National League approved

Hockey: Irish hockey could soon have a different look following the weekend's conference in UCD, which approved major changes to the structures of domestic competitions.

Following months of negotiations and working groups, hockey's National League looks like coming into being later this year. An agm in May is expected to ratify the change from a provincial-based system to a national competition.

The new 12-team National League will replace the National Club Championships, with four teams from Ulster and Leinster and two from Munster comprising 10 of the sides. The other two teams will come from a play-off between the fifth-placed teams in Ulster and Leinster and the third-placed team in Munster.

It will dramatically change how hockey is structured in Ireland and the hope is a consistently higher standard of competition between club sides will improve players and help the national team gain qualification for top tournaments such as the European Championships, World Cups and Olympic Games.

The current situation in Munster is a national joke, where Cork C of I and Cork Harlequins are vastly superior to all the other clubs and receive no real competition except from each other.

The 12 teams will be broken into two pools of six and will play each other once. It has not yet been decided how the winners will be chosen, whether it will be a straight play-off between the two pool winners or a semi-final followed by a grand finale. The champions will then go on to represent Ireland in Europe, with the Irish Senior Cup winners continuing to represent Ireland in the European Cup Winners Cup.

This follows the rejection of a previous plan to change the structures, which the clubs saw as too unwieldy, complex and expensive. The new competition may be more expensive too and Irish hockey will also begin looking for ways to address expected higher costs. But with the approval at the weekend, it appears most of the clubs support the change. The new All-Ireland League, if adopted, will come into effect in the 2008-'09 season.

"The working group has worked extremely well to devise what the association believes is a positive reform plan that can move the game forward in Ireland," said IHA chairman John Dennis yesterday.

"The management board has endorsed the group's proposal and looks forward to the plan's submission to the association's branches for due consideration."