Has the Back door become Redundant?

[armaghniac]

And Antrim v Louth is a 90 minute drive, with a regular bus service, quite feasible to travel, but poorly attended. Derry v Tipp or Down v Clare is much further, even with improved travel times nowadays.

[deiseach]

And Antrim v Louth is a 90 minute drive, with a regular bus service, quite feasible to travel, but poorly attended. Derry v Tipp or Down v Clare is much further, even with improved travel times nowadays.

Good point. The size of attendances at a big Championship match at any given point in the GAA's history might give the impression that there is a constituency who would attend games frequently if only there was enough meaning to the game. The problem is that you can't multiply the number of games without diminishing the importance. There would have been tens of thousands or Antrim and Louth fans at their recent appearances in their respective provincial finals (apologies to any Louth fans reading this for reminding them of that day) but that was for a rare final appearance in each case. For an first round open draw game? The upcoming game will tell us the core constituency for each county.

[Zulu]

They show LOI games live, rabo direct rugby games and heineken cup group games live don't they? You're telling me Kilkenny v Tipp or Dublin v Kerry in May with knockout championship games 3 or 4 weeks away wouldn't appeal to supporters or TV stations? On a given weekend you could have Dublin v Donegal, Tyrone v Down, Kerry v Mayo (football) Kilkenny v Cork, Tipp v Clare, Galway V Dublin (hurling) now as long as all of them are pretty much at full strength and going out to give it a proper go then I see no reason why TV stations wouldn't want them.

The league now is viewed as prep for the championship with club, U21 IC football and University competitions all overlapping with the early rounds. Now throw in teams who aren't match fit, varying degrees of focus on the league and a general attitude of it being no big deal if we lose there is little wonder there isn't massive interest. Now my system (which I'm not saying is the only option or even the best) has the league at a time when all players should be available, time has been given to get fitness up and with a one chance saloon starting a week after the league ends (which has no final btw) means you can't but take it seriously. Also, with a seeding system there is real motivation for everyone to get to as high a division as you can so everybody below division 1 should be really going for it while everybody in division 1 should also be motivated to ease their passage to an All Ireland final.

And Antrim v Louth is a 90 minute drive, with a regular bus service, quite feasible to travel, but poorly attended. Derry v Tipp or Down v Clare is much further, even with improved travel times nowadays.

Yes but they aren't attractive games anyway. Besides, it isn't only about attendances, which would increase IMO, but it's also about giving everybody more games and a structure to the season, including clubs.

[seafoid]

And Antrim v Louth is a 90 minute drive, with a regular bus service, quite feasible to travel, but poorly attended. Derry v Tipp or Down v Clare is much further, even with improved travel times nowadays.

Good point. The size of attendances at a big Championship match at any given point in the GAA's history might give the impression that there is a constituency who would attend games frequently if only there was enough meaning to the game. The problem is that you can't multiply the number of games without diminishing the importance. There would have been tens of thousands or Antrim and Louth fans at their recent appearances in their respective provincial finals (apologies to any Louth fans reading this for reminding them of that day) but that was for a rare final appearance in each case. For an first round open draw game? The upcoming game will tell us the core constituency for each county.

A lot of people just watch the match on the telly as well. It's not cheap bringing a family of 4 to a match these days. 

[deiseach]

A lot of people just watch the match on the telly as well. It's not cheap bringing a family of 4 to a match these days.

Amazing how so many people seem to have families of 4

[seafoid]

A lot of people just watch the match on the telly as well. It's not cheap bringing a family of 4 to a match these days.

Amazing how so many people seem to have families of 4

You can leave any excess of kids at a creche for comparison purposes

[Rossfan]

. It's fair enough to give them a second chance.

It's that fair it cost Galway the All Ireland last year!!! [/quote]

Galway got 140 minutes over two games last September to win the HURLING All Ireland and weren't good enough.
In the old days so beloved of Milltown they wouldn't have been in Leinster anyway but instead getting a bye to the ( Hurling) All Ireland Semi final.

[seafoid]

. It's fair enough to give them a second chance.

It's that fair it cost Galway the All Ireland last year!!!

Galway got 140 minutes over two games last September to win the HURLING All Ireland and weren't good enough.
In the old days so beloved of Milltown they wouldn't have been in Leinster anyway but instead getting a bye to the ( Hurling) All Ireland Semi final.
[/quote]
Sure the hurlers never won anything on the first go.
1979 preceded 1980
1985 and 86 went before 87 and 88

But at least there are signs of progress. Which is more than we can say for the footballers.

[From the Bunker]

. It's fair enough to give them a second chance.

It's that fair it cost Galway the All Ireland last year!!!

Galway got 140 minutes over two games last September to win the HURLING All Ireland and weren't good enough.
In the old days so beloved of Milltown they wouldn't have been in Leinster anyway but instead getting a bye to the ( Hurling) All Ireland Semi final.

Sure the hurlers never won anything on the first go.
1979 preceded 1980
1985 and 86 went before 87 and 88

But at least there are signs of progress. Which is more than we can say for the footballers.
[/quote]

Believe me it does not get easier after having six chances! 

[Rossfan]

. It's fair enough to give them a second chance.

It's that fair it cost Galway the All Ireland last year!!!

Galway got 140 minutes over two games last September to win the HURLING All Ireland and weren't good enough.
In the old days so beloved of Milltown they wouldn't have been in Leinster anyway but instead getting a bye to the ( Hurling) All Ireland Semi final.

Sure the hurlers never won anything on the first go.
1979 preceded 1980
1985 and 86 went before 87 and 88

But at least there are signs of progress. Which is more than we can say for the footballers.
[/quote]
Wasn't running ye down - just pointing out it wasn't "THE SYSTEM" that cost them the All Ireland as alleged by the nostalgic man from Antrim.
Hopefully they can go one step better this year.

To get back to football ( the real ALL Ireland sport  ) - no matter what system they come up with one thing urgently required is to tighten up the length of time it takes to play the Provincial Championships.
Leaving aside the NY junket the Connacht Championship of  FIVE games takes from 19th May to 21st July to complete  - TEN BLOODY WEEKS !!!!
Six weeks is plenty of time for that especially as long gaps between games are simply filled with County teams training and no Club championship games.

It seems Eugene McGee's Committee are going to propose moving Counties around the "Provinces" to have 4 "Provincial" Championships with 8 teams in each.
I wonder where will the Donegal v Westmeath "Connacht" final be played plus what will happen the NY junket?
Absolute nonsense - unless they change the titles to Northern, Western, Eastern, Southern. Then will borderline Counties get the option of which Region to join?
Will there be separate Councils for the Football Divisions/Regions and the hurling Provinces?

Champions League type thingy - If this comes about we will still need to keep the Provincials as stand alone competitions and seed the Champions or give them a perk of all their group games at home. One good thing about a 3 game group is , if they allow 3 weeks between games then Club championships could be progressed in tandem.
However if you're going to divide all the Counties into 8 groups of 4 the weakest teams will simply all disappear to the US for the Summer or just go through the motions.
So you'll need a B championship. To get that accepted by the no hopers you'd have to allow the winners back into the knock out stages of the A Championship. This will give some lucky County a handy passage to the closing stages.

A 32 County open draw with no Provincial championships - a lottery, financial disaster and quite frankly nonsense.

Go back to the oul style pre 2001 - no thanks.

You'd need a long winters night to address all the possible systems and their strong and weak points and the Longest day isn't the day for that.

[theticklemister]

Get the quoting right or im not coming back to this thread

[Zulu]

I haven't seen anyone come up with weaknesses to my proposal which I think address most problems. The other system I've heard proposed is to mimic the NFL in America, which was along the lines of 4 'provincial' groups of 8 so you can still win your province but you also play teams from other counties. I'm a gridiron fan but I'm not too sure how their format works.

The bottom line for me is that you must start with a blank sheet of paper, nothing should be off the table. Then you decide what you want, for example -
1. Structured season
2. More competitive games
3. Time for clubs to play in a structured season
4. All teams have the same path to the All Ireland
5. Financially profitable

And so on. There is no point saying we must keep this or that. There is no point focusing on one or two aspects like attendances or tradition. We have to look at the whole season and accept that whatever format is proposed there will be weaknesses and you'll lose some things that might be hard to give up but if the overall package is improved for the vast majority of players, club and IC, then that has to be acceptable.

This isn't a knee jerk reaction to recent results, you'll always have hammerings, nail biters, poor attendances, massive crowds, great games, poor games, shocks and dominant teams in every format the thing to look for is structure, logic, and fairness. If Dublin and Kilkenny win every All Ireland between them after that then so be it. It's up to counties to address their own house as they'll no longer be able to say such and such a team has an easier route, a six day turn around, too long a gap between games etc.

[Mike Sheehy]

If counties (especially my own) get their house in order and raise the standard then I believe the open draw is worth a shot

errr.....if counties are not competititive because they haven't "got their house in order" then it doesnt really matter what system is in place.

That's true and we'll have to do that, It's just the giving the bigger teams another go that annoys me, if they happened to be shocked in a game they were fancied to win then tahts good ( i.e club All Ireland style).

To play Kerry in Casement in the first round would be grand, the result may be what we would predict but would generate some interest, well up here anyways, as it is, we'll be out next week against Louth if we don't up it a gear or six

The distances/hassle  would be too great. Scrap the provinces but draw a line across the country. 16 above. 16 below. then devise a system from there whereby 4 teams emerge from both groups. It would keep enough "traditional" matchups, add new ones, but avoid geographical problems.

If the provinces really wanted it (after that initial competition to narrow it down to eight) the two highest performing teams from each province could play for the provincial title as a seperate thing. That would retain the link between the AI championship and provincial championship but with the AI championship balanced and fair. The problem would be in defining "highest performing" from each province in that intial competition but , in principle, I think it could be done.

[deiseach]

I haven't seen anyone come up with weaknesses to my proposal

Ah come on. Plenty of us object fundamentally with your proposals. They don't want a Champions League-style system in the GAA. It would abolish the provincial structure that gives many smaller counties something to aim for replaces it with an almost unimaginably large amount of preliminary games just to get to a point where there's a serious knockout match. If I'm reading your proposals right, everyone plays seven games to see what their seeding will be in the knockout phase? That's just a ridiculous amount of faffing around. Let's assume everyone took it seriously. That would mean that each year you'd have Kerry or Dublin near the top and Waterford and London near the bottom. You can be certain that within a few years people would be heartily sick of playing seven games so they can be roasted by the same old faces. Yes, that happens in the current system but even the worst counties can hope for a decent draw in the qualifiers and a run there. If someone offered me your system or a pure open draw, I wouldn't hesitate in taking the latter.

[AZOffaly]

Zulu, you've been fairly animated about this subject for years, fair play to you, but I have to say that I think your solution is only going to increase the number of meaningless games. I accept that linking it to league positions will make people take the league more seriously, but as soon as it settles down, you will be even further from achieving anything that anybody outside the dressing room cares about.

In your system, the only winners (unless I'm misreading this) will be the All Ireland Champions. No Westmeath, Laois, Roscommon, Leitrim, Clare, Cavan fairytales. Just endless jockeying for position in the middle of the pack for the right to move up one seeding place, but never really having anything tangilble for people to be nervous over, or celebrate wildly, which is a huge part of our games. People in Westmeath will never, ever forget 2004. They're not likely to see an All Ireland win, certainly in the near future, and therfore you are removing the only meaningful target that the people of Westmeath can aim for. I can't see a lorry in Mullingar for achieving a 2nd seed in the championship.

I think what is motivating you is really trying to ensure that the best teams contest the Sam Maguire, and I don't think increasing the amount of mediocre games which really and truly mean very little is going to point to that. I think your end game could be achieved by simply linking the counties to their league positions, and then running off a tiered championship. I wouldn't be in favour of this because it is removing the provincial championships (and the provincial championships are still dear to me anyway).

However, this is how I think something like that would work out.

League Tables 2013. -> All Ireland Series Draw.,

Division 1 teams & Division 2 Teams = Sam Maguire

Division 3 teams & Division 4 teams = Tommy Murphy or Intermediate or whatever.

4 groups of 4 in each.
Top 8 teams make 1/4 finals

If this was run in 2013, it would have panned out like this...

Sam Maguire Group A
Dublin (Div 1 First)
Cork (Div 1 Fifth)
Derry (DIv 2 First)
Galway (Div 2 Fifth)

Sam Maguire Group B
Tyrone (Div 1 Second)
Kerry (Div 1 Sixth)
Westmeath (Div 2 Second)
Armagh (Div 2 Sixth)

Sam Maguire Group C
Kildare (Div 1 Third)
Donegal (Div 1 Seventh)
Laois (Div 2 Third)
Wexford (Div 2 Seventh)

Sam Maguire Group D
Mayo (Div 1 Fourth)
Down (Div 1 Eighth)
Louth (Div 2 Fourth)
Longford (Div 2 Eighth)

Tommy Murphy Group A
Monaghan
Cavan
Limerick
Leitrim

Tommy Murphy Group B
Meath
Sligo
Offaly
Waterford

Tommy Murphy Group C
Roscommon
Antrim
Tipperary
Carlow

Tommy Murphy Group D
Fermanagh
Wicklow
Clare
London