Leinster to chose new championship format

The Leinster Council has been forced to schedule another meeting before the end of the week to decide on the final format for next year's provincial football and hurling championships.

Leinster's new championship set-up was rejected by the GAA's management committee at the Central Council meeting at Croke Park on Saturday, so the council will first await a briefing on where exactly their proposals went wrong before looking into an alternative format.

The original motion proposed by Westmeath was passed at Congress last April, and from that Leinster, Munster and Connacht had proposed the introduction of a losers' group into their championship for the first time.

Michael Delaney, the secretary of the Leinster Council, said yesterday that there was no option but to accept the management committee ruling, although the council remained somewhat "bemused and in the dark" as to the exact breach of regulations.

"The idea was to ensure that the weaker counties got at least two games," said Delaney. "Westmeath feel that their motion should have covered these proposals, but we'll have to wait another day or two to be briefed on where exactly we went wrong."

The main stumbling block with the management committee appears to have been the prospect of allowing losers in the earlier rounds to re-enter through a backdoor system similar to that in the later stages of the All-Ireland hurling championship. According to the GAA president Joe McDonagh, this went against the "spirit" of the Westmeath motion.

As a result of the new proposals, the draw for next summer's championship, which was due to take place last Sunday evening, has been put back to the weekend of November 13th.

The Ulster Council had already opted to retain its existing system and, following the Central Council ruling, both the Munster and Connacht football championships will be run on an open draw for another year at least, making it possible for Kerry and Cork to meet in the first round.

The format for the Munster hurling championship has also been decided. The first team drawn will get a bye, the second out face Kerry, the third team out also gets a bye, and the remaining two counties conclude the first round.

Meanwhile, Jason Sherlock faces a one-month ban at least after his dismissal for the high foot tackle on Tyrone goalkeeper Martin Conway 17 minutes into the second half of Sunday's game at Omagh. Sherlock is thus set to miss Na Fianna's Leinster club championship tie with Rathnew on Sunday.

Dublin will also be without new recruit Declan Conlon for a couple of weeks as he will require dental surgery after losing a few teeth in the off-the-ball incident after which Tyrone's Brian Meehan was booked.

There is better news for Meath forward Evan Kelly. The injury he received late in Sunday's game against Clare is not as serious as initially feared. He was taken to hospital with a suspected neck injury and concussion but was later discharged and now looks set to be available for Meath's next game on Sunday week.

In hurling, Leinster have selected only four players from the side which won the Railway Cup last year - Willie O'Connor, Martin Storey, Brian McEvoy and John Troy.

LEINSTER (SH v Connacht): J McGarry (Kilkenny); C Brennan (Kilkenny), K Kinahan (Offaly), W O'Connor (Kilkenny); N Rigney (Laois), L Dunne (Wexford), P Barry (Kilkenny); A Comerford (Kilkenny), D Byrne (Kilkenny); Johnny Dooley (Offaly), M Storey (Wexford), B McEvoy (Kilkenny); G Laffan (Wexford), J Troy (Offaly), H Shefflin (Kilkenny).