Bonnar: Shorter season leaves players trapped in 'vicious circle'

Tipperary manager Colm Bonnar feels that the new split-season format has left county players trapped in "a vicious circle" with no period of downtime

This will be the first time that the Munster Championship group stage format has been run since pre-Covid times in 2019 and speaking to the media ahead of Sunday's opener with Waterford at Walsh Park, Bonnar said that the lack of preparation time between league and championship was hard to deal with.

In that 2019 campaign, the Premier County had 58 days to ready themselves between their Allianz Hurling League quarter-final defeat to Dublin and their provincial opener against Cork. This term, with the split-season arrangement bedded in, it’s 29 days – and that’s with Tipp missing out on the league knock-out stages.

"It’s difficult to put your head around it because by the middle of next month, the middle of May, there’s going to be two huge teams in Munster and two big teams in Leinster out of the championship," said Bonnar.

"Normally you would think that championship should only be starting around the middle of May. That’s going to be a big shock for a lot of the hurling world and whatever two teams in Munster it is, it’s a crazy time to be out of hurling.

"It’s hard to get your head around that when the games should only be starting.

"Having been involved in it this year, the old style of wintering well for a lot of inter-county players, there was a bit of time off between when their own club season finished before the National League started up again.

"Looking at it now, if players aren't fully fit when they come into you – most of the [club] campaigns are finishing at the end of October – a lot of them are in to November if they’re in to the final stages of their own hurling