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.
Read more about this topic: Munster Minor Hurling Championship