous issues surround this and I could easily be convinced in the other direction but at the moment it wouldn't be a bad way to keep 'Johnny normal not on county panel club hurler' playing regularly over the summer. Anyway just thought I'd throw it out there, disagree if you will.

I agree that this should be the way, but something tells me that it won't be the Birr and Coolderry teams that are most likely to object - I would foresee that it would be smaller clubs who would be much more likely to cry foul if they have to field without any of their chosen first fifteen, or dual clubs who would really see the effects. (For example putting Shamrocks down to play football and hurling on the one weekend). It really should be stated clearly what the protocol is for this situations.

[Doon Massive]

As an aside, imagine if you were called Johnny Prodigy!

How cool.

[Treasurer]

One thing that hasn't quite been cleared up here - this is a lot of extra games, which is fair enough. I wouldn't be a senior club player or the colour of it myself, but lads want meaningful games and this seems to be providing them, so fair play. However we're going to play all these games in the height of summer, so howw are we going to stop endless fixture re-arrangements due to minor players etc? Is there a condition that since these games can't see anyone being eliminated, does that mean that we'll no longer have to put up with clubs saying that they can't play because Johnny Prodigy is playing with the county minors the following week and has been pulled away by the county management, or that they can't play because a lot of lads are down to play football on the same weekend?

On the one hand, you'd think it would since teams can't lose the championship in the round robin stage and that's how Kilkenny do it (albeit without the football issue) but on the other hand it still could be the difference between being in a relegation playoff and not - which is fairly significant.

Anyone able to clarify this?

Also, why are we not doing the same in the football? Surely if it's good for one code, would it not be good for the other? I'm not sure why hurling needs this any more than football does myself.

Undoubtedly, the six day rule will have to be strictly adhered to for this sytem to work.

As for implementing it for football, the plan is to run it with hurling first, with the football championship starting later in the summer and running under the existing format and then to run it for both codes next year if it proves successful. The proposal came primarily from hurling clubs and hence the decision to run with hurling first off.

[joe bloggs]

The key to the new championships is to give players more meaningful games. It has been argued that we should have a knockout championship based on league placings, which would not be a bad thing, but then you would have to release county players for all league games. I think it would be unnaceptable to ask clubs to line out with players that they have nurtured from a young age.
No system is perfect and it will be reviewed. The point Azoffaly makes about clubs using maybe up to 25 players to get through the championship is valid and there will be more junior/intermediate players left without much game time as a result. One solution would be for clubs to submit a championship list of say 18-20 players who played senior the previous year , and then any other players from the ranks below could play group games witout loosing their status. If they play in the knokcout then they become a senior.

[Lone Shark]

One solution would be for clubs to submit a championship list of say 18-20 players who played senior the previous year , and then any other players from the ranks below could play group games witout loosing their status. If they play in the knokcout then they become a senior.

This is the kind of thing which is widely used and abused in league structures in Offaly and elsewhere - if you do this, clubs will fall over themselves to name retired players, injured players, travelling players and all the rest. I would perhaps go a different direction - you cannot become a senior player for being introduced as a sub anytime from half time onwards. That way at least those who are regraded are those who start games and thus get some hurling for themselves, rather than the guys who get ten or fifteen minutes championship hurling at senior to cover for someone who got a bad cut and then lose their year on account of it. Equally it would give managers the freedom to make the necessary changes without paying too much heed to the junior team down the line.

There may be a big flaw to this that I haven't seen, I just thought of it there now, but I'm always wary of systems whereby clubs "name" players for a certain grade - it gets widely abused.

[joe bloggs]

One solution would be for clubs to submit a championship list of say 18-20 players who played senior the previous year , and then any other players from the ranks below could play group games witout loosing their status. If they play in the knokcout then they become a senior.

This is the kind of thing which is widely used and abused in league structures in Offaly and elsewhere - if you do this, clubs will fall over themselves to name retired players, injured players, travelling players and all the rest. I would perhaps go a different direction - you cannot become a senior player for being introduced as a sub anytime from half time onwards. That way at least those who are regraded are those who start games and thus get some hurling for themselves, rather than the guys who get ten or fifteen minutes championship hurling at senior to cover for someone who got a bad cut and then lose their year on account of it. Equally it would give managers the freedom to make the necessary changes without paying too much heed to the junior team down the line.

There may be a big flaw to this that I haven't seen, I just thought of it there now, but I'm always wary of systems whereby clubs "name" players for a certain grade - it gets widely abused.

I know what you are saying is true for the leagues as you can literally name anyone you wish, but if you had to name a championship list you could limit it to only naming players who had actually lined out in the previous years knockout stages, thus preventing clubs from pulling a fast one

[Lone Shark]

I know what you are saying is true for the leagues as you can literally name anyone you wish, but if you had to name a championship list you could limit it to only naming players who had actually lined out in the previous years knockout stages, thus preventing clubs from pulling a fast one

You would up to a point, but remember that in the new structure, as many as eight teams will only play one knockout fixture each year - meaning that they'll probably only use 18 players at most. If you insist on at least 18 players being named who played knockout championship, many clubs will have little or no choice - possibly restricting players from stepping down voluntarily due to old age, other commitments not allowing them to train to senior level etc.

I know it's not a perfect system anyway you do it- I just don't like the idea of giving clubs too much leeway because as we've seen, clubs will utterly ignore the spirit of the laws if they can find loopholes.

Also, I'd be wary of creating two different championships, the group stages and the knockouts. If you do that, we could very soon cheapen the groups to the point where they are no different to how leagues are now. Then essentially we're right back to the stage we were at years ago with a straight knockout. I think we need to do all we can to keep the group games meaningful. I'm not sure how though, particularly in a situation where no club gets eliminated.

[Plain of the Herbs]

Has this been made? I can't find it anywhere. I see the first round is fixed for St. Patrick's day.