John Horgan on hurling: Changing the Munster Championship format would be madness

Why fix it if it's not broken is a term often used when a call is made to change something.

The current format of the Munster SHC is generally acknowledged as being hugely successful, five counties with three of them progressing to the All-Ireland series and two having their season terminated.

It's also acknowledged that very little separates the five participants, from one year to the next there's never a guarantee that one county or the other will be one of the three that progresses.

You could end the previous season as All-Ireland champions but you are back competing on a very level playing field subsequently and you could, quite easily, be outside the three qualifying counties.

It is a championship really like no other, full of jeopardy from start to finish that continues to fill the various county grounds in SuperValu Pairc Ui Chaoimh, Cusack Park, Semple Stadium, Walsh Park and the Gaelic Grounds.

However, there has been a suggestion in some quarters that it should be changed to allow four counties instead of the current three to have their season extended.

A similar situation would apply in Leinster, the fourth team in both provinces replacing the Joe McDonagh Cup winners and runners-up in a preliminary All-Ireland quarter-final.

JEOPARDY

Yes, there should be some reward for the winners of that competition but in Munster anyway the status quo needs to prevail and the jeopardy to continue.

The current set-up is as good as it gets if the current provincial format in both provinces is to continue.

There have been calls for an open draw across the landscape but that's a story for another day altogether and would surely be opposed by, in particular, the Munster Council who generate a huge financial return from its hurling championship that all the clubs across the province benefit from.

Every game in Munster is hugely relevant, the stakes are huge and rarely do we get dead-rubber games.

Fair enough, the Limerick, Clare encounter last season was a dead-rubber but a lot more often than not it all goes down to the wire.

Clare entered last season's Munster campaign as All-Ireland champions and failed to emerge from the province.

Tipperary didn't make it out of the province in 2024 but 12 months later they have possession of the Liam MacCarthy Cup.

Cork didn't come out in 2023; Waterford, despite some big wins, have not emerged since the new format was introduced.

Every county gets four bites of the Munster championship cherry and if you don't make the top three, you really cannot have any great complaints.

It's as fair as it gets and the words cut-throat surely apply.

The group stage in the All-Ireland SFC does not carry that type of jeopardy, three of the four teams in the groups progressing whereas if it was two it would be far more interesting and competitive.

Yes, we are privileged here in Munster to have a championship format that has really everything, a very level playing field, huge crowds, in the main great games, some of them do-or-die affairs that can make or break the season.

The Leinster championship is becoming far more interesting too and it's no longer a situation when it's almost a guarantee that Kilkenny and Galway will meet in the final.

Dublin, in some respects, were the story of last season's championship, eliminating Limerick from the equation. Okay, they failed dismally to Cork in the All-Ireland quarter-final but they'll be in the chase again in 2026.

All genuine hurling followers would love to see Wexford making a far greater impact and Offaly have some of the best young hurlers in the country.

Leinster is becoming far more competitive.

Next season's provincial hurling championship are still very much in the distance but one has little doubt that over the festive period, there will be some debate, questions posed as to who will be the three, particularly, in Munster who will go forth into the All-Ireland series.

The initial thinking might be that the three favourites will be Limerick, Tipperary and Cork, not in that particular order. However, anybody that would write off the other two, Clare and Waterford, would be doing so at their peril.

REBOUND

Things can change so much from one year to the next. Take Tipperary for instance.

At the conclusion of the 2024 championship if somebody had suggested that they'd be All-Ireland champions the following season they'd be laughed out of the room.

Tipp were terrible in 2024, on the receiving end of a couple of hammerings, bottom of the pile and doubts expressed about the future of team boss Liam Cahill.

But what a difference a year made. Cahill reinvented the squad. Some of the players he previously guided to All-Ireland U20 glory came in and made a huge impact and, as they say, the rest is history.

And that was after being hammered twice by Cork in the national league final and in the round-robin opener in Munster.

Clare were on top of the world in 2024 but they had a disastrous 2025. That's what the Munster championship is, absolutely no guarantees for any county despite the lofty standing you might have had a couple of months earlier.

If you had four of the five counties progressing it would be a different story altogether and a lot of the drama that is currently the case might not exist.

In a recent interview, Cork forward Alan Connolly said that he would not have any great problem if four of the five in Munster had their year extended, while Wexford's Lee Chin expressed similar sentiments.

And when high-profile players give their thoughts they should be taken on board. At the same time, and we are repeating ourselves here, the current format in Munster anyway has proved to be an outstanding success and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

Yes, one can have sympathy for the counties that are made redundant in the month of May, their hurling Summer is all too short but the introduction of the split season has decreed that's the way it is and the counties who do not make the top three in both provinces don't get to hurl in the high Summer months of June and July.

It is a very condensed championship now and the margin for error has been minimised to a great extent.

There should be a bit more room to maneouvre with the scheduling of the games. It's not right that one of finest field games in world sport is done and dusted in the month of July.

Hurling is the GAA's greatest marketing tool, the jewel in the crown and intercounty activity needs longer exposure than is currently the case.

There is never going to be a perfect world for everybody but here in Munster we have a provincial championship with its current format that has us, for the most part, fascinated from start to finish on the day of the final.

And next season has the potential to be even better than the previous ones.