Football Championship - 12 left, Kerry's to lose?

[Barney]

16 teams standing. Anyone know what is the set-up for the QFs. I think it is an open draw but if not it is Connacht v Ulsterseeded, and Leinster v Munster seeded.

Therefore

Cork, and Galway will be joined by the losers of Laois/Dublin and Tyrone/Monaghan to face one of:

Mayo v Derry
Donegal v Westmeath
Louth v Kildare
Meath v Fermanagh

So lets say for arguement Tyrone and Dubs win it should look like

Kerry v Laois/Qualifier
Dublin v Cork/Qualifier
Sligo v Monaghan/Qualifier - a great chance for someone to have a shot of getting to the final.
Tyrone v Galway/Qualifier

Kerry, Dublin, Cork and Tyrone look the only potential winners at this stage with possibly only Donegal resurrecting their season from the 8 out next weekend.

[DUBSFORSAM1]

Barney

It is an open draw on the provinicial losers....so Cork aren't necessarily going to play Dublin....to the best of my knowledge

[INDIANA]

pretty sure barney is 100% correct - dublin are due to play cork/qualifier the winners will most likely play kerry in the ai-semi- almost sure he's right.

[GalwayBayBoy]

I thought it was an open draw for the quarter-finals and then the Connacht v Ulster and Munster v Leinster pairings kicked in for the semis?

I say this with very little conviction though.

[DJGaliv]

The draw only comes into play for the semi-finals. As these days the provincial champions only enter the quarter final, and not the semi-final, the draw plays out as if there were no qualifiers. Connacht v Ulster and Munster v Leinster.

The four provincial winners enter at the quater final stage.
Each provincial winner would be seeded so couldn't meet eachother, instead playing the winner of the third round qualifiers (i.e. Round 2 qualifier winner v Provincial runners up).
QF 1 is Connacht Champs against quals RD 3 winners.
QF 2 is Ulster Champs against quals RD 3 winners
QF 3 is Munster Champs against quals RD 3 winners.
QF 4 is Leinster Champs against quals RD 4 winners.

The semi-final draw is QF 1 v QF 2, and QF 3 v QF 4.

What I would like to know is can provincial games such as Galway-Mayo, Meath-Dublin, Kildare-Meath and Fermanagh-Tyrone be redrawn in the quarter final/round three qualifier stage, or is it just the provincial final pairings of Donegal-Tyrone, Galway-Sligo, Cork-Kerry and Laois-Dublin that cannot be recreated in the quarter final?

[Kerry Mike]

With 39 games played in the football championship to date, this includes 4 draws, there are a total of 69 goals and 902 points scored (or 1109 points total) , Av of 28.4 points per game. Who needs a nil nil soccer match.

There are a minimum of 17 games still to play assuming no draws, and if for example Sligo win 3 more games they will be All Ireland champions , sounds easy but.....

Amazing what you can find in the pockets of these winter anoraks.

[Fishead_Sam]

What I would like to know is can provincial games such as Galway-Mayo...... redrawn.....

DJGaliv lets hold this one off until the Final, after all its our turn to beat you. 

[SuperDooperCooper]

My take on it is that the Quarter finals are a complete open draw.

The four provincal winners and in one pot
Kerry,
GalwaySligo,
Dublin (for arguments sake)
Tyrone (for arguments sake)

The four 3rd qualifiers winners in another pot (for arguments sake I'll pick the 4 beaten provencial finalists)
Cork,
Galway,
Laois and
Monaghan

As it is a completely open draw there is nothing to stop the quarter finals being a repeat of the provincial finals - which would be a joke.
What is definately removed is the linking of the q/f as happened for the last few years at the Q/F stage no more Munster wiinner v Leinster runner up / 3rd qualifier winner.

[Kerry Mike]

From GAA.ie fixtures list.

14th July:
Bank of Ireland Football Championship Qualifier, Round 2

21st July:
Bank of Ireland Football Championship Qualifier Round 3
Connacht R/U v Rd 2 Winner
Munster R/U v Rd 2 Winner

28th July:
Bank of Ireland Football Championship Qualifier Round 3
Leinster R/U v Rd 2 Winner
Ulster R/U v Rd 2 winner

4th August: Croke Park
Bank of Ireland Football Championship Quarter Finals (2)
Connacht Champions v Qualifier
Ulster Champions v Qualifier

11th August: Croke Park
Bank of Ireland Football Championship Quarter Finals (2)
Munster Champions v Qualifier
Leinster Champions v Qualifier

19th:
Bank of Ireland Football Championship Semi-Final
(Connacht v Ulster)

26th:
Bank of Ireland Football Championship Semi-Final
(Leinster v Munster)

[The Real Laoislad]

I love the way everyone has Laois down as provincial Losers

pretty sure barney is 100% correct - dublin are due to play cork/qualifier the winners will most likely play kerry in the ai-semi- almost sure he's right.

Didn't realise Dublin beat Laois already when was that match played i thought it was this sunday

[ONeill]

In all seriousness, it's great to see the top 16 still in it.

[Fishead_Sam]

In all seriousness, it's great to see the top 16 still in it.

So Armagh not Top 16 

[Hound]

As it is a completely open draw there is nothing to stop the quarter finals being a repeat of the provincial finals - which would be a joke.

Absolutely. I can understand them bringing back the open draw for the quarter-finals, but I can't understand why they've removed the restriction on playing a team you've already met. I dont remember any calls for that.

If we pretend that Laois beat Dublin and Meath beat Fermanagh, you could get Dublin v Meath again in Round 3. Then when Dublin beat Meath again you could get Laois v Dublin again in the quarters. Likewise we could get Galway v Mayo in Round 3 and Sligo v Galway in the quarters. Not good.

[DJGaliv]

As it is a completely open draw there is nothing to stop the quarter finals being a repeat of the provincial finals - which would be a joke.

Absolutely. I can understand them bringing back the open draw for the quarter-finals, but I can't understand why they've removed the restriction on playing a team you've already met. I dont remember any calls for that.

If we pretend that Laois beat Dublin and Meath beat Fermanagh, you could get Dublin v Meath again in Round 3. Then when Dublin beat Meath again you could get Laois v Dublin again in the quarters. Likewise we could get Galway v Mayo in Round 3 and Sligo v Galway in the quarters. Not good.

That's true, it's the one alteration I would like made to the championship.
After Galway beating Mayo earlier in the year, no doubt Mayo would probably win if we were redrawn in Round 3 of the qualifiers. Whereas if Galway were drawn against Sligo in the quarters, I think Galway would win. Motivation would be massive for these teams, and you shouldn't have to beat the same team twice unless it's an All-Ireland final. It's the same in 2001 when Galway beat Ros in the quarters after having lost to them in the Connacht final.

It's not fair on the underdogs. Longford fell foul of this system too after beating Westmeath. It's not like there aren't enough other teams to be drawn against. When Longford were drawn to play Westmeath again, they could've been drawn against 14 other teams.

[cavanmaniac]

I never liked the draws throwing up teams that have met already. It did lend an air of fabrication to the draws in keeping the teams apart in recent seasons, but re-runs of earlier matches where the result is almost always very predictable, has a real sense of anti-climax about it IMO.