Is the earlier Championship a success or failure?

[Armagh18]

I'd say most County boards main source of revenue (barring Dublin maybe) would be gate revenue from their club championships which then funds their county squads, no?

Would be a whole pile put in from sponsors, I don't think championship ticket sales would cover it these days.

Do Armagh not go for the round robin/backdoor like a lot of other counties?

used to be first round losers got a second chance with a back door game then knock out from second round on, then for a year or two there were group games with 4 in a group and the top 3 getting through. In 2020 there was straight knockout due to time constraints with covid and been knockout ever since, for the better imo

[seafoid]

The club fuball final is on in late January, apparently.

Kerry won the all Ireland on 24 July. The county all Ireland was run off in 3 months.
The club shenanigan takes twice as long.

Perhaps club championships across the counties may have to be standardised.
Otherwise there may have to be some overlap in the holy early club stages. They don't care about club in Kerry anyway.

Everything should be tied up by Christmas.

[thewobbler]

Agreed, everything should be tied up by Christmas.

[AustinPowers]

The club fuball final is on in late January, apparently.

Kerry won the all Ireland on 24 July. The county all Ireland was run off in 3 months.
The club shenanigan takes twice as long.

Perhaps club championships across the counties may have to be standardised.
Otherwise there may have to be some overlap in the holy early club stages. They don't care about club in Kerry anyway.

Everything should be tied up by Christmas.

Then we'd end up with  two All Ireland club winners in the same year.  That would just mess up the record books  and cause countless arguments at pub quizzes

You clearly haven't  thought this through

[Rossfan]

The 2020 Minor Final was played in Summer 2021!
Anyway I don't see the big deal of Club Finals in January.
It involves 12 Clubs out of around 2,200

[seafoid]

The club fuball final is on in late January, apparently.

Kerry won the all Ireland on 24 July. The county all Ireland was run off in 3 months.
The club shenanigan takes twice as long.

Perhaps club championships across the counties may have to be standardised.
Otherwise there may have to be some overlap in the holy early club stages. They don't care about club in Kerry anyway.

Everything should be tied up by Christmas.

Then we'd end up with  two All Ireland club winners in the same year.  That would just mess up the record books  and cause countless arguments at pub quizzes

You clearly haven't  thought this through

It's the price of sanity.
The ESRI report is driving the institutional response.

The poor hoors left at the semifinal stage in the football will be training for another month.
The GAA did not think this through. Would you shtop.

Club finalists will have SFA time to rest before the League starts on 2 Feb.
Pressure on intercounty players has been shifted to the club elite.

5 months should be enough to run the club process.

[Armagh18]

The club fuball final is on in late January, apparently.

Kerry won the all Ireland on 24 July. The county all Ireland was run off in 3 months.
The club shenanigan takes twice as long.

Perhaps club championships across the counties may have to be standardised.
Otherwise there may have to be some overlap in the holy early club stages. They don't care about club in Kerry anyway.

Everything should be tied up by Christmas.

Then we'd end up with  two All Ireland club winners in the same year.  That would just mess up the record books  and cause countless arguments at pub quizzes

You clearly haven't  thought this through

It's the price of sanity.
The ESRI report is driving the institutional response.

The poor hoors left at the semifinal stage in the football will be training for another month.
The GAA did not think this through. Would you shtop.

Club finalists will have SFA time to rest before the League starts on 2 Feb.
Pressure on intercounty players has been shifted to the club elite.

5 months should be enough to run the club process.

You're right. No reason that most clubs can't start their championship towards the end of July and at the very least all championships should be done by early October.

[Eire90]

in the future are they looking at having the club finals before christmas.

[seafoid]

in the future are they looking at having the club finals before christmas.

I don't think counties were ready for this season. Everything was rushed.

[Franko]

The club fuball final is on in late January, apparently.

Kerry won the all Ireland on 24 July. The county all Ireland was run off in 3 months.
The club shenanigan takes twice as long.

Perhaps club championships across the counties may have to be standardised.
Otherwise there may have to be some overlap in the holy early club stages. They don't care about club in Kerry anyway.

Everything should be tied up by Christmas.

Agreed

[Milltown Row2]

I think (just my opinion) having 4 clubs extend their club involvement on the biggest stage at the end of Feb or start of March and then playing on Paddy's day is the pinnacle of a clubs life is ok.

I know there are downsides relating to county set ups and costs to clubs for extended training and so on, none of those clubs involved would ever complain though, personally I feel its taken some of the shine off having them rushed in before xmas for the neutral, as I've said the clubs that get there don't really care I suppose, but it was a good tradition to have.

I'm sure CB1 would agree

[yellowcard]

The club season should be finished up in the calendar year imo. The old system whereby it took 3 months to play the remaining 3 games (AI semi finals and final) was from a bygone era. Rather than have it finish in January, it would be much better if the GAA could wrap it up within the calendar year. Play the AI finals over the Christmas period and it would generate loads of interest across the country. The onus is on individual county boards to get their house in order and have a properly structured championship that completes by end of September/mid October at the very latest. With the split season that is perfectly reasonable to expect.   

[Milltown Row2]

The club season should be finished up in the calendar year imo. The old system whereby it took 3 months to play the remaining 3 games (AI semi finals and final) was from a bygone era. Rather than have it finish in January, it would be much better if the GAA could wrap it up within the calendar year. Play the AI finals over the Christmas period and it would generate loads of interest across the country. The onus is on individual county boards to get their house in order and have a properly structured championship that completes by end of September/mid October at the very latest. With the split season that is perfectly reasonable to expect.

I'm not that old (50) but if you were not heading down to watch a club form your county or lucky enough to watch your own then the Paddy's day finals at the club or Croke were great days craic..

Yes the counties should be looking at restructuring it better but getting training conditions and pitches and so on is very difficult with the weather.. be different if we had indoor full size facilities which could run off these games if the outside weather conditions meant you don't have re-fix games

[yellowcard]

The club season should be finished up in the calendar year imo. The old system whereby it took 3 months to play the remaining 3 games (AI semi finals and final) was from a bygone era. Rather than have it finish in January, it would be much better if the GAA could wrap it up within the calendar year. Play the AI finals over the Christmas period and it would generate loads of interest across the country. The onus is on individual county boards to get their house in order and have a properly structured championship that completes by end of September/mid October at the very latest. With the split season that is perfectly reasonable to expect.

I'm not that old (50) but if you were not heading down to watch a club form your county or lucky enough to watch your own then the Paddy's day finals at the club or Croke were great days craic..

Yes the counties should be looking at restructuring it better but getting training conditions and pitches and so on is very difficult with the weather.. be different if we had indoor full size facilities which could run off these games if the outside weather conditions meant you don't have re-fix games

I can understand the rationale behind wanting to play the game on St Patricks day from the casual viewers standpoint. Even from a players point of view you might attach an extra importance if you lifted the trophy on St Patricks day (although I doubt very much if Kilcoo for example think that it devalues their AI title) but there is also likely a lot of nostalgia involved. From a purely rational point of view, if you had a blank canvas and were setting out a fixture list from scratch, then the 3 month gap between provincial finals and AI finals made no sense whatsoever. It was almost like beginning a new season for the clubs involved waiting around for 2 months before playing their semi final.   

[Milltown Row2]

I agree on the 3 months difference, its just that we don't have the weather to allow these games to be played on the rock hard frozen pitches or wet heavy pitches during that period, which can take the shine off it, both games on Croke on Sunday had handling issues, and that's the best surface out..

If county club finals were finished by mid/late September with games run off every week you could effectively have the finals by mid November (I think)