Beannachtaí an tséasúir daoibh. One of the changes made to the championships for 2026 was to scrap the group stages for the All-Ireland series and make the first couple of rounds into a challenge to win two games before you lose two games, if that makes sense. Anyway. One of the reasons for this was the lack of jeopardy in the system that prevailed until now; you could fall over the line with one point after three games and find yourself still in the championship.
But they've installed the same new format into the 2026 Tailteann Cup as well. I think they should have left it alone. Here's why:
1. With the group stage, you got a minimum of three games. One of the things about the Tailteann Cup was a guaranteed amount of competitive games rather than the usual thrashing at the hands of Div 1 or 2 teams. Reducing it to two games is no good.
2. There was plenty of jeopardy in only finishing in third place in the group stages of the Tailteann Cup; only three third-place teams qualified! Last year Leitrim got the bogey prize, but they kept Antrim honest in their game against London, with Leitrim briefly placing ahead of them in the rankings for a couple of minutes in the second half of a strong showing against Tipperary, before Antrim got their shooting boots on and got a big enough win against London. Waterford and Tipperary missed out the other two years.
I think they should have left it alone. One more point: New York still make an appearance, and that's fine. They come in when there's eight home-based teams left, and they play one of the round 2A winners - those are the teams that have played two games and won them both. But wouldn't it have made more sense to get them to play one of the other teams? It's hardly a reward for a P2 W2 record that you have to play an extra game. (Although I will concede that it's a home game for the 2A winner (but not for London) on the same weekend as the Round 3 games so it's probably that way to save time, and it takes place two weeks after their last game, whereas the other 2A teams will have a three-week gap between their last game and the quarter finals. I've only just looked that up.)