The traditional code of hardball returns to Croke Park this weekend with the staging of the All-Ireland Senior, Junior and Masters Doubles championships.
The Senior and Junior grades will be played on a round robin format with the top two in the group facing off in the respective finals on Sunday. The Masters, meanwhile, has one entry and will be a straight final.
The three pairs lining out in the Senior Doubles are Shane Dunne/Ciaran Neary (Kilkenny), Niall Joyce/Paddy Murphy (Mayo) and Michael Hedigan/Daniel Relihan (Cork).
All three pairs have achieved success in various codes in the past and, on paper, there appears to be little to choose between them.
There are five pairs entered in the Junior Doubles, namely Shane and Evan Murphy (Limerick), Gearoid O’Connell/John Cronin (Cork), Ivan Carroll/Myles Carroll (Kildare) and Tadgh Carroll/John Hurley (Cork).
Shane Murphy this year won the All-Ireland Intermediate Softball Singles while the Carroll cousins come from Ballymore Eustace in Kildare, a traditional stronghold of the hardball game. Cork are particularly well represented in this grade this year.
The Masters Doubles final will be contested by Roscommon men Sean Jennings and Denis Creaton and Dublin duo Ian Griffin and Michael Carrie.
The Singles championships will take place on the following weekend with Paddy Murphy, Ciaran Neary, Mike Kenneally (Clare), Daniel Relihan, Dominick Lynch and Shane Dunne making up the six-man field.
Earlier this year, the Broadford club in Limerick ran a hardball tournament, which was the first of its kind in many years, and a number of the players who competed have entered the hardball championships. The new weekend championship format is also novel departure for the code.
View entry list here .
View schedule here .
Note: Lynch/O'Shea (SD) and Healy/Healy (Cork) appear on the drawsheets but have withdrawn.