Founded 1928 Number of teams 6 Website Official website | Region Munster (GAA) Current champions Tipperary (39th title) | |
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The Munster Minor Hurling Championship is an annual hurling competition organised by the Munster Council of the Gaelic Athletic Association since 1928 for the youngest competitors (under-18) in the province of Munster in Ireland. It is sponsored by Electric Ireland and is therefore officially known as the Electric Ireland Munster GAA Hurling Minor Championship.
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The series of games are played during the summer months with the Munster final currently being played on the second Sunday in July. The minor final provides the curtain-raiser to the senior final. The prize for the winning team is an unnamed cup that was first presented in 1946 by TWA. The championship had always been played on a straight knock-out basis whereby once a team lost they are eliminated from the series; however, in recent years the championship has expanded to include a first-round losers' group.
The Munster Championship is an integral part of the wider All-Ireland Minor Hurling Championship. The winners of the Munster final, like their counterparts in the Leinster Championship, are rewarded by advancing directly to the semi-final stage of the All-Ireland series of games. The losers of the Munster final enter the All-Ireland series at the quarter-final stage.
Five teams currently participate in the Munster Championship. Two of the most successful teams in minor hurling, namely Cork and Tipperary, play their provincial hurling in the Munster Championship. Between them, these teams have won the provincial title on 68 occasions during its history while they have also claimed 36 All-Ireland titles.
The title has been won at least once by five of the six Munster counties, all of which have won the title more than once. Kerry hold the distinction of never having won the provincial title. The current champions are Tipperary, who defeated Limerick by 0-20 to 0-17 in a final at Semple Stadium on July 12, 2015.
Format
The Munster Minor Championship was always played as a knockout tournament with pairings drawn at random – there were no seeds. In recent years the knockout element of the championship has been diminished with the introduction of a 'back-door' system for the first-round losers.
Each championship match is played as a single leg. If a match is drawn there is a replay. Drawn replays are now settled with extra time, but if both sides are still level at the end of extra time a second replay takes place and so on until a winner is found.
The current format works as follows. An open draw is made with four of the five teams paired against each other in two lone quarter-finals. The fifth team is given a bye into one of the semi-finals. The winners of the two quarter-finals advance to the semi-final stages and are paired on opposite sides. The losers of the two quarter-finals play each other in a single play-off game, the loser of which is eliminated from the championship with the winner advancing to join the other three teams in the semi-finals. The competition operates as a straight knock-out from this point on.
The Munster Minor Championship has wider implications for the All-Ireland Minor Hurling Championship. The winners of the Munster final automatically qualify for the semi-final stages of the All-Ireland series of games while the runners-up qualify for the quarter-final stages.
Since 2010 all six counties of Munster – Clare, Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Waterford and Kerry – participate in the championship. Kerry had not participated in the Munster Minor Championship since 2006 but after some under-age rebuilding they re-entered in 2010.