Reducing the size of the SFC

[Karate kid]

Hi lads, just wanted to get peoples actual opinion on the possibility of reducing the senior football championship down from 16 teams to at least 12.

I think if you have a look at the draw and at league form the size of the championship is a joke. You have teams who in other counties would have no right being considered senior clinging onto this 'senior status'

There are also a cluster of clubs in the middle who are too strong to go down but too weak to put together a proper challenge and apart from maybe a senior b will go along with next to no jeopardy.

Would be great to hear other opinions on this because I am personally sickened looking at the same diluted championship each year.

[Riseagain]

Hi lads, just wanted to get peoples actual opinion on the possibility of reducing the senior football championship down from 16 teams to at least 12.

I think if you have a look at the draw and at league form the size of the championship is a joke. You have teams who in other counties would have no right being considered senior clinging onto this 'senior status'

There are also a cluster of clubs in the middle who are too strong to go down but too weak to put together a proper challenge and apart from maybe a senior b will go along with next to no jeopardy.

Would be great to hear other opinions on this because I am personally sickened looking at the same diluted championship each year.

Probably what should happen is make it the same as hurling and have a seniorb/premier Intermediate with 8 teams in each but clubs won't go for that so the realistic option is 12 teams in senior and intermediate.

[snoopdog]

Sure why not just go thr whole hog and just have it Dublin and Kerry. And fcuk the rest.

[Riseagain]

Sure why not just go thr whole hog and just have it Dublin and Kerry. And fcuk the rest.

its about reducing the size of laois senior club football championship because it currently has 16 teams.

[snoopdog]

Sure why not just go thr whole hog and just have it Dublin and Kerry. And fcuk the rest.

its about reducing the size of laois senior club football championship because it currently has 16 teams.

[Karate kid]

Hi lads, just wanted to get peoples actual opinion on the possibility of reducing the senior football championship down from 16 teams to at least 12.

I think if you have a look at the draw and at league form the size of the championship is a joke. You have teams who in other counties would have no right being considered senior clinging onto this 'senior status'

There are also a cluster of clubs in the middle who are too strong to go down but too weak to put together a proper challenge and apart from maybe a senior b will go along with next to no jeopardy.

Would be great to hear other opinions on this because I am personally sickened looking at the same diluted championship each year.

Probably what should happen is make it the same as hurling and have a seniorb/premier Intermediate with 8 teams in each but clubs won't go for that so the realistic option is 12 teams in senior and intermediate.

I totally agree with you that it should be 8 teams. Everyone would have something to play for with that.

It would vastly improve our lower grades too and transform our chances of doing anything in Leinster club championships.

It's a real shame the middle senior clubs at the moment won't vote for a 8 team championship. I'm sure all players would rather win a intermediate championship between the 9th and 16th best team in the county and go on and represent Leinster than get knocked out in round 3/quarter final every year.

[The PRO]

Of course this should be done.
But it's hard to sell it to most of the senior clubs and probably some of the intermediate clubs too.
The hurling clubs probably won't vote or have no opinion on it so it'll always struggle to get through.
If you're a club like The Heath, Ballylinan, Courtwood, Crettyard you're probably going to vote against it as you'll be increasing the chances of not being senior.
They'd be better off trying to win a senior B or intermediate titles.

[Karate kid]

Of course this should be done.
But it's hard to sell it to most of the senior clubs and probably some of the intermediate clubs too.
The hurling clubs probably won't vote or have no opinion on it so it'll always struggle to get through.
If you're a club like The Heath, Ballylinan, Courtwood, Crettyard you're probably going to vote against it as you'll be increasing the chances of not being senior.
They'd be better off trying to win a senior B or intermediate titles.

I think on top of the clubs you've named there you can add killeshin, Killeen, rosenallis, Clonaslee, Emo to that list. I think there's only really 4 or 5 clubs you could say could guarantee themselves a top 12 spot based on consistency of staying out of relegation semi finals in the last 10 years.

Let's take the Heath as an example. A proud history of always being a senior club, they were hanging on for a few years before and after covid and eventually relegation caught them. Did the world end for the heath? No. They came back, won a county final albeit Intermediate and have been stronger at senior since. I reckon if you asked those lads, the year they won intermediate was one of their favourite years and memories in the black and amber jersey.

No one is going to tell their grandkids of the year they got beat all round them just to scrape a win in something like a relegation semi against another team that isn't good enough to be senior. Time to rip off the band aid lads.

[Laois Rising]

The Heath, Ballylinan, Courtwood, Crettyard-you already have the makings of a decent intermediate championship instead of the current nonsense we have. Senior and Intermediate championships should have 12 teams in each. The intermediate is a joke with usual three of the eight teams in it second teams.   

[The PRO]

Of course this should be done.
But it's hard to sell it to most of the senior clubs and probably some of the intermediate clubs too.
The hurling clubs probably won't vote or have no opinion on it so it'll always struggle to get through.
If you're a club like The Heath, Ballylinan, Courtwood, Crettyard you're probably going to vote against it as you'll be increasing the chances of not being senior.
They'd be better off trying to win a senior B or intermediate titles.

I think on top of the clubs you've named there you can add killeshin, Killeen, rosenallis, Clonaslee, Emo to that list. I think there's only really 4 or 5 clubs you could say could guarantee themselves a top 12 spot based on consistency of staying out of relegation semi finals in the last 10 years.

Oh, absolutely, I only picked a few for an example. Stradbally and Ballyfin are another two who would be in the shake up for the drop.

The ideal scenario, in my mind, would be around 7 senior clubs and 3 regional teams made of intermediate and junior clubs.

If you had for arguments sake, Portlaoise, Josephs, Port, Graigue, Bally/Abbey, O'Dempseys and maybe Stradbally senior, you'd have 3 decent area teams.

One would be Clonaslee, Rosenallis, Kilcavan, Ballyfin, Mountmellick and The Rock. Another would be The Heath, Emo, Courtwood, Annanough, Timahoe, Park and finally a team from the two Arles clubs, Ballyinan, Killeshin, Crettyard, Spink, Barrowhouse.

Something along those lines anyway.

[The PRO]

The Heath, Ballylinan, Courtwood, Crettyard-you already have the makings of a decent intermediate championship instead of the current nonsense we have. Senior and Intermediate championships should have 12 teams in each. The intermediate is a joke with usual three of the eight teams in it second teams.   

There's only one second team in the intermediate football, Portlaoise

[Karate kid]

I'll be honest in saying I'm not sure about the area teams and wouldn't jump straight into them. There is definitely a club over county mentality in this county which would make me question if the regional teams would work but maybe that's a reason to have them to build unity within the county.

I think if you take the senior b for example the last couple years it's clear to see no one cares for it whether that be right or wrong. Take it in isolation and imagine it's a championship that wasn't after getting knocked out of the senior and teams were in it from the start... it'd be a hugely highly contested championship with plenty of tight games. Mind blowing how clubs wouldn't prefer that compared to falling over the line of survival yeae after year.

A bi product of reduced numbers is Laois clubs will be so much more competitive in Leinster intermediate and junior championships. There'd be plenty potential for every club to have a good run in Leinster and even into all Irelands.

[High Fielder]

Crazy that in 2025 we're still talking about this stuff. If you go all the way back on this board, you will see the same topics being discussed, even when we were in Divisions 1 and 2. In fairness to him Niall Handy wrote an article in the local press calling on clubs to get serious about amalgamations. It just won't happen and the standard has been allowed to drop to rock bottom. Of course there are more teams than we need in Senior, and that some of these teams are happy to win the one game that keeps them in that grade. Of course the standard of our championships are as low as they have ever been, and are struggling to produce players of county standard. And of course, as a result of these factors, we find ourselves taking regular beatings despite getting as good a coach as we can afford.

How we do things is broken. It has been for a long time. I'm not sure what the solutions are, but I do know we need to talk about all options. I have a feeling we'll keep going as we are and just hope for the best. That's what we have done for years, and have sleepwalked to where we are now

[Karate kid]

Crazy that in 2025 we're still talking about this stuff. If you go all the way back on this board, you will see the same topics being discussed, even when we were in Divisions 1 and 2. In fairness to him Niall Handy wrote an article in the local press calling on clubs to get serious about amalgamations. It just won't happen and the standard has been allowed to drop to rock bottom. Of course there are more teams than we need in Senior, and that some of these teams are happy to win the one game that keeps them in that grade. Of course the standard of our championships are as low as they have ever been, and are struggling to produce players of county standard. And of course, as a result of these factors, we find ourselves taking regular beatings despite getting as good a coach as we can afford.

How we do things is broken. It has been for a long time. I'm not sure what the solutions are, but I do know we need to talk about all options. I have a feeling we'll keep going as we are and just hope for the best. That's what we have done for years, and have sleepwalked to where we are now

100%. I can't get my head around the line of thinking of just wanting pure survival. Maybe there was joy in it for example Arles Killeen for a few years there because year by year they were favourites to go down and were specialists in survival and now are coming out of that period it seems. What I can't understand is the teams ranked between about 6th and 12th. No gives them a hope of winning, everyone knows they're too strong to go down. What's the point?

I'm not saying cut it to 5 teams in championship, not at all. The teams in that bracket if everything went completely right for them and with a bit of luck, maybe there could be a great underdog story but most of the time that's not the case.

I believe if we had an 8 team championship you'd have a fiercely contested senior and intermediate championship. Survival in senior would suddenly become a great achievement for most clubs. You could proper say you were a senior club. A handful of our "senior" clubs could go play challenge matches in a lot of counties against top intermediate teams in that county and get bet off the field. The senior tag means absolutely nothing in this diluted drivel we get served up.

It seems everyone on here agrees with me, I'd love to know why we still have this issue so. Can someone with the opinion of keeping 16 teams senior please speak up as I am interested to see the pros of it at all.

[High Fielder]

The issue exists because the clubs don't want change. As a result, standards have slipped, interest has waned, and the county team has plummeted through the grades. We have very little going for us and very little in our favour. Along with Cork and Offaly, we are probably the absolute definition of a dual county with a population that can't really support one code alone. The hill is probably too steep to climb anyway, and we do nothing to facilitate the climb