'Splitting into two groups of 16 is inevitable for football'

[lenny]

Would that be the Dublin beaten in the league final and narrow winners of the All Ireland after a replay against Mayo? I didn't see anyone talk about splitting Dublin on this thread anyway. Besides, that's not going to happen so unless you want to talk about a purely hypothetical scenario we may as well focus on the more realistic alternatives.

All sports are dominated by a few teams so the focus shouldn't be on weakening the strong but making the weak stronger. Kildare, Meath, Louth, Down, Wicklow, Galway, Cork, Armagh and Antrim are all performing below their capacity and despite the doom merchants around here players like Connolly, Cluxton, Brogan or Flynn are not easily replaced. Despite showing huge promise as an underage player Cormac Costello hasn't set the IC scene alight for example.

The solution isn't to split counties it's to pit counties of similar ability against each other more.

Reservoir Dubs doesn't count, Zulu.

This all boils down to two diametrically opposed positions - you want a system that only strengthens and uplifts the few, whereas most want a system that uplifts all areas that are passionate about the sport and allows them to compete at the highest level. Sadly some don't understand that a tiered system is never going to achieve that goal. No county that is regularly playing at Inter is ever going to be any better prepared to compete at Senior if and when they make it there. The elitism of hurling being superimposed on our sport would make me lose interest in it very fast.

Amalgamation and, in the case of Dublin and Cork, splitting is preferable to a tiered system because at least the former isn't a death sentence for interest in inter-county for those unfortunate counties stuck outside the top 8 or 12.

Will you please stop talking bollocks for a minute?

Amalgamations and splitting teams wouldn't be a death sentence for interest, are you bonkers? You may as well suggest our IC teams play soccer to develop the GAA as to suggest Cork and Dublin be split. So if you want to propose solutions that haven't a hope in hell in ever happening then carry on talking to yourself.

Again, I don't actually support the tiered format of junior, intermediate and senior but it's clearly a load of rubbish to suggest playing intermediate will hinder you at senior. Loads of teams at various levels have climbed the ladder to compete at the highest level. Your argument lacks any logic, why would a mid ranking team playing in the current format improve by playing and losing to the odd top team but couldn't improve by playing regular football every second week against teams they can compete against? If they are the best of that bunch then they'll be able to compete against the weaker top teams at least. There's actually so little sense to what your arguing that I could be here all day picking holes in it.

Well said. The simple fact is if Derry had 3 or 4 championship games v teams like armagh, down, meath and tipperary it would be a hell of a lot more beneficial to the development of players than being out of their depth and being destroyed by tyrone or donegal or dublin or mayo. With a tiered system counties like dublin and kerry would almost always be senior but counties like derry would most likely yo yo between senior and intermediate. When a really good group of players comes along we would be senior but at the moment we are barely an intermediate team. It works perfectly at club level, there is no reason at all it wouldn't work well at county. In derry teams like ardmore and doire trasna aren't asked to play slaughtneil or ballinderry in the lesgue or championship, so why do we put up with the mismatches at county level which are becoming much more frequent and boringly predictable.

[Rossfan]

The logical sensible Zulu meets Syfín
You'd be forgiven for thinking Senior/Inter/Junior was some mad radical new thing that was never ever used before.
Instead we have it in all Counties so as the small depopulated rural parish team aren't thrown into the same competition as big town teams or areas of rising population near cities etc.
In Roscommon Ballinameen don't play in the same championship as Brigids or Clann.

As for splitting Dublin -  would that help Carlow win the Senior AI??

[The Trap]

I think a three tier championship as per the club scene is the best option in the short term.......in the long term the only hope is that the top teams begin to ask themselves "what the hell are we putting in all of this effort for and putting the rest of our lives on hold for?"..... and hopefully they will come back to the pack.........if you were a young lad from Down Derry Armagh Antrim Fermanagh etc would you be willing to put your life on hold over the next few years just to try and close the gap? When Harte goes Tyrone will prob come back to the pack and prob the same in Monaghan post orourke.......when Donegal lose another few especially Murphy they will come back down too......then we might see a competitive ulster championship again anyway.........dunno what we can do with the dubs and Kerry though!!!!!

[Kilkevan]

I think a three tier championship as per the club scene is the best option in the short term.......in the long term the only hope is that the top teams begin to ask themselves "what the hell are we putting in all of this effort for and putting the rest of our lives on hold for?"..... and hopefully they will come back to the pack.........if you were a young lad from Down Derry Armagh Antrim Fermanagh etc would you be willing to put your life on hold over the next few years just to try and close the gap? When Harte goes Tyrone will prob come back to the pack and prob the same in Monaghan post orourke.......when Donegal lose another few especially Murphy they will come back down too......then we might see a competitive ulster championship again anyway.........dunno what we can do with the dubs and Kerry though!!!!!

Why should others come to the question of what the hell they are doing putting in all this effort? What is negative about people pushing themselves to be the best they can be in whatever field they choose?

Why shouldn't the onus be on other counties to also step up to the plate? The likes of Antrim, Down and Derry as cited by yourself, and others outside Ulster like Kildare, need to get their houses in order. The size of population in those counties is conducive to producing good GAA teams. I know you can roughly halve the populations of Antrim, Down and Derry, but they are still very sizeable places.

I understand population isn't a foolproof recipe for success. If it was, my own county, Kilkenny, wouldn't be consistently eating at the top table as we're relatively small. But get good youth structures in place, put local squabbling apart and work for the overall good, and each county will have it's unique problems, treat players properly and success will invariably follow to a greater or lesser degree. A huge difference between the haves and have-nots is the value in the county jersey. In all successful counties without exception, the county team is the pinnacle. The respect players have in Dublin, Kerry, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Cork etc. have for the county jersey is phenomenal. Not all counties have that and it doesn't just materialise, it needs to be cultivated. Instead of praying the big boys slacken off, the aim should be to emulate them and do things even better.

[lenny]

I think a three tier championship as per the club scene is the best option in the short term.......in the long term the only hope is that the top teams begin to ask themselves "what the hell are we putting in all of this effort for and putting the rest of our lives on hold for?"..... and hopefully they will come back to the pack.........if you were a young lad from Down Derry Armagh Antrim Fermanagh etc would you be willing to put your life on hold over the next few years just to try and close the gap? When Harte goes Tyrone will prob come back to the pack and prob the same in Monaghan post orourke.......when Donegal lose another few especially Murphy they will come back down too......then we might see a competitive ulster championship again anyway.........dunno what we can do with the dubs and Kerry though!!!!!

Why should others come to the question of what the hell they are doing putting in all this effort? What is negative about people pushing themselves to be the best they can be in whatever field they choose?

Why shouldn't the onus be on other counties to also step up to the plate? The likes of Antrim, Down and Derry as cited by yourself, and others outside Ulster like Kildare, need to get their houses in order. The size of population in those counties is conducive to producing good GAA teams. I know you can roughly halve the populations of Antrim, Down and Derry, but they are still very sizeable places.

I understand population isn't a foolproof recipe for success. If it was, my own county, Kilkenny, wouldn't be consistently eating at the top table as we're relatively small. But get good youth structures in place, put local squabbling apart and work for the overall good, and each county will have it's unique problems, treat players properly and success will invariably follow to a greater or lesser degree. A huge difference between the haves and have-nots is the value in the county jersey. In all successful counties without exception, the county team is the pinnacle. The respect players have in Dublin, Kerry, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Cork etc. have for the county jersey is phenomenal. Not all counties have that and it doesn't just materialise, it needs to be cultivated. Instead of praying the big boys slacken off, the aim should be to emulate them and do things even better.

Bravo for you, you come from one of the 3 counties who just happen to have shared 95% of all hurling titles and you think it's some sort of an achievement for your players to have pride in the county jersey. I don't think there would be too many problems getting the best players out to play for derry or antrim if we were going for our 30th sam maguire.

[Syferus]

I think a three tier championship as per the club scene is the best option in the short term.......in the long term the only hope is that the top teams begin to ask themselves "what the hell are we putting in all of this effort for and putting the rest of our lives on hold for?"..... and hopefully they will come back to the pack.........if you were a young lad from Down Derry Armagh Antrim Fermanagh etc would you be willing to put your life on hold over the next few years just to try and close the gap? When Harte goes Tyrone will prob come back to the pack and prob the same in Monaghan post orourke.......when Donegal lose another few especially Murphy they will come back down too......then we might see a competitive ulster championship again anyway.........dunno what we can do with the dubs and Kerry though!!!!!

The let's hope Dublin stop spending millions and getting millions more in grants approach to bringing parity. Even Kerry have splurtered horribly in their attempts to catch Dublin and they probably have the most resources outside of the capital to work with. Once the GAA started dumping millions into Dublin to try and case after rugby and soccer it was only a matter of time before all of their advantages met with consistent and near-total success.

Sadly that crazy sort of thinking probably is closer to the GAA's weak-willed approach that's unwilling to address the abatross they hung around their own necks than than it is to a sensible and coherent approach to draining the money doping from the game and making it a truly amateur sport again.

[The Trap]

Kilkenny man......how do you propose your footballers get better?? You mention Cork but surely on a hurling context only.........superpowers like cork and Meath are now in the also rans............Meath actually had more to celebrate in hurling last year! I can guarantee you now that the only counties who will get to the standard that Dublin are at now are Kerry, Mayo for another couple of years and then maybe Donegal and Tyrone could get close for a year or two, Monaghan as well.....and that is why they are putting their lives into it.......because they have even an outside chance..........Carlow had a great win over Wexford but it will prob do more long term harm than good when Dublin roll over the top of them in second gear and they realise just how far they are behind........if you were an Antrim or Fermanagh footballer last week or a Derry man today would you be thinking well that was worth it......the biggest surprise to me is that 10000 people turn up yesterday for a game that was so predictable........even when two good teams meet such as Tyrone v Donegal next it will make for horrific viewing....

[lenny]

I think a three tier championship as per the club scene is the best option in the short term.......in the long term the only hope is that the top teams begin to ask themselves "what the hell are we putting in all of this effort for and putting the rest of our lives on hold for?"..... and hopefully they will come back to the pack.........if you were a young lad from Down Derry Armagh Antrim Fermanagh etc would you be willing to put your life on hold over the next few years just to try and close the gap? When Harte goes Tyrone will prob come back to the pack and prob the same in Monaghan post orourke.......when Donegal lose another few especially Murphy they will come back down too......then we might see a competitive ulster championship again anyway.........dunno what we can do with the dubs and Kerry though!!!!!

The let's hope Dublin stop spending millions and getting millions more in grants approach to bringing parity. Sadly that crazy sort of thinking probably is closer to the GAA's weak-willed approach that's unwilling to address the abatross they hung around their own necks than than it is to a sensible and coherent approach to cpdraining the money doping from the game and making it a truly amateur sport again.

If it was all down to money Dublin would be running away with all the hurling all irelands also because they have similar amounts pumped into hurling in dublin. If anything hurling has started to regress aagain in dublin. Dublin quite simply have a great manager, great team and group of players at the moment. Some of their players like brogan, flynn etc are coming right to the end of their careers and I have a feeling they will slip back in the next year or 2. As it is most of their latter stage of the championship matches in the last few years have been very tight which shows that even now they're not that far ahead of teams like kerry, mayo and donegal.

[Captain Obvious]

i still hear people saying Ulster is competitive when it's clearly not, the same few teams win it every year. The Ulster championship is terrible and is only marginally more competitive than the rest because it has more middling teams and no great team. It's still the best one we have though and that tells it's own tale.

Tyrone won the Ulster championship for first time in years last year and anyone of Monaghan,Donegal,Tyrone could win Ulster this year. No other provincial has 3 teams that are capable of winning their province at this moment in time and those three teams are established division one teams and for as terrible as Ulster is as you claim sides like Fermanagh,Armagh not currently capable of winning Ulster were still able to reach the All Ireland quarter final recently  and give a very good account of themselves.

Yes, there may be three potential winners but it's the same three that have been there for a decade. I accept there are more middling teams which means more can get to a QF but there are no All Ireland winners in Ulster at the moment.

Munster and Leinster wouldn't mind having three potential winners instead of one. Some of the best moments in the championship happened in the provincial championships last summer, Donegal v Monaghan and Tyrone v Donegal were highly competitive games in Ulster, in Connacht you had Galway beating Mayo and winning their first senior provincial title for years, Tipperary great run probably started with that win over Cork.

One can talk about different formats or the "great" super 8s but at the moment and I don't see this changing anytime soon, Kerry and Dublin are the only capable All Ireland winners, Mayo at a push but they are more known for finding different ways to lose the All Ireland than actually winning it.

[Syferus]

I think a three tier championship as per the club scene is the best option in the short term.......in the long term the only hope is that the top teams begin to ask themselves "what the hell are we putting in all of this effort for and putting the rest of our lives on hold for?"..... and hopefully they will come back to the pack.........if you were a young lad from Down Derry Armagh Antrim Fermanagh etc would you be willing to put your life on hold over the next few years just to try and close the gap? When Harte goes Tyrone will prob come back to the pack and prob the same in Monaghan post orourke.......when Donegal lose another few especially Murphy they will come back down too......then we might see a competitive ulster championship again anyway.........dunno what we can do with the dubs and Kerry though!!!!!

The let's hope Dublin stop spending millions and getting millions more in grants approach to bringing parity. Sadly that crazy sort of thinking probably is closer to the GAA's weak-willed approach that's unwilling to address the abatross they hung around their own necks than than it is to a sensible and coherent approach to cpdraining the money doping from the game and making it a truly amateur sport again.

If it was all down to money Dublin would be running away with all the hurling all irelands also because they have similar amounts pumped into hurling in dublin. If anything hurling has started to regress aagain in dublin. Dublin quite simply have a great manager, great team and group of players at the moment. Some of their players like brogan, flynn etc are coming right to the end of their careers and I have a feeling they will slip back in the next year or 2. As it is most of their latter stage of the championship matches in the last few years have been very tight which shows that even now they're not that far ahead of teams like kerry, mayo and donegal.

The only reason Dublin haven't won a hurling AI is the best hurlers are also top footballers, and it's a football first county. Once the Kilkennys and Costellos start choosing hurling that will come, it should be very frightening how fast Dublin have become a major power in hurling thanks to the money they've pumped into the sport.

What other county in living memory have done what Dublin have and became a major power without having any tradition or even primary status in their county to work in the sport's advantage? Hurling is such a closed shop apart from Dublin, Westmeath giving a half-interested Galway a shock is the closest to a breakthrough we've seen in a very long time.

The footballers have even more advantages to rely on.

Dublin are sponsored by AIG, a billion dollar entity. Roscommon, another D1 team, are sponsored by a single developer and wear their own supporter club as their shirt sponsors. The GAA have warped the system so badly even at the supposed highest level the gap is frighteningly large.

[Rossfan]

Dublin won several hurling All Irelands in the past.

[Syferus]

Dublin won several hurling All Irelands in the past.

Wexford won a four in a row in football..

[seafoid]

Dublin won several hurling All Irelands in the past.

Wexford won a four in a row in football..

There are a few hurling counties other than Wexford who won football all Irelands before they focused on hurling. Limerick, Cork  and Tipp won all Irelands before the 1920s

[didlyi]

  Didn't Kerry win  a hurling title in 1891 and Limerick won the first football. No bearing whatsoever on today's code balance.

[Kilkevan]

I think a three tier championship as per the club scene is the best option in the short term.......in the long term the only hope is that the top teams begin to ask themselves "what the hell are we putting in all of this effort for and putting the rest of our lives on hold for?"..... and hopefully they will come back to the pack.........if you were a young lad from Down Derry Armagh Antrim Fermanagh etc would you be willing to put your life on hold over the next few years just to try and close the gap? When Harte goes Tyrone will prob come back to the pack and prob the same in Monaghan post orourke.......when Donegal lose another few especially Murphy they will come back down too......then we might see a competitive ulster championship again anyway.........dunno what we can do with the dubs and Kerry though!!!!!

Why should others come to the question of what the hell they are doing putting in all this effort? What is negative about people pushing themselves to be the best they can be in whatever field they choose?

Why shouldn't the onus be on other counties to also step up to the plate? The likes of Antrim, Down and Derry as cited by yourself, and others outside Ulster like Kildare, need to get their houses in order. The size of population in those counties is conducive to producing good GAA teams. I know you can roughly halve the populations of Antrim, Down and Derry, but they are still very sizeable places.

I understand population isn't a foolproof recipe for success. If it was, my own county, Kilkenny, wouldn't be consistently eating at the top table as we're relatively small. But get good youth structures in place, put local squabbling apart and work for the overall good, and each county will have it's unique problems, treat players properly and success will invariably follow to a greater or lesser degree. A huge difference between the haves and have-nots is the value in the county jersey. In all successful counties without exception, the county team is the pinnacle. The respect players have in Dublin, Kerry, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Cork etc. have for the county jersey is phenomenal. Not all counties have that and it doesn't just materialise, it needs to be cultivated. Instead of praying the big boys slacken off, the aim should be to emulate them and do things even better.

Bravo for you, you come from one of the 3 counties who just happen to have shared 95% of all hurling titles and you think it's some sort of an achievement for your players to have pride in the county jersey. I don't think there would be too many problems getting the best players out to play for derry or antrim if we were going for our 30th sam maguire.

There's a lot more to it than that and you know it. I would say there's also a strong attachment to how county players are treated and perceived to be treated. Cork went back a long way and are perhaps only now returning to being Cork and a large part of that was how players were treated/perceived to be treated. I listed a number of necessities for building success, not just attachment to the county team. Address some of those rather than myopically focusing on one point.