Round-robin rollercoaster keeps provincial championships relevant in hurling

For an organisation that loves to tinker, the GAA has wisely stuck with the winning formula they stumbled on for the provincial hurling championships.

The dual-group format introduced for 2018 came from a desire to provide more games but also retain some of the tradition of what were already 130-year-old brands, not that you'd catch anyone openly calling them that.

The result has been akin to a long-range free bouncing all the way to the net, and we have had another rollercoaster group phase this year.

The provincial senior football championships are on life support and the new-look All-Ireland SFC group stages possess a distinct lack of jeopardy: kingpins Kerry’s defeat to Mayo loses a lot of its impact because the chances of them finishing fourth remain remote.

However, in the small-ball code, Limerick, a team going for a fourth Liam MacCarthy Cup in a row, must beat Cork this afternoon or face a sensational Munster exit.

Only those two counties have qualified from every edition of the round-robin to date but someone’s 0 is probably going to go.

A draw would also see both through in what appears the unlikely scenario of Tipperary losing by five or more points to Waterford.

There will be last-day drama in Leinster too as Wexford hope to avoid a first ever relegation and Dublin aim to beat Galway for a place in the final.

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It’s worth remembering that the format change only scraped through at a special congress in September 2017, which was prompted by a concern that the Super 8s voted