Unfortunately and I mean it, the structure of the championship is outdated and irrelevant, given the focus that teams with greater resources place on fitness levels and a professional approach to training and development of their teams. As a longstanding Dublin supporter even I am getting tired of the endless rounds of matches that lead up to the quarter finals, when the real action begins.
I cannot for the life of me see any motivation for players from the counties playing in the Leinster Championship games today to get up to the level of fitness required to simply keep teams like Dublin to a respectable score.
The solution has to be built around two sixteen-team leagues or four eight-team divisional structures based on performance. The league worked well this year with the four divisions. This means that teams get consistent games with teams of their own standard and can progress and develop to a higher division. In the championship we have outdated provincial systems that throw up meaningless and uncompetitive games and where there is little prospect of teams or players being able to progress.
We have four teams (maybe five) who are so far ahead of the rest that the present structure is unattractive and uncompetitive. It needs to change.
I cannot for the life of me see any motivation for players from the counties playing in the Leinster Championship games today to get up to the level of fitness required to simply keep teams like Dublin to a respectable score.
The solution has to be built around two sixteen-team leagues or four eight-team divisional structures based on performance. The league worked well this year with the four divisions. This means that teams get consistent games with teams of their own standard and can progress and develop to a higher division. In the championship we have outdated provincial systems that throw up meaningless and uncompetitive games and where there is little prospect of teams or players being able to progress.
We have four teams (maybe five) who are so far ahead of the rest that the present structure is unattractive and uncompetitive. It needs to change.