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The team who finishes fifth in Group 2 are in vastly advantageous position to the teams who finish in third and fourth place in the same group.
The fifth place team will face a knock out game against Ballyskenagh to get to the quarter final while the third and fourth place teams will face a game against their counterparts from Group 1to reach the same stage. How is that helping the teams who finish higher up the group. This is absolutley ridiculous. I was strongly against this format from the outset but this is the straw that broke the camels back. Seemingly this format was the result of a "workshop" attended by club delegates to revamp the hurling championship. Now we know what sort of assholes are running hurling in this county. Maybe Offalys Future was right all along!!

If 2 groups of six had to be used ( I can see the point, but it isnt essential) then surely either of these two formats would be practical

1. Semi Finalists-Group 1 and Group 2 winners
Quarter Finals Group 1 2nd vs Group 2 3rd
Group 1 3rd vs Group 2 2nd

Semi Final Draw-Group Winners on one side vs Quarter Final winners

Relegation Semi Finals - Group 1 5th vs Group 2 6th
Group 1 6th vs Group 2 5th
Relegation Final- Losers of the above games

OR

2. Quarter Finals- Group 1 1st vs Group 2 4th
Group 1 2nd vs Group 2 3rd
Group 1 3rd vs Group 2 2nd
Group 1 4th vs Group 2 1st

Semi Finals-Open Draw but if both group winners make it they shall be kept apart.

Relegation as above or else just one off relegation final between Group 1 6th and Group 2 6th.



I really fcuking hope some of those idiots who constructed this years championship read this forum and take some ideas on board because the present format is a complete farce filled with anomalies.

I would go with option 2 as suggested by you.
The problem with this years system was in trying to follow the Kilkenny one is that in Kilkenny there would not be a team as far adrift of everyone else as is the case with ballyskenach this year.
In my opinion the whole structure of the hurling championships in offaly should be readjusted with just 10 teams in senior, and 10 teams in intermediate, 10 junior A and so on.The teams that win the intermediate are more often the second string team from a senior club and this does not happen very often in the main hurling counties. I believe that with a smaller more competitive senior championship the standard of hurling would improve in the clubs. Also the intermediate standard would improve and provide real competitive hurling for those previously struggling to make an impact at senior, and more importantly, unlike this year, the promoted champions might be able to hold their own at senior. Also if the inter champions were not from a senior club we would have promotion and relegation each year, thus keeping the senior championship freshened up every year.

ah jesus kinnityman you're way overreacting here.... if the 3rd or 4th teams are depending on drawing ballyskenagh in order to make a quarter final the they're not gonna be good enough to win their quarter final anyway!! to progress to the latter stages you're gonna have to play - and beat - the better teams anyway so this situation isnt going to have any great effect the eventual outcome of the championship for any team!! its obvious it works like this to facilitate relegation an i agree its not ideal to have an easier path for finishing lower in your group but its not as big a deal as youre making it out to be!!.. i feel that this system is a good system as it provides all club hurlers at least 6 good competitive matches so give the system its chance and dont be writing it off over small problems such as the one you have pointed out....

Kinnittyman is spot on here. Its ridiculous that a team that finishes 5th/6th can potentially have a handier route to a qtr final than a team that finishes 3rd. Surely the best situation would be that the 5th/6th place teams in each group do not have the chance to qualify for a qtr final. They should play each other, 5th v 6th, 6th v 5th and see which team drops down.
If the 1st team in one group played the 4th in another and so on in qtr finals it would add more bite to the group games. Even if the 6th placed team was adrift after a few rounds you'd more than likely have a situation where it was tight enough between the 4th and 5th placed teams to keep it interesting.

For the record, I'm going to reserve judgement on the whole structure until the end of the year, however a few points might be salient.

(1) The theory behind the whole system is that each incremental position improves you, and thus there are no dead games. I'm convinced that if we had a six team group with no obvious benefit to finishing each position higher, then somewhere along the line you will have a team with nothing to play for and some third party club will pay the price.

(2) The teams finishing third or fourth don't have to deal with the spectre of relegation. Now perhaps the presence of Ballyskenach means that no-one out there is worried about relegation, however I'd say that could be a little premature. Any team can have a bad day, particularly when mentally they feel that a game is already won.

(3) If it does turn out that Ballyskenach are so far adrift, then I think definitely we should start thinking about reducing senior to ten teams and having two groups of five. That way you could have a system whereby you play a similar round robin, first gets into the semis, second plays third with second getting home advantage for their quarter final, fourth free from relegation and fifth plays fifth in a relegation play off. However we're back to the "getting turkeys to vote for Christmas" situation here. The problem with doing that with six teams as it stands is that under Kinnitty man's system, one teams would get to play Birr when they have already secured top spot and possibly get a serious competitive advantage.

(4) Let's not forget that a big reason for doing this was that by making sure that no-one is eliminated in the group stages, the theory is that clubs will be a lot more amenable to running games off quickly, in midweek or whenever. Clubs won't call off games because they have one guy who's fourth sub on the county minors and suchlike activity. In a dual county, something Kilkenny don't have to deal with, we simply have so much more stuff like this to take account of.