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http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=95&si=1776127&issue_id=15250

Pressure mounts to widen the back door
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PRESSURE is mounting to change the All-Ireland football championship format so that provincial champions get a second chance if they lose at the quarter-final stage.

Ulster Council secretary Danny Murphy wants provincial champions treated the same as teams who lose earlier on by granting them a reprieve if they lose a quarter-final. He is supported by Armagh manager Joe Kernan, who claimed the current system is loaded against provincial winners.

Murphy has proposed a new format whereby the four provincial winners play off against each other with the two winners advancing directly to the All-Ireland semi-finals, while the losers get a second chance against two survivors from the qualifiers.

Under the current system, provincial winners face four qualifiers in the All-Ireland quarter-finals. It means that where provincial winners lose quarter-finals they are eliminated from the All-Ireland race, without getting a second chance.

Writing in his annual report, which will go before the Ulster Convention on Saturday week, Murphy said that they had engaged in preliminary discussions on a new proposal that may go before Congress in April. That involves giving beaten provincial winners a second chance.

"Provincial champions should have the opportunity of a clear route to the All-Ireland semi-finals and this can be best achieved by having the provincial champions play each other, with the winners advancing to the semi-finals.

The defeated provincial champions would get a second chance against two teams emerging from the qualifier series. I believe that this will ensure a more appropriate and consistently competitive championship," writes Murphy.

Qualify

His remarks come at a time when it's being mooted that hurling plans to return to a system whereby the Leinster and Munster champions qualify for the All-Ireland semi-finals.

However, there will be opposition at official level to any proposal to change the football system if it involves extra fixtures.

Paraic Duffy, the new Players' Welfare Officer, who previously chaired committees that proposed the introduction of the 'back door' in 2001 and its slightly amended version which comes into effect this year, said that any change involving more fixtures would be detrimental to clubs.

"If you create a mechanism to allow provincial winners who lose their next game back into the All-Ireland race, it will take at least one extra weekend.

"That would have a negative impact on the club scene which is already an area of serious concern. My own personal view is that we should be very reluctant to add an extra round," he said.

Duffy concedes that it's frustrating for provincial winners who lose All-Ireland quarter-finals to find themselves totally eliminated whereas their conquerors, who lost a game earlier on, head into the semi-finals.

"When we designed the 'back door' system back in 2001, it was on the basis that there were two ways of qualifying for the All-Ireland quarter-finals. Provincial winners qualified automatically and were joined by the four remaining qualifiers.

"In effect, we treated the provincial and All-Ireland championships as two separate competitions. We also proposed that the provincial winners would have home advantage in the quarter-finals but that never happened. Central Council didn't think it was practical in terms of ground capacity and it also emerged that counties wanted quarter-finals in Croke Park if possible," he said.

Joe Kernan, whose Armagh side lost All-Ireland quarter-finals in 2004 and 2006 after winning the Ulster title, said that it wasn't fair that some teams got second chances whereas others didn't.

The records show that of the 24 provincial champions crowned since 2001, ten have been beaten in the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

"A team that does everything right and wins the provincial title have the safety net pulled from under them, whereas a team that loses in the provinces are welcomed back in through the qualifiers. We benefited from that in Armagh in 2003 and went on to beat Leinster champions Laois in the quarter-finals, so we have experience of both sides.

Sharper

"Look at what happened us last year. We won the Ulster title on July 9 but didn't play Kerry in the All-Ireland quarter-final until August 5. Kerry had two games in that period which left them that bit sharper than us," he said.

Had Danny Murphy's proposed system been in operation last year, Armagh, Mayo, Dublin and Cork would have played off with the two winners entering the semi-finals and the two losers heading for quarter-finals.

Up to now, four qualifiers reach the quarter-finals but under the new system it would be reduced to two. In 2006 that would have meant a further qualifying round involving Westmeath, Kerry, Laois and Donegal.

They would have played off down to two for the right to beat the losers from the provincial champions play-offs.

"A change in the system might mean one extra weekend but surely it should be possible to find it," added Kernan. "In the interests of fairness, it should be tried because there's a blatant anomaly in the current system."

Martin Breheny

I don't think this is a good idea. It adds an extra round and you still have the situation of a zero loss team versus a one loss team this time in the semi finals.

Here is a list of the provincial champions that have lost to a backdoor team in the quarter finals. There are only two cases where a clear underdog won Donegal 03 and Fermanagh 04. In the other cases the winning teams were at least the equal of the provincial champions that they beat.
2001
Roscommon (beaten by Galway)
Tyrone (beaten by Derry)

2002
Galway (beaten by Kerry)

2003
Galway (beaten by Donegal)
Laois (beaten by Armagh)

2004
Westmeath (beaten by Derry)
Armagh (beaten by Fermanagh).

2005
Galway (beaten by Cork)
Dublin (beaten by Tyrone)

2006
Armagh (beaten by Kerry).

The playing rules are at the "Official Guide 2006 - Part 2" link on this page.
http://www.gaa.ie/page/official_guides.html

Part 1 is the rules of the association.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/northern_ireland/gaelic_games/6170631.stm

Antrim hurlers train in Ballymena
Ballymena Rugby Club opened its training facilities to the Antrim hurlers on Sunday in an historic move.

Prior to Sunday, hurling had never been played on any of the Eaton Park pitches in the predominantly Protestant town.

Antrim hurling joint-manager Terence McNaughton described the training venue as "perfect for us" given that so many of the squad hail from north Antrim.

Ballymena chairman Rab Brady spoke of his club's desire to "develop a good working relationship with the hurlers".

"Hopefully they can use the fabulous facilities that we have here," he said.

"We are not concerned with religion here or any aspect of that but just glad to see other sports organisations use the facilities."

The club's premises have hosted soccer and cricket, as well as rugby down through the years.

Invariably, Antrim hurlers have trained in West Belfast down through the years and the county board is now hoping that Jody Gormley's Saffron football squad will also be able to avail of Ballymena's facilities during the course of this winter.

Antrim hurling bosses McNaughton and Dominic McKinley had no hesitation in heading for Ballymena.

"When you train at 10 o'clock or a Sunday morning, you don't want to be dragging guys from the far ends of north Antrim to Belfast," said McNaughton.

Antrim GAA chairman John McSparran said that the hurlers were "delighted" by the decision to train in Ballymena.

"I noticed one of the things they said this morning was:'My God...dressing-rooms with heat in them'. That was a novelty for them," added the Antrim official.

"I haven't heard one dissenting voice. And if you know the position in Antrim where we are lacking facilities, anybody who would be critical of this, is way wide of the mark."

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=95&si=1739623&issue_id=14990

A fairly predictable list

1 Kerry
2 Tyrone
3 Armagh
4 Mayo
5 Dublin
6 Cork
7 Galway
8 Laois
9 Donegal
10 Derry
11 Offaly
12 Wexford
13 Fermanagh
14 Meath
15 Westmeath
16 Kildare
17 Down
18 Monaghan
19 Louth
20 Limerick
21 Roscommon
22 Cavan
23 Longford
24 Sligo
25 Leitrim
26 Clare
27 Tipperary
28 Antrim
29 Carlow
30 Wicklow
31 Waterford
32 London

[Antrim's]

http://www.rte.ie/sport/2006/1203/crossmaglen.html

Armagh's Crossmaglen Rangers were the victors in a dull match in Casement Park where they claimed the Ulster title by defeating Antrim's Ballinderry by 0-5 to 0-2.

All championship results up to 2000 (downloaded from gaalore.com many years ago)

The file is named gaachampionship.doc but it is actually a zip file.

The only allowed file types are (Allowed file types: txt, doc, pdf, jpg, gif, mpg, png)

If you rename the file to gaachampionship.zip you should be able to extract the following files.

allireland_football.txt
allireland_hurling.txt
connaght_football.txt
connaght_hurling.txt
leinster_football.txt
leinster_hurling.txt
munster_football.txt
munster_hurling.txt
ulster_football.txt
ulster_hurling.txt

The format is

1989  Semi   Tyrone      1-12       1-7          Down     Tyrone
1989  Final  Tyrone      0-11       0-11      Donegal     *DRAW*

where the last column is the winner or *DRAW*

1989         Monaghan    0-8        0-5        Antrim   Monaghan
1989         Donegal     3-12       0-14        Cavan    Donegal
1989         Derry       4-15       1-7     Fermanagh      Derry
1989         Tyrone      1-11       2-7        Armagh     Tyrone
1989         Down        1-14       0-9      Monaghan       Down
1989  Semi   Donegal     2-8        1-9         Derry    Donegal
1989  Semi   Tyrone      1-12       1-7          Down     Tyrone
1989  Final  Tyrone      0-11       0-11      Donegal     *DRAW*
1989  Final  Tyrone      2-13       0-7       Donegal     Tyrone
1988         Armagh      2-12       1-13    Fermanagh     Armagh
1988         Monaghan    0-16       0-14        Cavan   Monaghan
1988         Down        1-11       0-7         Derry       Down
1988         Tyrone      3-13       2-4        Antrim     Tyrone
1988         Armagh      2-10       0-8       Donegal     Armagh
1988  Semi   Monaghan    1-11       0-9          Down   Monaghan
1988  Semi   Tyrone      0-15       1-8        Armagh     Tyrone
1988  Final  Monaghan    1-10       0-11       Tyrone   Monaghan
1987         Armagh      2-9        0-9     Fermanagh     Armagh
1987  Quart  Cavan       0-12       0-10     Monaghan      Cavan
1987  Quart  Derry       1-12       2-7          Down      Derry
1987  Quart  Tyrone      0-9        0-9        Antrim     *DRAW*
1987  Quart  Armagh      1-8        0-6       Donegal     Armagh
1987  Quart  Tyrone      2-6        2-5        Antrim     Tyrone
1987  Semi   Cavan       1-10       2-7         Derry     *DRAW*
1987  Semi   Armagh      5-9        1-9        Tyrone     Armagh
1987  Semi   Derry       2-11       2-8         Cavan      Derry
1987  Final  Derry       0-11       0-9        Armagh      Derry
1986         Down        2-8        1-10      Donegal       Down
1986         Cavan       1-8        0-7        Antrim      Cavan
1986         Tyrone      2-6        1-7         Derry     Tyrone
1986         Armagh      1-11       0-7     Fermanagh     Armagh
1986         Down        1-10       0-13     Monaghan     *DRAW*
1986  Semi   Tyrone      2-16       1-12        Cavan     Tyrone
1986         Down        2-11       0-11     Monaghan       Down
1986  Semi   Down        3-7        0-12       Armagh       Down
1986  Final  Tyrone      1-11       0-10         Down     Tyrone
1985         Donegal     2-12       2-8          Down    Donegal
1985         Cavan       0-9        0-5        Antrim      Cavan
1985         Derry       1-9        0-9        Tyrone      Derry
1985         Armagh      2-13       0-5     Fermanagh     Armagh
1985         Monaghan    1-14       0-7       Donegal   Monaghan
1985  Semi   Derry       0-11       0-7         Cavan      Derry
1985  Semi   Armagh      0-10       0-10     Monaghan     *DRAW*
1985  Semi   Monaghan    1-11       2-7        Armagh   Monaghan
1985  Final  Monaghan    2-9        0-8         Derry   Monaghan
1984         Down        3-6        0-8     Fermanagh       Down
1984         Monaghan    2-17       1-6        Antrim   Monaghan
1984         Derry       1-13       0-14        Cavan      Derry
1984         Armagh      1-10       0-12      Donegal     Armagh
1984         Tyrone      1-13       3-4         Derry     Tyrone
1984  Semi   Armagh      2-8        0-9      Monaghan     Armagh
1984  Semi   Tyrone      0-10       0-5          Down     Tyrone
1984  Final  Tyrone      0-15       1-7        Armagh     Tyrone
1983         Cavan       1-12       0-11        Derry      Cavan
1983         Fermanagh   0-10       0-8          Down  Fermanagh
1983         Monaghan    2-18       0-4        Antrim   Monaghan
1983         Donegal     1-10       0-7        Armagh    Donegal
1983         Cavan       0-11       0-10       Tyrone      Cavan
1983  Semi   Donegal     1-14       1-9      Monaghan    Donegal
1983  Semi   Cavan       2-12       1-7     Fermanagh      Cavan
1983  Final  Donegal     1-14       1-11        Cavan    Donegal
1982         Tyrone      1-9        0-9      Monaghan     Tyrone
1982         Antrim      1-7        0-8         Cavan     Antrim
1982         Armagh      1-11       0-13      Donegal     Armagh
1982         Fermanagh   1-9        1-8         Derry  Fermanagh
1982         Tyrone      1-12       0-11         Down     Tyrone
1982  Semi   Armagh      1-20       1-6        Antrim     Armagh
1982  Semi   Fermanagh   1-8        0-10       Tyrone  Fermanagh
1982  Final  Armagh      0-10       1-4     Fermanagh     Armagh
1981         Monaghan    2-9        0-6        Tyrone   Monaghan
1981         Antrim      2-13       2-12        Cavan     Antrim
1981         Armagh      2-15       0-13      Donegal     Armagh
1981         Derry       0-12       0-10    Fermanagh      Derry
1981         Monaghan    0-10       0-10         Down     *DRAW*
1981  Semi   Armagh      4-7        1-3        Antrim     Armagh
1981         Down        3-4        1-9      Monaghan       Down
1981  Semi   Down        0-12       0-9         Derry       Down
1981  Final  Down        3-12       1-10       Armagh       Down
1980         Tyrone      1-8        1-7        Antrim     Tyrone
1980         Monaghan    0-13       1-4          Down   Monaghan
1980         Armagh      3-8        1-4     Fermanagh     Armagh
1980         Cavan       2-9        2-7         Derry      Cavan
1980         Tyrone      1-17       0-9       Donegal     Tyrone
1980  Semi   Armagh      0-12       0-5      Monaghan     Armagh
1980  Semi   Tyrone      2-12       1-9         Cavan     Tyrone
1980  Final  Armagh      4-10       4-7        Tyrone     Armagh