Congress

[Rossfan]

We never won a Winter u20.
But we did win a Summer one in McHale Park this year
Looks like the vote on B will be a close call.
Fair play to those Boards who consulted Clubs and players and gave mandated their delegates to vote accordingly (mainly FOR).
No marks to those who are taking the "Yerra" option of decide on the day.
Question for the Galway lads... did tere Board go down the consultation route or has Chair/Executive decided on their own bat?
Heard the Chair on local radio who kept repeating if there are amendments we'd vote for it but no mention of what sort of amendments they wanted.
He sounded like a chap who was winging it. Wonder was he "diplomatically advised"?

[Louther]

Some of the narrative round this vote has been depressing. And can sum up what the issues across the GAA are. At the top level - county board, provincial, central council - we have lots of people who see committees and meetings as been at the core of the GAA and tradition been the bedrock.

Fail to see what's going round them and how a few big days in Croke Park, more games and increased pricing has masked the strength of the GAA in recent years. The product itself matters little to a lot of people until the big day out when there will be competition.

We have one person who came up with the options talking them down and saying they need amendments. Amateur hour.

Took a progressive county board like Offaly who said they'd support to get the ball rolling. Offaly aren't a county feeling sorry for themselves and looking others to do it for them. They going out and been active and slowly get rewards. The provincial councils see a challenge coming and dismiss it and everything that comes with it. Rather than seeing opportunities and progressive thinking they run and hide.

They talk about traditional games. It wasn't until recently that they actually started club competitions across all grades. Senior club provincial games aren't about 130 years either. Wasn't until the 70s they started. Intermediate and Junior grades started much later and all these competitions came about because progressive clubs seen these games as opportunities and held good watch tournaments and then later the invitation tournaments for intermediate and junior clubs. Such was their success wasn't long until they became officially under the banner of the provincial councils.

Self preservation is all they see. Leinster county boards have proved this time and time again once Dublins money dangled in front of them.

All the talk now seems to be about keeping more teams in the knock out stages. Why? If you don't qualify you don't qualify. Not as if Div 3 or 4 teams are going to take up half a dozen places. They get an outside chance.

I just don't know if any ambition exists. Roll it out and make it all work. We can amend when it's running after a number of years but the Intercounty championship game of 2019 is dead.

[Cunny Funt]

60% is a high bar. I can see it falling somewhere around 45-55%.

If it did get through I'd be very confident the new provincial championship dates would do much better than the negative press it's getting. Okay, Munster and Leinster will still be Munster and Leinster, but there's absolutely no reason the big games in Connacht and Ulster won't have the same attendance and atmosphere they have in the summer.

Roscommon fans go mental when they win a Connacht U20 in the winter, so I think it's a bit silly to suggest they wouldn't have huge celebrations for winning a senior Connacht title in the Spring. It's not like beating Mayo in a senior final in the normal system knocks Mayo out of the All Ireland anyway, so the fact that Mayo would still be favourites to finish higher than the Rossies in the league/championship format is no reason not to celebrate provincial success as they normally would. 

The worry I'd have for the new system is dead rubbers in the lower divisions.

The comment of the Galway county board saying they'd like to see teams 6, 7 and 8 in D1 in the knockout stages really worried me. That would make an absolute nonsense of it and make all 7 games in D1 pre-championship challenge games.

With the All Ireland, only 1 team wins and all rest exit at different times. So to me I see not a thing wrong with a heap of teams exiting after their 7 games. The will have had their chance (games 6 and 7 in particular will have a knockout feel), but they will have failed, and they can try again next year. Certainly better than all the teams who exit at the first or second round of the qualifiers, many only having had 2 or 3 games.

Allowing the best of the worst teams parachute into the knockout stages is annoying some people, but the weaker counties seem unanimous in their view that this is what they want- play games against their own level, and let the best of them then have a shot at the bigger teams.

More the press calling it like it is than negative press. It's not a Provincial championships anymore under proposal B, that competition so close to the start of the league/championship managements will have no choice but use the finals as warm ups before the more important fixtures Some can dress it up but it's a pre season competition played in the spring time and that won't have close to crowds that attends summer provincial championship games.

Galway are taking the right stance IMO,  do the required adjustments to proposal B and it would likely sail through at the February Congress instead of changing after 2,3 into this new format.

The league system under proposal B will be used to find 10 teams to play in the knock out AI series (they'll solve a lot of issues by making it a higher number than 10) championship knock out football is the ultimate test for any team. Div 3,4 teams will get that with Tailteann Cup (will want to be improvement on the Tommy Murphy Cup) while 3 in Div 1 and 5 Div 2 will finish their season without a knock out championship match under proposal B.

[thewobbler]

The days of counties like Leitrim, Limerick and Louth competing with the likes of Mayo, Dublin and Kerry are gone. The top counties are investing so much in training, weight programs etc that they have pulled away and it's one of the main reasons we see so many hammerings in each province come the championship.

I don't think anyone is stupid enough to believe a county like Carlow could win Sam under the new proposal, but what they do have is a legitimate opportunity to compete for a trophy and are guaranteed 7 games a season rather than a hammering in the provincial championship followed by another hammering in the qualifiers.

The same principal could be applied to all the other div 3 & 4 teams as it gives them a chance to compete for silverware each season and play far more games.

Paragraph 1 succinctly summarises the rationale for change.

However rather than address the problem, i.e. how can we make these counties more competitive, the proposed solution is to sideline them into a mickey mouse competition and give them a series of meaningless games to win a meaningless competition.

This is exactly the problem with the thinking of the GAA and GAA media.

Making counties which are weak now competitive again is difficult. It takes time, money and effort.

So in true Homer Simpson fashion, the GAA and GAA media tell us "if something is difficult, it's not worth even attempting".

The GAA is telling us that the strong will be strong forever and the weak will remain weak forever. Ultra-elitism.

How long before a yawning chasm of standards emerges within Division 1 itself, where the weakest two or three counties in it cannot compete with the strongest two or three, and we get constant yo-yoing?

And where do we go from there?

The GAA cannot sustain a Premier League format.

And people need to look at the problems with the Premier League, and with other European Leagues.

There's a serious possibility that the Gaelic football championship becomes a La Liga type duopoly, Dublin as Real Madrid, Kerry as Barcelona.

Tyrone and Mayo might be the Atletico Madrids and Valencias.

Down and Derry will probably become Eibar and Rayo Vallecano.

Premier League format?

What do you mean?

25% of all competitors in D1 would get relegated each year. 37.5% of them wouldn't make the knockout stages.

The cushions aren't there. They have to treat the league part of the championship with full focus and intensity, or it will hurt like hell.

——

If you mean that the gap will widen because in each season the D1 counties gets a series of 7 more difficult games than those below, well you should probably start by accepting that this has been the case for a lifetime.

But the counties in the lower leagues continue to respond to the leagues, each and every year. While a large proportion of them do little more than fulfil a fixture or two in the current championship format.

If you see the league as a problem in the GaA, you aren't watching.

[Derry Optimist]

Such is the  proficiency and  efficiency of the Provincial GAA Councils in canvassing in  all media outlets  as well as using  old fashioned dictatorial methods it has to be seen and heard  to be believed.

The three greatest political parties in the history of getting their own way by intensive canvassing  in this country,have been the DUP, Sinn Fein  and formerly, in the real old times, Fianna Fail. From what I am hearing  the GAA conservative wing are putting  them all in the halfpenny place!!

That is all very fine IF  ALL DELEGATES obey the rules of their own mandates. Therefore there should be, even at this very late stage, some reliable mechanism used to ensure that this happens.

[lenny]

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-40727532.html


Great article here which gives a player's point of view along with an administrators. Both have really thought about and raise some very interesting points. It's really a complex issue and the impact on club football would be huge. On balance I'd be sympathetic to Mickey Quinn.

[dublin7]

Some of the narrative round this vote has been depressing. And can sum up what the issues across the GAA are. At the top level - county board, provincial, central council - we have lots of people who see committees and meetings as been at the core of the GAA and tradition been the bedrock.

Fail to see what's going round them and how a few big days in Croke Park, more games and increased pricing has masked the strength of the GAA in recent years. The product itself matters little to a lot of people until the big day out when there will be competition.

We have one person who came up with the options talking them down and saying they need amendments. Amateur hour.

Took a progressive county board like Offaly who said they'd support to get the ball rolling. Offaly aren't a county feeling sorry for themselves and looking others to do it for them. They going out and been active and slowly get rewards. The provincial councils see a challenge coming and dismiss it and everything that comes with it. Rather than seeing opportunities and progressive thinking they run and hide.

They talk about traditional games. It wasn't until recently that they actually started club competitions across all grades. Senior club provincial games aren't about 130 years either. Wasn't until the 70s they started. Intermediate and Junior grades started much later and all these competitions came about because progressive clubs seen these games as opportunities and held good watch tournaments and then later the invitation tournaments for intermediate and junior clubs. Such was their success wasn't long until they became officially under the banner of the provincial councils.

Self preservation is all they see. Leinster county boards have proved this time and time again once Dublins money dangled in front of them.

All the talk now seems to be about keeping more teams in the knock out stages. Why? If you don't qualify you don't qualify. Not as if Div 3 or 4 teams are going to take up half a dozen places. They get an outside chance.

I just don't know if any ambition exists. Roll it out and make it all work. We can amend when it's running after a number of years but the Intercounty championship game of 2019 is dead.

That's a great post. Even on this thread you've got posters criticising plan B because 1 team in division one might be inconvienced. Forget the fact the new plan will benefit many counties, 1  county could potentially lose out so that means vote no.

The ironic thing is the same people will be moaning over counties like Dublin strolling through the provincial championship as it is and claiming they've an unfair advantage

[Kickham csc]

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-40727532.html


Great article here which gives a player's point of view along with an administrators. Both have really thought about and raise some very interesting points. It's really a complex issue and the impact on club football would be huge. On balance I'd be sympathetic to Mickey Quinn.

I am sympathetic to Mickey Quinn, but the two paragraphs that stand out for me are from Baker
1 - "In Ulster, we had the Dr McKenna Cup, with at least three matches there, sometimes more. You had seven National League matches and then you had at least two championship matches.

You don't have any more games in this system. You possibly have a round robin Ulster Championship which is three matches along with your seven league matches. Some will not have a knockout game. So there aren't any more matches.

2 "We have had 137 years of the provincial championships which we are saying is broken. So why are we changing that with another flawed system?"

Baker lists a number of serious challenges, these really do need to be thought out and war gamed to try and iron out the major flaws

[lenny]

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-40727532.html


Great article here which gives a player's point of view along with an administrators. Both have really thought about and raise some very interesting points. It's really a complex issue and the impact on club football would be huge. On balance I'd be sympathetic to Mickey Quinn.

I am sympathetic to Mickey Quinn, but the two paragraphs that stand out for me are from Baker
1 - "In Ulster, we had the Dr McKenna Cup, with at least three matches there, sometimes more. You had seven National League matches and then you had at least two championship matches.

You don't have any more games in this system. You possibly have a round robin Ulster Championship which is three matches along with your seven league matches. Some will not have a knockout game. So there aren't any more matches.

2 "We have had 137 years of the provincial championships which we are saying is broken. So why are we changing that with another flawed system?"

Baker lists a number of serious challenges, these really do need to be thought out and war gamed to try and iron out the major flaws

The big problem for me is the timing. I'd like the county games played in May/June. Finals in early July to allow the club season a good run. The split season has a lot of merit for everyone.

[DuffleKing]

Never met the man but, not for the first time, Barker sounds like an idiot.

We can't play big county games in a window where might be playing pre season club games? And this from a man who served on the committee that brought these recommendations forward!

[bannside]

Pre season club games well down the agenda I'm afraid DK. No money in that for CLG! And to be fair, club teams don't need county players for pre season club matches. Throw open an opportunity to develop other squad members. You'll get your county men back when they are needed. Don't forget most clubs you will be playing will be out one or two players as well.

[DuffleKing]

I think the main point on this one is that post the split season approach, this isn't even a discussion area.

[Rossfan]

Never met the man but, not for the first time, Barker sounds like an idiot.

We can't play big county games in a window where might be playing pre season club games? And this from a man who served on the committee that brought these recommendations forward!

Here's something I drew up but it's rubbish so don't vote for it
Like the Galway Chair he sounds like a lad who'd been nobbled by a Provincial influencer.
The same point about 10 games in 13 weeks as well.
Neither of them must have heard about the split season.

[Hound]

A minor enough tweak to Proposal B would solve a lot of problems, it would mean;
- the top teams all get a go at proper knockout
- the weaker teams would still have the chance of making the AI  knockout stages
- there would be a clear advantage to being in D1 vs D2, D2vD3 and D3vD4
- the Tailtean Cup would have a reward

Instead of 6-3-1-1, change it to 4-2-1-1 that makes the "Playoff Round'
Held at a neutral venue with the winners progressing to the Quarter Finals with home advantage when they get there. Top team in D1 plays D4 winners, D1 second plays D3 winners so also an advantage to finishing as high as possible in D1 to reduce risk of dead rubbers.
Losers of Playoff Round go to Qualifier R2.

Teams 5-8 in D1 and teams 3-6 in D2 play in AI Qualifier R1. Seeded according to league placement but neutral venues. Winners go to Qualifier R2 , losers are finally out.

4 Losers from Playoff Round and 4 winners from Qualifier R1 play in Qualifier R2, with the winners progressing into quarter-final. Open draw but cannot have a repeat pairing from Playoff Round.

Bottom 2 in D1 relegated to D2 and replaced by top 2 in D2.
Bottom 2 in D2 provisional relegated (see next point) and don't get to play in Sam Maguire.  But they do play Tailteann along with D3 and D4 teams.
Winner of D3 promoted to D2 for next season, along with winners of Talteann

My explanation has probably made it seem more convoluted than it is, but it's quite similar to proposal B.

[sid waddell]

A minor enough tweak to Proposal B would solve a lot of problems, it would mean;
- the top teams all get a go at proper knockout
- the weaker teams would still have the chance of making the AI  knockout stages
- there would be a clear advantage to being in D1 vs D2, D2vD3 and D3vD4
- the Tailtean Cup would have a reward

Instead of 6-3-1-1, change it to 4-2-1-1 that makes the "Playoff Round'
Held at a neutral venue with the winners progressing to the Quarter Finals with home advantage when they get there. Top team in D1 plays D4 winners, D1 second plays D3 winners so also an advantage to finishing as high as possible in D1 to reduce risk of dead rubbers.
Losers of Playoff Round go to Qualifier R2.

Teams 5-8 in D1 and teams 3-6 in D2 play in AI Qualifier R1. Seeded according to league placement but neutral venues. Winners go to Qualifier R2 , losers are finally out.

4 Losers from Playoff Round and 4 winners from Qualifier R1 play in Qualifier R2, with the winners progressing into quarter-final. Open draw but cannot have a repeat pairing from Playoff Round.

Bottom 2 in D1 relegated to D2 and replaced by top 2 in D2.
Bottom 2 in D2 provisional relegated (see next point) and don't get to play in Sam Maguire.  But they do play Tailteann along with D3 and D4 teams.
Winner of D3 promoted to D2 for next season, along with winners of Talteann

My explanation has probably made it seem more convoluted than it is, but it's quite similar to proposal B.

That makes the league stage essentially pointless.