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Wexford Hurling Thread

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Replying To Paull:  "Its very silly format IMO .
I can tell you now barring huge upsets we will play Galway in one semi final and Dublin will play Kilkenny in the other."
Glad you agree with me about the format but your prediction for the semi-finals is actually the one thing that can't happen.

https://leinstergaa.ie/competitions/electric-ireland-leinster-minor-hurling-championship-2026/

Kilkenny and Dublin are in Group 1. Wexford and Galway are in Group 2. Top two in each group go through, with winners of Group 1 playing runner-up of Group 2, and vice versa.

Kilkenny v Wexford and Dublin v Galway are likely semi-finals all right. And as it happens, they're also the matches in Round 3 of the "group games that aren't really group games", to be played on Saturday May 2, so you could have the exact same line-up in semi-finals just one week later, on Saturday May 9. Hardly ideal or sensible either!

Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 3390 - 11/03/2026 15:41:13    2660936

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Replying To Pikeman96:  "Glad you agree with me about the format but your prediction for the semi-finals is actually the one thing that can't happen.

https://leinstergaa.ie/competitions/electric-ireland-leinster-minor-hurling-championship-2026/

Kilkenny and Dublin are in Group 1. Wexford and Galway are in Group 2. Top two in each group go through, with winners of Group 1 playing runner-up of Group 2, and vice versa.

Kilkenny v Wexford and Dublin v Galway are likely semi-finals all right. And as it happens, they're also the matches in Round 3 of the "group games that aren't really group games", to be played on Saturday May 2, so you could have the exact same line-up in semi-finals just one week later, on Saturday May 9. Hardly ideal or sensible either!"
Where does it say that winner in one group is playing the runner up in the other?

Paull (Wexford) - Posts: 242 - 11/03/2026 16:37:47    2660941

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Replying To Pikeman96:  "That "cross play" format might be used in some other places too but to me, it's still a nonsense, and could make a mockery of any competition. Am going to give an example with this year's Leinster Minor Hurling. Let's say the two qualifiers are Offaly and Laois, and that Offaly in particular are relatively strong.

Group 1 - Dublin, Kilkenny, Offaly
Group 2 - Wexford, Galway, Laois

In Round 1 - Wexford beat Dublin, Kilkenny beat Galway, Offaly beat Laois
In Round 2 - Dublin beat Galway, Kilkenny beat Laois, Offaly beat Wexford
In Round 3 - Dublin beat Laois, Kilkenny beat Wexford, Galway beat Offaly

All those results could happen. None of them would be an earth-shattering surprise. So, the final points tallies would be:
Group 1 - Kilkenny 6, Dublin 4, Offaly 4
Group 2 - Galway 2, Wexford 2, Laois 0

Either Dublin or Offaly would go out despite winning two matches and having four points.
Both Galway and Wexford would go through despite only winning one match and only having two points.

Don't know about you, but that'd be nonsense to me."
Yes but suppose of a year Kilkenny and Wexford and Offaly have particularly strong minor teams and are drawn in the same group with a more traditional format? Suppose all 3 are stronger than Galway, Dublin and Laois that particular year? With the more traditional format one would be gone, while 2 weaker teams from the other group remain.
No format is perfect when you have 2 groups.

Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 18730 - 11/03/2026 21:56:39    2660963

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Replying To Paull:  "Where does it say that winner in one group is playing the runner up in the other?"
In the Martin Storey Cup the winners of a group play the runners up in the same group.

Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 18730 - 11/03/2026 21:57:50    2660964

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Replying To Paull:  "Where does it say that winner in one group is playing the runner up in the other?"
Actually, you have a point. What it says on that page on the Leinster GAA site that I gave the link for is:
Top 2 teams in each group qualify for semi-finals, with top of each group seeded.

I took that to mean that winner of Group 1 would play runner-up of Group 2, as would normally happen in such things. But the whole "cross play" thing means that the whole competition isn't being run in the normal way.

It doesn't say either that winner of Group 1 will play runner-up of Group 1 in the semi-finals. But that would actually make more sense, since those teams wouldn't have played each other yet. So then we're back to your prediction of Kilkenny v Dublin and Wexford v Galway all right.

Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 3390 - 12/03/2026 09:03:21    2660975

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Replying To Viking66:  "Yes but suppose of a year Kilkenny and Wexford and Offaly have particularly strong minor teams and are drawn in the same group with a more traditional format? Suppose all 3 are stronger than Galway, Dublin and Laois that particular year? With the more traditional format one would be gone, while 2 weaker teams from the other group remain.
No format is perfect when you have 2 groups."
Yes, there's always an element of "luck of the draw" when there are two or more groups. But the big difference is that in that more traditional format, one of Kilkenny/Wexford/Offaly would be gone after losing two matches. They'd just have been unlucky to have been drawn into the stronger group in the first place. But in this other format, they could win two or three matches and still be knocked out.

Go back to that list of possible results I put up, and change just one of them, so that Dublin actually beat Wexford in Round 1, instead of us beating them. Now the final tables would be:
Group 1 - Kilkenny 6, Dublin 6, Offaly 4.
Group 2 - Galway 2, Wexford 0, Laois 0.

i.e. Offaly would be out despite having four points, while we'd go through after not winning a game. And it wouldn't even matter if we were hammered in every game and ended up with a score difference of -60, so long as Laois were hammered a little bit more and ended up with -61 or worse.

Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 3390 - 12/03/2026 09:24:24    2660978

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Replying To Viking66:  "In the Martin Storey Cup the winners of a group play the runners up in the same group."
They did this year and because of that silly format there were 2 very upset teams who won more games than any of the teams in the opposite group but didn't qualify .

Paull (Wexford) - Posts: 242 - 12/03/2026 09:25:21    2660979

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Replying To Paull:  "They did this year and because of that silly format there were 2 very upset teams who won more games than any of the teams in the opposite group but didn't qualify ."
Have to admit I'm not familiar with results or tables from the last Martin Storey Cup, but that proves my point.

Any format where one team could go through after losing every match, while another team could be knocked out after winning most of theirs, simply has to be considered ridiculous.

Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 3390 - 12/03/2026 11:00:07    2660986

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Our U19 team named for tomorrow nights clash against Dublin - any prospects on that team that we should be looking forward to?

MyOhMi (Wexford) - Posts: 290 - 12/03/2026 15:51:19    2661020

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