All-Ireland Club Championship Fixtures Jan-Feb-March 2017

[From the Bunker]

Just checked there now its ten years since a Kerry club reached the All Ireland senior final so its not just winning it their having trouble with but reaching finals as well.

I'm arguing the current Kerry club system has increased their chances of winning intermediate and junior All Irelands and the opposite at senior level.

Their lack of a senior club AI is nothing to do with a system, and only betrays your lack of understanding of Kerry football. The true strength of Kerry football is that the game is strong in every corner of the county, and while I'm not sure how many clubs they have, even the smallest junior club imaginable tends to have a decent structure, good coaches, and a clear pathway for players to develop to the best of their potential, via the divisional system. Their most ordinary junior sides would be middling intermediate in most counties.

That same system handicaps them in terms of providing a senior All Ireland contender - ten of the last twenty Kerry SFC winners were divisional sides, which means that 10 of the last 20 Kerry contenders in the All Ireland club race came in on the back of not actually winning a county title.

I'm sure if their main aim was to produce All Ireland club winners they might do things differently, but they have other goals that supercede that by some margin.

Finally, some sense on the matter!!!

The Kerry system has been in place long before the AI club series was introduced for intermediate and junior clubs. The system was not introduced by the Kerry county board to help kerry clubs rack up junior and intermediate club titles. It is a method to improve the general standard of club footballer throughout the county and therefore increase the pick of players who might be at inter-county standard. The aim is to improve the Kerry county team's chance of winning All Irelands, not to increase the chances of winning intermediate and junior club all irelands.

I completely agree that a by-product of the system is that Kerry clubs will win more intermediate and junior all irelands. But the Kerry county board are doing nothing wrong here.

I have said for years that the kerry system is the best system to improve the general standard of football in a county and should be implemented in every county. However, a lot of local politics would mean that amalgamated/divisional sides would not be voted for in several counties.

WRONG!

http://www.independent.ie/regionals/kerryman/sport/relegation-structure-finalised-31607074.html

[westbound]

Just checked there now its ten years since a Kerry club reached the All Ireland senior final so its not just winning it their having trouble with but reaching finals as well.

I'm arguing the current Kerry club system has increased their chances of winning intermediate and junior All Irelands and the opposite at senior level.

Their lack of a senior club AI is nothing to do with a system, and only betrays your lack of understanding of Kerry football. The true strength of Kerry football is that the game is strong in every corner of the county, and while I'm not sure how many clubs they have, even the smallest junior club imaginable tends to have a decent structure, good coaches, and a clear pathway for players to develop to the best of their potential, via the divisional system. Their most ordinary junior sides would be middling intermediate in most counties.

That same system handicaps them in terms of providing a senior All Ireland contender - ten of the last twenty Kerry SFC winners were divisional sides, which means that 10 of the last 20 Kerry contenders in the All Ireland club race came in on the back of not actually winning a county title.

I'm sure if their main aim was to produce All Ireland club winners they might do things differently, but they have other goals that supercede that by some margin.

Finally, some sense on the matter!!!

The Kerry system has been in place long before the AI club series was introduced for intermediate and junior clubs. The system was not introduced by the Kerry county board to help kerry clubs rack up junior and intermediate club titles. It is a method to improve the general standard of club footballer throughout the county and therefore increase the pick of players who might be at inter-county standard. The aim is to improve the Kerry county team's chance of winning All Irelands, not to increase the chances of winning intermediate and junior club all irelands.

I completely agree that a by-product of the system is that Kerry clubs will win more intermediate and junior all irelands. But the Kerry county board are doing nothing wrong here.

I have said for years that the kerry system is the best system to improve the general standard of football in a county and should be implemented in every county. However, a lot of local politics would mean that amalgamated/divisional sides would not be voted for in several counties.

WRONG!

http://www.independent.ie/regionals/kerryman/sport/relegation-structure-finalised-31607074.html

The kerry system with divisional sides has been in place long before 2015.

[twohands!!!]

The kerry system with divisional sides has been in place long before 2015.

Pretty sure the first club all-ireland was won by a divisional side from Kerry but divisional sides were banned shortly afterwards because other counties felt it was unfair.

The fact that people are still complaining about Kerry's structures 50 years later rather than doing anything to improve their own structures says a lot.

[From the Bunker]

Read the Article.

They reduced their Senior Championship from 11 to 8! Making things even more unfair!!!!!

I don't give to damns about their Divisional system!

For F***s sack All Ireland Intermediate Champions St. Marys played intermediate again this year. Total Joke!

[Rossfan]

Let's bring in a rule that you have to have 16 senior Clubs in Kerry

[From the Bunker]

Let's bring in a rule that you have to have 16 senior Clubs in Kerry

Yes! Now you are seeing the light! ;P

[Owenmoresider]

I'd imagine if Mayo cut its senior grade to 8 and Intermediate likewise then the champions in the intermediate and junior grades would be well placed for tilts at the AI more than they already are. Nothing stopping them doing it either, but maybe some clubs who get all precious about their status might complain that they actually have to justify their place at the top table rather than win one game in the relegation playoffs each year and think that makes them a proper senior club, we had that moaning here whenever reductions were suggested in the past.

We have 10 each in the top two grades now, being honest I'd cut it to 8 and make three properly competitive championships out of it, the intermediate still carries some passengers and the junior should be a bit better now (it has 3 clubs in it now rather than the usual 0/1, would be up to 7/8 in that scenario). The winners of those you would hope to do better in provincial competition, but then Molaise Gaels were the best intermediate winners in years last year and still lost to Leitrim opponents. Having a standardised number across the board wouldn't work at all, the disparity in number of clubs between Dublin/Cork and Carlow/Leitrim is huge. But there's certainly a few counties who could trim their grades in similar fashion and it would do their club competitions no harm at all, but then nobody likes being an intermediate or junior team.

[GalwayBayBoy]

Just checked there now its ten years since a Kerry club reached the All Ireland senior final so its not just winning it their having trouble with but reaching finals as well.

I'm arguing the current Kerry club system has increased their chances of winning intermediate and junior All Irelands and the opposite at senior level.

Their lack of a senior club AI is nothing to do with a system, and only betrays your lack of understanding of Kerry football. The true strength of Kerry football is that the game is strong in every corner of the county, and while I'm not sure how many clubs they have, even the smallest junior club imaginable tends to have a decent structure, good coaches, and a clear pathway for players to develop to the best of their potential, via the divisional system. Their most ordinary junior sides would be middling intermediate in most counties.

Surely this is hard to judge given that they have so few senior teams which invariably strengthens their intermediate and junior championships as it would in any county. If they had double the amount of senior clubs for example it would have a knock on effect on the strength in depth of their lower level championships.

There are 20 senior clubs in Galway for example (too many if you ask me) but if you put half of those down to intermediate and half of intermediate down to junior then we'd certainly be winning a lot more at the lower levels.

It's up to each county to organise how they like but often comparing standards in championships is not comparing like with like exactly.

[Syferus]

It's an anti Tymoan conspiracy of course, instigated by the "Free State media"

Any chance of borrowing the big yellow bus for the all Ireland semi. It'll be the only all Ireland series trip it'll make.

Are you asking for Donegal?

[westbound]

Read the Article.

They reduced their Senior Championship from 11 to 8! Making things even more unfair!!!!!

I don't give to damns about their Divisional system!

For F***s sack All Ireland Intermediate Champions St. Marys played intermediate again this year. Total Joke!

I read the article back in 2015 too! 

The divisional/regional system is what the kerry system is all about, and that has been in place for years! It is the reason there are less 'senior' clubs.
The change in 2015/16 didn't change the structure of the championships (i.e. the divisional system). If you believe that the lower the number of senior clubs in a championship the more unfair it is, then fair enough this change made it more 'unfair'.

However, my overriding points are 1) the Kerry county board are doing nothing wrong here. It is up to every county board to structure their championships in whatever way they see fit.
2) I don't believe the Kerry county board sat down sometime in 2015 and had a discussion about "how do we get more All Ireland intermediate and junior club titles". You can be pretty sure the kerry county board 's main aim is how to improve general standards in the county with the aim of getting more SENIOR All Irelands for the county. This was the reason the divisional system was introduced in the first place.

Btw, I agree completely about St. Mary's this year. That was totally wrong. It is worth pointing out, that was a one off. But I agree it shouldn't have been allowed at all.

[mouview]

Is it a requirement that county league status determine the grade a club plays in? 

Certainly not so in Kerry, where the status is determined by senior, intermediate and junior club championships.  Win your level and you move up (with the exception of the occasional regrading year).  Kerry's county league exists to give non-county players regular games and nothing else it seems as there is no requirement that county men must be available for any league games. 

So why don't other counties adopt the same structure if it so good?

Not only is it not a requirement, it's illegal under GAA rules. Some counties used to, until quite recently, determine championship promotion/relegation through league positions. I know Galway was one.  They were forced to change.

Eh, surely this is nonsense? In Derry if you're relegated from the Senior league you play Intermediate Championship the next year, if promoted the other way you play Senior Chapionship and the same between Intermediate and Junior.  I don't think this is illegal as i'm pretty sure it's done in plenty of other counties?

Note: The only exception is to apply to play senior championship which is very rarely done.

Did a little digging. This is what I based my comment on:

http://connachttribune.ie/major-overhaul-of-county-football-on-the-cards/

It seems Galway were made to change as the Connacht Council found them to be in contravention of the rules. Maybe the Connacht Council were wrong, it's hard to tell from the article.

Strange as from what I can take, how Galway used to be run (and deemed to be against the rules) is currently how things are run in the Tyrone leagues/championships unless i'm missing something?

Galway used be like that up until about 7/8 years ago, and a very clear, functional and well-defined system it was too. Then something happened concerning one of Galway's Intermediate/Junior club representatives (it *may* have been the Aran Islands) around that time, they were involved in a controversial match or in a fracas with other opponents, something like that. IIRC Croke Park didn't like the way it was handled so, as a belt of the crozier, made Galway change their domestic competitions to come into line with their rules. Prior to that, I think they had been turning a blind eye to it. It certainly hasn't helped improve football in Galway since.

I think there is a (quite vague) clause in the GAA constitution which states that counties can, with permission from CP, overrule certain GAA rules if they can present a cogent case that they are detrimental to the assoc. in the county itself. i.e. a county could run their domestic competitions contrary to the set-down guidelines if, by doing so, it noticeably improves the level of competition within the county.

[Croí na hÉireann]

Ah please, Mayo lads and moaning..we've had enough of it.

You've had the respective distances of travel laid out for you which show the venues to be totally logical and fair. Crokes have played 1 game in Gaelic Grounds before (and were almost beaten by Cratloe), Glenbeigh have never played there before of course. They have also never won the Kerry Junior championship before last year and yet, according to some clowns, they have some magical advantage over other clubs at the same grade?

Enough of this nonsense please.

No problem with venues! Only a few of the Kerry players will have played in them before.

On the grading system. Well you can only laugh at anyone who thinks that Kerry intermediate and Junior clubs are not graded higher than other counties! Once again (in theory) Mayo's 17th best team will get to play Kerry's 9th best. Kerry have a stronger intermediate and Junior championship because they have a very small Senior Championship. It stands to reason.

How did your Intermediate Champions of 2015 get on in the Senior championship of 2016?

I've had numerous arguments on here in the past with Kerry posters. They chose their system and it works for them. Nothing to stop other counties doing the same.
Their system is completely unbalanced and unfair in regard to how most other counties operate. The likes of their JFC winners playing division one football is a joke. As is their 8 team SFC.

For sure. The same reason why you hardly ever see the Dublin intermediate or junior champions make any impression in Leinster (Castleknock were an exception). Fingallians were, in theory, the 33rd best team in Dublin this year and got knocked out by Rosemount, Westmeath's 13th best.

Very true. Paul Flynn was away on a holiday for that match though and would surely have edged it Fingallians way had he bothered to stay around. Couldn't see him missing a Leinster semi final for the county, but then again the GPA don't care much for the club. He had a poor year with the dubs by his standards but got his second wind when he went back to Fingallians.

[From the Bunker]

Read the Article.

They reduced their Senior Championship from 11 to 8! Making things even more unfair!!!!!

I don't give to damns about their Divisional system!

For F***s sack All Ireland Intermediate Champions St. Marys played intermediate again this year. Total Joke!

I read the article back in 2015 too! 

The divisional/regional system is what the kerry system is all about, and that has been in place for years! It is the reason there are less 'senior' clubs.
The change in 2015/16 didn't change the structure of the championships (i.e. the divisional system). If you believe that the lower the number of senior clubs in a championship the more unfair it is, then fair enough this change made it more 'unfair'.

However, my overriding points are 1) the Kerry county board are doing nothing wrong here. It is up to every county board to structure their championships in whatever way they see fit.
2) I don't believe the Kerry county board sat down sometime in 2015 and had a discussion about "how do we get more All Ireland intermediate and junior club titles". You can be pretty sure the kerry county board 's main aim is how to improve general standards in the county with the aim of getting more SENIOR All Irelands for the county. This was the reason the divisional system was introduced in the first place.

Btw, I agree completely about St. Mary's this year. That was totally wrong. It is worth pointing out, that was a one off. But I agree it shouldn't have been allowed at all.

Kerry winning Intermediate, Junior and Junior Intercounty All Irelands has to create a positive feel good factor that Kerrys Senior Intercounty team can only gain from. Taking a three further teams from senior football makes this more possible to dominate in all these grades and no matter how you try to dress this up this is the reality.

I have no issue with Kerry and how they run their Championship within the county. They have their way and good luck to them. But if they are to enter the Munster and All Ireland Championships then their Junior champions enter the Intermediate championship and their Novice Champions enter the Junior Championship.  The reverse of the way the British Champions enter the AI Club competitions.

[Zulu]

Why on earth would they have to do that? Is it not far more sensible for Mayo, and others, to cut the deadwood from their senior and intermediate championships thus making all three of their club championships more competitive and providing stronger intermediate and junior champions?

[westbound]

Read the Article.

They reduced their Senior Championship from 11 to 8! Making things even more unfair!!!!!

I don't give to damns about their Divisional system!

For F***s sack All Ireland Intermediate Champions St. Marys played intermediate again this year. Total Joke!

I read the article back in 2015 too! 

The divisional/regional system is what the kerry system is all about, and that has been in place for years! It is the reason there are less 'senior' clubs.
The change in 2015/16 didn't change the structure of the championships (i.e. the divisional system). If you believe that the lower the number of senior clubs in a championship the more unfair it is, then fair enough this change made it more 'unfair'.

However, my overriding points are 1) the Kerry county board are doing nothing wrong here. It is up to every county board to structure their championships in whatever way they see fit.
2) I don't believe the Kerry county board sat down sometime in 2015 and had a discussion about "how do we get more All Ireland intermediate and junior club titles". You can be pretty sure the kerry county board 's main aim is how to improve general standards in the county with the aim of getting more SENIOR All Irelands for the county. This was the reason the divisional system was introduced in the first place.

Btw, I agree completely about St. Mary's this year. That was totally wrong. It is worth pointing out, that was a one off. But I agree it shouldn't have been allowed at all.

Kerry winning Intermediate, Junior and Junior Intercounty All Irelands has to create a positive feel good factor that Kerrys Senior Intercounty team can only gain from. Taking a three further teams from senior football makes this more possible to dominate in all these grades and no matter how you try to dress this up this is the reality.

I have no issue with Kerry and how they run their Championship within the county. They have their way and good luck to them. But if they are to enter the Munster and All Ireland Championships then their Junior champions enter the Intermediate championship and their Novice Champions enter the Junior Championship.  The reverse of the way the British Champions enter the AI Club competitions.

So now we are getting to common ground! 

If counties believe that their junior and intermediate clubs are being unfairly treated then they are perfectly entitled to change the structure of their own championships in whatever way they see fit. It's not as if the Kerry structure is a state secret.