Most competitive county championship

[maddog]

Bit of a debate in the pub about which county had the most competitive football club championship, in terms of the number of clubs that could realistically emerge and challlenge in any given year. Armagh used to be fairly competitive but cross fair play to them ended that, i was thinking Derry possibly Tyrone. Interested in your views.

[Minder]

Armagh football.

[ross4life]

Roscommon is fairly competitive now, since the Clan na Gael dominance ended in the mid 90s the titles have been shared around but no doubt St. Brigid's are the strongest at the moment.

Mayo (5 different winners in the last 5 years) is also competitive.

[ck]

Cork - there are about 6 teams with realistic championship ambitions and also includes UCC. Nemo Rangers beaten tonight too.

[Hoof Hearted]

Derry, without a doubt.

04 - Slaughtneil
05 - Bellaghy
06 - Ballinderry
07 - Glenullin
08 - Ballinderry
09 - Loup
10 - Coleraine

Despite Ballinderry and Coleraine being favs this year, dont rule out a new name for this list.
Kilrea, Dungiven or Ballinasceen cant be ruled out.

at the opposite end of the scale, St Gall are in a procession through Antrim, a la Crossmaglen of the last 15 years

[barelegs]

As regards the Tyrone championship, quarter final stage now and you'd be hard pushed to pick a winner from 5 or 6 teams. There's not one dominant team something that is necessary to compete regularly at provincial level with the likes of St Galls or Cross but any one of those teams on their day could beat them.

[randomtask]

Since the dominance of carrickmore and errigal ciaran was ended in 2006, Tyrone has been very hard to predict from year to year, and in my opinion 6 teams have a realistic chance of taking honours from year to year. A second reason why the championship is so hard to win is because of how well drilled the other 9 teams with outside chances are. There are very rarely heavy hammering's, and most games especially from the quarter finals onwards are very low scoring with a typical score line of 0-9 to 0-8. It takes a brave effort along with a healthy dose of luck to win the championship, this perhaps goes a long way to explaining Tyrone's lack of ulster club titles with errigal ciaran lifting the only one.

From personal viewing and following results other tough championships to win would be: Dublin, Derry and Donegal

[pullhard]

Kilkenny is fairly tough I say

[Throw ball]

Does competitive mean a higher or lower standard. Cross may have won 14 of the last 15 Armagh titles but they also won 8 or 9 Ulsters and 5 All Irelands in that time. Does that mean that Armagh was competitive and gave Cross good grounds for battles further afield or non - competitive so that they were fresh for All Ireland assaults? Some of their toughest games last year were in Armagh. The year the Ogs beat them on the other hand they lost in the first round of Ulster (by 2 points to St. Galls who went on to win the All Ireland). Highlighting a result this year against a team who had 9 championship debutants this year due to injury, retirement and emigration is not a true reflection in my opinion. What I would love to see in Armagh is to see teams have the belief they could beat Cross - then it really will be competitive.

[Stevie g 8]

Dublin has the best quality of player and is an extremely hard to win

[Kerry Mike]

Kerry divisional structure make it very hard every year and there are alot of top class teams

[muppet]

2006 Crossmolina
2007 Ballina Stephenites
2008 Ballaghadereen
2009 Charlestown
2010 Ballintubber
2011 Castlebar Mitchels

[Hoof Hearted]

2006 Crossmolina
2007 Ballina Stephenites
2008 Ballaghadereen
2009 Charlestown
2010 Ballintubber
2011 Castelbar Mitchels

wishful thinking  you always paint a dire picture in the economics threads, but in the GAA section the glass is half full, not half empty.

[Rossfan]

This has to be another one of the daftest threads... everyone will name their own County...
What next a thread on .. what County has the nicest jerseys?

[muppet]

This has to be another one of the daftest threads... everyone will name their own County...
What next a thread on .. what County has the nicest jerseys?

Mayo.