Quote from: The Trap on February 23, 2017, 11:15:44 AM
What the graph illustrates is that there are already superpowers in GAA. The only county in Leinster that may make the super 8 is Dublin. How are the rest of the counties ever going to compete with Dublin? It is like asking Wycombe Wanderers to go toe to toe with Chelsea..........instead of proposals like this the GAA should be coming up with ideas to make the weaker counties (counties like Meath Down Cork Galway Armagh Cavan Roscommon and others) who have been traditionally competitive in a position where they can catch up with the top 4. That is the only way they are going to have a great championship in the future. And to think that Cavan and Roscommon are in Division One but are still so far off All Ireland contention just makes this argument stronger!
How do you do it?
Level up the financial resources each county team can spend.
Increase the number of GAA paid coaches in weaker counties
Improve training facilities in weaker counties
Limit the amount of training county teams do.
Have a fixture schedule that helps the club game in every county so that players in weaker counties dont choose club over county as they wont lose out playing with their club
The more counties who can be competitive the better the provincial and All Ireland series will be and the money will roll in from all around the country. If it is limited to 8 counties each year then the financial spread will be much less!
I would agree with you on most of those points. But it's championship format proposals that are being voted on here. As I've said previously, no championship format is going to give the weaker counties a chance of beating Dublin. Most GAA people would like to see an evening of the playing field, but IMO, that can only be addressed through motions that deal with finance. One example would be the idea that all sponsorship money is put into one pot and then divided equally to each county.
The graph also shows us that of the 5 counties that have made the last 8 once, 4 of them have made it there in the last 6 years. The fifth county, Wexford, made it there in 2008. Hardly an argument supporting the idea that 8 elite counties will play each other year in, year out.