The next 10 all Irelands

[Rossfan]

Amother lad with the gift of prophecy
Leitrim and Sligo must have moved well up the rankings having a game each against Mayowestros this year.

[sid waddell]

Amother lad with the gift of prophecy
Leitrim and Sligo must have moved well up the rankings having a game each against Mayowestros this year.

Why do you think the gap is so large? Would it have anything to do with Mayo being fed a constant diet of top level football while Leitrim and Sligo are fed the dregs at the bottom?

Why do you think Sligo were consistently competitive in the 2000s but are so bad now? Would it have anything to do with them being regularly exposed to playing against top teams in the League during the 2000s?

Anything at all?

[Rossfan]

Sligo had better players back then.
They've had reasonable under age teams last few years and with good management will work their way back up the rankings again.
I see they're putting a "development squad" or 18/19 years together which will hopefully make them competitive at a decent level again.

[Jayop]

Ya in fairness Sid your reply to me was a solid argument. I'm not so passionate about the current suggestion to argue against you so you win. 

The championship is broken, something needs done. Something that will both bring fairness to the top ulster counties who have to kill each other to get to the business end and something for the weaker counties to stop and reverse the decline.

I've previously posted detailed suggestions for a full calendar on boards.ie and I'm not going down that road again but I'm fully on board if someone comes up with something right.

Fwiw I think the no1 issue is still the unfair allocation of resources.

[seafoid]

Championships are always the preserve of a few.
If you want a social welfare competition.....

In the Sunday Tribune RIP in 1995 Ross Carr said that it would be 20 years before a team from Connacht got to the all Ireland final.
Mayo did it the following year.

[thewobbler]

The reason for Sligo's performance levels in the early noughties is the same as Fermanagh's of the same era, and Tipperary last year. It's what happens when a couple of the best players in the country (O'Hara, Breheny. Owens, McGrath. Quinlivan, Sweeney) marry with a handful of really good ones, and between them they get the best of out everyone else... to the point that lads who would otherwise have had a blasé attitude about playing county football, throw everything they have into the mix for a couple of seasons.

A small county / non football county maintaining that level of performance isn't possible. Even when their stars align in terms of personnel, they'll still mix bad years with good, as 1-2 injuries (or a tough draw) will see them fall short.

So in my opinion it's got nothing to do with the rich getting richer.

[shark]

The reason for Sligo's performance levels in the early noughties is the same as Fermanagh's of the same era, and Tipperary last year. It's what happens when a couple of the best players in the country (O'Hara, Breheny. Owens, McGrath. Quinlivan, Sweeney) marry with a handful of really good ones, and between them they get the best of out everyone else... to the point that lads who would otherwise have had a blasé attitude about playing county football, throw everything they have into the mix for a couple of seasons.

A small county / non football county maintaining that level of performance isn't possible. Even when their stars align in terms of personnel, they'll still mix bad years with good, as 1-2 injuries (or a tough draw) will see them fall short.

So in my opinion it's got nothing to do with the rich getting richer.

Very true.
Hope is a huge factor. If there is none in the short term , then it is very hard to build anything and you get stuck in perpetual failure. The lad who is 50/50 about spending the summer in the US is less likely to go if he is on the cusp of making the Mayo team, than the guy badly needed on the Sligo team.
It's been a major problem in Leinster counties for the past number of years. Lads not committing to it , cos "what's the point - Dublin gonna hammer us". I've heard this from lads in my own club, who have turned down the county manager. There might be an improvement in this now with Dublin's perceived weakening.

[Armagh18]

The reason for Sligo's performance levels in the early noughties is the same as Fermanagh's of the same era, and Tipperary last year. It's what happens when a couple of the best players in the country (O'Hara, Breheny. Owens, McGrath. Quinlivan, Sweeney) marry with a handful of really good ones, and between them they get the best of out everyone else... to the point that lads who would otherwise have had a blasé attitude about playing county football, throw everything they have into the mix for a couple of seasons.

A small county / non football county maintaining that level of performance isn't possible. Even when their stars align in terms of personnel, they'll still mix bad years with good, as 1-2 injuries (or a tough draw) will see them fall short.

So in my opinion it's got nothing to do with the rich getting richer.

Very true.
Hope is a huge factor. If there is none in the short term , then it is very hard to build anything and you get stuck in perpetual failure. The lad who is 50/50 about spending the summer in the US is less likely to go if he is on the cusp of making the Mayo team, than the guy badly needed on the Sligo team.
It's been a major problem in Leinster counties for the past number of years. Lads not committing to it , cos "what's the point - Dublin gonna hammer us". I've heard this from lads in my own club, who have turned down the county manager. There might be an improvement in this now with Dublin's perceived weakening.

If all the best players in Meath and Kildare etc cut out the "whats the point" attitude, they could very quickly make the Leinster championship interesting again. Confidence is a huge thing.

[shark]

The reason for Sligo's performance levels in the early noughties is the same as Fermanagh's of the same era, and Tipperary last year. It's what happens when a couple of the best players in the country (O'Hara, Breheny. Owens, McGrath. Quinlivan, Sweeney) marry with a handful of really good ones, and between them they get the best of out everyone else... to the point that lads who would otherwise have had a blasé attitude about playing county football, throw everything they have into the mix for a couple of seasons.

A small county / non football county maintaining that level of performance isn't possible. Even when their stars align in terms of personnel, they'll still mix bad years with good, as 1-2 injuries (or a tough draw) will see them fall short.

So in my opinion it's got nothing to do with the rich getting richer.

Very true.
Hope is a huge factor. If there is none in the short term , then it is very hard to build anything and you get stuck in perpetual failure. The lad who is 50/50 about spending the summer in the US is less likely to go if he is on the cusp of making the Mayo team, than the guy badly needed on the Sligo team.
It's been a major problem in Leinster counties for the past number of years. Lads not committing to it , cos "what's the point - Dublin gonna hammer us". I've heard this from lads in my own club, who have turned down the county manager. There might be an improvement in this now with Dublin's perceived weakening.

If all the best players in Meath and Kildare etc cut out the "whats the point" attitude, they could very quickly make the Leinster championship interesting again. Confidence is a huge thing.

Absolutely.

[sid waddell]

The reason for Sligo's performance levels in the early noughties is the same as Fermanagh's of the same era, and Tipperary last year. It's what happens when a couple of the best players in the country (O'Hara, Breheny. Owens, McGrath. Quinlivan, Sweeney) marry with a handful of really good ones, and between them they get the best of out everyone else... to the point that lads who would otherwise have had a blasé attitude about playing county football, throw everything they have into the mix for a couple of seasons.

A small county / non football county maintaining that level of performance isn't possible. Even when their stars align in terms of personnel, they'll still mix bad years with good, as 1-2 injuries (or a tough draw) will see them fall short.

So in my opinion it's got nothing to do with the rich getting richer.

Had the 2002 and 2020 championships been run on League lines, Sligo and Tipperary would have been nowhere.

Read your line "maintaining that level of performance isn't possible" back to yourself.

Sligo - and Fermanagh - and Wexford - got where they did i) because championship was on the day and ii) they had been exposed to very good football in a more equitably spread league, thus they had a much higher standard of regular football under their belts - which enabled them to exploit weakness in good opponents like Tyrone and Armagh when it came down to it on key championship days.

Tipperary won Munster in 2020 because Cork caught Kerry with a sucker punch with no comeback, and then Tipperary caught Cork with a classic on the day performance. That's what can happen in knockout football.

And even at that, Tipperary's Munster title - and Cavan's Ulster title for that matter - was likely only enabled by the chaos introduced to the situation by the pandemic.

A championship run on a league basis only suits the strong counties because they are the only counties who can maintain consistent performance levels when everybody in a division is playing each other.

[Rossfan]

2 reasons why Sligo, Fermanagh plus Limerick and Wexford too if memory serves me correctly did well in the early noughties-
They had a decent set of players and the Qualifiers got them free of the Provincial straitjackets.
Sligo subsequently won a Connacht while the other 3 got to Provincial Finals .

[sid waddell]

2 reasons why Sligo, Fermanagh plus Limerick and Wexford too if memory serves me correctly did well in the early noughties-
They had a decent set of players and the Qualifiers got them free of the Provincial straitjackets.
Sligo subsequently won a Connacht while the other 3 got to Provincial Finals .

Good formats won't win you anything, but they will give you the chance to compete if you can get yourself organised. They will give you the platform to develop a decent set of players who will commit. And at a good level. That's the point.

League and championship formats in the 2000s gave those counties hope.

Remember the Super 8s came in, an experiment with an elitist League format. Which counties did they suit?

What did the Super 8s do for, say, Roscommon? They were fodder. 

[imtommygunn]

The reason for Sligo's performance levels in the early noughties is the same as Fermanagh's of the same era, and Tipperary last year. It's what happens when a couple of the best players in the country (O'Hara, Breheny. Owens, McGrath. Quinlivan, Sweeney) marry with a handful of really good ones, and between them they get the best of out everyone else... to the point that lads who would otherwise have had a blasé attitude about playing county football, throw everything they have into the mix for a couple of seasons.

A small county / non football county maintaining that level of performance isn't possible. Even when their stars align in terms of personnel, they'll still mix bad years with good, as 1-2 injuries (or a tough draw) will see them fall short.

So in my opinion it's got nothing to do with the rich getting richer.

Very true.
Hope is a huge factor. If there is none in the short term , then it is very hard to build anything and you get stuck in perpetual failure. The lad who is 50/50 about spending the summer in the US is less likely to go if he is on the cusp of making the Mayo team, than the guy badly needed on the Sligo team.
It's been a major problem in Leinster counties for the past number of years. Lads not committing to it , cos "what's the point - Dublin gonna hammer us". I've heard this from lads in my own club, who have turned down the county manager. There might be an improvement in this now with Dublin's perceived weakening.

I think this is where a lot of counties are issue wise. I actually think covid has helped because people have less scope to travel so "lesser" counties get more commitment but how many county threads do you go into here where people are lamenting the best players not commiting.

[seafoid]

Sligo had better players back then.
They've had reasonable under age teams last few years and with good management will work their way back up the rankings again.
I see they're putting a "development squad" or 18/19 years together which will hopefully make them competitive at a decent level again.

The qualifiers started off well but lapsed into the ancien regime as Kerry and Dublin mopped up
most of the Sams going
Giving the hoors a second chance was the weakness.

Either money or lending players to the weaker counties or a combination will bridge the gap.
Nothing else will.

The GAA's natural conservatism means it stuggles to address the problems which beset the organisation.

[Rossfan]

2 reasons why Sligo, Fermanagh plus Limerick and Wexford too if memory serves me correctly did well in the early noughties-
They had a decent set of players and the Qualifiers got them free of the Provincial straitjackets.
Sligo subsequently won a Connacht while the other 3 got to Provincial Finals .

What did the Super 8s do for, say, Roscommon? They were fodder.

We got to a knock out Qtr Final in 2017 and were destroyed in a replay.
We weren't near good enough for Dublin, Mayowestros or Tyrone at the cutting edge end of the Championship 2017 to 2019.
We weren't good enough for NFL D1 in 17, 19 and 21.