Status quo remains following heated debate

The formats for the 2019 county senior and intermediate hurling and football championships will remain broadly unchanged.

Bar a couple of tweaks to the regulations, the formats will remain the same in senior and intermediate hurling with the divisional link remaining while and attempt to restore it in football was unsuccessful.

In terms of the senior hurling championship, a group of 14 North & Mid clubs proposed that the current championship be retained with some minor modifications, including the playing of all fine round group games simultaneously in terms of fairness, while a separate motion will go before the January meeting to determine how the relegation playoffs from the Dan Breen Cup to the Seamus O Riain Cup will be determined.

Gilbert Williams for Kilruane MacDonaghs spoke on the motion claiming “clubs in other counties look on with envy at the status of the present divisional structure in the county and can't understand why they would be under threat,” he said with the motion carried strongly.

A separate motion from Drom & Inch which proposed that the Seamus O Riain Cup teams play in a new similar level competition in the divisional championships was narrowly defeated 31-24.

Drom's Trevor Hassett said it would help reduce the number of one sided games in the divisional senior hurling championships where in 2018 the average margin of victory between Dan Breen and Seamus O Riain level teams was 15.5 points.

Mid chairman Jonathan Cullen seconded it saying many clubs where they are just happy to have the “status” of being a senior club even if they aren't competitive in divisional championships in the grade.

“Clubs need to stop fooling themselves into thinking they are something they are not. Some clubs need to face reality,” he said.

 

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