Would you be in favour of a second tier?

[Armagh18]

We already have tiers it's called the league. Make the league more important and use the championship as it should be a knock out cup competition whereby underdog stories aren't confined to history.

More League to Summer, Give Sam to the winners.
The solution is staring us in the face if only we'd embrace it.

League football will never ever replace proper knockout championship.

32 county open draw, first round losers into their own championship.

[Itchy]

3 Tiers are successfully implemented at club level in every county. Its a big thing to win a junior championship if you happen to play at that level. I have written this before it is all about marketing at county level. Here is what is needed in my opinion.

All Ireland Final day is Senior, Intermediate and Junior finals all played one after each other. Minor final moved to a different date.
6 teams get 83,000 tickets minus say 10,000 for sponsors, players etc etc. So 70k odd tickets/6 = 12k tickets per county
No tickets for every club in Ireland. This has to stop.
TV rights to All Ireland final sold to competing TV channels only on the proviso that they show all 3 games live.
I think team holidays paid for by Croke Park as Mr Brolly suggested I think would also be a good incentive for the 3 winners.

Can you elaborate on that?

Sure, there are a finite amount of tickets for a game in Croke Park. Counties in a tiered competition need to earn the right to get there. It is ridiculous to take a huge proportion of the tickets for that game and give them out to every single club in Ireland at the expense of giving to the counties competing. In my proposal there would be 6 teams competing on the day and those tickets will be needed to in some way satisfy the demand in those counties. Even today, I think it is completely ridiculous that a football club in Cavan say can get tickets to an All Ireland hurling final and people say in Limerick who could be in the final miss out.

[Itchy]

We already have tiers it's called the league. Make the league more important and use the championship as it should be a knock out cup competition whereby underdog stories aren't confined to history.

Is that what your county do in club football. I assume you have a tiered championship and a tiered league too. Why do you want something different for the Inter County competitions?

[Captain Obvious]

We already have tiers it's called the league. Make the league more important and use the championship as it should be a knock out cup competition whereby underdog stories aren't confined to history.

Is that what your county do in club football. I assume you have a tiered championship and a tiered league too. Why do you want something different for the Inter County competitions?

Club and Inter County is like chalk and cheese.

[BennyCake]

We need 3 tiers. Elite, Improving and Muck. 3 Champos. If I was from Louth and Mickey Harte won a Muck Championship with us, I would be delighted.

Wouldn't quite put it like that, but you see how in LGFA and Camogie a championship win for Intermediate and Junior Counties with a move up next year motivates the teams. Its like the old days when a club is in the middle of division 2 and persists in entering the Senior Championship as they've always been a senior team, albeit they only won it once 30 years ago. Sometimes decisions have to be taken out of the hands of players and county officials for the good of the game.

It was tongue n cheek. But I agree I think we need 3 levels.

So that'll be say, 10/11 teams in Tier 1?

No doubt a champions league style format for the Championship is coming. So yes, you're right, we need yet more games between Dublin Kerry Mayo and Tyrone every week. We don't get nearly enough of those 

Well is there much point watching Dublin play Leitrim or Wicklow or Kerry play Antrim?

Dublin and Kerry would beat the other 30 anyway, most of them by a sizeable margin. And even if you keep the provincial championships, they will still continue to beat the other teams by sizeable margins.

The cream usually rise to the top, but not always. We seen last year the upsets that are possible in knockout championship football. 2010 was also a strange year. Kildare/Down could have realistically won Sam that year out of nowhere.

[BennyCake]

3 Tiers are successfully implemented at club level in every county. Its a big thing to win a junior championship if you happen to play at that level. I have written this before it is all about marketing at county level. Here is what is needed in my opinion.

All Ireland Final day is Senior, Intermediate and Junior finals all played one after each other. Minor final moved to a different date.
6 teams get 83,000 tickets minus say 10,000 for sponsors, players etc etc. So 70k odd tickets/6 = 12k tickets per county
No tickets for every club in Ireland. This has to stop.
TV rights to All Ireland final sold to competing TV channels only on the proviso that they show all 3 games live.
I think team holidays paid for by Croke Park as Mr Brolly suggested I think would also be a good incentive for the 3 winners.

Can you elaborate on that?

Sure, there are a finite amount of tickets for a game in Croke Park. Counties in a tiered competition need to earn the right to get there. It is ridiculous to take a huge proportion of the tickets for that game and give them out to every single club in Ireland at the expense of giving to the counties competing. In my proposal there would be 6 teams competing on the day and those tickets will be needed to in some way satisfy the demand in those counties. Even today, I think it is completely ridiculous that a football club in Cavan say can get tickets to an All Ireland hurling final and people say in Limerick who could be in the final miss out.

Hard to argue with that.

[Milltown Row2]

So no tickets available to hurlers in Cavan for the final? Christ the night!

Ticket allocation is distributed fairly from Croke to clubs (outside of participating counties) based on player/club numbers.

A hurling only club in the Glens could have 400 plus members, they should just sit at home?

[thewobbler]

We already have tiers it's called the league. Make the league more important and use the championship as it should be a knock out cup competition whereby underdog stories aren't confined to history.

More League to Summer, Give Sam to the winners.
The solution is staring us in the face if only we'd embrace it.

League football will never ever replace proper knockout championship.

32 county open draw, first round losers into their own championship.

When oh when will it dawn on the likes of you that current Leitrim being drawn to play current Dublin is a farcical farce of absolute farcity. It's a complete embarrassment for the former and a bye/inconvenience for the latter.

Why anyone conjures up "formats" that enable such scenarios is just beyond me. Beyond me.

[Rossfan]

Re All Ireland tickets
How many are unavailable due to 3/5/10 year seats, various other bodies and the Club allocation?
Not many left then leaving a small allocation if 6 teams involved.
Why not have an All Ireland weekend with the Minor, U20 and lower Grade Finals on Saturday with loads of tickets for the 6 Counties involved and reasonably priced so whole families can afford to go?
Big Senior Final on the Sunday and have whatever you want beforehand..  u16s, Bunscoil or whatever.

Some lad earlier saying Club and Inter County are like chalk and cheese.....but obviously not in Hurling, Camogie or Ladies football

[Armagh18]

We already have tiers it's called the league. Make the league more important and use the championship as it should be a knock out cup competition whereby underdog stories aren't confined to history.

More League to Summer, Give Sam to the winners.
The solution is staring us in the face if only we'd embrace it.

League football will never ever replace proper knockout championship.

32 county open draw, first round losers into their own championship.

When oh when will it dawn on the likes of you that current Leitrim being drawn to play current Dublin is a farcical farce of absolute farcity. It's a complete embarrassment for the former and a bye/inconvenience for the latter.

Why anyone conjures up "formats" that enable such scenarios is just beyond me. Beyond me.

This way they get their cut at sam maguire and sure always the chance they get a handy draw or 2 and go on a run. Even more interesting would be Kerry drawing Dublin in the first round. The current system of the provincials being linked to the all ireland is a joke. Look at the battles Tyrone had to come through compared to the cake walks for the other 3. (Bar Mayo at times vs Galway.

[Itchy]

So no tickets available to hurlers in Cavan for the final? Christ the night!

Ticket allocation is distributed fairly from Croke to clubs (outside of participating counties) based on player/club numbers.

A hurling only club in the Glens could have 400 plus members, they should just sit at home?

Yes, unless antrim are in the final. Why would a antrim supporter get a ticket to watch say limerick v tipp, when people in those 2 counties can't go. Pure stupid and 100% not fair

[Itchy]

Re All Ireland tickets
How many are unavailable due to 3/5/10 year seats, various other bodies and the Club allocation?
Not many left then leaving a small allocation if 6 teams involved.
Why not have an All Ireland weekend with the Minor, U20 and lower Grade Finals on Saturday with loads of tickets for the 6 Counties involved and reasonably priced so whole families can afford to go?
Big Senior Final on the Sunday and have whatever you want beforehand..  u16s, Bunscoil or whatever.

Some lad earlier saying Club and Inter County are like chalk and cheese.....but obviously not in Hurling, Camogie or Ladies football

Maybe, I suppose I don't trust the gaa and its media partners to market it. If they did I'd be happy with what you propose. Yer man earlier made that statement but didn't bother to explain it. We could do worse than just copy ladies lock stock and barrel.

[BennyCake]

We already have tiers it's called the league. Make the league more important and use the championship as it should be a knock out cup competition whereby underdog stories aren't confined to history.

More League to Summer, Give Sam to the winners.
The solution is staring us in the face if only we'd embrace it.

League football will never ever replace proper knockout championship.

32 county open draw, first round losers into their own championship.

When oh when will it dawn on the likes of you that current Leitrim being drawn to play current Dublin is a farcical farce of absolute farcity. It's a complete embarrassment for the former and a bye/inconvenience for the latter.

Why anyone conjures up "formats" that enable such scenarios is just beyond me. Beyond me.

Clare are an established Div 2 team and Kerry tanked them by 17 points. They would likely be in a Tier 1 championship together. Cork too, and Kerry beat them by 22 points. Donegal beat Down by 16 points, and they'd be in Tier 1 together too. It's not just Dublin v Leitrim where you'd get big defeats.

[Milltown Row2]

So no tickets available to hurlers in Cavan for the final? Christ the night!

Ticket allocation is distributed fairly from Croke to clubs (outside of participating counties) based on player/club numbers.

A hurling only club in the Glens could have 400 plus members, they should just sit at home?

Yes, unless antrim are in the final. Why would a antrim supporter get a ticket to watch say limerick v tipp, when people in those 2 counties can't go. Pure stupid and 100% not fair

I've been going to All Ireland finals for the past 30 odd years, right through the whole redevelopment of Croke park to the 80 odd thousand seater it is now, I'm entitled to watch our national games as someone from the teams participating on the day, the allocation is the bare minimum for non competing counties and that's fair enough. I'll accept that there are times I may not get a ticket

What you find a lot of is the bandwagon supporters who wouldn't watch their county team if they lived next door the the county ground, those 'supporters' actually don't deserve a ticket in my opinion.

So to finish, have you been to a final at Croke that didn't involve your county?

[Itchy]

So no tickets available to hurlers in Cavan for the final? Christ the night!

Ticket allocation is distributed fairly from Croke to clubs (outside of participating counties) based on player/club numbers.

A hurling only club in the Glens could have 400 plus members, they should just sit at home?

Yes, unless antrim are in the final. Why would a antrim supporter get a ticket to watch say limerick v tipp, when people in those 2 counties can't go. Pure stupid and 100% not fair

I've been going to All Ireland finals for the past 30 odd years, right through the whole redevelopment of Croke park to the 80 odd thousand seater it is now, I'm entitled to watch our national games as someone from the teams participating on the day, the allocation is the bare minimum for non competing counties and that's fair enough. I'll accept that there are times I may not get a ticket

What you find a lot of is the bandwagon supporters who wouldn't watch their county team if they lived next door the the county ground, those 'supporters' actually don't deserve a ticket in my opinion.

So to finish, have you been to a final at Croke that didn't involve your county?

No I haven't. And not having a go at you, but I would personally feel shit to take a ticket from say a Mayo man who might miss a piece of history of his county just so I could go. I had win a ticket once and gave it away. The only all ireland finals I've been to were 2 u21 finals involving cavan.