The Leinster Council has reverted to a seeded draw for next year's football championship after 10 years of the open draw format. The change was made at last night's provincial council meeting in Portlaoise.
With the draw for all provincial championships due to be made in RTE next Sunday, the Leinster Council had to regularise their championship plans in line with the new structures accepted by last month's special GAA congress.
These new provisions mean that the round-robin preliminary pool as run in the province this year is no longer permitted. Instead, the old knockout system with seven teams in the preliminary round (three matches and one bye) producing four qualifiers to face the four seeded teams in the quarterfinals is brought back.
The seeded teams will be last season's semi-finalists, Kildare, Dublin, Offaly and Westmeath.
Council secretary Michael Delaney said earlier yesterday that whereas there was no recommendation before last night's meeting, the feeling amongst supporters of the seeded draw was that the Leinster championship was in danger of being devalued by the new national championship format which provides for an open draw qualifier amongst losers to run in tandem with the provincial championships.
By seeding the draw, Leinster are guarding against the chances of their big names facing automatic elimination in the early stages. Under the open draw system, All-Ireland champions Meath were knocked out by Offaly in the first round this year.
The hurling championship retains the round-robin format but the composition of the pool has changed from last season. Surprisingly, Dublin - long time advocates of more championship matches - who won last summer's pool have opted to go straight into the first round.
Carlow have dropped out of the senior championship altogether and their place is taken by Kildare. Meath come in for Dublin and the pool is completed by last season's participants, Westmeath and Laois. Meanwhile, the Ulster Council have deferred the announcement of their decision on the appeal by Antrim clubs Cargin and St Paul's against the sanctions levied on them by the county board.
