Would you be in favour of a second tier?

[lenny]

Just leave it as it is and start at focusing on making the weaker counties competitive. Fermanagh is a prime example. Made up of mostly water and the rest Protestants, they still manage to get their house in order and play to their potential.

lol Fermanagh have literally never won anything in their history. They've been in 3 ulster championship finals in their 100 years plus. If they were playing in an intermediate championship at the moment they would have a realistic chance of winning it. In the past they'd have ahd a good chance of winning junior championships. The current system does counties outside the top 5 or 6 teams no favours at all.

So maybe a race for Sam made up of six teams. Could you imagine the excitement? Wall to wall coverage on the telly of the big six playing each other.

The senior championship shold have around 8 teams. The intermediate championship could have 12 teams and the junior championship 12 teams. That way the super 8 could start without all the mismatches before. The other teams could play in a championship which gives them a meaningful and realistic chance to win.

They could break it into groups of 8 make it senior, intermediate, junior and junior B.  The top 8 teams could play each team once in a sort of round robin and then the 2 that finish with the most points play in the final.  The bottom 2 get relegated to the tier below for the following year and the top 2 from the next best teams could get promoted to the division championship above the following year.

What about groups of 4 and have 8 tiers, these would all definitely be competitive.

Hilarious. There's a model already there in club football which works brilliantly. Senior, intermediate and junior. Ardmore in Derry don't have to play slaughtneil and dregish in Tyrone don't have to play errigal Ciaran. There's no reason it can't work in county.

[Esmarelda]

Just leave it as it is and start at focusing on making the weaker counties competitive. Fermanagh is a prime example. Made up of mostly water and the rest Protestants, they still manage to get their house in order and play to their potential.

lol Fermanagh have literally never won anything in their history. They've been in 3 ulster championship finals in their 100 years plus. If they were playing in an intermediate championship at the moment they would have a realistic chance of winning it. In the past they'd have ahd a good chance of winning junior championships. The current system does counties outside the top 5 or 6 teams no favours at all.

So maybe a race for Sam made up of six teams. Could you imagine the excitement? Wall to wall coverage on the telly of the big six playing each other.

The senior championship shold have around 8 teams. The intermediate championship could have 12 teams and the junior championship 12 teams. That way the super 8 could start without all the mismatches before. The other teams could play in a championship which gives them a meaningful and realistic chance to win.

They could break it into groups of 8 make it senior, intermediate, junior and junior B.  The top 8 teams could play each team once in a sort of round robin and then the 2 that finish with the most points play in the final.  The bottom 2 get relegated to the tier below for the following year and the top 2 from the next best teams could get promoted to the division championship above the following year.

What about groups of 4 and have 8 tiers, these would all definitely be competitive.

Hilarious. There's a model already there in club football which works brilliantly. Senior, intermediate and junior. Ardmore in Derry don't have to play slaughtneil and dregish in Tyrone don't have to play errigal Ciaran. There's no reason it can't work in county.

What does "work" mean?

If you mean the games would be more competitive and teams would have a better chance of winning then I'd say you're definitely right.

But as these pages and several other threads have clearly shown, that is not all that matters to all of the people.

[Rossfan]

All this talk of different tiers in Hurling as if this is something new! Hurling has always been tiered. There are up to 15 counties that I've never seen play a game in the McCarthy Cup.

But but but I thought Louth and Kilkenny used to play before crowds of 10,000 and get loads of newspaper coverage.....

Better put one if these in for the 6 Co lads benefits

[BennyCake]

The GAA will be implementing a champions league format in the championship, guaranteed. Because it brings in the most revenue. A straight knockout championship makes no sense to the money men.  We've already seen it implemented at Munster and Leinster hurling. It's just a matter of time.

[Rossfan]

Any idea when the world might be ending?

[BennyCake]

Any idea when the world might be ending?

Any day now.

[Owenmoresider]

The GAA will be implementing a round robin format in the championship, guaranteed. Because it brings in the most revenue. A straight knockout championship makes no sense to the money men.  We've already seen it implemented at Munster and Leinster hurling. It's just a matter of time.

Fixed that for you.

[Rossfan]

Already got that for the last 8.

[seafoid]

The grouping of teams around the same level makes the hurling far more interesting than the football.
If a team is good enough it will get promoted.

Antrim hurlers for example get to compare themselves against their peers. They won't go up until they are good enough.

[RadioGAAGAA]

Hilarious. There's a model already there in club football which works brilliantly. Senior, intermediate and junior. Ardmore in Derry don't have to play slaughtneil and dregish in Tyrone don't have to play errigal Ciaran. There's no reason it can't work in county.

'cos you want to beat your neighbours in a match that will invariably be played much closer to both counties than Antrim taking on Tipperary in the Junior Championship.

Hard to have local matches that matter if you aren't even in the same competition.

[JoG2]

Hilarious. There's a model already there in club football which works brilliantly. Senior, intermediate and junior. Ardmore in Derry don't have to play slaughtneil and dregish in Tyrone don't have to play errigal Ciaran. There's no reason it can't work in county.

'cos you want to beat your neighbours in a match that will invariably be played much closer to both counties than Antrim taking on Tipperary in the Junior Championship.

Hard to have local matches that matter if you aren't even in the same competition.

After being knocked out of their Provincial Championship, Antrim could very well play Tipp in the same tournament Dublin and Kerry play in with a snowballs chance in hell of winning. Why not play each other in a competition they could win?

[five points]

After being knocked out of their Provincial Championship, Antrim could very well play Tipp in the same tournament Dublin and Kerry play in with a snowballs chance in hell of winning. Why not play each other in a competition they could win?

Tipp reached a All Ireland Semi Final a couple of years ago, and did quite well in it. I expect they'd react with anger to being dumped into a B competition for the mortal sin of being narrowly relegated to Division 3 earlier this year.

[JoG2]

After being knocked out of their Provincial Championship, Antrim could very well play Tipp in the same tournament Dublin and Kerry play in with a snowballs chance in hell of winning. Why not play each other in a competition they could win?

Tipp reached a All Ireland Semi Final a couple of years ago, and did quite well in it. I expect they'd react with anger to being dumped into a B competition for the mortal sin of being narrowly relegated to Division 3 earlier this year.

The same Tipp who've been dumped out of Munster @ the first hurdle by Limerick!? A couple of years is a long time in football.

I was quoting GAAGAA's example. IF Tipp were in Div 3 and didn't for example reach their Prov final, then in a tiered setup they shouldn't be near the A competition in that particular year

[Esmarelda]

After being knocked out of their Provincial Championship, Antrim could very well play Tipp in the same tournament Dublin and Kerry play in with a snowballs chance in hell of winning. Why not play each other in a competition they could win?

Tipp reached a All Ireland Semi Final a couple of years ago, and did quite well in it. I expect they'd react with anger to being dumped into a B competition for the mortal sin of being narrowly relegated to Division 3 earlier this year.

The same Tipp who've been dumped out of Munster @ the first hurdle by Limerick!? A couple of years is a long time in football.

I was quoting GAAGAA's example. IF Tipp were in Div 3 and didn't for example reach their Prov final, then in a tiered setup they shouldn't be near the A competition in that particular year

The same Limerick who beat Division 2 Tipperary this year

Point and counterpoint, this is fun.

[Rossfan]

 Tipp now classed as D3 per the 2nd tier proposal.