Congress

Started by Baile Brigín 2, March 01, 2021, 02:47:55 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

sid waddell

Quote from: Louther on October 23, 2021, 05:49:17 PM
Quote from: sid waddell on October 23, 2021, 05:26:59 PM
Quote from: Louther on October 23, 2021, 02:36:53 PM
Quote from: sid waddell on October 23, 2021, 02:03:22 PM
A good day for Gaelic Football, all told. As Keith Duggan said in today's Irish Times, the proposal was bonkers. B for bonkers.

Now to abolish the Tailteann Cup and the split season.

What a take. Why don't we get the Bishop back to throw in the ball too.
Or why don't we make the League more equitable in terms of format and redistribute funds to enable currently weaker counties to compete better, thus giving us a better League and a better Championship?

This is not some pipe dream, it's obvious stuff.

Sharing of funds is a pipe dream. A very bad one. It would take massive injections of cash, not just sharing what is there. If what Dublin, Mayo, Kerry etc are doing the right thing do we:

A: Fund every county in exact manner as this so that in 10/12 years we have developed all these players over time to be at same level. This will take huge injections of funds while the money from Inter county game will start dwindle. Or
B: Cut the money into these counties and redistribute it round to every other county in equal amounts for football and hurling. Waterford footballers and Kilkenny Hurlers to receive exact same funding.

Yeah. That's happening.
Make a rule that a set percentage of each county's sponsorship goes to a central fund to be redistributed equally per county.

Say you get to keep, 50% or 60% and the rest goes to the central fund.

You say why? I say why not?

sid waddell

Quote from: lenny on October 23, 2021, 08:16:55 PM
Quote from: sid waddell on October 23, 2021, 05:26:59 PM
Quote from: Louther on October 23, 2021, 02:36:53 PM
Quote from: sid waddell on October 23, 2021, 02:03:22 PM
A good day for Gaelic Football, all told. As Keith Duggan said in today's Irish Times, the proposal was bonkers. B for bonkers.

Now to abolish the Tailteann Cup and the split season.

What a take. Why don't we get the Bishop back to throw in the ball too.
Or why don't we make the League more equitable in terms of format and redistribute funds to enable currently weaker counties to compete better, thus giving us a better League and a better Championship?

This is not some pipe dream, it's obvious stuff.

You can give all the funds to Carlow, Leitrim and Fermanagh and Kilkenny footballers and they're still not getting anywhere close to even a provincial title. It's not about funding, it's about numbers and that's where the big counties have the advantage. There will be a good number of county players who won't bother next year because of this ridiculous, backwards decision. Change will come though over the next few years. Players like Mickey Quinn deserve to have several championship games in the summer against teams of similar standard so that they can develop.
Of course big counties have the advantage of numbers.

That isn't a reason to banish counties.

Do Gibraltar have the numbers Germany do? Do Ireland?

If Ireland were told, "sorry lads, ye're no longer competing against the top countries", what do you think we'd say?


thewobbler

This happens every two years you imbecile.

Apart from those rare occasions when Ireland qualifies.

You don't even know what it is that you want.

BennyCake

Quote from: sid waddell on October 23, 2021, 08:23:02 PM
Quote from: Louther on October 23, 2021, 05:49:17 PM
Quote from: sid waddell on October 23, 2021, 05:26:59 PM
Quote from: Louther on October 23, 2021, 02:36:53 PM
Quote from: sid waddell on October 23, 2021, 02:03:22 PM
A good day for Gaelic Football, all told. As Keith Duggan said in today's Irish Times, the proposal was bonkers. B for bonkers.

Now to abolish the Tailteann Cup and the split season.

What a take. Why don't we get the Bishop back to throw in the ball too.
Or why don't we make the League more equitable in terms of format and redistribute funds to enable currently weaker counties to compete better, thus giving us a better League and a better Championship?

This is not some pipe dream, it's obvious stuff.

Sharing of funds is a pipe dream. A very bad one. It would take massive injections of cash, not just sharing what is there. If what Dublin, Mayo, Kerry etc are doing the right thing do we:

A: Fund every county in exact manner as this so that in 10/12 years we have developed all these players over time to be at same level. This will take huge injections of funds while the money from Inter county game will start dwindle. Or
B: Cut the money into these counties and redistribute it round to every other county in equal amounts for football and hurling. Waterford footballers and Kilkenny Hurlers to receive exact same funding.

Yeah. That's happening.
Make a rule that a set percentage of each county's sponsorship goes to a central fund to be redistributed equally per county.

Say you get to keep, 50% or 60% and the rest goes to the central fund.

You say why? I say why not?

The sponsor would just build a gym/pool/centre for the county instead of handing over an actual cheque. There's always ways around stuff like that

sid waddell

Quote from: thewobbler on October 23, 2021, 08:30:27 PM
This happens every two years you imbecile.

Apart from those rare occasions when Ireland qualifies.

You don't even know what it is that you want.
Calling me an imbecile isn't doing very much for you.

And the rest of your response doesn't even make any sense.

Calling people who disagree with you "imbeciles" is the standard of argument that saw the ultra-elitist Proposal B turfed out on its ear today.

thewobbler

You said "If Ireland were told, "sorry lads, ye're no longer competing against the top countries", what do you think we'd say".

Meanwhile on repeat, every two years Ireland play out a league system in order to qualify for the final stages of a tournament.

You're not an imbecile because you're erratic here. You're not an imbecile because you're inconsistent here. You're not an imbecile because you're a hypocrite here.

You're not even an imbecile because you display these exact same tendencies every single time you enter a discussion.

You're an imbecile because you do all this and still think you're clever enough to cover up your erraticisms, your inconsistencies, and your hypocrisy, by ignoring people when it's pointed out.

And thus, you deserve to be called out as an imbecile. Every. f**king. Time. You. Type.


sid waddell

Quote from: thewobbler on October 23, 2021, 08:52:07 PM
You said "If Ireland were told, "sorry lads, ye're no longer competing against the top countries", what do you think we'd say".

Meanwhile on repeat, every two years Ireland play out a league system in order to qualify for the final stages of a tournament.

You're not an imbecile because you're erratic here. You're not an imbecile because you're inconsistent here. You're not an imbecile because you're a hypocrite here.

You're not even an imbecile because you display these exact same tendencies every single time you enter a discussion.

You're an imbecile because you do all this and still think you're clever enough to cover up your erraticisms, your inconsistencies, and your hypocrisy, by ignoring people when it's pointed out.

And thus, you deserve to be called out as an imbecile. Every. f**king. Time. You. Type.

You had a month to come up with arguments.

You failed completely. Your proposed system was an ultra-elitist Division 1 in which all eight teams would qualify for the knockout round.  ;D

And now you're reduced to this.

If you're going to reference international soccer, at least know how it works. You don't.

Every country gets a shot at qualifying for Euros and World Cups. Every country is treated equally.

One of the pleasant side effects of today's rejection of Proposal Bonkers is the extent to which it has riled you right up.

That rant above, my friend, that's the rant of an imbecile.

Projection is a terrible thing.




GAABoardMod5

Sid and wobbler - feuds lead to bans.

thewobbler

Fair enough mod.

Only one of us has history of feuds.

But I'll step away. All done.

sid waddell

An interview with an inter-county player from a traditionally weaker county who has actually thought deeply about the issues.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-40285874.html

Neil Ewing is an everyman inter-county footballer who has become disillusioned with the continued disenfranchisement of Gaelic football's lesser lights. He reached out to Kieran Shannon.

As we rise to our feet, Neil Ewing distills the essence of the past three hours spent in his compelling company.

"If you look at the GAA's website, it states the association was formed because at the time 'largely only the gentry and aristocracy were allowed to meaningfully participate in sport'.

"Well, you could tie that back to what is happening now — these days it's largely only the gentry and aristocracy of Gaelic football that are allowed to meaningfully participate in the sport."

In the 20-plus years I've worked in journalism, Ewing is that rare species: An active inter-county hurler or footballer who has actively initiated our meeting. His proactivity isn't prompted out of any sense of self-promotion but rather, as he phrased it in his initial correspondence, out of "a mixture of anger, disdain, and hope".

While he reckons he will watch "every minute" of the Super 8s to learn from the best and see what he can apply to his own game, for him the advent of the new format encapsulates the "dangerous place" the GAA as an organisation is in.

If you tolerate this, then a full-blown tiered Championship for your children will be next. A tiered Championship isn't what he dreamed about as a child.

Ewing happens to play for Sligo — has done so for 11 seasons now — but to reduce his thoughts as merely that of a Sligo footballer, even one who has captained the county in Championship, would be both unfair and unwise.

He's not so much an unknown — even Secret — Footballer as the Everyman Footballer: Physically ripped and optimistic by nature but increasingly disillusioned by experience.

As he explains, he could just as easily be talking from the experience of a player with Westmeath, Laois, Limerick, Clare, Wexford, Fermanagh, Louth, Derry, Armagh, Meath, Antrim, Offaly, Down... The silenced majority.

At some point over the past decade or the previous one, each of those counties would have played in at least one provincial final — and, almost without exception, been competitive in it.

Most of them would have played in an All-Ireland quarter-final, some a semi-final, even a final.

A good few would have made it to a Division One league semi-final or final during the noughties.

Can you picture any of them making another one any year soon?

Well, why not? What happened? What changed?

Surely that means things need to change now?

Yet all he hears is scrap those provincials, dump most of the aforementioned counties into a cellar Championship while the gentry and aristocracy continue to enjoy the perks and privileges that go with being members of the exclusive Super 8s club.

For him, that's merely tackling — and reinforcing — the symptoms of the problem instead of addressing the root causes of the problem.

Counties have been let drift and now the GAA seem ready to cut them adrift, rather than reach out and bring them back towards shore.

Someone's got to shout Stop. Might as well be him.

Kieran if possible would like to chat sometime on the issues which I think are major for the GAA based on what counties like ourselves have experienced over the last number of years.

Counties losing ambition.

Counties copying outdated methods that brought success to other counties in the past. No innovation.

Players in every county not been given an equal opportunity to develop their potential.

Dwindling interest in playing and attending club games due to constant negativity in the media about our great games.

Senior inter-county is just the tip of the iceberg — the real problems are in how counties are developing club and 'elite' players from underage up. If this was done more optimally then every county would be able to produce 20-30 competitive players.

All this talk of tiers. Tiers are not the solution. They will kill the game in many counties. If we need tiers, how come Sligo could play in three Connacht finals between 2007 and 2012 with no more than two points between the teams?

- Regards Neil Ewing

"This," explains Neil Ewing upon reflecting on life as an inter-county footballer, "is not what I signed up for."

This is not how the dream was packaged to him.

The first time he aspired to be a county player was back when he was eight, 21 years ago now. Sligo, coached by Mickey Moran, had won through to the Connacht final, against a Mayo side that had contested the previous year's All-Ireland final. His parents weren't of GAA stock so he had never been at an inter-county game before but like nearly every kid in the county, he was brought along to Hyde Park that day.

It's still ingrained in his mind and soul: The long walk to the ground in the drizzling rain, the waft of burgers and chips, the reception from the terraces the players received upon dashing out of the tunnel.

Sligo lost by a point but the subsequent defiance and pride of the supporters resonated as strongly with him as any sense of disappointment.

"The following day I was with my mum in the post office and the guy behind the counter was talking to me about the game and how Sligo were robbed. And I remember being struck by how moved that guy was by Sligo football. How this was something which would be really good to be part of. That's when I first had the thought — 'I want to play for Sligo.'"

Over the years the dream became progressively bigger and more real. He was in the terraces when Sligo beat Mayo in Markievicz Park in 2000, in Croker when they played the Dubs in 2001 having shocked a Kildare side that had contested the previous year's All-Ireland final; there again when they shocked Tyrone and rattled Armagh in 2002. By the time he was called up to the panel as a 19-year-old in 2008, Sligo were reigning Connacht champions.

There've been some magical days since. Turning over both Galway and Mayo in 2010. Ambushing Galway in Salthill in 2012, then giving Roscommon the same shock-and-awe treatment in 2015.

"At work in the bank you'd be walking down the street at lunchtime the following Monday and there's people talking about football who normally wouldn't have any interest in it. That's what sustains a player. That's what grows a game in a county. You don't have to have it every year. But the way it's going now..."

He proceeds to tell you through another Monday after a big game. This summer Sligo were hammered by 21 points by Galway. Few salutes in the workplace or on the street this time. Instead, only bemused, even derisory, headshakes.

"You'll be at work from October to June telling a colleague, 'I can't do that, we're training tonight', or explaining why you're eating what you're eating because it helps with your recovery from training the night before. Then you come back in after you've lost by 21 points in the Championship at the weekend and they're saying, 'Was it worth all that training?! You're daft in the head!'

"Over the years we've been lucky in Sligo in that we haven't had a massive turnover in players but I can see now lads wondering if it's worth it. Either they're getting ridiculed by the small number of supporters there are in the county or they're being ridiculed by friends and work colleagues who don't get why they're putting so much into it."

The way he sees it, everyone seems to have got caught and swept away in this spiralling cycle of negativity: Media, supporters, clubs, county boards, and ultimately, even the players.

"After the Galway game, people are telling you, 'You'll never beat them.' In the back of my mind I'm thinking that we beat them in 2012 and we have the players to compete at that level. But then the media will talk about tiers being the only way to go to avoid these one-sided games and fans start to buy into it. 'Ah sure, they have to do something, they have to change the Championship.' And you see players buying into it that then.

"There's a clamour to implement tiers like we have in hurling but you're not comparing like with like. Most of the country is wasteland when it comes to hurling. In hurling the tiers are a progression because you're trying to improve the game from where it was 10-15 years ago but in football tiers would be proof of how we've regressed from 10-15 years ago when the Championship was much more competitive.

"People talk about small populations. Croatia has only four million people and they can reach a World Cup. Every county should have the capacity to put out 20-30 footballers that can compete.

"You need to address why the Championship has become uncompetitive before you start tinkering any more with the Championship. You should be trying to address and close the gap that has opened between the counties, not come up with a system that reflects and perpetuates that gap."

So why has the football Championship become so less competitive and democratic than it was in the noughties when counties like Sligo were reaching Division One league semi-finals and All-Ireland quarter-finals and winning Connacht en route?

A combination of factors, he outlines. "First of all, the level of professionalism wasn't there in some of the bigger counties."

They subsequently got their act together. John Costello with Pat Gilroy in Dublin. Closer to where Ewing lives, Donegal, under Jim McGuiness, north of the border; Mayo, under James Horan, south of the border.

Meanwhile the mid-tier counties became more scatter-gunned and less ambitious in how they went about their business. Over the years, a veteran like Ewing has experienced all kinds of set-ups — some good, some middling, and some that have been way off.

There have been seasons where Ewing and most of his county team-mates would have played with their clubs well into October and before the end of the month would have had to right back into pre-season with the county. Gym Monday, pitch Tuesday, gym Wednesday, off Thursday, pitch Friday night when the Dublin lads would be back, gym Saturday, pitch again Sunday.

And that would be with barely a ball seen on that pitch, right through all of November, December, even January. One Friday night they had a heavy physical pitch session, then at 6.45am the following morning Ewing was at the doorstep of a team-mate to bring him to a challenge match across the country. Unsurprisingly, several players picked up injuries during that game — and Sligo failed to emerge from Division Three.

Some commentators will ascribe such insanity to the perils of "science" but Ewing is discerning enough to know science was never involved in that equation. Science is about discovering and aiding good practice. If it's bad practice, it's bad science. In fact, it's not science at all. All around the country every team is training hard but not every team is training efficiently.

There are and have been set-ups that haven't adequately known what they are at because the county board that appointed them wouldn't know what to look for. Ask them if they're afflicted more by ignorance or apathy and they'd probably tell you they don't know and they don't care.

"The constant negativity and perception that is being fed down from some pundits has become reality for a lot of county boards. They feel they have no right to compete with these teams. 'Why should we try to compete with them?' It's just about getting fixtures played, we'll get it done within budget and close it off for the year and move on – 'This is our place in the GAA.'"

The way he sees it, counties should be doing a lot more to help themselves. That's why he has such admiration for Carlow and the Turlough O'Brien project in recent years.

"They've stood up for themselves and said: 'We're capable of better than this.'"

But there's another party that could help the counties help themselves — Croke Park. He looks at how the major sports in the most capitalist country in the world, America, and how they're nearly socialist in ensuring a competitive balance through interventions like the draft system and a salary cap. The GAA approach in contrast strikes him as Darwinistic, laissez faire. They need to give more of a helping hand to counties, even if that means that hand has to occasionally wag the finger.

"If it was a financial issue rather than a football one, Croke Park would be stepping in. Sligo produce a series of accounts to Croke Park at the end of the year and Croke Park might go 'Okay, you need help on this.' And they have done that in the case of Sligo and other counties in the past — they've sent people down from HQ to help with their finances.

"I think the same should apply on the football end of it. Counties should be answerable to suitably-qualified people in Croke Park and outline: 'This is what we're doing to develop football within the county' and then Croke Park need to go back to them to say: 'Well, based on what you've done over the last six months, we're not happy with where you are.'"

He's not just talking about the senior inter-county game and Croke Park identifying people like Jim McGuinness to be involved in the interview and recruitment process of a management team. It's how clubs and counties are developing players.

"At the moment you see in counties they're going down the chain until they get someone who'll say 'yes' to taking a development squad and then they're told, 'Here's your cones and bibs and balls.' There's no framework set out."

For him it's not so much an issue of providing finance. "If you were to turn around and give every county in Ireland the same funding that's given to Dublin, it wouldn't spent efficiently," he contends. It's more an issue of offering expertise.

And yet, from what he can gather, new GAA president John Horan's big idea is to bring in some tiered Championship in the format, the Na Fianna clubman probably having no idea of just how much damage altering the league a decade did for the Championship competitiveness of the mid-tier counties.

Back in the noughties Sligo were just one of many mid-tier counties that were playing the likes of Kerry and Dublin and Mayo in the league. Then, for some reason, the GAA did away with 16 teams in Division One and instead reduced it to eight. There was the start of the slippery road to the Super 8.


"There's no doubt about it, Division One is a very good competition in its own right — the best teams in the country are playing week in week out against each other. But what has happened is that you've had five or six teams who have been constantly in Division One pushing each other onto a new level. What you have then outside of a revolving door of three or four teams is that the reverse has applied — if you're playing week in week out in Division Four, that's the level you adapt to. Similarly in Division Three, even Division Two.

"People talk about a top-tier Championship with 16 teams but those teams in Division Two at the moment still won't be able to compete with the top six teams in the country.

"You're going to have a tiered Championship where teams are still only going to get wiped off the pitch.

"If you want to get better, you have to play outside your comfort zone. And without getting too lofty or aspirational, the official guide of the GAA explicitly states at the outset that its basic aim is the preservation and promotion of the games in the 32 counties. So I would sacrifice Division One and how those top teams have made each other better and let them take a step back and pull the other teams up.


"The last two seasons Clare have been in Division Two. A decade ago that would have meant they'd have been exposed to playing Dublin. Imagine Dublin going down to Ennis next spring. It'd be a competitive game because Dublin wouldn't yet be at Championship speed. Youngsters would get to see their own players going up against the best in the country, the sponsors of these mid-tier counties would get some recognition because maybe TG4 or League Sunday would be covering it. And it would rise the standard of that mid-tier county.

"Now, it might bring the top teams back to the pack a bit but it would definitely rise the standard of the pack. And in a couple of years you'd have a more competitive Championship, especially in the provinces.

"Last year in the Championship we played Mayo, a perennial Division One team. They got a second goal late on to win by nine in the end but we learned so much from that game by being out of our comfort zone. Even the physicality; you learned you could get away with tackling a lot more aggressively against Division One teams. After that we beat Antrim, then lost to Meath by just two points in Navan. But then we had to wait 12 months to play another game against a Division One team."

If it was up to him, the GAA should revert to the old 1A-1B format, or better still, ensure all counties are guaranteed several league games against some top counties. Again, it might mean the strong getting that bit weaker but, as he argues: "Would that be a terrible thing if it sustained the game in the other counties for generations to come?"

Right now, with the Super 8s, he sees the stronger are only going to get stronger.

"It exacerbates the problems we have. It's nearly like running Division One of the league again in the summer."

In the meantime, he'll carry on carrying on.

"Why do I play? I've always wanted to be the best player that I could be. Some of my best friends are on the panel. I think I owe it to the younger lads on the panel to try and help them to bring their game to the next level.

"And call me mad but at the start of every season I've genuinely believed if we put it all together we can win the Connacht Championship. Myself and my girlfriend would have spoken over the years about maybe going away travelling but we haven't because I can't miss a year with Sligo as that year could be the year."

Still protecting the dream, hoping it'll remain one for future generations.

Itchy

Quote from: thewobbler on October 23, 2021, 09:13:21 PM
Fair enough mod.

Only one of us has history of feuds.

But I'll step away. All done.

All I see is this

"You are ignoring this user. Show me the post"

Try it for Sid, you'll feel so much better

StPatsAbu


Main Street

Quote from: Hound on October 23, 2021, 10:57:18 AM
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.
Convuluted?  no it's just bull.  Prob B gone for a walk on the wild side,  4211   ;D

dublin7

All today has done is inflict another season of hammerings and farcical games.

Only positive is people can't bitch about Dublin advantages anymore. They voted for plan B so when they do their annual stroll through Leinster people can't complain about their farcical advantages

thewobbler

#479
"Let's get  rid of the provincial championships".

50 years ago: nobody would have even thought of it.

40 years ago: nobody would have even thought of it.

30 years ago: nobody would have even thought of it.

20 years ago: nobody would have even thought of it.

10 years ago: laughter.

Now: a very slight majority agrees.

—-

It'll happen soon.