At half-time in Páirc Uí Rinn last Saturday, with Cork on the brink against Meath and Kerry already beaten, it was hard to see any upside to winning or even competing in your provincial final. Those advantages are being shaved away, with one pretty major exception. If you win your provincial final ... well, you’ll have won your provincial final.Shorn of any specific advantage in the All-Ireland series, the merits of a provincial title must stand on its own two feet. This season, with Roscommon and Westmeath’s thrilling successes, and with Armagh finally winning Ulster, that’s an easy argument to make.The trophy is the reason. Not for the sake of further progression, marginal gains like home advantage in the All-Ireland series aside; and not for any other reason other than the fact that you’ll have beaten a neighbour or two in a competition you’ve been playing against each other in for 140 years.After Waterford’s season ended last Sunday week, we said goodbye to four more hurling counties last weekend. Kildare, Wexford and Tipperary knew their fate was sealed before their last games, and Kilkenny could not save themselves at Parnell Park. If Kilkenny have new management in November, they’ll be taking over a squad who won’t have seen each other for six months.Kilkenny are too wracked by internal strife to make the case too stridently, and when you’re the reigning All-Ireland champions and you can’t win a game in four attempts, Tipperary must also realise they’re in a poor bargaining position. But Waterford and Peter Queally think it’s wrong their season is over before the Premier League finishes, and they’re not afraid to say it.It’s a point that plenty of others in the hurling commentariat are happy to make as well. This opposition is often of a piece with an anti-split-season stance, which makes me reflexively annoyed by it, but I got to thinking.This bout of introspection was actually prompted, not just by Westmeath and Roscommon, but by a discussion we had with Jamie Wall and Joe Canning last week before the last round of Munster games, where they repeatedly told us that this Clare team – or at least a significant portion of it – would rather a Munster title than an All-Ireland in 2026.I wasn’t sure that players like Tony Kelly, Shane O’Donnell and John Conlon would ever prioritise a provincial medal over a national one, but it never pays for a moonlighter such as myself to doubt the Hurling Man when he’s in a mood. So if winning a Munster final is so important, then maybe the Munster championship can survive as a stand-alone competition.If it really is too soon to say goodbye to anyone, at least without them getting a chance to play a knockout game, then how best to proceed without unduly lengthening the season? Qualifying four teams from the provincial round robins (instead of the current three) would de-fang them, while still eliminating three teams in the case of Leinster, two in Munster.Despite suffering bruising defeats to both Limerick and Cork, Clare have progressed to the All-Ireland series. Photograph: Tom O'Hanlon/Inpho So give everyone a go. All four provincial finalists are in the quarter-finals.Third place in Munster would get a ticket to the quarter-finals also, although to remove even the suggestion of preferential treatment, we could say that third place in the province that has the most Division 1A teams after the league has a fairer ring to it.That would leave you with six Liam McCarthy teams who would go to our proposed All-Ireland qualifiers. There, a seeded draw based on where each county finished in their provincial championship would give us three games, the winners of which would progress to the All-Ireland quarter-finals. This season, that would look like Tipperary, Wexford and Kildare being drawn against one of Offaly, Kilkenny and Waterford. And the only advantage you get for winning your province? The Bob O’Keeffe or Mick Mackey trophy, and a home draw for your quarter-final. The other two quarter-finals would be at neutral venues.Would this damage the provincial round robins? There’s little doubt. But Dublin were desperate not only to get through to the All-Ireland series last Sunday, but also to reach a Leinster final. No more than their upcoming opponents Galway, they see a Leinster title as a prerequisite stepping stone.The new football championship structure reminds us of another thing. We are knockout animals in the GAA. This system would have the benefit of increasing the number of straight knockout, season-ending hurling games from the current five to 10.It need not prolong the season either. Use the weekend after the provincial finals to play the three preliminary quarter-finals. That would allow the quarter-finals to happen at the same time as usual. Right now, the provincial title is a far more realistic ambition for the teams in the Leinster Championship than an All-Ireland. And if the Munster final is as important as we’re always being told, the crowds will still come out to see who reach the decider. Maybe not in the numbers we’ve been used to over the last couple of years, but that might have been unsustainable regardless. Two teams didn’t win even one game in Munster this year, and Clare took two fearsome beatings and still qualified. If it’s really too soon to say goodbye, we could always allow teams one encore outside their provinces. And then no one would have anything to complain about ... for a few weeks.