Leinster GAA will this week look to refine their proposal for a new senior inter-county hurling provincial championship of eight teams amid an extended structure.
It is hoped that an agreed new format will be reviewed by counties and the Leinster GAA executive and presented before the media in early October.
Former GAA president Nickey Brennan is chairing a special workgroup reviewing the structure of the Leinster Senior Hurling Championship to help developing counties achieve more meaningful access to elite competition
The aim is to make the Leinster series as competitive as possible and lift developing teams who face steep challenges bridging the gap to higher terrain.
From an early stage the plan was always set to consider expanding the current six-team round-robin format into an eight-team competition divided into groups.
Factoring in the progress made by 2025 Joe McDonagh Cup champions Kildare – even though they experienced immediate relegation this season – was also a priority for the committee.
"Everything is at consultation stage and that process is still ongoing within Leinster GAA," said national head of hurling Willie Maher.
"The workgroup committee (of which Maher is a member) has looked at every possibility and now all of the main stakeholders have to review proposals before they go to the next stage.
"Leinster have taken the lead in this regard to the development of the game and hopefully the workgroup recommendations will now come to a conclusion soon," Maher added.
It is understood that the favoured proposal would see two groups of four, including the Joe McDonagh Cup finalists.
Group 1 would comprise the top-placed four teams in the previous year's Leinster series and the teams would all play each other with the top two earning semi-final spots.
The quarter-finals would see the last two teams play against the top two in the second four-team group.
This group would host the bottom two teams from the previous season’s Leinster SHC and the two McDonagh Cup finalists.
The beaten Leinster semi-finalists would then later meet to determine who qualifies for the All-Ireland quarter-finals with the third and fourth placed teams in the second group reverting to the McDonagh Cup semi-finals.
Meanwhile, Maher also said that the Hurling Development Committee would like to stage an interprovincial hurling series to trial the new rules they have tabled.
"We are trying to explore that," he said.
"Again it is a case of getting everyone on board – from players, officials, coaches, referees, administrators and fixture makers and the timing is important obviously too.
"But it would be a great chance to showcase our new rules trials and it would be another visible step in the transparency of what we are doing."
Maher added that the HDC had met twice last week with referees, managers and coaches ahead of the rules being trialled at third level.
"We met with the referees in Abbotstown and in Semple Stadium and there was huge engagement where there was a briefing for managers, coaches and officials," he said.
"Again, everything was put out on the table and every question asked and everyone is looking forward to seeing them in action."
