Proposals to change the All Ireland Football structures

[Esmarelda]

Think it's in here.

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/jim-mcguinness-how-i-would-reinvigorate-football-championship-1.2241993

[blewuporstuffed]

Think it's in here.

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/jim-mcguinness-how-i-would-reinvigorate-football-championship-1.2241993

That is a very good suggestion.
Certainly the best one I have heard

[Hound]

Jim's plans has merit, but I think the current system is vastly under-rated.

As mentioned in the McGuinness article, a key driver for all this controversy was the Dublin v Longford game (and the fact it was live on telly)
That demolition would still happen under McGuinness's plan - the only difference being Longford would go into the B competition instead f the All Ireland qualifiers.

A question to Longford fans - would you prefer to now be in the B championship with the other Division 3 and 4 teams or would you prefer to be in the current series? Absolutely haven't a hope in hell of winning Sam, but a surprise run to the All Ireland Quarter-Finals is not of the question. Would that be a bigger achievement than winning a Division 3/4 championship?

There has been some really exciting games in the championship so far, and nobody credits the system for it, but quick to moan when there's a bad game. While pretty much every Dublin fan would have liked to play Longford away, that could would have been a sell-out and worthy of live TV coverage. But to decide to televise live a game with 50,000 spare seats and less than a 1% doubt as to the outcome was the height of nonsense.

I know they were on different weekends, but if the Wexford-Down game was televised live instead of Dublin-Longford there'd be no complaints this year about the qualifier system. Tyrone v Meath and Armagh v Galway should also be good advertisements for the current system

[twohands!!!]

The GPA's proposals haven't a hope in hell of passing as they would do serious damage to the provincials, which the provincial councils will not stand for in any shape - it will be interesting to see if the various provincial councils decided to fight this publicly or kill it in the committee rooms.

[BennyHarp]

Jim's plans has merit, but I think the current system is vastly under-rated.

As mentioned in the McGuinness article, a key driver for all this controversy was the Dublin v Longford game (and the fact it was live on telly)
That demolition would still happen under McGuinness's plan - the only difference being Longford would go into the B competition instead f the All Ireland qualifiers.

A question to Longford fans - would you prefer to now be in the B championship with the other Division 3 and 4 teams or would you prefer to be in the current series? Absolutely haven't a hope in hell of winning Sam, but a surprise run to the All Ireland Quarter-Finals is not of the question. Would that be a bigger achievement than winning a Division 3/4 championship?

There has been some really exciting games in the championship so far, and nobody credits the system for it, but quick to moan when there's a bad game. While pretty much every Dublin fan would have liked to play Longford away, that could would have been a sell-out and worthy of live TV coverage. But to decide to televise live a game with 50,000 spare seats and less than a 1% doubt as to the outcome was the height of nonsense.

I know they were on different weekends, but if the Wexford-Down game was televised live instead of Dublin-Longford there'd be no complaints this year about the qualifier system. Tyrone v Meath and Armagh v Galway should also be good advertisements for the current system

Fair enough points here. It's a bit poor that the AI football qualifiers have been pretty much ignored by TV and there have been a few cracking games and another couple with potential to come this weekend.

[twohands!!!]

Jim's plans has merit, but I think the current system is vastly under-rated.

As mentioned in the McGuinness article, a key driver for all this controversy was the Dublin v Longford game (and the fact it was live on telly)
That demolition would still happen under McGuinness's plan - the only difference being Longford would go into the B competition instead f the All Ireland qualifiers.

A question to Longford fans - would you prefer to now be in the B championship with the other Division 3 and 4 teams or would you prefer to be in the current series? Absolutely haven't a hope in hell of winning Sam, but a surprise run to the All Ireland Quarter-Finals is not of the question. Would that be a bigger achievement than winning a Division 3/4 championship?

There has been some really exciting games in the championship so far, and nobody credits the system for it, but quick to moan when there's a bad game. While pretty much every Dublin fan would have liked to play Longford away, that could would have been a sell-out and worthy of live TV coverage. But to decide to televise live a game with 50,000 spare seats and less than a 1% doubt as to the outcome was the height of nonsense.

I know they were on different weekends, but if the Wexford-Down game was televised live instead of Dublin-Longford there'd be no complaints this year about the qualifier system. Tyrone v Meath and Armagh v Galway should also be good advertisements for the current system

Fair enough points here. It's a bit poor that the AI footballer qualifiers have been pretty much ignored by TV and there have been a few cracking games and another couple with potential to come this weekend.

With the TV treatment, it's pretty much a case of the GAA telling everyone forget about these, they are unimportant - no wonder the general public isn't buying into them more when the GAA is almost doing it's best to hide them away - early morning draw on radio, fixtures taking an age to sort out, little to no TV coverage - the way the GAA are acting towards the qualifiers, you'd be forgiven for thinking that there were some people in officialdom actually doing their best to kill the qualifier concept.

[Croí na hÉireann]

Jim's plans has merit, but I think the current system is vastly under-rated.

As mentioned in the McGuinness article, a key driver for all this controversy was the Dublin v Longford game (and the fact it was live on telly)
That demolition would still happen under McGuinness's plan - the only difference being Longford would go into the B competition instead f the All Ireland qualifiers.

A question to Longford fans - would you prefer to now be in the B championship with the other Division 3 and 4 teams or would you prefer to be in the current series? Absolutely haven't a hope in hell of winning Sam, but a surprise run to the All Ireland Quarter-Finals is not of the question. Would that be a bigger achievement than winning a Division 3/4 championship?

There has been some really exciting games in the championship so far, and nobody credits the system for it, but quick to moan when there's a bad game. While pretty much every Dublin fan would have liked to play Longford away, that could would have been a sell-out and worthy of live TV coverage. But to decide to televise live a game with 50,000 spare seats and less than a 1% doubt as to the outcome was the height of nonsense.

I know they were on different weekends, but if the Wexford-Down game was televised live instead of Dublin-Longford there'd be no complaints this year about the qualifier system. Tyrone v Meath and Armagh v Galway should also be good advertisements for the current system

Not answering for Longford but when was the last time a team from div 4 made the quarter finals? Lowest I can remember is Monaghan who won div 3 the year they won Ulster. Cavan were div 3 as well a couple of years ago. An intermediate competition would take a couple of years to bed in before it became attractive to win. I like the idea of it.

[Rossfan]

Call it Senior2 and let the winners into the k o stage of Senior 1.
What Div were Fermanagh in back in 04? LLimerick got to a QF as a D3 team a few years ago.

[Croí na hÉireann]

Call it Senior2 and let the winners into the k o stage of Senior 1.
What Div were Fermanagh in back in 04? LLimerick got to a QF as a D3 team a few years ago.

They were in the old 2B if memory serves

[muppet]

Call it Senior2 and let the winners into the k o stage of Senior 1.
What Div were Fermanagh in back in 04? LLimerick got to a QF as a D3 team a few years ago.

They were in the old 2B if memory serves

Mayo were Division 3 in 1996, iirc.

[orangeman]

What happened the Wobbler's idea ?.

[Ringfort]

GPA proposal is rubbish. Can you imagine their 'Champions League' style groups of say Kerry, Kildare, Fermanagh, Antrim playing off against each other? Half a chance of one decent game there in Kildare vs Ferm. The rest would be worse than the lowest key qualifier game under the current system with attendences to match. The soccer CL groups are rubbish for the most part with the seedings ensuring strong vs weak consistently. Would be no different here.

[armaghniac]

What happened the Wobbler's idea ?.

That idea is on file, in a filing cabinet.

[manfromdelmonte]

Provincial games - lack of public interest and will be equivalent of McKenna Cup games in a few years. No impact on All-Ireland.

Group games - only one team doesn't enter knock out, in effect they will be dead rubbers like the early rounds of the provincils but closer to early rounds of qualifiers. Its not knockout and its not league, will have little real bearing till the last 16. Big teams still avoid each other. Very little at stake.

Last 16 - might generate a bit more interest.

Last 8 onwards - as it is now. This is really only where it will start.

GPA proposal: 4/10 - it shortens the season but provides better planning for club season. But overall, just more dead rubber type games and no real knockout action until later stages.

get rid of McKenna Cup/FBD League/O'Byrne Cup then

in most sports, it only really kicks into gear when a competition reaches the final 16 or 8 knockout phase
American Football
Baseball
Rugby - european club competition
Soccer - FA Cup, Champions League
NBA

all the previous rounds are to sort out the weaker teams from the good teams

[rosnarun]

why are people so keen to get rid of the early season competions . Its gives an out let for younger players to give a glimspe of their true worth or plaers oming back from injury.
one the league comes the squads are more or less closed .
and it all takes place at a time when feck all else is happening and several months gone since the last match (usually sept in mayos case),
ye   beat a cup of cold soup in Ballinlough and it only costs a euro