Congress

[dublin7]

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.

That's it in a nutshell. No point in these players training to get hammered in the championship and what's worse for some of them is their own out of touch dinosaur delegates voted against a better championship for them.

They'd be better boff off sodding of to US/Australia rather than stay in Ireland to get battered/humiliated

[Blowitupref]

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

Got a link to that? fellas on off the ball reckon Dublin voted no.

Whatever the format there will be hammerings and farcical games. This year in the summer NFL we had Kerry beating Galway by 22 points and Tyrone by 16. Mayo beat Down by 13 points and Kildare beat Laois by 13.

In the lower divisions Derry beat Longford and Fermanagh by 16 and 19 points respectively. In Division Four, Louth saw off Sligo by 13 points and Carlow saw off Waterford by 15.

[seafoid]

The core problem is the lack of competition
Ewing is right that this is Croke Park's problem.
Competition is the essence of sport.

You can't change anything unless you admit that something has  gone wrong.

[Rossfan]

A slight majority of the delegates voted for the Proposal.
Is that in effect the GAA admitting that the current AI SF Championship has "gone wrong"?

[seafoid]

https://youtu.be/G7qEivYkgZM

[Rossfan]

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

Got a link to that? fellas on off the ball reckon Dublin voted no.

Their lack of public comment would suggest they were against but didn't want to be seen opposing Horan and Costello.

[sid waddell]

A slight majority of the delegates voted for the Proposal.
Is that in effect the GAA admitting that the current AI SF Championship has "gone wrong"?

The question should be: why has it gone wrong?

The why is the bit nobody wants to address.

That's too hard.

And yet: Monaghan - with a population of just 60k, have established themselves as a top six team. They got into the eight team Division 1 and stayed there, at just the right time, just as the gaps between Division 1 and the rest started to open up. They found themselves on the right side of the great divide in standards.

If Monaghan, with a population of 60k, can regularly compete with Dublin given the same diet of ultra-competitive football - and they generally have competed - the argument for cutting most of the counties of Ireland out of inter-county football and setting up a new ultra-elitist structure falls flat on its face.

The argument is simple - and yet undeniably true - you give teams the same diet of regular competitive football in the NFL. You abolish the 8 team Division 1.

And then you watch the gaps narrow.

[sid waddell]

"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.

People have been talking about it for decades.

The 1984 Centenary Cup, and the same format in 1985, a knockout competition based on an All Ireland open draw format, happened because there was public debate about abolishing the provinces then.

The 2000 proposal to turn the championship into a conference system happened because there was public debate about two things: i) abolishing the provinces and ii) players wanted an end to one match and out.

The 2001 back door format happened for the same reasons.

And yet those who want the provincials abolished have never dealt with the reasons so many people want them retained.

[seafoid]

A slight majority of the delegates voted for the Proposal.
Is that in effect the GAA admitting that the current AI SF Championship has "gone wrong"?

The question should be: why has it gone wrong?

The why is the bit nobody wants to address.

That's too hard.

And yet: Monaghan - with a population of just 60k, have established themselves as a top six team. They got into the eight team Division 1 and stayed there, at just the right time, just as the gaps between Division 1 and the rest started to open up. They found themselves on the right side of the great divide in standards.

If Monaghan, with a population of 60k, can regularly compete with Dublin given the same diet of ultra-competitive football - and they generally have competed - the argument for cutting most of the counties of Ireland out of inter-county football and setting up a new ultra-elitist structure falls flat on its face.

The argument is simple - and yet undeniably true - you give teams the same diet of regular competitive football in the NFL. You abolish the 8 team Division 1.

And then you watch the gaps narrow.

The 8 team D1 is a huge part of the problem
But so is the inequality in training regimes. There was more competition when things were haphazard.
With semi professionalism there is none.

[seafoid]

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/keith-duggan-time-for-plan-c-as-proposal-b-is-just-plain-bonkers-1.4708136

Keith Duggan: Time for Plan C as Proposal B is just plain bonkers
Sideline Cut: Delegates will vote on worst collective idea since governmental tax on children's shoes
Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 22:31

Keith Duggan



Proposal B is completely bonkers. It is absurd in the extreme, arguably the worst collective idea since the governmental tax on children's shoes in the early 1980s. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho


Somewhere in the Billy Connolly comedy archives is a sketch where he claims that Mexican food is always the same dish, just folded differently. "That's a burrito!" scolds the customer. "I ordered enchiladas! "Oh, so sorry sir," says Connolly's imagined waiter, leaning over and arranging the dish into a new presentation.
Something similar will happen at the GAA's special congress today, when 183 delegates vote on whether they should change the venerable All-Ireland senior football championship into a burrito or an enchilada.
The original All-Ireland championship was drafted in simpler times and along the attractively clean provincial system, with the four best teams emerging from Ireland's four green fields to duke it out in epic All-Ireland semi-finals and a final, to which people would cycle for days and sleep in barns in order to witness. Good times!
But it became clear, over the course of the 20th century, that certain counties were hogging the provincial silverware. We all know who they are. And that other counties – smaller, less-populous and less boastful, sometimes thoughtlessly referred to as "the weaker counties" as though they were wilfully puny of bicep and frail of breath – could not get a look in.
That is why landmark wins – Clare in 1992, Leitrim in 1994 – were regarded as minor miracles. They were a departure from the usual.
The recognition that the overall championship needs to evolve into something more inclusive is a good thing. The GAA has come up with two proposals, and it has become obvious that it's the second one, named Proposal B, that has caught the eye. If passed it will do what it says on the tin by providing the nation with a new-look All-Ireland championship. There is just one flaw in the plan.
Absurd
It is completely bonkers. It is absurd in the extreme, arguably the worst collective idea since the governmental tax on children's shoes in the early 1980s.
The first thing it will achieve is an instant end to the significance of the provincial championships which will, with a shake of the congressional wand, be reduced to pre-season warm-up competitions.
Where teams could once play for five significant cups (the four provincial cups and the All-Ireland), they now play for just one, the Sam Maguire. In other words, Proposal B will transform the All-Ireland into a contest in which almost no county will win anything, ever, again.
Think of all the hardcore, serious football county teams out there. Armagh have won a lone All-Ireland title in their history. Galway have won two titles, in close succession, since 1966. Outside Dublin and Kerry, the Sam Maguire has proven notoriously difficult to get hold of – which is why it is treated as sacred.
The second glaring problem is that the new proposal predicates All-Ireland participation on league performance. For decades the league was treated as a kind of mechanics workshop in which counties built a racecar fit for the summer. Now it is the route to qualification.
The bizarre outcome here is that the three lowest-placed teams in division one will be EXCLUDED from the All-Ireland championship on a given year. So, the reward for playing in the highest division, against the best teams and then failing to finish in the top five is that three teams from the top eight miss out each year.
On league results of the last few years then counties like Tyrone, Galway, Donegal, Monaghan and Mayo will inevitably miss out on an All-Ireland season very soon. What purpose does that serve? How does that improve the competition?
One-sided games
Somewhere behind the dismayingly muddled thinking exists an egalitarian impulse and a genuine desire to allow more counties to flourish. But because the structure has been forcibly manipulated to guarantee three teams from the second, third or fourth divisions a passage to the All-Ireland quarter-finals, where they will play against division one sides, this will inevitably result in a series of one-sided games just when the contest should be peaking.
In other words, with one stroke the GAA will have managed to reduce the significance of the All-Ireland championship – conceived as a big nationwide Fossett's circus of a tournament – into three meaningful games.
The it's-not-perfect-but-it's-a-solution argument doesn't hold water. Superior alternatives have been in circulation for a long time.
In 2015, for instance, former Donegal manager Jim McGuinness drafted on these pages a new championship system which punished no county. That system, like Proposal B, rewards league performance, with the top 16 teams playing in the All-Ireland championship. But it also rewards the provincial championships, with four places reserved for the winners of those contests.
Crucially, it also outlined the development of a second All-Ireland championship tournament for the lower-placed 16 teams – to be televised and promoted as seriously as the Sam Maguire tournament.
It stipulated that games from both championships feature on double bills throughout, including an All-Ireland Day, in which both finals would take place in Croke Park.
Fewer tickets
That would, of course, mean fewer tickets for supporters from counties in the Sam Maguire game as four different counties would be represented. But it would be fair and democratic – and it would give new counties a taste of real glory and tradition. It would have been change with purpose.
This new proposal fails on that front. It's a dismaying fudge: change for the sake of change. The outcome will remain the same. It will advance the cause of no county and improve nothing.
It will be as big a disaster as the ill-devised and instantly forgotten "Super 8s" brainwave of a few seasons ago. Only the counties can save themselves now –and they probably won't.

[sid waddell]

A slight majority of the delegates voted for the Proposal.
Is that in effect the GAA admitting that the current AI SF Championship has "gone wrong"?

The question should be: why has it gone wrong?

The why is the bit nobody wants to address.

That's too hard.

And yet: Monaghan - with a population of just 60k, have established themselves as a top six team. They got into the eight team Division 1 and stayed there, at just the right time, just as the gaps between Division 1 and the rest started to open up. They found themselves on the right side of the great divide in standards.

If Monaghan, with a population of 60k, can regularly compete with Dublin given the same diet of ultra-competitive football - and they generally have competed - the argument for cutting most of the counties of Ireland out of inter-county football and setting up a new ultra-elitist structure falls flat on its face.

The argument is simple - and yet undeniably true - you give teams the same diet of regular competitive football in the NFL. You abolish the 8 team Division 1.

And then you watch the gaps narrow.

The 8 team D1 is a huge part of the problem
But so is the inequality in training regimes. There was more competition when things were haphazard.
With semi professionalism there is none.

The 8 team D1 drives gaps in professionalism. It's chicken and egg. Monaghan will train in a professional manner because they know they have to train in a professional manner to keep their place in D1.

Sligo or Wexford don't, because you don't have to train in a professional manner to play in D4.

If Sligo or Wexford were in Division 2A or 2B, they have a realistic aim - get into the top two of the eight team Division they're in, and they're in Division 1A or 1B the next year.

And because the quality of 1A and 1B is diluted a bit compared to the current 8 team Division 1, they then have a decent chance of actually staying in 1A or 1B if they get promoted.

The level you play at will drive how professional you are.

But currently, the six regulars in D1 have driven standards so high that the teams coming out of D2, your Roscommons, Meaths, Kildares and Cavans etc., invariably can't live with D1 football, and go straight back down. They can't establish themselves and it drives demoralisation.

When the element of chaos was introduced by the pandemic, straight knockout football in winter, weird things started happening - Cork beating Kerry, Tipp beating Cork, Cavan winning Ulster.

That wouldn't have happened had it been a normal summer championship coming off the back of a normal D1,D2,D3,D4 NFL season, because the big boys would have been too well prepared and primed.

[Eire90]

It appears they need to be linked to the All Ireland to be deemed of any worth. They should be able to support themselves as a stand alone competition if they are that valuable.

[Eire90]

why has no one suggested giving provincial winners league points maybe 1 or 2 league points before league stage  starts that will  link provincials to all ireland tho it would make it even easier for kerry and dublin.

[sid waddell]

It appears they need to be linked to the All Ireland to be deemed of any worth. They should be able to support themselves as a stand alone competition if they are that valuable.

This is such a dumb take.

If a 32 team All-Ireland Super League for clubs was set up, with D1 consisting of Corofin, Crossmaglen, Ballymun, Kilmacud Crokes, Dr. Crokes, Nemo Rangers, Castlebar Mitchels and Slaughtneil, with the winners of this Super League competition being declared All-Ireland champions, then your individual county championships would cease to mean much.

Which according to the above take would mean that they have or had no intrinsic value.

Crossmaglen won 19 Armagh championships out of 20. According to the above take, that would mean the Armagh championship had no intrinsic worth and Crossmaglen should have left the other clubs in Armagh behind and sought a new challenge in a new competition against the best clubs in Ireland.

[BennyCake]

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

Got a link to that? fellas on off the ball reckon Dublin voted no.

Whatever the format there will be hammerings and farcical games. This year in the summer NFL we had Kerry beating Galway by 22 points and Tyrone by 16. Mayo beat Down by 13 points and Kildare beat Laois by 13.

In the lower divisions Derry beat Longford and Fermanagh by 16 and 19 points respectively. In Division Four, Louth saw off Sligo by 13 points and Carlow saw off Waterford by 15.

Yes it's funny that. The likes of Mayo (Div 1) stuffing Leitrim (Div 4) by 25 points leads people to say, it's time for a two tier championship. But when a Div 1 team stuffs another Div 1 team,  silence.