Changing the provincial set up

[Rossfan]

A team with a bye to provincial semi finals has almost 3 times (2.8 to be exact) as good a chance of the AI as a team drawn in the preliminary round. Fairness demands that all teams play in a provincial quarter final. There are at least 3 options depending on counties' attachment to their provinces.
1. Move teams permanently from Ulster and Leinster to Connacht and Munster (as suggested already).
2. Let teams take turns in the 'wrong' province. Thus, each Ulster county would play in Connacht once every nine years.
3. Play the preliminary rounds as now. Let the winners progress to the quarters as now. Let the losers move to the quarters of the ' wrong province.

Why don't we create 32 Provinces and then every county can win their own Provincial every year.
Or else move all the Connacht counties to Romania and move Meath to North Korea

[Jinxy]

Colm o rourke reckons Cavan should move to Connaught. Well colm can f**k off, not that long ago he left Connaught himself for meath but seems he forgot to bring the rest of leitrim with him. If there is to be reform and a county like Cavan, who are traditionally the most successful team in ulster, are to be removed from ulster then surely that means that tradition itself is being done away with. If tradition is to be sacrificed then why bother with provinces at all and just go to a seeded champions league format?

The Ulster council should let ye amalgamate with Monaghan.
I'm always getting the two of ye mixed up anyway.
If that Donegal team can win Ulster, what's to stop Monavan doing it?

[Croí na hÉireann]

Lads the problem isn't the uneven number of teams, since to be honest, if you are a potential All Ireland winner, there are only a handful of teams capable of beating you in the first place.

If by magic, Offaly had a team capable of winning the All Ireland in 2012, the only teams in Leinster capable of beating us would be Kildare and Dublin and maybe, maybe, Laois. If you're not good enough to beat Wexford, Meath, Louth and the like with five or six points to spare, then you aren't good enough to win the All Ireland so Kerry starting a few rungs ahead in the race would be irrelevant.

If this magical new team moved to Munster, we'd only have to worry about Cork and Kerry. In Connacht, it would be Mayo and maybe, maybe Galway. In Ulster, you'd have a few more banana skins, but you'd still only have to win three tough games at most.

Of course there is no such magic and like most of the counties out there, we're a long way off All Ireland standard and won't be winning it next year. However we do have a Leinster championship battle with Kildare in the first round, and winning that means something. That's the beauty of the existing provincial structure, where rivalries have been built up. No matter how good Kildare are, we'll be confident of giving them a game and rightly so. What makes a province hard to win is not the number of teams in it, it's the number of good teams. Moving Longford to Connacht wouldn't change the fact that it would still be the easiest province to win by a country mile. Moving Carlow to Munster would hardly change much either. Wexford might be competitive all right, but Wexford looked as good as I've ever seen them last year when they played Offaly and Westmeath, and they still got knocked out of the championship by Limerick - who are very much Munster if I'm not mistaken.


The problem that some people say needs solving here is not that winning the All Ireland is easier for some counties than others - but that's the nature of every competition that isn't a league. Until you turn the All Ireland race into a national league, which we never will, this will always happen.

The provincial titles, and the rivalries that have been built up within that context, mean something. There are people that will go to attend Longford vs Westmeath expecting a meaningful battle even if the two counties are the worst in Ireland, because they are neighbours but also because there is a historical relevance to it. There is no such relevance to Longford vs Roscommon, and it would be ages being built up. Why would we do that?

While a championship outing against the Slashers would have got the teeth grinding 15+ years ago, it certainly doesn't register anywhere near as high on the scale for Westmeath people in recent years. We've got more troublesome neighbours to be dealing with. I think a move into Connacht would benefit Longford actually, they'd border more than one county there and sure aren't they sharing shannonside with them as well. The rivalry wouldn't take too many years to build but I agree that it wouldn't really help to improve the current imbalances in the provincial setup.

Wobblers proposal deserves some teasing out. One obvious criticism of it is that if Cork and Kerry make the provincial final then the battle for silverware becomes as worthwhile as the battle for the O'Byrne Cup or whatevertheycallitdownthere.

[Shamrock Shore]

*comes in*

*reads Croí's post*

*in mellow mood so won't rise to the bait on the 'Slashers' reference*

*leaves thread*

[muppet]

*comes in*

*reads Croí's post*

*in mellow mood so won't rise to the bait on the 'Slashers' reference*

*leaves thread*

Come west (weshht as you will call it from now on) into Connacht and we will share the love. Can Roscommon move to Munster as part of the deal?

[Shamrock Shore]

I would love to move west. I think it would be great to start picking up provincial championships once again

[Orchardman]

Colm o rourke reckons Cavan should move to Connaught. Well colm can f**k off, not that long ago he left Connaught himself for meath but seems he forgot to bring the rest of leitrim with him. If there is to be reform and a county like Cavan, who are traditionally the most successful team in ulster, are to be removed from ulster then surely that means that tradition itself is being done away with. If tradition is to be sacrificed then why bother with provinces at all and just go to a seeded champions league format?

The Ulster council should let ye amalgamate with Monaghan.
I'm always getting the two of ye mixed up anyway.
If that Donegal team can win Ulster, what's to stop Monavan doing it?

I agree, with the new education changes in combining the cavan and monaghan VEC's, then the two county teams may as well join up as well, would be a hardy team! If cavan went to connaught, i'd say monaghan are the only one's that would notice, their so far in deep south ulster it's like a different province. Donegal is different, all nordies go there on holidays

[mylestheslasher]

Colm o rourke reckons Cavan should move to Connaught. Well colm can f**k off, not that long ago he left Connaught himself for meath but seems he forgot to bring the rest of leitrim with him. If there is to be reform and a county like Cavan, who are traditionally the most successful team in ulster, are to be removed from ulster then surely that means that tradition itself is being done away with. If tradition is to be sacrificed then why bother with provinces at all and just go to a seeded champions league format?

The Ulster council should let ye amalgamate with Monaghan.
   I'm always getting the two of ye mixed up anyway.
If that Donegal team can win Ulster, what's to stop Monavan doing it?

Cavan are the ones with the all Irelands, monaghan are the ones with the.  mushrooms . Would it be possible to dig a trench around meath and cast it out. to sea, bringing the leinster counties down by 1 and reduce the average height of gaa players by 12" in one go.

[Captain Obvious]

I would love to move west. I think it would be great to start picking up provincial championships once again

Lovely Leitrim would be licking their lips as they long for Longford.

[Rossfan]

For once some senseible reporting from Breheny.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-football/fixture-pileup-makes-no-sense-2971129.html

Wonder how will putting Longford in Connacht sort out the mess that is GAA fixtures/structures etc?

[Syferus]

For once some senseible reporting from Breheny.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-football/fixture-pileup-makes-no-sense-2971129.html

Wonder how will putting Longford in Connacht sort out the mess that is GAA fixtures/structures etc?

It's the same story he and all the other papers trot out at this time of the year.

I said it before, but there's nothing stopping the GAA sorting out its schedules without adding or altering counties to provinces, indeed that should be the  first thing to do before attempting any blue sky thinking that will be hugely controversial at best. Tackle the low hanging fruit first.