Meyler furious as new league proposal threatens Carlow status

Carlow manager John Meyler last night launched a broadside on the new hurling league proposal, which would see the county and Westmeath demoted from Division 1B.

A Central Council vote on the format of next year’s competition on Saturday was postponed to consider a new structure blueprint put forward by Monaghan man Michael Burns, a member of the national fixtures planning committee. Instead of an eight-team Division 1A and six-team Division 1B including Carlow and Westmeath, Burns’ plan sees two conferences of six teams in Division 1 comprising Division 1A and 1B as they finished this year.

As Carlow were relegated to Division 2A with promoted Laois taking their place, the latter would be the 12th team in the new format.

“It doesn’t sit well with me,” lashed Meyler. “I thought the proposals going into Croke Park on Saturday would have been voted on but this is a shot out of the blue.”

The new league proposal would see two six-team conferences seeded based on 2013 finishing positions.

Having finished in the top four positions this year, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Galway and Waterford would be first seeds with Clare, Cork, Limerick and Dublin ranked second and Offaly, Limerick, Antrim and Laois classed third. Two counties of each of the three seed categories would make up a conference where each team play five games. However, there would also be two extra games for every county with them playing their two other teams in their seed category. For example, if Kilkenny and Waterford were drawn in one conference they would also play Galway and Tipperary.

Meanwhile, the GAA declined to comment on a newspaper report yesterday claiming they face a €1.58 million hike in Croke Park commercial rates by the Government.