Even age grades to return for 2026
By Shane Brophy
Tipperary GAA will revert to even age grades for 2026 after the change was overwhelmingly passed as the November County Board meeting in Thurles last week.
The motion proposed by Tipperary CCC was overwhelmingly supported that the underage games programme structure reverts to even age grades, consisting of Under-12, 14, 16, & 18 competitions with the Under-19 age grade removed, and the Under-21 Championship be retained. The Under-12 grade will be run on a competitive league basis, while adhering fully to all Go Games policy guidelines.
There was a similar motion proposed by Boherlahan-Dualla but they were looking for the change to apply from 2027 onwards but this was more or less ruled out of other as the meeting could only deal with issues relating to 2026 competitions.
They argued that if the change applies for 2026, the same group of players that were impacted by the change in 2021 would lose out on playing up to the final year of their age grade on two occasions, rather than just one.
County CCC chairperson Michael Tierney said the change to uneven ages in 2021 was brought in for the right reasons but in recent years there has been a movement back to even ages with Tipperary one of just five counties still following the uneven age structure.
Ballybacon/Grange’s Thomas O’Leary argued that no finals would be allowed at under 12 level and games would be non-competitive with no scores recorded, but County Coaching Officer Sean O’Meara said finals could be played but the primary aim of Go Games is the uniformity of the number of games played, and Tipp would look to having a finals day which has worked successfully in both Waterford and Wexford in recent years.
Tipperary’s Munster Council delegate Michael Bourke also informed the meeting that at a provincial council meeting the night before, it was unanimously agreed that Munster Council will propose a motion to return the minor grade at inter-county level from under 17 to under 18, to the 2026 GAA Congress.