Is the earlier Championship a success or failure?

[Saffrongael]

Antrim senior hurling championship draw today, group of 3 & group of 4 round robin. In one of the groups all three teams qualify for knock out stages 

[Rossfan]

Anyone privy to whatever suggestions/proposals/alternatives the CCCC might be putting to the Central Council on Saturday?

[Tyrone Dreamer]

Maybe not completely the right thread because it's about more than the early championship but a few points on the season. If you sat down to come up with an intercounty season I don't think you could come up with much worse than they currently have. There's so many issues with the format and structure that it's laughable.

The season started in the first week of January and so much of it is wasted with meaningful games that meant nothing in the grand scheme of the season. And the lack of jeopardy and miss matches has taken any excitement away. The season starts with the pre season tournaments that are warm ups for a league that in itself is a warm up for the provincial championship. They are nice to win but for most counties have no bearing on what happens in the All Ireland championship.

Then when the All Ireland does start they throw in group stages with 3/4 going through and in most cases could be easily predicted. This nonsense needs to stop at the end of the year before any more damage is done.

Either play the provincials first with the winner being guaranteed a last 12 spot in the All Ireland and then start the leagues with teams qualifying for the knockout stages based on their position in it (top 4 straight into quarter finals - division 2/3/4 winners into the play offs etc). Or play league first and then provincials with provincial winners straight into quarter finals and a play off round with runners up playing teams qualified through the league.

They have shortened the inter county season but then thrown far too much into a short period of time. Far more senior inter county games and underage county matches (again nearly impossible to get knocked out of the competitions) and them all played in separate venues helping to kill interest in the underage county scene as well.

 The games are being played at a time of year when other sports with far superior marketing are finishing up which again is effecting interest levels for casual fans. It is also a very busy time of year for club activity with loads of underage and senior activity which again is putting people off going. It's alright a match every few weeks but people can't go to everything every week.

If that isn't bad enough they are putting some of the biggest games behind a pay wall. And then to cap it off they are picking miss matches to show in front of empty crowds. Dublin Roscommon never should have been on at the weekend in an empty croke park. Louth beating Meath in a sold out ground was a far better game to show. Or if they insisted on showing Dublin it should have been in parnel park. Again this weekend they are showing Dublin/Kerry games that look completely one sided instead of the likes of Donegal/Cork. Then in a few weeks when we finally get some knockout action they are showing second tier semi finals on rte instead of it. Crazy stuff.