2011 All Ireland Championship Draw for Football and Hurling

The draw for the 2011 championship takes place in Croke Park on Thursday night.

The draw for
all four provinces in football and hurling gets underway at 8pm and will be broadcast live on RTE2.

There is only one slight change to the existing schedule which sees the Leinster hurling championship expanded by one county to include Westmeath, who have beenÓguaranteed three years in the Liam McCarthy Cup following their Christy Ring Cup triumph last July.

It means the Leinster hurling championship now comprises nine counties, and the McCarthy Cup consists of 14 counties. The format for the 2011 Leinster hurling championship was announced yesterday with four counties (Laois, Carlow, Antrim and Westmeath) going into an open draw and will contest a preliminary round.

The two winners join four more counties in three quarter-finals (Galway, Dublin, Offaly and Wexford), also made on an open draw. The three winners from there join Kilkenny in the semi-finals, those pairings also made on an open draw. Kilkenny, as Leinster champions, get a bye into the semi-final.

Westmeaths involvement in the Liam McCarthy Cup will also necessitate an additional game in the All-Ireland hurling qualifiers, with the preliminary round now comprising the five Leinster teams that fail to make their provincial semi-final, and the loser of the Munster preliminary game/quarter-final.

In football, the 2011 Leinster championship has the four 2010 semi-finalists seeded (Meath, Dublin, Westmeath and Louth) who thus get byes into the quarter-finals.

 

 

 

 

06-Oct-10 by Colette Fox – PRO