Championship structures to be discussed

Proposals to change format

RADICAL new proposals to change the format of the club championships are back on the table for discussion prior to the start of the 2018 Meath club season.

Some of them are similar to those put forward by the Competitions Review Committee two years ago, proposals that were passed but subsequently rejected by clubs after they were revisited at a later meeting.

The latest proposals put forward to change the championship structures are contained in regulations which will be discussed and voted upon at the first county committee meeting in 2018.

The first regulation concerning change comes from the Meath county committee who want to devise a ‘format of competition’ for all grades of adult football and hurling championships in the county that will enable the competitions control committee to plan both football and hurling club championships to fit comfortably into the overall GAA Master Plan for 2018.

According to the regulation, the aim is to put arrangements in place for the provision that in football championships 2019 there shall be 16 teams in the both Senior and Intermediate grades. It should also put arrangements in place that there be 24 teams in the Junior A Championship.

If passed, it will see no more than four teams in each group of Senior and Intermediate championships for 2019.

Numbers in the other grades of junior championships for both football and hurling shall be guided by affiliations each year, with provision that a new grade of hurling championship be provided should it be deemed necessary.

To get to 16 teams in both the Senior and Intermediate football grades, three teams would be relegated from senior at the end of the 2018 season and five teams relegated from the intermediate grade.

Under the new proposals preliminary quarter-finals would be scrapped in both the Senior and Intermediate football grades, with three teams qualifying for the knockout stages from the top two groups and two from the remaining group.

The regulation also includes plans to suspend the knockout competitions - Feis Cup, Corn na Boinne, Tailteann Cup and Brendan Davis Cup - until after the championships and leagues are completed. A decision would then be taken whether they should be played.

The Skryne, Dunboyne and Dunshaughlin clubs have also submitted proposals concerning the club championships, with Skryne proposing that all grades be reduced to 16 teams and the creation of an extra grade named Junior.

There is also a proposal from Slane that the Junior A, Junior B and Junior C championships retain their present structures for at least two years.