2016 Leinster Football Championship

[Farrandeelin]

Yet the same team wins 8 out 10 AIs or thereabouts.

Take Cody out of the equation and it would be a lot different.

[Rossfan]

Could we also take Dublin (and Offaly ) out of the football equation?

[INDIANA]

Yet the same team wins 8 out 10 AIs or thereabouts.

Got their through segregation. Would Kerry have made the progress they have by being walloped by Cork and Tipp every year in the Munster championship.

[AZOffaly]

Yet the same team wins 8 out 10 AIs or thereabouts.

Got their through segregation. Would Kerry have made the progress they have by being walloped by Cork and Tipp every year in the Munster championship.

What progress have they made?

[Fear ón Srath Bán]

Got their through segregation. Would Kerry have made the progress they have by being walloped by Cork and Tipp every year in the Munster championship.

And you decry nordie educational standards... tut, tut Indy! 

[Kuwabatake Sanjuro]

Yet the same team wins 8 out 10 AIs or thereabouts.

Got their through segregation. Would Kerry have made the progress they have by being walloped by Cork and Tipp every year in the Munster championship.

If you want to go back in history Kerry won 3 division 2 titles in a row back in the late 60's but the GAA did not allow promotion for some reason. They were also not entered in the Munster championship at the time even though a weaker Galway were. If the GAA had made any effort to promote hurling there back in the day they might have been a proper dual county and the rest of the country might have had a few more AI's to share around in the football.

Kildare were also very close to a breakthrough in hurling in the early 70's and had victories over the likes of Waterford and Offaly and numerous league 1/4 final defeats to Tipperary.

A fascinating read http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057160431&page=17

[INDIANA]

Yet the same team wins 8 out 10 AIs or thereabouts.

Got their through segregation. Would Kerry have made the progress they have by being walloped by Cork and Tipp every year in the Munster championship.

What progress have they made?

You don't think playing Div 1 hurling is progress? This is a sport where we were all told that it's not possible for lower tier counties to break the glass ceiling

[imtommygunn]

Yet the same team wins 8 out 10 AIs or thereabouts.

Got their through segregation. Would Kerry have made the progress they have by being walloped by Cork and Tipp every year in the Munster championship.

What progress have they made?

You also do wonder how many players they have from stronger counties so is it really progress.

[AZOffaly]

Yet the same team wins 8 out 10 AIs or thereabouts.

Got their through segregation. Would Kerry have made the progress they have by being walloped by Cork and Tipp every year in the Munster championship.

What progress have they made?

You don't think playing Div 1 hurling is progress? This is a sport where we were all told that it's not possible for lower tier counties to break the glass ceiling

Progress through the league is fine but I thought we were talking about championship structures. And I remember Kerry beating Waterford in 1992 or the likes.

In reality they lost to Westmeath and a very demoralised Offaly and beat Carlow. Those results would not have seemed out of the ordinary 20 years ago.

[Zulu]

Zulu, I may have overreacted to your post. As long as everyone is in the All Ireland, and you come up with some way of seeding it to have more even matches, then I'm happy with that. I think we more or less said the same thing every year for about 5 years now.

The real issue I have is this constant bleating for tiered championships, which seems to be led by Newstalk and Ger f**king Gilroy, and Des Cahill, aka the Sunday Game highlights show. I know in my heart and soul that all they want is Dublin, Kerry, Tyrone, Monaghan, Donegal and Mayo playing each other so they can talk about that ad nauseum, rather than putting up with the inconvenience of all the other counties taking part and having to be televised. My reaction to that sort of agenda is *f**k Off*. The counties and players have repeatedly said they are not interested in some competition that RTE would drop quicker than a hot snot, and if they were lucky they'd get the 30 seconds 'reporting is John Kenny' treatment, with a condescending pat on the head for the final maybe, a lá the Hurling Tiers.

I reject the notion that a tiered championship has to be set up to give us competitive fixtures so that the TV companies, and the armchair fans, are happy to have something to watch in June. Those games come around in July, August and September anyway.

I would be very afraid that we would solve the wrong problem. i.e. Instead of wondering how we can narrow the gap between the chasing pack and the top 4 or 5, we consciously cull the bottom 26 or 27 so the poor TV analysts, and Joe.bollox.ie don't have to talk about them.

I know that wasn't your point really, but I'm getting very tetchy about all this, as someone who is dealing with young lads and sees their ambitions, and their ambitions are *not* the football equivalent of the Rackard Cup.

No problem. I wasn't having a go at Offaly at all, just using your own county as an example of one who aren't being served by the current structure.

As you say, the weaker counties don't want to be put in a sideshow competition and I don't think they should which is why I think linking the league to the championship is the best solution.

Talk of creating an elite is nonsense, as our format creates an elite anyway (Kerry and nigh on 40 All Irelands anyone?). Any format will have elites, even the NFL has teams that regularly compete and teams that are usually poor.

The Dublin Meath 4 game saga or the Kerry team of the late 70's early 80's inspired kids from across Ireland to play football and a vibrant football scene will do more for Offaly or Sligo football than the odd win against a near neighbour in a provincial championship ever could. I was Matt Connor or Mikey Sheehy in the back garden though I wasn't an Offaly or Kerry man. We need something for our kids to aspire to and a pathway for counties to develop on. The current format offers 80% of counties nothing and another 10% little enough.

I only hope we see sense before it's too late. I've made this point before but the only reason the Munster hurling championship or the Ulster football one are in any way revered is because they have good teams playing each other. Put Mayo, Dublin, Kerry, Tyrone, Monaghan, Donegal, Cork and Roscommon together and we have a championship to look forward to. The Dubs in Killarney, Tyrone and Donegal in Omagh etc. and we could have Tyrone coming to Tullamore in a knockout championship game against Offaly.

Teams play against teams of similar ability and then have knockout football in the actual championship and the only sacrifice is the provincials which 80% will never win anyway and bar the odd Cinderella story every 30 years are as predictable as the weather.

[Ohtoohtobe]

My own (fairly radical) idea is that there's roughly three levels out there, and we should have All-Ireland senior, intermediate and junior championships.

Using the GAA rankings website, it might have looked like this for 2016:
Senior Football Championship: Dublin, Kerry, Mayo, Donegal, Tyrone, Cork, Monaghan, Kildare, Galway, Derry, Meath, Armagh.
Intermediate Football Championship: Roscommon, Down, Fermanagh, Cavan, Tipperary, Laois, Sligo, Westmeath, Longford, Wexford.
Junior Football Championship: Clare, Louth, Limerick, Offaly, Antrim, Leitrim, Wicklow, Carlow, Waterford, London.
(Please don't get hung up on what county is in what tier; personally I'd have Roscommon and Cavan in senior but I thought I'd just use an impartial source).

I would scrap the league and have each of these championships as an all-play-all round robin. Top six in senior into knockout play-offs for the All-Ireland. Top five in inter and junior into knockout finals. Promotion and relegation of 2-3 teams between the grades each year.

I know this will never happen but I just think there's so many benefits:
- Every county guaranteed 9-11 serious games every year.
- Every county can set realistic targets to progress. Playing junior might not be that glamorous but a county such as Carlow could set a medium-term target to win Junior and a long-term goal of being competitive in intermediate. On the flip side, counties that aren't good enough for a certain level can rebuild at the next level down the following year.
-Every county has a realistic short- to medium-term shot at silverware.
- Every county has at least five competitive, meaningful home games in the height of summer. At senior counties that need to get their act together can guarantee televised fixtures for sponsors, plan and market and aim to improve.
- Very few dead rubbers: If you're top of the table you get an easier knockout game, if you're in the middle you're battling to make the playoff stages or avoid relegation.
- This system retains the big glamour fixtures at the end of the year.
- Immediately end 90 per cent of the turkey shoots that annoy everyone so much. Ok, Dublin might hammer the back end of the senior teams, but they'd have 5-6 serious games before they even get to the semi-finals.
- Every county can plan its club fixtures long in advance because they know months in advance when their senior team's 9-11 games are. You could have a five-month inter-county season with the rest of the year for club and underage fixtures.

Downsides:
- You lose the league.
- You lose the provincial championships.
- Eh, that's it.

[tonto1888]

That's nonsense in fairness AZ, what are you basing that on? What do Offaly footballers get out of the current system? They have two competitions, the Leinster championship, which they've no chance of winning and the All Ireland, which they've less chance of winning.

Link the league to the championship so you give everyone games against their peers but also give everyone a pathway to Sam which addresses Kuwabatake Sanjuro concerns. Get rid of the pointless provincials which hinder getting a proper solution to the championship. I wouldn't be in favour of splitting the counties into different competitions but now that teams prepare properly and analyse their opponents the day of the major upset will be even rarer than it was in the past.

Im not sure the provincials are pointless. Maybe in the grand scheme of things they are but to the players? I just finished reading Jim McGuiness's book and the work and effort he described that went into winning Ulster in 2011 and the joy it gave the players and fans suggests its not pointless. Obv, winning Ulster may not mean the same to those boys now but can you imagine what it would mean to Cavan, or Fermanagh???

[Zulu]

That's nonsense in fairness AZ, what are you basing that on? What do Offaly footballers get out of the current system? They have two competitions, the Leinster championship, which they've no chance of winning and the All Ireland, which they've less chance of winning.

Link the league to the championship so you give everyone games against their peers but also give everyone a pathway to Sam which addresses Kuwabatake Sanjuro concerns. Get rid of the pointless provincials which hinder getting a proper solution to the championship. I wouldn't be in favour of splitting the counties into different competitions but now that teams prepare properly and analyse their opponents the day of the major upset will be even rarer than it was in the past.

Im not sure the provincials are pointless. Maybe in the grand scheme of things they are but to the players? I just finished reading Jim McGuiness's book and the work and effort he described that went into winning Ulster in 2011 and the joy it gave the players and fans suggests its not pointless. Obv, winning Ulster may not mean the same to those boys now but can you imagine what it would mean to Cavan, or Fermanagh???

True, and it would mean a lot to Tipp, Clare, Leitrim, Longford, Wexford etc. but what is the likelihood of it happening for most of the counties that are really bothered? You can also play them separately if counties want to keep them or you could copy the NFL conference type of format to give counties more to aim for. There is no reason a new competition couldn't become as highly valued as provincial titles, whether that's a league division or conference or something else.

[Croí na hÉireann]

Just saw the Sunday Game coverage of the Dubs and Laois last night. Did Dean Rock foul the ball - it looked like he changed the ball from hand to hand?

Didn't stand out if he did but noticed that Kevin McMenamon got away with a double bounce, again.

[Jinxy]

He always gets away with that.
I call it the Jedi mind-bounce.



"I have only hopped the ball once..."