Excitement levels have reached fever pitch ahead of the second-round draw for the All-Ireland hurling qualifiers which are due to take place tomorrow morning.
The draw is due to take place on RTE Radio 1’s popular Morning Ireland show tomorrow with four counties including Clare, Galway, Waterford and Cork awaiting their fate.
The competition is set to benefit from an open draw format with the understanding that teams that have already met in provincial championships will not face each other again.
This has bearing on the outcome of tomorrow’s draw as Cork and Galway have already played each other this summer and won’t meet again in the qualifiers.
This round shall involve an open draw involving the two winners from Round 1 and the two teams that received a bye directly to Round 2.
Dublin and Tipperary will await the round two winners in the All-Ireland quarter-finals.
The draw will take place at 8.35 am on Morning Ireland tomorrow.
Round One recap
Waterford survived a scare after a second-half Laois fightback to advance in the All-Ireland SHC qualifiers at Nowlan Park last Saturday.
The Deise led by eight at half-time and looked comfortable but Laois certainly did not go down without a fight.
Clare sent Wexford home packing on the same afternoon albeit at a different venue, Semple Stadium.
The game had everything you could imagine it would as the sun sparkled high in the sky last weekend in Thurles.
After racing into an early lead Clare were pegged back and it looked like Wexford were going to produce a heroic comeback but to no avail as Clare won by three in the end.
Galway and Cork got a bye into tomorrow’s draw due to the format of proceedings which sees one beaten Munster and Leinster semi-finalists progress automatically.
That means they will have extra time to prepare for the upcoming second round clashes despite only knowing their opponents a matter of hours before the throw-in following round one byes.
The games will take place on the weekend of July 24/25 with times, dates and venues set to be confirmed after Monday’s draw.
Follow all the action with the live blogs on Irish Mirror Sport
