The 2018

All-Ireland Minor Football Championship The Electric Ireland All-Ireland Minor Football Championship is the premier under-17 "knockout" competition in Gaelic football played in Ireland. 2017 was the final year of the minor under 18 football championship as it was replaced by an under ...

was the

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's premier inter-county

gaelic football Gaelic football (; short name '')'', commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA, or football, is an Irish team sport. A form of football, it is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score ...

competition for under 17s. Thirty one county teams from Ireland competed (Kilkenny did not participate). 2018 was the first minor competition for under 17 year-olds – previously the competition had an under 18 age limit. The under 17 championship with a new format was introduced after a vote at the GAA congress on 26 February 2016. A league format was introduced in Connacht and Leinster. Munster retained their double elimination format and Ulster changed to a double elimination format. Kerry defeated Galway by 0-21 to 1-14 on 2 September 2018 to win their fifth All-Ireland minor title in a row, the first time this feat was achieved. The winners received the Tom Markham Cup.

Teams

Thirty one teams from Ireland contested the championship as

Kilkenny Kilkenny ( , meaning 'church of Cainnech of Aghaboe, Cainnech'). is a city in County Kilkenny, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is located in the South-East Region, Ireland, South-East Region and in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinst ...

withdrew after competing in 2016.

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and

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did not participate in this competition.

Competition format

Provincial Championships

Connacht Connacht or Connaught ( ; or ), is the smallest of the four provinces of Ireland, situated in the west of Ireland. Until the ninth century it consisted of several independent major Gaelic kingdoms (Uí Fiachrach, Uí Briúin, Uí Maine, C ...

Leinster Leinster ( ; or ) is one of the four provinces of Ireland, in the southeast of Ireland. The modern province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige, which existed during Gaelic Ireland. Following the 12th-century ...

Munster Munster ( or ) is the largest of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the south west of the island. In early Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was one of the kingdoms of Gaelic Ireland ruled by a "king of over-kings" (). Following the Nor ...

and

Ulster Ulster (; or ; or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional or historic provinces of Ireland, Irish provinces. It is made up of nine Counties of Ireland, counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kingdom); t ...

each organised

provincial Provincial may refer to: Government & Administration * Provincial capitals, an administrative sub-national capital of a country * Provincial city (disambiguation) * Provincial minister (disambiguation) * Provincial Secretary, a position in Canad ...

championships. Each province decided their own rules for determining their champions. The formats for the 2018 provincial championships are explained in the sections below. All-Ireland The four provincial winners play the four provincial runners-up in the All-Ireland quarter-finals. Two semi-finals and a final follow. All matches are played in a single knockout format. The minor final is normally played before the All-Ireland senior final.

Provincial championships

Connacht Minor Football Championship The Connacht Minor Football Championship is an annual Gaelic football competition organised by the Connacht Council of the Gaelic Athletic Association since 1928 for the youngest competitors (under-18 until 2017, now under-17) in the province of C ...

Connacht Format

All five Connacht counties compete in a single round-robin format. The top 2 teams in the round robin table meet again in the Connacht final. The winners receive the Tom Kilcoyne Cup.

Connacht Table

Connacht League Section Rounds 1 to 5

Connacht Final

Leinster Minor Football Championship The Leinster Minor Football Championship is the premier under-17 "knockout" competition in gaelic football played in the province of Leinster. 2017 was the final year of the minor under 18 football championship as it were replaced by an under 17 ...

Leinster Format

Leinster teams competed in two groups, one of six teams and one of five teams. Each team in a group plays a single match against the other teams. The first two teams in each group progress to the Leinster semi-finals.

Leinster Group 1 Table

Leinster Group 1 Rounds 1 to 5

Leinster Group 2 Table

Leinster Group 2 Rounds 1 to 5

Leinster Semi-Finals

Leinster Final

Munster Minor Football Championship The Munster Minor Football Championship is an annual Gaelic football competition organised by the Munster Council of the Gaelic Athletic Association since 1928 for the youngest competitors (under-18) in the province of Munster in Ireland. It is ...

Munster Format

All six Munster teams competed in the three quarter-finals of the main draw. The three beaten teams entered the play-off section and, after two play-off matches, one team re-entered the main draw at the semi-final stage. From the semi-finals all matches were knockout.

Munster Main Draw

Munster Playoff Draw

The three teams who were beaten in the quarter-finals of the main draw competed in a play-off in two matches. The winning team from the play-offs re-entered the main draw at the semi-final stage.

Munster Quarter-Finals

Munster Playoff Rounds 1 and 2

Munster Semi-Finals

Munster Final

Ulster Minor Football Championship The Ulster Minor Football Championship is the Minor "knockout" competition in the game of Gaelic football played in the province of Ulster in Ireland. The series of games are organised by the Ulster Council. The trophy for the winning side is T ...

Ulster Format

In 2018 the Ulster Championship changed to a

double-elimination A double-elimination tournament is a type of elimination tournament competition in which a participant ceases to be eligible to win the tournament's championship upon having lost ''two'' games or matches. It stands in contrast to a single-elimin ...

format, which replaced the straight knockout style of previous years. Every team who lost a match before the semi-finals re-entered the competition via the Qualifiers Round 1 (R1), Qualifiers Round 2 (R2) or Qualifiers Round 3 (R3). This ensured that all teams played at least two games. The semi-finals and final were knockout. The winners received the Father Murray Cup.

Ulster Direct Route

=Ulster Preliminary Round

= Two of the nine teams were drawn to play in the preliminary round.

=Ulster Round 1

= The seven teams who avoided the preliminary round plus the winners of the preliminary round competed in four matches in round 1.

=Ulster Round 2

= The four winning teams from round 1 met in two matches.

Ulster Qualifier Route

=Ulster Qualifiers R1

= Two of the five teams beaten in the preliminary round or round 1 met in a playoff match. The losing team was eliminated from the competition.

=Ulster Qualifiers R2

= The four remaining teams who lost only one match in the preliminary round or round 1 met in two matches with the two losing teams being eliminated,

=Ulster Qualifiers R3

= The two losing teams from round 2 (who lost only one match) met the two winning teams from the qualifiers R2. The two losing teams were eliminated from the competition.

Ulster Knockout Stage

=Ulster Semi-Finals

= The two winning teams from round 2 met the two winning teams from the qualifiers R3. The two losing teams were eliminated from the competition.

=Ulster Final

All-Ireland

All-Ireland Draw

Quarter-finals

The four provincial champions played the four beaten finalists from the provincial championships.

Semi-finals

There was no draw for the semi-finals as the fixtures are pre-determined on a three yearly rotation. This rotation ensures that a provinces's champions play the champions of all the other provinces once every three years in the semi-finals, if they each win their quarter-finals. If a provincial winner loses their quarter final, then the provincial runner-up who beat them take their place in the semi-final.

Final

Minor Team Of The Year

1. John Ball (Kildare)
2. Ronan Grimes (Monaghan)
3. Owen Fitzgerald (Kerry)
4. Tiarnan Woods (Derry)
5. Colm Moriarty (Kerry)
6. Tony Gill (Galway)
7. Mark Lavin (Dublin)
8. Darragh Rahilly (Kerry)
9. Conor Raftery (Galway)
10. Paul Walsh (Kerry)
11. Matthew Costello (Meath)
12. Aaron Mulligan (Monaghan)
13. Luke Mitchell (Meath)
14. Eoin Darcy (Wicklow)
15. Matthew Cooley (Galway)

References

{{GAA 2018 All-Ireland Minor Football Championship