Mount Sion manager Jamie O’Meara says the structure of the Waterford Senior Hurling Championship is nothing short of ‘madness’.

Having defeated Lismore at the weekend, Sion became the first team to book their place in the quarter-finals of this year’s championship – following on from previous successes against Ferrybank, Dungarvan and Passage. Should they defeat Fourmilewater at the weekend, they’ll go through the group phase unbeaten – but the reality is that they’ll be using the game as an opportunity to rest some tired bodies.

This year’s championship is scheduled to be completed by Sunday, September 7th. O’Meara cannot get his head around why this structure is place – especially when the clubs who win the county titles won’t take to the field at provincial level until November 2nd.

“The way the championship is going, you’re playing five weeks in a row and then it goes straight into knockout. I think it’s tough on teams. I don’t think it’s fair on teams, to be honest. I think there should be a few byes built in there. I’m pretty sure most teams would feel the same.”

O’Meara says the potential for players to be seriously injured has been heightened by the structure – and he believes bye weeks need to be implemented in future for the welfare of players.

“It’s actually madness to go and try and run this off in nine weeks. Whatever about the group being played in five weeks in a row, I think during the knockout stages, teams deserve a chance to recover, maybe between each of their knockout games. What I’m finding and what you’re going to see is by the end of the championship, teams are going to be battered and bruised, a couple of fellas playing with sore hamstrings and I don’t think you’re going to get the best out of the club teams at the end of the year then.”

The Mount Sion manager also expressed his belief that the current structure isn’t beneficial in terms of the overall standard, and says it would be to the betterment of Waterford from an inter-county perspective were changes implemented.

“For me, put a few bye weeks in there, let the teams recover, let them come in and have everyone at their best playing knockout hurling, which is what everyone wants to see. That’s for Waterford as well, for the likes of Peter Queally, going around watching games, I think he wants to see lads at their best and not lads coming off the back of seven or eight weeks in a row. I think it’s madness doing that, but it is what it is. We can’t change it.”

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