Changes to Munster schedules in the offing

Tweaks to the format of the 2019 Munster senior hurling championship are likely it was revealed at last weeks July Tipperary County Board meeting in Thurles.

The county's provincial delegate Ger Ryan outlined that at a recent Munster Council meeting, a review was held over the first year of the new round-robin format and the feeling was that it would need to be extended by at least one week to remove the scenario of where Tipperary and Waterford played on four consecutive weekends this summer and neither of them progressed to the knockout stages.

If so, the championship would begin a week earlier on 11-12 May 2019, on the same weekend the Leinster championship starts. This would allow for the extra weekend in the group stage and still leave two weeks between the final round of games and the provincial final.

In such a schedule, it would ensure that no county would play on no more than three consecutive weekends, while some counties could get two weekends off during it.

It was also confirmed that next years fixtures are already set and round 1 would start from the round 2 fixtures of this years championship which would mean Tipperary starting away to Cork. They would then be at home to Waterford and away to Clare before having their weekend off, finishing at home to Limerick on the final day with Waterford being the idle team on the final day next year.

 

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