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0-32, 30 white flags and one orange. 0-1 from a free, 0-31 from play. That's mad stuff.

Whatever procedures are in place for registering players there should be enough flexibility to allow players be added to the panel during the season.

There should also be strong deterrents so that counties do not give walkovers as Leitrim did.

Should be? Yep, absolutely.

That's not the same as saying that such flexibility actually does exist though.

[I think they should have enlisted a few club players just to fulfill the fixture at all costs.]

It is sad to see what it happening at Leitrim. Graham obviously seen what was coming. But I don't know why all those players who didn't commit went to all that effort last few years under Moran to get promoted and then leave the set up. Just bizarre. They prioritise the u20s which is fair enough and the injuries are unpredictable. I think they should have enlisted a few club players just to fulfill the fixture at all costs. They ran Offaly close the week before which makes it even more strange. They should have planned for the u20s leaving the set up.

I could be wrong and please correct me if so, but my understanding is that the deal with the GPA in terms of what intercounty players get once they commit to a panel makes that very impractical now. Once you are registered to be part of a panel for the league or championship with Croke Park, there's a raft of stuff in terms of gear, mileage, grants, boots and probably more, and there's no exceptions, so you can't just say that we only need this lad for a couple of weeks and he'll be gone then.

Essentially each player registered is a significant expense, and when you're a county like Leitrim that has to mind the pennies, drafting up five or six lads to simply fulfil a fixture isn't a good use of those scarce pennies.

I'll stress again, I'm far from certain of this so please shout if I'm mistaken, but I've definitely heard some version of this before.

Lads, anyone who thinks sending two tickets to a club in Wicklow or Carlow is the wrong thing to do badly needs to spend a year actively involved in their club's administration, so they can get a feel for quite how much is involved in being a club secretary, treasurer or chairperson. All-Ireland final tickets is the GAA's way of recognising that effort, which goes way above and beyond what any supporter does for any county. Even at that, nine times out of ten those people won't even use the ticket - it'll get given to the U-12 coach who has a first cousin playing in the game, or the Mayo lad who moved into the parish and now sells 20 lotto tickets a week in his workplace, or it'll be put up for raffle as part of a fundraiser. Even if they do go, then yeah, they probably weren't at a game all year - because every other day, the county game clashes with the club U-13 fixture, or a county board meeting, or some other official duty.

The happy-go-lucky, doesn't-go-to-a-game-all-year attendee is almost certainly there through sponsorship in one way or another, either at a county or a national level, and is probably high up in marketing in Centra, or Allianz, or Kelloggs, or some company like that. And again - if you don't understand the importance of keeping sponsors happy, you don't understand the GAA either.

Ability to attend games in person is one of the strengths of the GAA and the sense of the whole community being involved in an All Ireland is also one of its strengths. While the TV experience has been very welcome during the pandemic it is something that the Premiership offers every week. It needs to be accepted that using tickets as a form of reward for diligent workers and sponsors has a price to be paid in the reputation of the GAA as a place run for the benefit of insiders rather than the community. It would be better if alternative forms of recognition could be identified and some more tickets go to the counties. In 1977, I sent a cheque to the County Secretary and got 3 tickets back in return, I could never do that now if Armagh reached the final again despite the stadium holding almost 20,000 more. Some rebalancing is needed.

There's a fundamental truth at the root of this, but I'm not entirely sure what "alternative form of recognition" would work that wouldn't at the same time be extremely costly to the association. Firstly the nature of the current system is that the tickets tend to find their way back to the most ardent supporters. What happens in a lot of cases is that if a chairperson or secretary has access to a ticket, they might want to go themselves but it's far more likely that they'll have a Mayo or Tyrone person in their club or in their lives that they'll accommodate, and because that official is dyed-in-the-wool GAA themselves, they'll understand the difference between someone who'll really appreciate it and the day out.

I also wouldn't go so far as to say that it is an "association run for insiders", or even that a perception like that is held by anyone with the slightest of understanding how the GAA works. Yes, I've no doubt that view is held by your average supporter that's passionate about Man United in the winter and then transfers that "support" to their county for June, July and August, but frankly, that type of supporter can think anything they like, it doesn't bother me.

Moreover, the most recent numbers suggest there is circa 540,000 GAA members on the island of Ireland. The population of the island of Ireland is roughly 6.5 million, so what that tells me is that one in eleven Irish people is a member of a GAA Club. Let's assume that expands out to one in eight, or even one in six in communities like Claremorris or Carrickmore, where the GA is the primary sporting and social organisation by a distance.

Even at that level, by current population numbers, allocation 11,000 tickets to a county comes pretty close to catering for every GAA member in that county, or at least every club member that wants one. It certainly caters for two thirds of them at least, and probably more when you factor in that an U-6 is not going to go to any game and sit still for two hours, while there will be plenty more lads that are working, have other things on, or have other reasons why they can't go. GAA club members that don't get sorted directly aren't as common as all that. And again, if you're not a member, my sympathy for you is very limited, or maybe non-existent!

Because of my role as a GAA reporter and club minor secretary, I get oodles of requests from acquaintances for tickets every year (and no, I don't get one of my club ones) and sometimes, through Roscommon GAA or Offaly GAA and the work I do for them, I get allocated one. But most of those requests are people I would never be in the least bit concerned about accommodating; because I know for a fact they aren't a club member, and have no affiliation with their local club whatsoever beyond at a push, dropping the kids off for training and then scarpering out the door for coffee with other Mammies and/or Daddies, just in case anyone might see them lingering and ask them to help out.

There is one guy from East Mayo that I will try and sort out, because he's a hardcore supporter, club member, has sorted out sponsorship for teams from his previous employers, supports my local club fundraiser that I run, and yet somehow still tends to miss out. But guys like that who don't get sorted are extremely rare.


And I'm not being facetious when I say 1977 was a different world. People simply didn't go to games back then, you had All-Ireland semi-finals and provincial finals with 10,000 people at them. We're never going back to that, or at least I hope not.

Shur you just proved the point for the other side of the argument "9 times out of 10 they wont use them "

I see you just ignored the bit where I said the types of places that they actually go. Club volunteers with a connection to the county, or to be put up for club fundraisers. Which of these do you think shouldn't happen?

Lads, anyone who thinks sending two tickets to a club in Wicklow or Carlow is the wrong thing to do badly needs to spend a year actively involved in their club's administration, so they can get a feel for quite how much is involved in being a club secretary, treasurer or chairperson. All-Ireland final tickets is the GAA's way of recognising that effort, which goes way above and beyond what any supporter does for any county. Even at that, nine times out of ten those people won't even use the ticket - it'll get given to the U-12 coach who has a first cousin playing in the game, or the Mayo lad who moved into the parish and now sells 20 lotto tickets a week in his workplace, or it'll be put up for raffle as part of a fundraiser. Even if they do go, then yeah, they probably weren't at a game all year - because every other day, the county game clashes with the club U-13 fixture, or a county board meeting, or some other official duty.

The happy-go-lucky, doesn't-go-to-a-game-all-year attendee is almost certainly there through sponsorship in one way or another, either at a county or a national level, and is probably high up in marketing in Centra, or Allianz, or Kelloggs, or some company like that. And again - if you don't understand the importance of keeping sponsors happy, you don't understand the GAA either.

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.

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

[Tier1 in my head is Div1&2 plus teams promoted from Div3 that year.]

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?

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.

Look I take your point. I sat down and watched Down v Monaghan on Friday. By chance just happened onto it, but my point is valid. Tyrone have no Hurling pedigree. They have very little interest in Hurling. I watched the Sunday game last night and went to bed after the football. RTE Editors would be castigated if they dedicated 15 mins to those 4th and 5th tier matches. There is very little demand unfortunately.

How are you not getting this? The only footballing equivalent to Tyrone hurling is Kilkenny, and they are not the type of county that's at issue here. Offaly football and hurling is now broadly similar, in that we're ranked around the middle of the pack in both. Our football matches against Louth and Kildare got 100 times the exposure of all our Christy Ring Cup matches combined. Yet the interest level in the two teams, both domestically and nationally, is about the same.

I think there is 4 hurling clubs in Tyrone with a senior team. In Donegal it used to be only one team. Cavan have a few teams. You're advocating that those counties who play lip service to Hurling should have a shot at winning the Liam McCarthy. Everyone needs to get real here.

Either argue with the actual points I made, or leave it be. Of course I'm not saying that Longford should enter the Leinster hurling championship. I'm saying that tiers are grand, as long as nobody mistakes them for a solution to the problem of a massive disparity in ability. Tiers give you a competition framework, but they aren't a helping hand to get better, and if they're not managed very carefully, they only serve to set in stone the gap between teams.

Also, when it comes to tier two football, we're not talking about putting counties who pay lip service to football into it. We're talking about putting Cavan into it. Westmeath, who gave Kildare a hell of a game in the Leinster semi-final and have been very competitive all year. Leitrim, where gaelic football is the only sport in the county worth talking about. Fermanagh, likewise.

In fact if we were to do tiers right to make it competitive, you'd actually put Division Two in there as well, since the big gap is between the top seven or eight teams and the rest. There's feck all between Division Two and Division Three. Do Meath, Cork and Galway pay lip service to football as well? 

A sign of things to come with any proposed tiered championship. The Sunday game showed highlights of the 3 hurling finals last night.

Ring - 2 minutes
Rackard - 1 minute 30 seconds
Meagher - 1 minute 20 seconds

With a total of 90 seconds discussion

And that was including celebrations and trophy lift. Bear in mind these were FINALS.

Let's not kid ourselves. Will the tier 2 or 3 football championships be any different?

Teams moan and complain about the coverage of 2nd tier competitions yet they regularly fail to provide players and management for interviews and press days, just in case someone might say something honest.
In regards to the coverage of the Rackard and Meagher finals (4th and 5th tier) it is a demand issue - in that there is no demand... Tyrone and Mayo are not Hurling counites and 15 mins on the Sunday Game isn't going to change that.

Nobody in second tier hurling counties struggles to get access to players or management. I've done lots of pieces on them for a few places, and you get great copy, and people are only too happy to chat to you.

Also, TG4's success has proven that people will watch games if the coverage is good. It doesn't need to be the highest standard in the world for that to work out - how many of us would happily sit down and watch a good county final, even though a Christy Ring or Nickey Rackard final would be at least as good, if not better?

Good so there is no problem re coverage.

That's not what I said. There is no problem with access, once the will is there. I write for local papers, and for GAA.ie, who are interested in these stories. I'm not an editor for the Sunday Game or a commissioning producer for a TV station, which is the where the problem lies.

[there is such a disparity now between teams]

A sign of things to come with any proposed tiered championship. The Sunday game showed highlights of the 3 hurling finals last night.

Ring - 2 minutes
Rackard - 1 minute 30 seconds
Meagher - 1 minute 20 seconds

With a total of 90 seconds discussion

And that was including celebrations and trophy lift. Bear in mind these were FINALS.

Let's not kid ourselves. Will the tier 2 or 3 football championships be any different?

Probably not, but since when did media coverage dictate the structure of what our games should be.
Club games generally dont have much media coverage....it doesn't dilute the passion or desire of the teams involved in a junior club championship final if they're not on tv.
They want to win, to prove themselves against the competitions who ever that may be.

I've changed my stance on this over the years where I used to be totally against a 2nd tier championship. But there is such a disparity now between teams that we are not getting competitive games until the semi-finals/finals and it seems to be getting worse. Teams need a chance to develop and a 20point hammering doesn't help anyone. 2nd or even 3rd tier championships, like the hurling are not an absolute fix to the problem (Derry v Offally in the Christy Ring being an example) but it should certainly still help teams develop.

I take your point though on RTE coverage. It shows very little respect to players and Counties in an AI final to only give a couple of minutes of an afterthought on the weekly highlights show. I just don't think the amount of tv coverage should come into the decision making process at all.

Firstly, this is the nub of the issue - and creating tiered championships will only make that worse. Hurling has proven that. There are far fewer instances any more of teams at the Joe McDonagh level knocking over an elite team. During the  1980's and 1990's, Down beat Kilkenny in an important league match, Kerry knocked Waterford out of the championship, Westmeath beat Galway, Roscommon beat Wexford, and there were plenty more instances. Now we have a situation where Laois beat Dublin two years ago, arguably a game between two counties that would have been next to each other in the overall rankings at the time, in Portlaoise - and we all think that's the biggest upset imaginable.

Secondly, club is not comparable, for one simple reason. At club level, a player with Tuam Stars or Annaghdown will see his name in the Tuam Herald a lot more than a player with St. Gabriel's or Kilconly, but that's no huge sporting advantage. At county level, it means a massive difference in commercial income for the county, and thus more backroom support for county teams, while it's arguably a bigger advantage for the player. A Dublin player who suddenly needs €500 for an unexpected bill goes and cuts a ribbon at a local pharmacy, or pops up two sponsored instagram posts. A Wicklow player has to go out and work 25 hours of overtime, 25 hours in which the Dublin player is doing his recovery, extra skills work, video work, yoga etc..

Then the Wicklow player has to listen to people tell him how the Dublin players works harder than he does, and that's why he's successful.

This is why coverage is important - it levels the financial playing field. It's also why I know of some weaker counties that have said they'll happily support a tier two competition, as long as all the commercial sponsorship income going into each of the counties is pooled. Needless to say they were given short shrift when they made that suggestion.

A sign of things to come with any proposed tiered championship. The Sunday game showed highlights of the 3 hurling finals last night.

Ring - 2 minutes
Rackard - 1 minute 30 seconds
Meagher - 1 minute 20 seconds

With a total of 90 seconds discussion

And that was including celebrations and trophy lift. Bear in mind these were FINALS.

Let's not kid ourselves. Will the tier 2 or 3 football championships be any different?

Teams moan and complain about the coverage of 2nd tier competitions yet they regularly fail to provide players and management for interviews and press days, just in case someone might say something honest.
In regards to the coverage of the Rackard and Meagher finals (4th and 5th tier) it is a demand issue - in that there is no demand... Tyrone and Mayo are not Hurling counites and 15 mins on the Sunday Game isn't going to change that.

Nobody in second tier hurling counties struggles to get access to players or management. I've done lots of pieces on them for a few places, and you get great copy, and people are only too happy to chat to you.

Also, TG4's success has proven that people will watch games if the coverage is good. It doesn't need to be the highest standard in the world for that to work out - how many of us would happily sit down and watch a good county final, even though a Christy Ring or Nickey Rackard final would be at least as good, if not better?