McDonagh Cup final to remain in June despite discontinuation of All-Ireland preliminary quarter-finals

The Kildare team celebrate after winning the Joe McDonagh Cup against Laois in June. File picture: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

Next year’s Joe McDonagh Cup final is set to remain in June even if, as expected, hurling’s All-Ireland preliminary quarter-finals are discontinued.

The Hurling Development Committee (HDC) has confirmed their proposal won’t be put forward to Central Council to endorse for Congress until later in the year.

That means a motion to disband the current year link between the Liam MacCarthy and McDonagh Cups won’t be debated until February.

After visiting Cork earlier this week, the HDC’s final roadshow consultation takes place in Croke Park on Monday, two days after Central Council signs off on the motions for the forthcoming Special Congress on October 4.

Usually, a proposal to alter a championship format is decided in the year before it comes into operation. However, if Congress does vote to do away with the preliminary quarter-finals, they will be removed from the 2026 master fixtures list, which is usually published in early December.

The timing of the proposals means there will be no opportunity to schedule the McDonagh Cup to run concurrently with the Liam MacCarthy Cup in 2026 as the Tailteann Cup does the Sam Maguire Cup.

It had been hoped the McDonagh Cup final could be played as the curtain-raiser to one of the All-Ireland SHC semi-finals in early July instead of being staged prior to the Leinster final. However, that is unlikely to happen now until 2027 at the earliest.

In his All-Ireland SHC final match programme notes, GAA president Jarlath Burns wrote: “If we were to remove the preliminary quarter-final, we would open the door for a longer and more meaningful Joe McDonagh Cup competition – a competition that deserves to stand proudly on its own with adequate time, coverage and respect.” 

If the preliminary quarter-finals are axed and the McDonagh Cup final remains in June, there will be just five senior inter-county hurling games after the provincial hurling final weekend in early June — the All-Ireland quarter-finals, semi-finals and final. In contrast, there will be 55 post-provincial football fixtures between the Sam Maguire and Tailteann Cups.

In 2018, ’19 and from ’22 onwards, the preliminary quarter-finals have been played the weekend between the provincial finals/Joe McDonagh Cup and before the All-Ireland quarter-finals. In just one of 12 games has a McDonagh Cup team won — Laois v Dublin in 2019.

Two years ago, the Central Competitions Control Committee’s motion to remove the preliminary quarter-finals failed to receive the required two-thirds support despite the lopsided nature of the “last eight” games.