The GAA are considering changes to the hurling championship to avoid it being overshadowed by Gaelic football's Super 8, Hurling Development Committee chairman Paudie O'Neill has revealed.
The introduction of a group stage in place of quarter-finals for next year's All-Ireland SFC will mean almost four times as many high-profile football games as hurling in July and August, leading to fears that the profile of the small-ball code will suffer.
O'Neill told the Irish Daily Star that he had met GAA Director General Paraic Duffy and President Aogan O Fearghail last week to discuss potential changes to the hurling Championship format.
“There’s a general feeling out there that there is a mood for change," he said. "We’re not at the point yet where we’re going to go into any specifics on any proposals but change is an inevitable part of life.
“Obviously the football changes were brought about recently but until they occurred on the Saturday at Congress, nobody could say for certain if they would get over the line or not.
“What has to happen now is that those changes are taken into account and it’s pretty obvious that there is a significant imbalance between the number of high profile games that will be occurring in football and hurling.
“It wouldn’t be that difficult to respond to that by generating more hurling matches but the really important thing is that they are meaningful and competitive games. The hurling public, they have a good nose for these sort of things.
“It’s not a case of generating more games for the sake of it, it’s about generating games that are competitive and that will be attractive.”
The GAA confirmed on Tuesday that the Allianz Hurling League structure will remain unchanged in 2018.
