“I don’t think a calendar year is something we would be proposing. There is an appetite to move the finals from St Patrick’s Day to January among the clubs that have been involved, especially given the National League is at a heightened stage by mid March. We have had some discussion on that and we would be looking at our forum with fixtures analysts, county control committee chairs and secretaries on December 1 as an opportunity to talk about what is the best positioning for the finals. Potentially before the league starts in late January may be the time. Based on the evidence we’ve gathered so far, to have those finals played in December would be presenting a significant challenge to some counties.”

The mid-year report compiled by Martin’s group found counties had four more weeks available to them this year for club activities than 2015 (which was used as a comparable year) because of the changes made to the season such as the constricting of the inter-county year and the decoupling of senior inter-county from underage levels.

In an analysis of how many remaining weekends counties had to stage club matches after their last inter-county team had exited their respective Championship, Cork were found to have two fewer than 2015 and Clare had one less.

Kerry, though, had two more and Limerick and Tipperary had four extra. The biggest gains in Munster were in Waterford who had seven more largely down to the early summer disappointments for their senior county sides.

All but three of the 32 counties said the alterations had been positive (only two didn’t provide their clubs with master fixture plans by January and most were followed, says Martin). “There are small, marginal improvements being made,” he remarked.

However, the committee know there are significant challenges presented by the new round-robin nature of the Munster and Leinster senior hurling championships.

A number of counties had previously been able to play some rounds of championship in the gaps between games in May and June in particular,” the report read. “This has not been possible however under the new inter-county hurling structure and this is definitely a concern.

The likes of the Club Players Association have called for establishing exclusive blocks of the year for club and county although Martin is cognisant that there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

“Everything has to be balanced against the promotional aspect of the game. We got quite positive feedback to the April window at our May seminar despite the fact the weather had been poor. The picture you get then might be different to what we get next month. But every county is so different.

“Draw an imaginary line from Galway to Dublin and north of that in Ulster the leagues are very competitive but south of it you have a higher volume of dual counties who run league championships and the leagues themselves are not seen as meaningful, with some exceptions like Kerry. One change for some counties wouldn’t suit others.”

He added the decision by the Leinster Council to commence pre-season competitions next month as opposed to January is something that “possibly needs to be looked at from a player welfare point of view” but added counties had been consulted on and may have even proposed the switch.