Would you be in favour of a second tier?

[trailer]

I'm not sure I follow.

Monaghan played Fermanagh, Armagh and Tyrone this year. Are you saying it would have been much better if they had just played Armagh and Tyrone?

Was the interest in those games less because they played Fermanagh first?

Dunno if this is directed at me or not, but I don't see what Fermanagh got out of the 10 point defeat. Would they not have been better to play teams at their level?

Sorry, I thought your point was that having teams like Fermanagh in the championship is the reason why people are turning off/losing interest.

I don't necessarily agree with that and I can't see how early round mismatches have any bearing on the interest people have in the matches later on in the championship.
People understand that Tyrone are likely to put 20 points on Antrim and may only show a passing interest in that game but that's not going to put them off the whole championship.

Yes 100% not the whole championship. But there are lots of different issues here.
Mis Matches: People as you say are turned off the mis matches but by not grading teams we miss the chance of some great games at 2nd and 3rd tiers. Like in reality the Championship is only started to get interesting for Dublin, Kerry and probably Mayo. But if we had 8 teams all playing each other in an even format, the quality and the product would be far superior at all levels.

Coverage: Weird one for me. There are hapes of instances of managers denying access to players for interviews. Teams are named with a host of changes. No one had a notion of the Tyrone team on Saturday and when it did come out it wasn't near right. There was changes on the Dublin team as well. Teams moan all the time but they don't help themselves. By all means promote the dung out of the games but Counties shoulder a lot of the blame for me.
GAA should insist that all teams are named 2 days before the game any changes only within the 26 named. And a mandatory press conference with Management and Players available before and after.

Chance to win Sam or Liam: Another red herring. Leitrim, Antrim, Sligo etc have no chance of winning Sam and this is the reality. Put them in a competition that they can realistically win and get promoted from.

There is no rational for continuing with the current Provincial and All Ireland format. It's time we all got real.

Tyrone didn't win their first Ulster title until 1956. That was very shoddy. Should Tyrone have been shunted off into a different competition in the 1940s?

No because I am from Tyrone that would've been wrong.
It's absolutely irrelevant to the debate 65 years on but yes if they weren't good enough then of course they should've been.

[Lone Shark]

make the AI series a stand alone. do away with pre season tournament, McKenna cup etc. play provincial series before the league season starts. Play the leagues as normal, do away with league finals just do winners promoted. Play the 2 tier championship after on a knock out basis. with the winner of tier 2 gaining a place in next years tier 1 (and div 2). I genuinely dont see how anyone could have any complaints at that. every other sport in the world has teams graded by ability, I dont know why the GAA think that Gaelic football should be different.

I think two tiers is enough.
I don't mind pre-season tournaments like the McKenna cup. They are a good way to prepare for the season ahead, glorified friendlies really. But they should be run off over a couple of weeks. Two/three games a week for each team, it will ensure the whole panel of players get used and brings the focus onto playing football rather than doing loads of fitness work on a training field.

The provincial championship remains as is but the AI championship gets split into 2 tiers. Tier1 in my head is Div1&2 plus teams promoted from Div3 that year.
Tier2 is everyone else.
Straight knockout format in the AI series, regardless of Tier.

This ties consistent league form to championship entered and should give lower division teams who are on form or progressing a chance at the big boys in the AI series. But it should also give the Div3/4 teams something to aim for post league, as realistically at the moment when the league is over, their championship is over too. I also would stipulate that only league position will determine championship Tier, so that the winner of Tier2 doesn't automatically go into Tier1 next year.

Retaining the provincials will give the lower div teams the chance to beat their neighbours but also give them a chance at an AI competition. 
I'd scrap all league finals as I don't see the point in them. The top team at the end of a league campaign should be the division winner.

Despite the fact that if the name of the game was to reduce mismatches, Division two teams should clearly be put in tier two, based on results over the last three or four years? Again I say, Division three and four teams being competitive against D2 happens all the time. D2 being competitive against the top five or six happened a couple of times in 2020 when everyone's preparation was disrupted, and basically never outside of that?

[Lone Shark]

Likewise Kerry vs Clare, Kerry vs Cork. Tier two for them boyos as well, if mismatches is your problem.

[Captain Obvious]

I’m not sure I follow.

Monaghan played Fermanagh, Armagh and Tyrone this year. Are you saying it would have been much better if they had just played Armagh and Tyrone?

Was the interest in those games less because they played Fermanagh first?

Dunno if this is directed at me or not, but I don't see what Fermanagh got out of the 10 point defeat. Would they not have been better to play teams at their level?

Sorry, I thought your point was that having teams like Fermanagh in the championship is the reason why people are turning off/losing interest.

I don’t necessarily agree with that and I can’t see how early round mismatches have any bearing on the interest people have in the matches later on in the championship.
People understand that Tyrone are likely to put 20 points on Antrim and may only show a passing interest in that game but that’s not going to put them off the whole championship.

Yes 100% not the whole championship. But there are lots of different issues here.
Mis Matches: People as you say are turned off the mis matches but by not grading teams we miss the chance of some great games at 2nd and 3rd tiers. Like in reality the Championship is only started to get interesting for Dublin, Kerry and probably Mayo. But if we had 8 teams all playing each other in an even format, the quality and the product would be far superior at all levels.

Coverage: Weird one for me. There are hapes of instances of managers denying access to players for interviews. Teams are named with a host of changes. No one had a notion of the Tyrone team on Saturday and when it did come out it wasn't near right. There was changes on the Dublin team as well. Teams moan all the time but they don't help themselves. By all means promote the dung out of the games but Counties shoulder a lot of the blame for me.
GAA should insist that all teams are named 2 days before the game any changes only within the 26 named. And a mandatory press conference with Management and Players available before and after.

Chance to win Sam or Liam: Another red herring. Leitrim, Antrim, Sligo etc have no chance of winning Sam and this is the reality. Put them in a competition that they can realistically win and get promoted from.

There is no rational for continuing with the current Provincial and All Ireland format. It's time we all got real.

Tyrone didn't win their first Ulster title until 1956. That was very shoddy. Should Tyrone have been shunted off into a different competition in the 1940s?

No because I am from Tyrone that would've been wrong.
It's absolutely irrelevant to the debate 65 years on but yes if they weren't good enough then of course they should've been.

It's actually very relevant just don't let your biased views cloud that.

[trailer]

I'm not sure I follow.

Monaghan played Fermanagh, Armagh and Tyrone this year. Are you saying it would have been much better if they had just played Armagh and Tyrone?

Was the interest in those games less because they played Fermanagh first?

Dunno if this is directed at me or not, but I don't see what Fermanagh got out of the 10 point defeat. Would they not have been better to play teams at their level?

Sorry, I thought your point was that having teams like Fermanagh in the championship is the reason why people are turning off/losing interest.

I don't necessarily agree with that and I can't see how early round mismatches have any bearing on the interest people have in the matches later on in the championship.
People understand that Tyrone are likely to put 20 points on Antrim and may only show a passing interest in that game but that's not going to put them off the whole championship.

Yes 100% not the whole championship. But there are lots of different issues here.
Mis Matches: People as you say are turned off the mis matches but by not grading teams we miss the chance of some great games at 2nd and 3rd tiers. Like in reality the Championship is only started to get interesting for Dublin, Kerry and probably Mayo. But if we had 8 teams all playing each other in an even format, the quality and the product would be far superior at all levels.

Coverage: Weird one for me. There are hapes of instances of managers denying access to players for interviews. Teams are named with a host of changes. No one had a notion of the Tyrone team on Saturday and when it did come out it wasn't near right. There was changes on the Dublin team as well. Teams moan all the time but they don't help themselves. By all means promote the dung out of the games but Counties shoulder a lot of the blame for me.
GAA should insist that all teams are named 2 days before the game any changes only within the 26 named. And a mandatory press conference with Management and Players available before and after.

Chance to win Sam or Liam: Another red herring. Leitrim, Antrim, Sligo etc have no chance of winning Sam and this is the reality. Put them in a competition that they can realistically win and get promoted from.

There is no rational for continuing with the current Provincial and All Ireland format. It's time we all got real.

Tyrone didn't win their first Ulster title until 1956. That was very shoddy. Should Tyrone have been shunted off into a different competition in the 1940s?

No because I am from Tyrone that would've been wrong.
It's absolutely irrelevant to the debate 65 years on but yes if they weren't good enough then of course they should've been.

It's actually very relevant just don't let your biased views cloud that.

You're going to need to share your definition of the word "biased" as it doesn't make sense in this context. Maybe it means something else in your part of the world?

[Captain Obvious]

I'm not sure I follow.

Monaghan played Fermanagh, Armagh and Tyrone this year. Are you saying it would have been much better if they had just played Armagh and Tyrone?

Was the interest in those games less because they played Fermanagh first?

Dunno if this is directed at me or not, but I don't see what Fermanagh got out of the 10 point defeat. Would they not have been better to play teams at their level?

Sorry, I thought your point was that having teams like Fermanagh in the championship is the reason why people are turning off/losing interest.

I don't necessarily agree with that and I can't see how early round mismatches have any bearing on the interest people have in the matches later on in the championship.
People understand that Tyrone are likely to put 20 points on Antrim and may only show a passing interest in that game but that's not going to put them off the whole championship.

Yes 100% not the whole championship. But there are lots of different issues here.
Mis Matches: People as you say are turned off the mis matches but by not grading teams we miss the chance of some great games at 2nd and 3rd tiers. Like in reality the Championship is only started to get interesting for Dublin, Kerry and probably Mayo. But if we had 8 teams all playing each other in an even format, the quality and the product would be far superior at all levels.

Coverage: Weird one for me. There are hapes of instances of managers denying access to players for interviews. Teams are named with a host of changes. No one had a notion of the Tyrone team on Saturday and when it did come out it wasn't near right. There was changes on the Dublin team as well. Teams moan all the time but they don't help themselves. By all means promote the dung out of the games but Counties shoulder a lot of the blame for me.
GAA should insist that all teams are named 2 days before the game any changes only within the 26 named. And a mandatory press conference with Management and Players available before and after.

Chance to win Sam or Liam: Another red herring. Leitrim, Antrim, Sligo etc have no chance of winning Sam and this is the reality. Put them in a competition that they can realistically win and get promoted from.

There is no rational for continuing with the current Provincial and All Ireland format. It's time we all got real.

Tyrone didn't win their first Ulster title until 1956. That was very shoddy. Should Tyrone have been shunted off into a different competition in the 1940s?

No because I am from Tyrone that would've been wrong.
It's absolutely irrelevant to the debate 65 years on but yes if they weren't good enough then of course they should've been.

It's actually very relevant just don't let your biased views cloud that.

You're going to need to share your definition of the word "biased" as it doesn't make sense in this context. Maybe it means something else in your part of the world?

You can read back on your own comment. "No because I am from Tyrone" Enough said.

[tbrick18]

I'd agree with that. The team that took the biggest humping in this years Ulster Championship was Down. They'd be in Tier 1 by tbrick18's split.

True, but that was in the Ulster Championship which would be affected by the Tiers or determine what Tier you would be in. League position would as it gives a better notion on where a team consistently performs.
In my Tier1 idea, Down would be more likely to be drawn against a team of similar ability than one of vastly superior ability.
We'd never be able to completely remove the possibility of a team getting tanked. Sure a Div4 team could hammer another Div4 team and that has happened in the past I'm sure.
The point is that in general the teams in each Tier at the AI level have a realistic opportunity to progress and most teams would be in with a chance of winning.

It's all hypothetical anyway.

[Fear Bun Na Sceilpe]

Tyrone didn't win their first Ulster title until 1956. That was very shoddy. Should Tyrone have been shunted off into a different competition in the 1940s?

I'm old enough to recall Tyrone playing in Division 3 and Division 3 (North) in the NFL in the late 80's and early 90's, the latter relegated to that Division not long after the All-Ireland final of 1986. Hard to argue that given the results in the league that this was merited.

...The only footballing equivalent to Tyrone hurling is Kilkenny...

Such comparisons IMO are lazy. Hurling in Tyrone, like in most counties north of the Dublin to Galway railway line, is largely kept going by a small number (compared to football) of enthusiasts that are able to sustain county teams at adult and youth levels. In KK OTOH football is more of an off-season activity to be played before the hurling kicks in, meaning that far more club hurlers in Kilkenny play competitive football than club footballers in Tyrone play competitive hurling. The flip side of this is that there is next to no enthusiasm for football at intercounty level in Kilkenny even among the few that take more interest in it over hurling. If the Tyrone county hurling teams were to be comparable to Kilkenny county footballers, they'd be regularly hockyed in the basement of the NHL & Lory Meagher Cup if they bothered to field at all.

It's easy to take up football anytime even if you've never played. It's basic game reduced to glorified basketball. Footballers who never held a hurl couldn't even attempt a go at it off season. Football is more popular because it's easy to start up , play and compete in .

[trailer]

I'm not sure I follow.

Monaghan played Fermanagh, Armagh and Tyrone this year. Are you saying it would have been much better if they had just played Armagh and Tyrone?

Was the interest in those games less because they played Fermanagh first?

Dunno if this is directed at me or not, but I don't see what Fermanagh got out of the 10 point defeat. Would they not have been better to play teams at their level?

Sorry, I thought your point was that having teams like Fermanagh in the championship is the reason why people are turning off/losing interest.

I don't necessarily agree with that and I can't see how early round mismatches have any bearing on the interest people have in the matches later on in the championship.
People understand that Tyrone are likely to put 20 points on Antrim and may only show a passing interest in that game but that's not going to put them off the whole championship.

Yes 100% not the whole championship. But there are lots of different issues here.
Mis Matches: People as you say are turned off the mis matches but by not grading teams we miss the chance of some great games at 2nd and 3rd tiers. Like in reality the Championship is only started to get interesting for Dublin, Kerry and probably Mayo. But if we had 8 teams all playing each other in an even format, the quality and the product would be far superior at all levels.

Coverage: Weird one for me. There are hapes of instances of managers denying access to players for interviews. Teams are named with a host of changes. No one had a notion of the Tyrone team on Saturday and when it did come out it wasn't near right. There was changes on the Dublin team as well. Teams moan all the time but they don't help themselves. By all means promote the dung out of the games but Counties shoulder a lot of the blame for me.
GAA should insist that all teams are named 2 days before the game any changes only within the 26 named. And a mandatory press conference with Management and Players available before and after.

Chance to win Sam or Liam: Another red herring. Leitrim, Antrim, Sligo etc have no chance of winning Sam and this is the reality. Put them in a competition that they can realistically win and get promoted from.

There is no rational for continuing with the current Provincial and All Ireland format. It's time we all got real.

Tyrone didn't win their first Ulster title until 1956. That was very shoddy. Should Tyrone have been shunted off into a different competition in the 1940s?

No because I am from Tyrone that would've been wrong.
It's absolutely irrelevant to the debate 65 years on but yes if they weren't good enough then of course they should've been.

It's actually very relevant just don't let your biased views cloud that.

You're going to need to share your definition of the word "biased" as it doesn't make sense in this context. Maybe it means something else in your part of the world?

You can read back on your own comment. "No because I am from Tyrone" Enough said.

Sorry that was actually joke. If you had have read the entire post all 32 words of it (I know, quite a lot) you would've realised that I absolutely think they should've been in a 2nd or 3rd tier.

[Lone Shark]

Tyrone didn't win their first Ulster title until 1956. That was very shoddy. Should Tyrone have been shunted off into a different competition in the 1940s?

I'm old enough to recall Tyrone playing in Division 3 and Division 3 (North) in the NFL in the late 80's and early 90's, the latter relegated to that Division not long after the All-Ireland final of 1986. Hard to argue that given the results in the league that this was merited.

...The only footballing equivalent to Tyrone hurling is Kilkenny...

Such comparisons IMO are lazy. Hurling in Tyrone, like in most counties north of the Dublin to Galway railway line, is largely kept going by a small number (compared to football) of enthusiasts that are able to sustain county teams at adult and youth levels. In KK OTOH football is more of an off-season activity to be played before the hurling kicks in, meaning that far more club hurlers in Kilkenny play competitive football than club footballers in Tyrone play competitive hurling. The flip side of this is that there is next to no enthusiasm for football at intercounty level in Kilkenny even among the few that take more interest in it over hurling. If the Tyrone county hurling teams were to be comparable to Kilkenny county footballers, they'd be regularly hockyed in the basement of the NHL & Lory Meagher Cup if they bothered to field at all.

I would argue that there is roughly the same amount of enthusiasm for football in Kilkenny as there is hurling in Tyrone, and while it's run off season, that's to ensure that they get a chunk of the year where they can play their games unimpeded. I'd argue that if Tyrone GAA offered the same to Tyrone hurling, it would probably be an improvement on what they have for most ordinary players. Yes, they sacrifice county to have a decent enough club championship, and there is an argument to say that this is probably healthier than what happens to hurling in the majority of counties north of the N5.

[APM]

Over the long run, there aren't as many tiers in football as there is in hurling. 

I would say you could get away with two. 

Consider over the last 20 years, there have been many times where typical division 3/4 teams have contested the latter stages of the championship or division 1 /2 in the league, or beaten typical mid- or top tier opposition.

It's becoming rarer, but off the top of my head:
Fermanagh 2004 AI Semi, Ulster Final 2018 - beat Armagh & Monaghan
Tipperary - All Ireland Semi - 2016
Wexford - All Ireland Semi - 2008, League Final - 2005, beat Galway in 2010
Wicklow - knocked Cavan, Down and Fermanagh out of the qualifiers in 2008
Carlow, beat Kildare 2018
Antrim, beat Donegal and Cavan to make an Ulster Final
Sligo have played in AIQFs and won Connacht
Limerick were respectable in the Munster Championship for much of the noughties

The point I'm making is that, for all of those teams, a Tier 2 competition could actually provide a spring board for success for a few years in the top tier. 

This will never happen in hurling, because while an Armagh, Tyrone or Mayo may win the Rackard Cup, they are unlikely to progress on and win a Ring Cup and get promoted to the Joe McDonagh or Liam McCarthy.  Even if they do, there isn't the interest or structures long term to sustain a long term progression, because the gap is so wide and the skills development from a young age is so critical. 

Football is different and some of these counties would have serious support (Sligo, Wexford etc).  If Dublin are to come back into the pack, it is possible to see a two tier competition work extremely well.

There are still plenty of instances of Division Three and four teams beating Division Two teams. There are zero instances of shock defeats for the established counties at the top of the pecking order - Kerry, Dublin, Tyrone, Mayo, Donegal. Monaghan seem to be the only team that are able to trouble those elite powers, but can also be vulnerable to sucker punches from weaker opposition themselves.

Take away 2020, when no team was prepared properly, and basically the only teams that beat that elite group are each other. There's your tier one, and everyone else is tier two. There's a greater chance of a bad Division four team like Sligo or Carlow beating a top ten side like Roscommon or Meath than there is of that top ten team turning over Kerry or Dublin.

Anything that happened prior to 2010 is irrelevant. Since we changed the leagues from 1a/1b/2a/2b to 1/2/3/4, the strong got stronger and the weaker fell away. Before that change (allowing a couple of years for the effects to bake in) is a different world.

I think that's spot on actually. 

Changing the leagues from 1a/1b etc, probably seemed like a logical thing to do at the time. 
Ironically, it was probably good for the league as a competition, but ultimately as you say, it was bad for overall competition. 

I would previously have explained the progress of Sligo, Wexford, Fermanagh etc in the 00s by the qualifier system.  I'd say there is a very strong case for it being the league structure. Because for a good 10 year period, you had the top 16 teams playing against each other. 

Am I right in saying that the big downside was that promotion was between 1b and 2b and between 1a and 2a it was a case of never the twain shall meet for teams that were in league division A and those in league division B.

[Sportacus]

For me the answer is open draw knock-out Senior, Intermediate and Junior All Ireland's, same as clubs.  Lots of lads on here will have proudly won a Junior or Intermediate with their club and it's a stepping stone to the next level.  All Ireland B, Tailteann Cup etc just don't get me interested but if my county was in the Junior level and aiming for an All Ireland final in Croke Park then I'd be looking forward to it, plus can enjoy the big teams in the Senior as well knocking bells out of each other.  Keep the Provincials as separate competitions and use the leagues to determine who is at what level.

[trailer]

For me the answer is open draw knock-out Senior, Intermediate and Junior All Ireland's, same as clubs.  Lots of lads on here will have proudly won a Junior or Intermediate with their club and it's a stepping stone to the next level.  All Ireland B, Tailteann Cup etc just don't get me interested but if my county was in the Junior level and aiming for an All Ireland final in Croke Park then I'd be looking forward to it, plus can enjoy the big teams in the Senior as well knocking bells out of each other.  Keep the Provincials as separate competitions and use the leagues to determine who is at what level.

No. This definitely not the answer. We want more evenly matched games. Not less.

[Sportacus]

For me the answer is open draw knock-out Senior, Intermediate and Junior All Ireland's, same as clubs.  Lots of lads on here will have proudly won a Junior or Intermediate with their club and it's a stepping stone to the next level.  All Ireland B, Tailteann Cup etc just don't get me interested but if my county was in the Junior level and aiming for an All Ireland final in Croke Park then I'd be looking forward to it, plus can enjoy the big teams in the Senior as well knocking bells out of each other.  Keep the Provincials as separate competitions and use the leagues to determine who is at what level.

No. This definitely not the answer. We want more evenly matched games. Not less.

Don't think you've read it right, or else I haven't explained myself - 3 tiers, junior, intermediate and senior = more evenly matched games.

[trailer]

For me the answer is open draw knock-out Senior, Intermediate and Junior All Ireland's, same as clubs.  Lots of lads on here will have proudly won a Junior or Intermediate with their club and it's a stepping stone to the next level.  All Ireland B, Tailteann Cup etc just don't get me interested but if my county was in the Junior level and aiming for an All Ireland final in Croke Park then I'd be looking forward to it, plus can enjoy the big teams in the Senior as well knocking bells out of each other.  Keep the Provincials as separate competitions and use the leagues to determine who is at what level.

No. This definitely not the answer. We want more evenly matched games. Not less.

Don't think you've read it right, or else I haven't explained myself - 3 tiers, junior, intermediate and senior = more evenly matched games.

But still open draw knock out? Tyrone draw Dublin 1st round and one of them is out? Season over?