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But it was always cyclical before, so you can understand why people think it will continue to be.  Then you have those that have a vested interest in not acknowledging that things have changed with the advent of paid full time coaches and players not working for a living. 
Amateurism used to mean, working 5/6 days a week, training 3 nights a week and a match on a Sunday.  Maybe a week or two off work in the run up to an All Ireland final. 
Then for some it meant staying in third level education and delaying the start of your career for as long as possible, so you could devote more time to training. 
Then for some it meant getting a full time coaching job with the county board to encourage you to stay in the country and make it easier to train and play at a high level. 
Now for some it means not working at all and living the life of a professional athlete. 

Looks like a direction of travel to me and in this environment, the counties with the money will use it to facilitate this approach.  Not mind you, in the interest of the player, who would be much better off embracing the amateur ethos and ensuring that they have some kind of a career for themselves when its all over. 

Reilly? Really??

Dublin got to 6 finals in a row in the 70s, winning 3 of them. This team will pass. It's like Kerry in the 00s. They were on the brink of 3 in a row and nobody blinked.

It'll all be grand.

'This team'?

Look at Dublin 2011 and Dublin 2017. A lot of change. This is not a special team - this is a conveyor belt of talent being churned out.

There will be very few watching football in 5 years time.

In an amateur world, the conveyor belt stops because so much effort is required by volunteers to keep the talent coming through.  The problem as I see it is that the counties on a stronger financial footing are able to pay for full time coaches, which removes this barrier to continued success.  This isn't just a Dublin issue.  The successful counties are very well funded and in this regard, success breeds success.  The more exposure and success, the more sponsorship and enthusiasm from supporters clubs etc. 

Its getting harder and harder for counties to break into that elite group. To do it and maintain it, counties probably need to focus on one code, have a large player / club base, long term plan and continuous high level of funding at a structural level.  Teams like Donegal, Armagh can make a short burst at it with a talented group of players, innovative tactics and intense training.  But this will not be maintained unless there is a long term plan in place at a structural level with financial backing for coaching in schools and clubs. 

There are reports from the GAA on the cost of preparing county teams annually.  Do we have reports on what is spent on coaching in clubs and schools.  That would tell us a lot more about the true position of counties as spending a fortune on county teams is just papering over the cracks if the foundations aren't in place. 

I have to laugh at the nonsense about splitting the championship into tiers.  We have four teams a mile ahead of the rest.  On their day, some of the rest will give them a game if they are at the top of their game and the top teams under perform.  Outside that it is competitive among the remainder.  The other division 1 teams (2017/18), Monaghan, Donegal, Cavan, Galway and Kildare were all beaten by Division 2 / 3 opposition in the Championship this year. 

If you were trying to tier the Championship on this years form, you would segment the top four from Division 1.  Another segment from the bottom half of Division 1, all of Division 2 and the top three teams in Division 3.  The remainder of Division 3 and 4 would be in a third tier (although that would be tough on Carlow). Obviously you would have to make an exception for Longford given their uncanny ability to perform in the qualifiers. 

The nonsense is that if you were to segment on the basis of performance, the top tier would start at Semi-Finals.

Good thread - I would have thought that Cavan was the obvious one!! Has there ever been a Cavan team without a Brady on it?

And the Tyrone supporter who is reported to have punched a young Armagh girl in the face was any better?  This isn't just an Armagh problem, and its not just a GAA problem.  It is a societal problem. Spoke to middle-aged Tyrone friends at the game on Saturday and they said that they wouldn't take the train after the rowdiness of a crowd from Coalisland last year.  These prats let the GAA down a bagful and sections of the media gleefully report it. 

Nothing ventured, nothing gained and beats the hell out of selling tickets to win a car if you ask me.  If it works and they get even half what they are targeting, every county will be at it. I'd like to think that they have a good online campaign organised.

Tyrone are very sophisticated in their fundraising now, but I remember in 1986, they knocked plenty of doors in Co. Armagh fundraising for the expense of training the team for the All-Ireland final.