Offaly manager Kevin Martin predicts that hurling’s new round-robin provincial championship formats will be changed as soon as next season.
A special GAA congress last October gave the green light to the new system, which sees five teams in Leinster and Munster play four championship games in five weeks.
The top two teams at the end meet in the finals, and along with the third place team progress to the All-Ireland series.
The bottom team in both provinces face relegation to the Tier 2 Joe McDonagh competition, but in Munster that fate requires a further loss in a play-off.
Writing in his RTÉ column this week, eight-time All-Ireland winner Richie Power said that the system was introduced as a "knee-jerk reaction to the introduction of the Super 8s", the new football format, which sees the All-Ireland quarter-finals replaced with a last-eight round-robin.
Martin, whose Offaly side meet All-Ireland champions Galway at home in the opening round on 12 May, told RTÉ Sport: "It’s cruel to have the four games one after the other.
"[If] a lad gets a serious enough injury in the first game, he’s after training all year to play maybe one game and miss the rest so I think it’s going to be changed for next year.
"I think it’s a bit mad.
"Possibly they should have had two rounds, a break of a week, then another two rounds because players are going to get injured.
"It’s a tough one but it is what it is and we’re going to have to face into it.
"A knee-jerk reaction is the proper phrase for it.
"It’s going to generate more revenue, there’s no doubt about it.
"The games are going to be intense but if things don’t go right for teams as regards injuries it’ll be the team with the biggest, strongest panel that going to come out at the end of it.
"We are the minnows of our championship, it’s going to be hard on us if we do pick up a lot of injuries, fingers crossed."
Any change would require a special meeting of the GAA to reverse the decision and, as it stands, the format will be trialled for three seasons.
While Martin, who won two All-Irelands with the Faithful County, must select from a small group of clubs, the likes of Kilkenny and Galway could be deemed to have an advantage in terms of player-base.
Martin says he has nine "niggly" injury concerns on his panel, among those Conor Mahon, Joe Bergin and Dan Currams, and hopes that the club fixtures produce no more issues.
Brian Cody, the Cats manager, however, was adamant that the championship won’t be "diluted" by the fact that each team now has double the number of guaranteed games – from two to four.
"If it's championship it can't be diluted," said Cody.
"Once it's a Leinster Championship match it's anything but a dilution of anything.
"I'm not going to start discussing the pros and cons of whether it's the right format or not.
"It's the format that is uppermost in our minds now so we are just going to get on with that preparation.
"Richie is in the happy position where he can give his opinion on things like that and that's fine, so we'll wait and see."
