THE competition organisers in the Carbery GAA Board will be scratching their heads trying to figure out the format for the 2024 RCM Tarmacadam junior A hurling championship.
While 11 teams contested this year’s championship – run on a group stage followed by knock-out rounds – the plan was to have 12 teams in the 2024 competition, which would divide evenly into three groups of four, whereas this season there were two groups of four and one group of three.
With both St Oliver Plunkett’s, as county junior B winners, and Bantry Blues, as Carbery junior B champions, promoted to the A grade for next season, the idea was that one team would be relegated this season from A down to B, as that would leave 12 teams.
But that proposal hit a significant obstacle that now means there will be 13 teams in Carbery’s 2024 JAHC.
According to regulations, the 2023 relegation play-off would be between the bottom two teams from the group rounds of the championship – St Colum’s (bottom of four-team Group A) and Bandon (bottom of three-team Group B).
But Bandon fought against their possible relegation to junior B for 2024 – and they won.
The Southern Star understands that Bandon, in the only group of three in the 2023 championship, asserted that teams in the group of three had been promised that they would be exempt from relegation as they had one game less than the sides in the four-team groups.
Bandon, who finished bottom of their group after two losses, then appealed the decision by the Carbery CCC to place them in the relegation play-off to the county appeals committee, who decided that the Carbery board should set aside relegation for the 2023 season.
The end result is that there will be no relegation play-off, that both Bandon and St Colum’s hurlers will campaign in the A grade in 2024, and that the championship will have 13 teams. Now, the competition co-ordinators in Carbery must figure out how to run next year’s championship, but it also means that an extra team will be relegated to junior B at the end of the 2024 season to leave 12 teams in the JAHC.
