Munster hurling championship makes space for a breather

Next year’s Munster hurling championship will start on May 12th – a week earlier than this year – in order to facilitate a weekend’s break in the middle of the round-robin schedules. This will address the main issue to have emerged from the first year of the experimental format in the provincial hurling championships, which was the impact on counties of having to contest matches on three successive weekends.

There has been no announcement from Leinster but according to provincial vice-chair Pat Teehan, the matter has been agreed in principle but "no decision has yet been taken in relation to dates".

None of the Munster counties won their third match in a row and in Leinster only Galway managed to, although their third successive fixture was a dead rubber against Dublin.

Clare and Dublin were the only counties unaffected, as they both had their bye weekend in the middle of the five-week schedules.

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The draw for the 2019 Munster football championship will take place with the draws for the other provinces on October 11th.

Munster also announced a new format for the minor football championship, which will see Clare, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford take part in a round-robin with the top two playing a Phase 1 final, the winners of which will join Cork and Kerry in a Phase 2 round robin, the top two in which will contest the provincial final.