All Ireland club football championships 2023/24

[Wildweasel74]

There more teams play senior championship in Leitrim and Fermanagh, (10) than in Kerry with more than twice the teams. Something is  wrong there. If Kerry club fball so good how come they don't win the All - Ireland club so often in a weak club province at Senior level where only the winners of Cork are serious rivals.

[clarshack]

The atmosphere in our game was electric and must have been a great viewing for a neutral and its not often the Cliffords are playing in a curtain raiser. For me that was a senior championship club game in most counties not even intermediate and they'll be talking about this game for many years to come. Was this the club equivalent of the 1983 All-Ireland with all the sendings off?
The Intermediate Final was quite sterile and boring to watch after.

[clarshack]

There will be extra spice for the Tyrone Kerry game on March 5th.

[From the Bunker]

Kerry with 64 clubs could easily be 4 league of 16,Senior, Intermediate, Junior A and Junior B. best inter is 17th best junior is 33rd team.

No it couldn't because you are forgetting about Divisional teams which is the lifeblood of the Kerry championship structure. I (and most others) would resist any attempt to undermine this. As I said previously however, I would be in favour of increasing the number of club teams in Senior championship from 8 to 10 possibly. That would have an effect. Croke Park are blocking this is my understanding.

To those going on about some sort of Senior and Senior A or B structure - I think that's nonsense. Either you are Senior and you have a chance of competing for the top prize or you don't and you're Intermediate.

This leads me to Cork, where they have not only Senior A, but Intermediate A. Senior - Senior A - Premier Intermediate - Intermediate A - Junior A. Which means that the winners of the 1st grade, 3rd grade and 5th grade represent Cork in Munster competitions. Which is silly in my view. If Cork renamed their competitions and 1st to 3rd grade winners were in Munster Kerry teams would be getting test far more and the number of Kerry teams winning All Irelands at Junior and Intermediate would drop immediately.

The simple solution is to have a Senior B Championship with 8 teams and let the players from those teams play with the Divisional teams in the Kerry Championship. This would set the balance right and not affect anybody.

[clarshack]

Kerry Forum again:

"Right the dust has settled and I'm home after my few pints in Dublin. I was talking to Dublin Mayo Sligo Meath Donegal and Kerry people about the game. Obviously different views but the one condenses is that the game was played in good spirits till near the end. The foul on Paudie was horrendous but let us not forget Tadhg Kennelly. That was horrendous. Im a Kerryman. I love Kerry but because I've spent the last 30 years standing up for us I have to call a spade a spade and everyday wrong is wrong. I argue with posters that don't see us do wrong. Kerry have been as cynical as anyone over the years. As Billy Morgan said years ago "Some say Northern teams are cynical well the most cynical of all are down south". Today in my view the ref got most of his calls right. Both Clifford's deserved red as did the Tyrone boys. I call things as I see them and right or wrong I'll stand over them but I try to give a dair synopsis."

[Gael80]

There more teams play senior championship in Leitrim and Fermanagh, (10) than in Kerry with more than twice the teams. Something is  wrong there. If Kerry club fball so good how come they don't win the All - Ireland club so often in a weak club province at Senior level where only the winners of Cork are serious rivals.

I agree the system should be looked at however to be fair Kerry's internal system produces players for inter county level. As for the club scene the senior club championship is very competitive at provincial level, but Kerry clubs have won the senior All Ireland and usually compete.

For all the talk of Kerry's system questions should be asked how Tyrone can produce so many junior and intermediate provincial, All Ireland champions or All Ireland finalists yet never have a club bar one in the past that genuinely competes at senior level.

That says to me there must be clubs in Tyrone that are graded lower than they would be in most other counties.

[smort]

There more teams play senior championship in Leitrim and Fermanagh, (10) than in Kerry with more than twice the teams. Something is  wrong there. If Kerry club fball so good how come they don't win the All - Ireland club so often in a weak club province at Senior level where only the winners of Cork are serious rivals.

I agree the system should be looked at however to be fair Kerry's internal system produces players for inter county level. As for the club scene the senior club championship is very competitive at provincial level, but Kerry clubs have won the senior All Ireland and usually compete.

For all the talk of Kerry's system questions should be asked how Tyrone can produce so many junior and intermediate provincial, All Ireland champions or All Ireland finalists yet never have a club bar one in the past that genuinely competes at senior level.

That says to me there must be clubs in Tyrone that are graded lower than they would be in most other counties.

As someone said in another thread, Tyrone is one of the fairest systems I know of. Top 1/3 of teams are senior, next 1/3 are intermediate, bottom 1/3 junior

I think it just shows how competitive Tyrone club football is from top to bottom.

[Redhand Santa]

There is an easy solution to this problem which doesn't involve Kerry changing their internal structures and improves the integrity of their competition. If you look at the split of their clubs it would be much fairer if their junior champions entered the All Ireland Intermediate championship. I believe they have another junior competition for the lowest ranked teams in the county and the winners of this could enter the All Ireland junior champions.

There is no way the 9th best team out of 64 should be allowed to enter the intermediate championship. They also shouldnt be forced to change their structures which works so well for them.

[Armagh18]

There more teams play senior championship in Leitrim and Fermanagh, (10) than in Kerry with more than twice the teams. Something is  wrong there. If Kerry club fball so good how come they don't win the All - Ireland club so often in a weak club province at Senior level where only the winners of Cork are serious rivals.

I agree the system should be looked at however to be fair Kerry's internal system produces players for inter county level. As for the club scene the senior club championship is very competitive at provincial level, but Kerry clubs have won the senior All Ireland and usually compete.

For all the talk of Kerry's system questions should be asked how Tyrone can produce so many junior and intermediate provincial, All Ireland champions or All Ireland finalists yet never have a club bar one in the past that genuinely competes at senior level.

That says to me there must be clubs in Tyrone that are graded lower than they would be in most other counties.

As someone said in another thread, Tyrone is one of the fairest systems I know of. Top 1/3 of teams are senior, next 1/3 are intermediate, bottom 1/3 junior

I think it just shows how competitive Tyrone club football is from top to bottom.

Yeah agreed. Same in Armagh although it leaves us weak when we go into Ulster, a lot of lower senior teams are probably intermediate standard and a lot of intermediate teams would be junior in Tyrone and other counties.

[Walter Cronc]

There more teams play senior championship in Leitrim and Fermanagh, (10) than in Kerry with more than twice the teams. Something is  wrong there. If Kerry club fball so good how come they don't win the All - Ireland club so often in a weak club province at Senior level where only the winners of Cork are serious rivals.

I agree the system should be looked at however to be fair Kerry's internal system produces players for inter county level. As for the club scene the senior club championship is very competitive at provincial level, but Kerry clubs have won the senior All Ireland and usually compete.

For all the talk of Kerry's system questions should be asked how Tyrone can produce so many junior and intermediate provincial, All Ireland champions or All Ireland finalists yet never have a club bar one in the past that genuinely competes at senior level.

That says to me there must be clubs in Tyrone that are graded lower than they would be in most other counties.

As someone said in another thread, Tyrone is one of the fairest systems I know of. Top 1/3 of teams are senior, next 1/3 are intermediate, bottom 1/3 junior

I think it just shows how competitive Tyrone club football is from top to bottom.

It might work within Tyrone as it produces competitive championships; that is different to quality at senior level though, probably more about making the intermediate/junior both quality and competitive which is seen later on when their champions leave the county.

Is it possible to be so poor at senior club level yet produce All Ireland winning or at least competing for titles at Junior and intermediate level without some kind of system advantage?

Derry and Galway probably have the best systems, they tend to be competitive through every grade and produce different clubs genuinely competing for the senior All Ireland. If you can only compete at Intermediate and Junior level with clubs obviously well ahead of most opposition at that level there is a system advantage somewhere in my opinion.

Our record at junior level in Ulster is very poor. Not sure we've even had one winner!

[Milltown Row2]

Croke, could if they wanted have separate competitions. I'm nearly sure there is a junior b championship that is held in hurling, I'm not sure, but the the stats on this don't really lie.

The Kerry format wasn't built to suit winning these titles as they are a recent set up from the senior competition that has been around for years, as has Kerry's club championship format. It's worked well for them in developing senior abled county players from clubs that would, in any other county, not get senior representatives..

How many junior players are playing county football or on the Tyrone county panel now?

[An Fhairche Abu]

Kerry can setup internally as best they want for their club championships but it's absolutely disadvantaging clubs from other counties at this stage, the evidence is clear as day, in the final nearly every year and it's only because of the likes of Oughterard springing a huge upset against a Templenoe team that was sprinkled with Kerry county players that it's not every year.

I probably wouldn't be as bothered about it only I've seen my own home place win the Junior AI and how incredible that was for the players and the local people. Huge joy and priceless memories that will last a lifetime for everyone there on the day. Will anyone from our parish present in CP for that final live to see the likes again? Doubtful, this is one shot stuff for most clubs that get to the latter stages, it's hard to take that a team can slog through on a great run to come up against another club who shouldn't have been let into the competition in the first place, and a team from the number one football county in the country no less who would successful enough in the competitions even without such an artificial advantage.

Up to CP to grow a set of balls and ensure that there is a level playing field at this point, they were happy enough to dictate a hard limit to counties who didn't want to cut their number of Senior club teams and shouldn't care about hurting Kerry sensibilities.

[Ciarrai_thuaidh]

Kerry can setup internally as best they want for their club championships but it's absolutely disadvantaging clubs from other counties at this stage, the evidence is clear as day, in the final nearly every year and it's only because of the likes of Oughterard springing a huge upset against a Templenoe team that was sprinkled with Kerry county players that it's not every year.

I probably wouldn't be as bothered about it only I've seen my own home place win the Junior AI and how incredible that was for the players and the local people. Huge joy and priceless memories that will last a lifetime for everyone there on the day. Will anyone from our parish present in CP for that final live to see the likes again? Doubtful, this is one shot stuff for most clubs that get to the latter stages, it's hard to take that a team can slog through on a great run to come up against another club who shouldn't have been let into the competition in the first place, and a team from the number one football county in the country no less who would successful enough in the competitions even without such an artificial advantage.

Up to CP to grow a set of balls and ensure that there is a level playing field at this point, they were happy enough to dictate a hard limit to counties who didn't want to cut their number of Senior club teams and shouldn't care about hurting Kerry sensibilities.

The irony here of course being that the Croke Park "16 teams only in Senior" rule is stopping reform of Kerry Senior Championship and thereby holding up an automatic rebalancing of playing field. This is what I've been told at any rate. Kerry want (correctly) to maintain the divisional teams in Senior Championship but willing to restructure and bring more clubs up to Senior - 10 was proposed, along with 8 divisional teams playing off in a round robin to get to 2 teams entering the championship proper with 10 clubs, so 12 teams in effect. But the narrow minded approach in Croke Park was that they weren't allowed to do that.

They told the same thing to Cork I believe, which has almost 250 clubs. That's just daft.

Also, anybody talking about Senior B or playing divisional teams in a separate competition just doesn't get it. That won't be happening.

[An Fhairche Abu]

Fine, don't let Kerry compete in the club inter championship then, this can't be tail wagging the dog stuff.

[shark]

There more teams play senior championship in Leitrim and Fermanagh, (10) than in Kerry with more than twice the teams. Something is  wrong there. If Kerry club fball so good how come they don't win the All - Ireland club so often in a weak club province at Senior level where only the winners of Cork are serious rivals.

I agree the system should be looked at however to be fair Kerry's internal system produces players for inter county level. As for the club scene the senior club championship is very competitive at provincial level, but Kerry clubs have won the senior All Ireland and usually compete.

For all the talk of Kerry's system questions should be asked how Tyrone can produce so many junior and intermediate provincial, All Ireland champions or All Ireland finalists yet never have a club bar one in the past that genuinely competes at senior level.

That says to me there must be clubs in Tyrone that are graded lower than they would be in most other counties.

As someone said in another thread, Tyrone is one of the fairest systems I know of. Top 1/3 of teams are senior, next 1/3 are intermediate, bottom 1/3 junior

I think it just shows how competitive Tyrone club football is from top to bottom.

Isn't the Tyrone senior championship straight knock out? Which is quite unusual these days. Makes it way more difficult for a strong team to win a few back to back. A quick google tells me 8 different winner in the past 10 years. Dominance in ones own county is usually required in order to do well at provincial level. Certainly in Leinster (which I'm more familiar with) this is the case. I can only think of Ballymun in the last 20 years who have won Leinster following their first county title as a team. Maybe Brigid's too. Non-Dublin you're looking at Ferbane in 1986 as the last time it was done.