Forget the gpa proposal this is as good as it gets

[Redhand Santa]

I wasn't overly impressed with the gpa proposals for the championships. I don't think 8 4's will work overly well with too many mismatches and groups that you could predict the outcome easily before it starts. It will also totally take away from the provincial championship which will become a pre season warm up.

I might have too much time on my hands but on the back of that I decided to come up with a system of my own. Given the vast array of issues in the gaa calendar I believe with a bit of tinkering it could be as good as we're going to get. I've used next years calendar as example of dates.

Highlights

- The provincial championship will be the first competition played in the year and will be based on groups and there will be finals.
- Performance in the provincial championship will determine whether you enter an a or b all ireland championship.
- Teams who win the provincial championships will get seeded in pot 1 for the a championship draw and runners up in pot 2.
- Provincial championship winners and runners up will carry points into the group stages of the all ireland championship.
- Bonus points will awarded in the championship for teams scoring over 20 points to encourage attacking football.
- County players will play a minimum of 7 games for their clubs which will be the games that will determine which championship you play in.

County Season - Part 1 (Late Feb to early April)

Each province will be allocated a number of places in the a and b championship based on recent years performances. Based on recent years (and province size) a fair allocation may be 6 to ulster, 4 to leinster, 2 to munster and 2 to connacht. The 2 remaining places will be determined by play offs between the 7th ulster team. 3rd connacht team, 3rd munster team and 5th leinster team.

Ulster championship

- London will be added to this giving two groups of 5 teams with seedings based on prior year national league for first year. Each team will play each other once.
- Top 3 teams in each group will qualify for the a all ireland championship. Top 2 teams will qualify for the ulster semi finals.
- The two 4th placed teams will play off with the winner playing the 3rd placed team in connaught, with the winners of this qualifying for the A all ireland championship.
- There will be semi finals and finals. The winners will get 4 points start in their group for the all ireland championship and be top seeds and the runners up will get 2 and be second seeds. This will help maintain the importance of winning the championship particularly as group winners in the all ireland will play 4th placed team in other section in the quarter finals.

Leinster

- There will be 3 groups of 4 teams who will play each other once. Again seeding based on prior years national league for the first year.
- The group winners and best placed second team will qualify for the semi finals and qualify for the A All Ireland championship.
- The other two second placed teams will play each other with the losers going to the b championship and the winners playing the 3rd placed team in Munster with the winners of that getting into the A championship.
- As above there will be semi finals and the provincial winners will get 4 points start in their group in the all ireland championship and be top seeds and runners up will get 2 and be second seeds.

Connacht and Munster

- There will be 5 teams in each championship. Again these teams will play each other once.
- The top two teams in each championship will qualify for their provincial final.
- The third placed teams will have play offs against the 5th team in leinster/7th team in ulster with the winners getting into the a championship.
- The top two teams will play off in the provincial final - first will have home advantage (both provinces have teams capable of hosting it and might make earlier game more interesting). Again the winners will be top seed in the all ireland championship and get 4 points to start in their group and second place will be 2nd seeds and get 2 points to start with.

These fixtures will be played off weekly and be wrapped up within 7 weeks - starting say the 21/22nd feb and finishing 4/5 april.

Club Season - Part 1 (with county players) (18/19 April - 16/17 May)

Ideally each county will have a similar format.

In Tyrone there is 16 teams in each championship. These would be split into two groups of 8. Each team playing each other once and county players available for all games. The top 4 teams would make the county quarter finals and the bottom two would go into relegation play off games.
During this first part of the season the aim would be to play the first 5 games.

County Season Part 2 (30/31 May - 25/26 July)

- The A and B championship have been determined from the above. And there has been time to get all the fixtures sorted out and spread out over the various games over the weekends to get maximum exposure for them.
- There will be two groups of 8 in each championship with seeding as per above and points carried forward for provincial winners/runner up. The top 4 teams in each section will qualify for quarter finals and first will play 4th and 2nd 3rd giving incentive to come as high as possible.
- Teams will get bonus points for scoring over 20 points in a game to encourage positive football.
- Each team will play 3 games at home and 3 away and one neutral. This will allow the use of bigger grounds for big double headers including croke park.
- The games will be spread out over 9 weekends to allow for breaks.
- GAA to work with local councils to help promote games and have other events in the area to really sell the games. Consider beer tents etc and corporate end were possible building on what rugby has been doing in the area. Push season tickets (can have a home season ticket for the 3 games or extended one to cover away) and also ensure large grounds aren't being used were not applicable eg Derry may play a game or two in Owenbeg. Clubs can be rewarded directly for selling season tickets.

Club Season Part 2 (30/31 May - 5/6 September)

- County boards will need to come up with a decent summer league that can be sold to clubs and that they will have to buy into. Currently during this time of year too many games are held up cause county players aren't available. A meaningful separate league needs to be put in place without them to allow for regualr football. It could be say 11 games or maybe less and build in a divisional championship as well to improve quality. Club games could be played Friday nights to avoid clashes with county games and ensuring club players have the weekends free over the summer.

County Season Part 3 (8/9 August - 5/6 September)

- All Ireland quarter finals in A & B championship the 8/9 August, semi finals two weeks later and finals two weeks after that.

Club Season Part 3 (12/13 September - 31 October))

- Clubs play remaining 2 games of group from early season and then quarter finals/ semi finals and finals as well as promotion /relegation period during this time.
- Provincial championships and All Ireland club run off pre Christmas.

There will be obvious drawbacks like dual players having to choose matches and potential games that aren't important come the last round or teams who can't qualify not worrying about the points. However it will be a major improvement on the current system were teams effectively play 10 plus warm up games from January to April.

Overall I believe the above is a much fairer system for all counties with a similar number of games to currently and will give clubs a bit more structure as to whats happening as well as allowing county players to be available for all key games and have periods to focus on their club.

I obviously haven't factored in club reserves, sigerson etc but the above would be a strong starting point.

[Mayo4Sam14]

What part of Ulster are you from?

[Redhand Santa]

I'm assuming your being smart as to the split of teams from each province and ulster getting 6 or 7 in the a championship. My logic in the split was that in the top 2 divisions in next years national league I believe the breakdown is something like 8 ulster, 3 leinster, 3 Connacht and 2 Munster. If I was generous to anyone it was Leinster and this was more to do with the number of teams in the province. The split would have to be considered every few years to make sure still is fair.

[From the Bunker]

You have to much time on your hands and have greatly over rated Ulster football.

[Rossfan]

5 teams in the Munster Championship?
New York abolished??

[Redhand Santa]

As I said given there are 8 ulster teams in top 2 divisions next year I didn't think 6 was an unfair allocation. However this could be changed slightly and moved down to 5.

Two groups of five in ulster with top 2 automatically going into A championship. Two third place teams play off with winners also qualifying. The losers play fourth place Connacht team for a place in it. Then the two fourth ulster teams play and losers go to b and winners play third team in Connacht for A championship place.

New York can't be included as realistically they can only play one game a year and no championship structure can be based on this.

[Rossfan]

What about the Connacht Council Offeeshuls' trip to America?