New Leinster SHC format proposed from 2028

Galway's Darragh Neary and Joshua Ryan celebrate with the Bob O'Keeffe Cup at Croke Park ©INPHO/Tom O'Hanlon

A new format for the Leinster senior hurling championship has been proposed, with an eight-team competition split into two groups from 2028.

The top four teams from the 2027 championship would form Group A, while Group B would contain the fifth- and sixth-placed teams and the two Joe McDonagh Cup finalists.

The top two in Group A would advance directly to the provincial semi-finals, with the remaining four teams competing for the other two semi-final places.

The losing semi-finalists would then contest a play-off for a third Leinster place in the All-Ireland SHC quarter-finals.

The bottom two in Group B would drop into the Joe McDonagh Cup semi-finals.

The proposal, which aims to provide more meaningful knockout games and greater opportunities for Tier 2 counties, will go before GAA Annual Congress in February 2027.

“I think it is exciting,” former GAA president Nickey Brennan told GAA.ie. “We have one knockout game in Leinster at the moment, that's the Leinster Senior Hurling Final. We're now adding two quarter-finals, two semi-finals, a final and a third place playoff. So, we're now adding six knockout games where there's only one there at the moment.

“That’s real jeopardy. And we feel that in terms of supporters, they’ll be excited about that. Because there’s nothing certain, in terms of results.

“We also don’t know who the pairings might be in the semi-final until we finish the quarter-finals. So there’ll be a draw there. There are all sorts of possibilities here."