Munster champions have their work cut out

LAST MONTH’S All-Ireland finalists Tipperary will again face Cork in the first major contest of next summer’s GAA hurling championships. This year’s Munster title race began in similar fashion last May with Tipp holding on against a Cork side campaigning off short preparation in the wake of the impasse between players and the county board.

Cork will be in better shape next season and, with Denis Walsh a year into his managerial duties, the county will mount a serious challenge to the team that won Munster and went on to provide Kilkenny with their most testing All-Ireland contest in a number of years.

Whoever wins will have to play three matches before winning Munster, starting with Limerick in the semi-finals. Should Tipperary advance, their opponents won’t be short of motivation, as they were hammered by 24 points by Liam Sheedy’s team in last August’s All-Ireland semi-final.

In the other semi-final Clare – buoyed by the county’s first All-Ireland under-21 success – face Waterford, which means David Fitzgerald will be taking on his own county.

Kilkenny, meanwhile, will launch their campaign for a GAA record fifth successive All-Ireland with a provincial semi-final against whoever emerges from the less strenuous side of the draw in Leinster but could well be facing Galway in the provincial final in a re-run of last June’s exciting Leinster semi-final in Tullamore.

Brian Cody’s team will face the survivors of the Dublin and preliminary round winners’ quarter-final between Carlow and Laois. Dublin will be disappointed the route to a second successive provincial final is blocked by the champions but they pushed Kilkenny all the way last year.

Galway will be fancied to come through the other side of the draw but they must first face Wexford for the first time in Leinster, although the counties met in the All-Ireland semi-final of 1996 when Wexford were en route to the county’s last All-Ireland.

The Leinster Championship has an awkward structure despite the presence of eight counties after the recent admission of Carlow, last season’s Ring Cup winners.

Instead of a straight four quarter-finals, the Leinster Council decided to seed champions Kilkenny into the semi-finals and to introduce a preliminary round to cut the number of quarter-finalists to six.

Three survivors will then proceed to the semi-finals to join Kilkenny. This was accepted at the recent special congress.

Provincial championships are more significant in hurling, as unlike football, the game has not been greatly influenced by the various back-door means of accessing All-Ireland finals.

In the 13 years since the sudden-death format was diluted, only two previously beaten counties have won the All-Ireland: Offaly in 1998 and Cork in 2004.