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Antrim will not compete for the Liam McCarthy Cup this year, it was decided at a hurling board meeting in Ballymena on Monday night.

Despite the Saffron County causing a major shock in the first round of the National Hurling League when they beat All-Ireland finalists Galway, it was decided unanimously at a board meeting to drop down to tier two and rebuild the county team.

The Saffron's were relegated from the top tier last year after suffering a string of bad results, including a 24-point defeat to Limerick and a 28-point thrashing by Galway.

Ulster's top hurling county will contest the Christy Ring Cup later this year, even if they manage to retain their Ulster crown. This means that there will be no hurling representative from the northern province in the Liam McCarthy Cup for the first time ever.

I think this is fantastic news - it proves that counties see the Christy Ring as a real competition that is worth winning. For too long we've had the farce at all levels of GAA of teams preferring to enter big name competitions they haven't a prayer of winning rather than compete at their own level. Themselves and Down should be reasonably evenly matched this year - between those, Carlow and possibly Mayo the Christy Ring has the makings of a good contest.