Despite a consequent, ham-fisted attempt to switch the 2024 quarter-finals to a Sunday at about a week\u2019s notice, this series of matches has always been on a Saturday since 2019.<\/p>\n
Anyway, hurling got its way at the weekend and on Sunday an ill-starred Cork-Offaly broadcast was, first of all, unable to screen immediately on RT\u00c9 One because of extra-time in the Dublin-Donegal football match and then swiftly turned into a rout<\/a>.<\/p>\n Taken in tandem with the Clare-Dublin match on Saturday, which featured a new low in quarter-final attendances (down from last year\u2019s 15,414 for Tipperary-Galway) of 13,279 \u2013 apart from the empty stadiums of Covid \u2013 the weekend was, as Denis Walsh has pointed out<\/a>, the worst cumulative quarter-final thrashings for 12 years.<\/p>\n This is now the fifth year of the current structure, which came as an afterthought to football\u2019s embrace of the round-robin quarter-finals in 2018. An old proposal to use that format in the two hurling provinces was dusted down and became an instant success.<\/p>\n Well, in respect of Munster it did. That provincial championship has taken box-office to new levels. But, as occasionally mentioned here, the perfect storm of format and a keen competitiveness between a sufficient number of the counties drove huge attendances.<\/p>\n What would happen when that competitiveness became blunted? <\/p>\n To an extent that question has been answered. The year the GAA decided to drop the preliminary quarter-finals because the record of the McDonagh Cup finalists had been so dismal, the beatings continued in the quarter-finals themselves.<\/p>\n Elite hurling is a small community. Leaving aside the four counties who have won All-Irelands in the past 10 years, and Kildare who have never won one, the remaining six competitors this year have been waiting an accumulated 245 years since last lifting the Liam MacCarthy \u2013 or an average of more than 80 seasons apiece.<\/p>\n Competition therefore needs careful curating and, given the ebb and flow of fortunes, it has to have a dynamic structure because the optimal format will change from time to time \u2013 unlike football, which God knows had its own challenges in the past decade-and-a-half but remains robust. <\/p>\n For instance, during Kilkenny\u2019s<\/a> heyday a round-robin design wouldn\u2019t have worked as well given the serial chastisement the other Leinster counties could have expected. Even as a declining force, the county managed six successive provincial titles even if they created an unwanted record by not turning any of them into an All-Ireland.<\/p>\n What would be a more suitable format? In their serial inability to get out of Munster, Waterford<\/a> have several hard-luck stories, probably none more frustrating than this year when they finished fourth having drawn one and lost three on competitive scorelines.<\/p>\n Their sense of injustice centres on not being able to compete with Leinster counties at the business end of the season, as they would in football, because the Sam Maguire is backloaded.<\/p>\n In other words, the fourth or fifth team in Munster would fancy a crack at the Dublins, Offalys, Wexfords and, yes, even Kilkennys of the world.<\/p>\n It is broadly appreciated that the success of the Munster championship depends on the strict jeopardy of not making the top three, but that this in turn undermines the quality of the All-Ireland stages.<\/p>\n![\"Limerick's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/7OPJG7CC5XABQ5WWBVASJIEZBE.jpg\")
Limerick’s William O’Donoghue fouls Conor Keane of Waterford during the sides’ Munster championship game last month. Photograph: James Lawlor\/INPHO <\/p>\n