The Dublin minor hurlers may have played their last match in Croke Park this year. Crowned Leinster champions at the weekend, the team that has bridged a 22-year gap since the county's last such title are not scheduled to play their All-Ireland semi-final at headquarters and should they fail to reach the final last Sunday's victory over Wexford will turn out to be their last outing at the venue.

This situation isn't exclusive to Dublin and arises from the introduction of secondary and tertiary championships for the Ring and Rackard Cups. The finals of these competitions will be held on August 14th and 21st as part of a double bill with the All-Ireland senior hurling semi-finals.

This means that the minor semi-finals, which traditionally take place on the same bill as the senior, will have to be fixed for alternative venues.

The same applies to the minor quarter-finals as the senior equivalents will be played over two weekend double bills later this month.

Central Council decided last year when planning the Tommy Murphy Cup, the secondary competition for football counties eliminated in the first two rounds of the All-Ireland qualifiers, that in future there would not be triple bills played at Croke Park.

Dublin are already through to the All-Ireland semi-finals along with their Munster counterparts Cork. There they will play the winners of the two quarter-finals yet to be drawn between defeated provincial finalists Wexford and Limerick on one side, and All-Ireland champions Galway and Antrim on the other.

The coming weekend sees the conclusion of the senior All-Ireland qualifier system with the final matches in the two groups. At present the favourites to emerge as group winners are Waterford and Galway who have to play Clare and Limerick, respectively, to see who plays the defeated provincial finalists Wexford and Tipperary, and who plays the provincial champions Kilkenny and Cork in the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

There is a provision that allows counties to avoid sides they have already played this season, but should the qualifier groups go to plan the draw will be fully open as none of the teams on each respective side have met to date.

This would mean Waterford and Galway being drawn against Wexford or Tipperary with Clare and Limerick going in with Cork or Kilkenny.

Clare and Limerick have both played Tipperary this season and were both to top their group, a draw would again have to determine the pairing, but were either Clare or Limerick to win at the weekend, they would be protected against playing Tipperary in the quarter-final.

At the other end of qualifier groups there will be relegation play-offs organised on a crossover basis with the third-placed team in Group One playing the fourth-placed in Group Two and vice versa.

On current standings that would mean Offaly playing Antrim and Dublin-Laois. The losers of those matches would then meet in a relegation play-off with their places in the MacCarthy Cup at stake. The relegated team will be replaced by the winner of this season's Ring Cup.