Alternative GAA Championship Structure

[Dinny Breen]

My stab at it, it's kind of a hybrid National League/Provincial Championship influenced by American Sports Divisional Structures with a separate AI series but qualification is merited and rewards Divisional winners.

Should all be done and dusted within 6 months.

[AZOffaly]

Bullshit Dinny. Roscommon and Armagh in the All Ireland Final? Come of it.

[Dinny Breen]

Bullshit Dinny. Roscommon and Armagh in the All Ireland Final? Come of it.

Just love that Bus, want it to get the day out it deserves.

[Jinxy]

Did anyone read Kevin McStay's article today?
He's been working on an alternative championship structure for the last couple of years (he carries it around with him in the dossier).
Haven't read it yet as I've a pain in my head with this stuff.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/kevin-mcstay-explains-his-format-for-rescuing-the-provincial-and-allireland-championships-31275692.html

[Esmarelda]

McStay's proposal has a round robin which again I think will leave dead rubber games which nobody wants.

The strangest part about it though is that he's putting eight teams into a second tier competition which is knockout. So four teams get one championship game, one less than the current system. Am I reading that right.

Dinny, I can't make sense of yours at all. I think I have information overload like Jinxy.

[Rossfan]

Not much good giving London Leitrim or Carlow the 3 games they'd be getting in those groups!
Shield would be totally meaningless
Dumping the Provincials is a non runner.
New York shouldn't be allowed in Senior Championship as they don't play in NFL.
Let them play in the Junior if they must.
Esmeralda I don't mind you highlighting my system at all - put cheque in post please

In all seriousness, would you not consider bringing your proposal somewhere it might get listened to? It ticks all the boxes as far as I can see.

Have done so today ...  b ut don't know if it will be taken on board.

[brianboru00]

To be fair to McStay, himself and Maher were driving forces behind new Championship format in Roscommon which so far is working very well.

Can't understand some of the solutions which are combining league & champ,.,,
the league is the best competition in the GAA - if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I think we do have to compact the Championship to leaving Mid August/September/October for club championship time or earlier.
Keep provincial championships but tweak so that D3 & D4 teams play each other first in round robin format and only the winners of that gets to play D2/D1 teams. It may mean slight tweaks based on League promotion/relegation.

[Bingo]

I like the cut of McStays and it seems to tick a lot of boxes.

Does he mention about the League or the McKenna Cup competitions though?

One thing he could do is play the Junior championship as a round robin as well. Hardly seems fair or to their benefit that they would only play a knockout competition - one game possably. I'd also consider promoting the tow finalists, keep it at a healthy rate of turnover, rather than 1 up and 1 down.

[macdanger2]

Some good ideas but all bollix until the problem is defined properly as mentioned earlier.

Not to be too negative but there's a couple of elephants in the room that need to be addressed before changing the championship structure will make much odds, primarily the disparity in funding - not just the Dubs but all over, I'd wager the top 6 best funded counties are the most competitive in recent years. Difficult to even this out as you have different numbers to cater for, distances to travel, etc. The more sophisticated training methods become, the more it costs and it's difficult to even this out

The other is TV revenue - all these ideas around freeing up weekends for club players aren't going to happen unless the decision is made to take a hit on this. TV schedule demands big games every weekend

[Kickham csc]

This is really easy, just follow NCAA basketball system

Each team gets ranked at the start of the year
Play the early season competitions , league, and provincial championships as is, and reassess the rankings every week.

Then play an All Ireland championship, with four equal brackets, knockout football, with the games based on on ranking, i.e 1 rank plays rank 8

Positives -
Every game counts as it affects ranking. So in effect, each team will have between 12 and 20 championship games each year instead of 2-10. Stop everybody complaining about the amount of training being done for 2 games.

Stop intercounty managers treating secondary competitions as experiments. Every game counts

Weaker counties get to play teams of their own standard in the league, but also get to play against the big teams in knockout football. This leads to a proper development structure and the potential of upsets (e.g. Longford - Derry 2014, Antrim Donegal 2009)

The traditional competitions which drive local rivalries are maintained, (e.g. Ulster Championship)

The provincial championship importance is elevated as major shift in rankings would occur depending on championship results

Have championship weekends, to condense the season, start the season later, play right through all the competitions until All Ireland. This would stop over training.

[rrhf]

Some good ideas but all bollix until the problem is defined properly as mentioned earlier.

Not to be too negative but there's a couple of elephants in the room that need to be addressed before changing the championship structure will make much odds, primarily the disparity in funding - not just the Dubs but all over, I'd wager the top 6 best funded counties are the most competitive in recent years. Difficult to even this out as you have different numbers to cater for, distances to travel, etc. The more sophisticated training methods become, the more it costs and it's difficult to even this out

The other is TV revenue - all these ideas around freeing up weekends for club players aren't going to happen unless the decision is made to take a hit on this. TV schedule demands big games every weekend

All county squads should be filmed at the same level

[An Watcher]

We've all seen the different formats proposed over the years. The one thing I've heard recently is the Tommy Murphy cup with the winners getting back into championship. Excellent idea meaning this comp getting run off earlier so that the winners potentially get into all Ireland quarters or something.  Could raise the profile of smaller teams and give them a proper goal.
Thus there's a route back to the all Ireland for Div 3/4 teams via the TM cup, a route back for Div 1/2 teams via the back door. Teams are playing teams at their level which should bring them on. Also reducing meaningless back door games such as Kerry v Waterford.
Yes, it's an extra set of games but I think this could condense the championship

[highorlow]

Some good ideas but all bollix until the problem is defined properly as mentioned earlier.

Isn't part of the problem the unintended consequence of the back door, i.e. Longford go in at half time 7 or 8 down fully aware that the back door awaits them.

The whole thing is a bit overblown anyhow as even McStay is saying the remaining fixtures should not lead to hammerings.

Hon Wickla.

[Rossfan]

So Carlow or Waterford won't be playing Tyrone ?

[highorlow]

So Carlow or Waterford won't be playing Tyrone ?

I stand corrected. Yes, Tyrone could get a hammering off either of those.