Would you be in favour of a second tier?

Started by sligoman2, June 26, 2017, 12:34:12 PM

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Would you be in favour of an alternative championship for Div 3 and 4 with winners and runners up rejoining the other championship.

Yes
136 (52.7%)
No
104 (40.3%)
Undecided
18 (7%)

Total Members Voted: 258

Look-Up!

Quote from: BennyCake on May 28, 2019, 12:19:50 PM
Quote from: trailer on May 28, 2019, 11:42:45 AM
Why would anyone be against a tiered championship. What can they see in the current system that won't exist in a future tiered championship?
Look at the Hurling championship and how it has become the premier GAA competition. The best teams playing each other lots of times in meaningful games.
Those against change are in the same category as flat-earthers and anti-vaxers. They must be crushed!

What's the best teams got to do with anything? Do we want to see Dublin v Kerry in the AI final every year, just because they happen to be the best teams? Now, Cavan aren't the best team in Ireland. But should that mean it's unacceptable for them to appear in an AI final?

Any new format is snobbery. Oh we only want to see the best teams in the final. Why? Dublin Kerry, Kerry Dublin, Dublin Tyrone. I dunno about you but it tends to get very monotonous watching the same teams over and over again in the final stages. Any new format suggested won't change this.

As for meaningful games. Was Dublin Roscommon and Tyrone Roscommon meaningful games last year? 20 point margins. And that was Div 1 teams. The top 8 teams playing each other!! I don't recall any talk of Roscommon not being allowed in the Senior c'ship. But Louth and Antrim on Sunday with a similar margin of defeat, oh chuck them in tier 2!
I get what you're saying and we all can hope for a bit of romance in the Championship where a team can come from nowhere and turn the tables but that day is well and truely gone unfortunately. If a county is really serious about vast improvement then it has to come in baby steps over a longer period of time. There is no more one season wonders. I think a tiered championship offers that for counties. Get competitive in your tier, then try win it, then get competitive in next tier. I do get the opposition of course. Media will only pay the lower tiers lip service. Live coverage will tend to be top tier centric. ATM the Sunday game is not interested in smaller counties and will rerun the big game they showed live earlier. But hopefully that will change. As you said the AI series is boring and predictable and looks like getting worse so the new top tier will still have that problem. A lower tier will still have counties of a very high standard and would be very unpredictable as most counties fortunes can vary drastically from year to year. I think for the neutrals, if marketed correctly, backed properly by the GAA and with equal media coverage these competitions could be more appealing.
It's hard to know what to do with the provincials in that setup. Look, turkeys don't vote for christmas so there's no way provincial counties would allow the provincial championships to be scrapped as that would leave the councils obsolete. They would need certain assurances but I think it would be still good to keep the provincials. It's another cup up for grabs and keeps local rivalries going. Would be a problem for fixture congestion though. Might have to have 3 tiers in Championship and/or an extra league division. 

Rossfan

Presently at Senior Inter County there are 8 NFL weekends,  4 Provincial Championship weekends and 9 All Ireland weekends.
A tiered structure (16/8/8) would use *7 Weekends if played with Group stages or just  *5 if straight knockout .

Allowing the Inter/Junior Finals to have a weekend all to themselves.
Davy's given us a dream to cling to
We're going to bring home the SAM

BennyCake

I don't see any point in keeping provincials. Say, Armagh v Cavan semi in Ulster. Are we going to go full pelt to get to a meaningless Ulster final when we have our first game in 3/4 weeks in the championship proper? This half-arsed approach to winning already exists in the league, and to a certain extent in the provincials as it is.

general_lee

Introducing a second tier is nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to a problem that has been simmering for the best part of a decade. The best teams are getting better and the bottom teams are staying stagnant. Making the poorer teams continue to play each other however is not going to improve matters. Just because the Leinster championship has become a perennial turkey shoot for Dublin does not mean the GAA has to revamp the whole All Ireland series.

Focus needs to be on improving the weaker counties through investment: coaching, infrastructure and centres of excellence. Why can small counties like Fermanagh (or Monaghan even) fulfil their potential and to an extent be competitive but other counties can't?

BennyCake

Quote from: general_lee on May 28, 2019, 02:03:46 PM
Introducing a second tier is nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to a problem that has been simmering for the best part of a decade. The best teams are getting better and the bottom teams are staying stagnant. Making the poorer teams continue to play each other however is not going to improve matters. Just because the Leinster championship has become a perennial turkey shoot for Dublin does not mean the GAA has to revamp the whole All Ireland series.

Focus needs to be on improving the weaker counties through investment: coaching, infrastructure and centres of excellence. Why can small counties like Fermanagh (or Monaghan even) fulfil their potential and to an extent be competitive but other counties can't?

How dare you think rationally, GL!

You're right though. When you analyse it, the revamp is actually a diversion from the GAA failures to fund smaller counties. Take Antrim: why weren't they funded in the same way Dublin were? They were always the underdog, but with funding they could be in the top half each season. You seen what Bradley did with them, so the potential is there. But according to HQ, nah they're just shite, put them in tier 2, or 3.

And when tier 1 and 2 gets going, the lacking of funding to these smaller counties will be ignored. Antrim/Leitrim/Wicklow etc will forever be in 2 or 3, and the GAA won't be helping them do anything about it.

From the Bunker

Quote from: BennyCake on May 28, 2019, 02:14:19 PM
Quote from: general_lee on May 28, 2019, 02:03:46 PM
Introducing a second tier is nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to a problem that has been simmering for the best part of a decade. The best teams are getting better and the bottom teams are staying stagnant. Making the poorer teams continue to play each other however is not going to improve matters. Just because the Leinster championship has become a perennial turkey shoot for Dublin does not mean the GAA has to revamp the whole All Ireland series.

Focus needs to be on improving the weaker counties through investment: coaching, infrastructure and centres of excellence. Why can small counties like Fermanagh (or Monaghan even) fulfil their potential and to an extent be competitive but other counties can't?

How dare you think rationally, GL!

You're right though. When you analyse it, the revamp is actually a diversion from the GAA failures to fund smaller counties. Take Antrim: why weren't they funded in the same way Dublin were? They were always the underdog, but with funding they could be in the top half each season. You seen what Bradley did with them, so the potential is there. But according to HQ, nah they're just shite, put them in tier 2, or 3.

And when tier 1 and 2 gets going, the lacking of funding to these smaller counties will be ignored. Antrim/Leitrim/Wicklow etc will forever be in 2 or 3, and the GAA won't be helping them do anything about it.

Ah, it's good to see there are some lads with a bit of sense on this board! The tiered system is being put in place to hide away the lesser counties. Out of site of of mind. Out of mind and then there are no worries about embarrassing scoreline and no worries about having to finance such counties.

APM

Quote from: From the Bunker on May 28, 2019, 02:29:41 PM
Ah, it's good to see there are some lads with a bit of sense on this board! The tiered system is being put in place to hide away the lesser counties. Out of site of of mind. Out of mind and then there are no worries about embarrassing scoreline and no worries about having to finance such counties.

This is the nail on the head right here. 

We have had many hammerings down the years and never felt the need to make such a move.  This is driven by journalists and mouthpieces on the Sunday Game saying things because they like the sound of their own voice.  They will chop and change at the championship until they kill the goose that laid the golden egg.  It started with the qualifiers, then it was the Super 8s, now this. 

I really worry about who is advising the direction of travel in Croke Park - it's like Animal Farm. All animals are equal; some are more equal than others.
Do we not need a Congress to make such changes.   

What the GAA really need to do, is introduce Financial Fair Play rules.  The odds are stacked against the weaker counties and the playing field must be evened out. 

general_lee

Quote from: BennyCake on May 28, 2019, 02:14:19 PM
Quote from: general_lee on May 28, 2019, 02:03:46 PM
Introducing a second tier is nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to a problem that has been simmering for the best part of a decade. The best teams are getting better and the bottom teams are staying stagnant. Making the poorer teams continue to play each other however is not going to improve matters. Just because the Leinster championship has become a perennial turkey shoot for Dublin does not mean the GAA has to revamp the whole All Ireland series.

Focus needs to be on improving the weaker counties through investment: coaching, infrastructure and centres of excellence. Why can small counties like Fermanagh (or Monaghan even) fulfil their potential and to an extent be competitive but other counties can't?

How dare you think rationally, GL!

You're right though. When you analyse it, the revamp is actually a diversion from the GAA failures to fund smaller counties. Take Antrim: why weren't they funded in the same way Dublin were? They were always the underdog, but with funding they could be in the top half each season. You seen what Bradley did with them, so the potential is there. But according to HQ, nah they're just shite, put them in tier 2, or 3.

And when tier 1 and 2 gets going, the lacking of funding to these smaller counties will be ignored. Antrim/Leitrim/Wicklow etc will forever be in 2 or 3, and the GAA won't be helping them do anything about it.
Antrim is a great example, huge potential in terms of population and while there is some work going on it's nowhere near enough and nothing compared to the money pumped into Dublin GAA. The football team is struggling and the hurlers haven't reached the level they were once at, probably one of the few counties though to win an All Ireland club at both senior football and hurling in the last ten years? So it's not like the club scene is particularly weak. Having Casement Park, an institute of Ulster football and hurling left to rot wouldn't happen in Kerry, Mayo or Tyrone

larryin89

Why do we bother with three grades at club level so , why not have castlebar v kilmovee,  ballycroy v Ballintubber etc
Walk-in down mchale rd , sun out, summers day , game day . That's all .

From the Bunker

Quote from: larryin89 on May 28, 2019, 03:05:47 PM
Why do we bother with three grades at club level so , why not have castlebar v kilmovee,  ballycroy v Ballintubber etc

Because it is Club level.

Why not try in turn to help counties to get up a level?

Why decide Dublin needed funding to help them be stronger and stop there?

The problems that currently exist with weaker counties will continue to be the problems after a tiered system. Putting them into a lower tier and hiding them away will only sort things out for the Strong Counties.


Kickham csc

Quote from: From the Bunker on May 28, 2019, 03:13:48 PM
Quote from: larryin89 on May 28, 2019, 03:05:47 PM
Why do we bother with three grades at club level so , why not have castlebar v kilmovee,  ballycroy v Ballintubber etc

Because it is Club level.

Why not try in turn to help counties to get up a level?

Why decide Dublin needed funding to help them be stronger and stop there?

The problems that currently exist with weaker counties will continue to be the problems after a tiered system. Putting them into a lower tier and hiding them away will only sort things out for the Strong Counties.

That's all will happen

With a tiered system, the GAA will be in a position to charge more to the TV companies to cover the top tier games.

And the bottom tier will just chug along.

And the gap will get bigger and bigger.

Shameful.

County football is representative football. If there is a gap in standards then the GAA should be setting up strategies to release funding.

If we go with the 2 tier proposal, I propose that 75% of centrally released development funding should go to the teams in Tier 2.

And like club football, it is always harder for teams at the top of div 2 to win and get promoted, than a team who are 4/5 from the bottom to avoid regulation.

Just a bad bad idea


imtommygunn

It's not just about funding - it's how it's managed / channeled etc. There are many county boards who couldn't be trusted with a load of funding. That is not to say they would be underhand with it but they just wouldn't know what to do with it or wouldn't do a good job with it. Whatever you say about Dublin they have put good systems in place so as the money is well used. I wouldn't be so sure that would happen everywhere.


BennyCake

When a revamp is agreed on, weaker counties (in particular) are accepting the GAA's failures as regards funding. Therefore, letting HQ off the hook.

Antrim (Belfast particularly) should have been funded years ago. If Antrim delegates/co board vote for a two tier system, they'll be accepting that their situation is all their own fault, rather than HQ's lack of funding.

Rossfan

Roscommon, Cavan, Monaghan, Fermanagh, Leitrim, Longford get f all funding yet with much smaller populations are consistently better than Antrim at football.
Davy's given us a dream to cling to
We're going to bring home the SAM

seafoid

Quote from: imtommygunn on May 28, 2019, 12:42:43 PM
They would need to do better than they do in the hurling in terms of relegation. They have made it very difficult to get relegated with the team in the higher divisions having a few chances.

i think the McDonagh cup is ok but the league definitely has been like that.
Kevin McStay suggested 20,6 ,6 with 4 groups of 5 in the 20 and one promotion each way between the tiers
And the 3 finals on the same day in September

20 would give D2 and half of D3 the chance to improve by mixing with the better teams
More games would benefit everyone
 
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU