Move to assist provincial winners

The Munster Council will shortly be asked to consider ideas to assist the provincial hurling champions in the All-Ireland series.

Ahead of tonight’s 2015 Championship draw on RTE2 (7pm), Munster chairman Robert Frost revealed he intends speaking about the issue at the council’s next full meeting at the end of this month.

Frost would not say exactly what proposals will be put before counties but he recognises just how difficult it has become for counties to do the provincial All-Ireland double and wants something done so that the measure, if it were passed, would come into effect next season.

Not since Cork in 2005 have the Munster champions gone on to claim the Liam MacCarthy Cup two months later. In the last three seasons, both Cork, Limerick and Tipperary have fell flat on their faces at the All-Ireland semi-final stage having been crowned Munster winners in July. Although Kilkenny have regularly succeeded in bridging the five-week break between stages of the All-Ireland, the same gap has not suited Munster sides.

“We were close enough to having champions this year in Tipperary but there is a concern about how Munster champions have been doing later in the competition,” admitted Frost. “Any decision that will be made must come into force before any ball is struck next year. There is no point in it at all really if nothing happens as soon as is possible to help our counties.”

It may be that the Munster Council will attempt to either delay the start of their senior hurling championship by a week thereby cutting the gap between the Munster final and second All-Ireland semi-final to four weeks. However, they are likely to be constrained by the master fixtures calendar and TV contracts.

There is also speculation there may be a recommendation to seed the championship next year whereby the 2015 winners or even the two finalists would be allocated slots in the 2016 semi-finals. As well as cutting the number of games they would have to play to win an All-Ireland, such a move would also provide more incentive to win the Munster championship.

Meanwhile, Frost knows Clare, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford’s footballers will be hoping Cork and Kerry are drawn in the same Munster semi-final this evening.

As part of the new system, the four counties will be drawn in two quarter-finals with the winners progressing to an open semi-final draw alongside Cork and Kerry, which will take place this evening. But Frost warned: “There’s no point going into a Munster final unless you’re able to compete.”

Although Frost was a supporter of this year’s seeded draw, he had no issue with the structure being amended for 2015. “Hopefully, it’ll work out. The fact it was seeded in 2008 as well and numerous occasions in the past. There was a lot of raving about it, that it was an awful decision this year, but there have been three or four seeded draws down through the years. I honestly believe it was good for the four weaker counties. They went out to ‘prove these boys wrong’ and I think myself Clare kicked on a good bit. It was a wake-up call for all of them.”