Munster Council hopeful of return of minor to U18

Munster Council chairperson Tim Murphy is hopeful that a motion from the province for the return of inter-county minor to U18 level will receive sufficient backing at next year’s annual GAA Congress.

Based on a undertaken in 2024, the proposal to revert back to the situation that pertained prior to 2018 has unanimous support from the six counties in Munster.

“This all came about from an academy review that we commissioned last year,” Murphy says, “and it was a review of all the academies in the province and out of that review came a recommendation for minor to go to U18 at inter-county level.

“We discussed it in a number of meetings and at our meeting in November we had unanimous support from the six counties who asked us to on behalf of the six Munster counties to bring it forward to Congress 2026.

“The essence of the motion is inter-county minor will go to U18 but decoupling will also be part of that, so that for example an U18 player who is playing inter-county hurling or football can’t play with their club, their adult team, for the duration of the county's involvement, but after that then they can.”

However, if such a switch were to come to pass, it would not necessarily affect the U20 grade, which previously was U21.

Equally, it would not automatically mean that the All-Ireland minor finals would act as the curtain-raisers to the senior deciders, as had been the tradition.

“I think the difficulty, particularly with finals, Qis, say, take Offaly in their final [2022] the 15,000 fans, they'd have all been deprived of tickets if it was before a senior final,” Murphy says.

“So, I think that's not really part of our proposal - we’re just focusing on that because we feel that's a better development pathway for players at that particular age-group anyway, that 18 is a better age-group for inter-county footballers and hurlers in our view and, actually, all the six Munster counties will be playing U18 in 2026 anyway.”

Murphy was speaking in Limerick at the launch of the Co-op SuperStores Munster Hurling League.

Cork will share a group with Clare and Limerick as the pre-season competitions resume following a hiatus in 2025, though there is a possibility that they may be sidelined again in 2027 in order to accommodate a fortnight’s gap between the senior All-Ireland hurling and football finals.

“Firstly, I totally support the two-week gap between the All-Ireland hurling and football finals,” Murphy says.

“I think for maximum promotion and maximum exposure, it's a good thing and it gives hurling the opportunity to or the hurling final to be promoted up to the day of the final and the reviews after. Similarly, then for the run-up to the football final and the reviews after, so from that point of view I do think that's good.

“In relation to the pre-season stuff then, that's obviously a debate that's going to take place. I can understand both sides. I can see the issue in relation to player burnout or player welfare being protected versus the pre-seasons going ahead but the argument against that then is this perhaps they're going to be playing challenge matches anyway.

“I think there’s a big portion in Ulster and Connacht in particular to retain the pre-seasons. From a Munster point of view, we asked the six counties this year and in both codes all six came back and said, ‘Yeah, we want to partake in it’, so I think we'll just watch that space.”