Down Club Hurling & Football

[Truth hurts]

SFC- Kilcoo, Burren, Carryduff, Clonduff, Mayobridge, Loughinisland, CPN, RGU, Ballyholland, Saul, Bredagh, Saval
IFC- Glenn, Bryansford, Rostrevor, An Riocht, Castlewellan, Longstone, Drumgath, St Johns, Annaclone, Clann Na Banna, Liatroim, Darragh Cross

[Point-to-Point]

What's the basis for having Ballyholland and Saul as SFC teams when they were relegated to Division 2, and having Glenn as an IFC team after they were promoted to Division 1 and beat Ballyholland in the Championship?

[ranch]

What's the basis for having Ballyholland and Saul as SFC teams when they were relegated to Division 2, and having Glenn as an IFC team after they were promoted to Division 1 and beat Ballyholland in the Championship?

Glenn are a senior team.

[clonian]

What's the basis for having Ballyholland and Saul as SFC teams when they were relegated to Division 2, and having Glenn as an IFC team after they were promoted to Division 1 and beat Ballyholland in the Championship?

I assume TH has reduced the SFC to 12 so the 2 promoted teams are in but the 2nd place team has been replaced by IFC winners.

[Truth hurts]

What's the basis for having Ballyholland and Saul as SFC teams when they were relegated to Division 2, and having Glenn as an IFC team after they were promoted to Division 1 and beat Ballyholland in the Championship?

Glenn are a senior team.

Glenn would not beat Clonoe, Coalisland or the Moy. I'm attempting to argue that there are too many teams competing in the senior and intermediate divisions.

[ranch]

I think 12 should he the standard amount of teams in a championship grade, but keep it un-linked to league position (when a lot of teams are missing players on county duty, etc).

[LosDodgers]

I think it's a debate that needs to be had as there are decent arguments in both sides - both for reducing to 12 and using league finishes. Could argue that if they were linked it would give league more importance and maybe 'senior' teams like Glenn and lietrim etc wouldn't have ended up in D3.

Relegation play offs are terrible. Lietrim lost 4 games in a row to get relegated. No need for that.

Possibly reduce senior to 12 and inter to 14 and connected to league:

Senior - 10 D1 teams plus winner of D2 and Intermediate champions. (12)

Inter - 2-10 D2 teams, top 4 in D3 plus Junior champions. (14)

Junior - 5-10 D3 + D4 teams. (16)

Going on this year the likes of Glenn & /Attical would have be favs for Inter & Junior and would give ulster a real crack.

[general_lee]

The leagues and championships are linked in Armagh and for the most part works quite well.

[ranch]

The leagues and championships are linked in Armagh and for the most part works quite well.

I'd argue the main benefit is that it's pretty straightforward to follow as the league organises the championship for you in a sense. I'm personally not a fan however.

I've made the point before about clubs getting relegated as a result of missing county players and subsequently being in a championship the following year that they're much too strong for.
On the other side of it, you have a club like Tullysaran who next year will compete in the senior championship as a result of a strong league performance this year. They didn't count in the intermediate championship however (lost pretty heavily in a couple of games). In an unlinked league/championship system they'd probably be in division 2 and intermediate championship. As nice as it might be for Tullysaran to compete in the senior championship next year, I think the majority of their players would love a crack at intermediate in 2026.

At least when Glenn found themselves dropping down to div 3 they were able to maintain their spot in the senior championship when their county players returned, subsequently reaching a semi final last year. In Armagh's system they'd have been forced to drop a championship grade regardless of championship performance.

I do accept however that Armagh is unlikely to change their system in the near future. But from what I can see looking on from the outside, Down would be better sticking with what they have.

[thewobbler]

Thinking about this:

It matters not in terms of final outcome whether our SFC's make-up is tied to league positions, or sorted out within the competition itself.

Why? Because regardless of how it is constructed, the bottom 4-8 clubs have no more chance of winning the SFC than their own club's B teams.

There's 35 years of evidence (since the IFC was created) that unless you're competing strongly at D1, then you won't make any impact on the SFC. And I can absolutely trace Ballyholland's SFC performances to this too.

——-

So the bigger question then is to ask why to we not return to league placing as the delimiter?

For there's no way on earth a player / managers wants to play in 4 SFC matches in a journey that culminates in a choice (and not necessarily their own choice) of "maybe the IFC is our level at the minute and we'd be better off losing here".

That's not why we play football.

[clonian]

Thinking about this:

It matters not in terms of final outcome whether our SFC's make-up is tied to league positions, or sorted out within the competition itself.

Why? Because regardless of how it is constructed, the bottom 4-8 clubs have no more chance of winning the SFC than their own club's B teams.

There's 35 years of evidence (since the IFC was created) that unless you're competing strongly at D1, then you won't make any impact on the SFC. And I can absolutely trace Ballyholland's SFC performances to this too.

——-

So the bigger question then is to ask why to we not return to league placing as the delimiter?

For there's no way on earth a player / managers wants to play in 4 SFC matches in a journey that culminates in a choice (and not necessarily their own choice) of "maybe the IFC is our level at the minute and we'd be better off losing here".

That's not why we play football.

I'd agree with all of that but even when it was league based there was a Div 2 team asking that question about IFC in the squad coming up to the last couple of games. There always seemed to be one team that dropped off and missed the old top 4 play offs.
It's still a better way of doing it that the relegation play offs that are in place now though.

[thebigfullforward]

Would there not be some big beatings in the championship if they were linked to the league?

Assuming that championship placement is based on league standing and not vice-versa obviously- ie., Div 1 plays Senior, Div 2 plays Intermediate, etc.

Last year, Glenn played Div 3 football. They then reached the semi finals of the senior championship and gave Kilcoo a better game than they got from Burren in the final.

If the championship was linked to the league, I assume Glenn would have been playing in the Junior Championship.

Last year, Aughlisnafin lost the Junior Final by 2 points. In the league, Glenn beat Aughlisnafin by almost 20, without their county players.

You can say that Glenn shouldn't have been in  that division, but ultimately they weren't good enough for Div 2 at the time they were relegated.

Glenn are probably a bit of an anomaly, but there's often Div 3 teams playing in the Senior Championship.

This year Liatroim played Div 3 and Senior Championship.
Next year Drumgath will play Div 3 and Senior Championship after beating Mayobridge.
Did An Ríocht do the same a few years ago?

It's not something I've given much thought, but it seems that it could lead to some very unbalanced championship ties.

It would be unbalanced if teams don't care about the league. It works in Tyrone because players care about the league because the league determines what Championship they are in. The best 16 teams in the county play senior league + champo, the next 16 play intermediate league and champo and so on. Nothing complicated about the thing

[skat man]

are the relegation playoffs not only a big issue because they run up to and beyond the semi final stage? after round 3 run them in consecutive weeks and they are then done with but for some reason they are run fortnightly

[Pocs pints and the gaa]

I mind being at a match a while back and the team at home needed to lose to stay up which was the most farcical situation I've ever seen. Naturally they managed to lose.

Every system has pitfalls but linking leagues to championships generally brings the cream to the top. The outliers eventually work themselves out.

[ranch]

Relegation play offs aren't ideal as you risk teams losing motivation. You'll also always get a club who think they're probably better off in the grade below. The same issue would also arise in a linked league and championship structure however. You'll also get teams motivated to avoid relegation to intermediate - I doubt Mayobridge wanted to go down to intermediate this year. So despite not being ideal, they're the best option at the moment in my opinion.
It also gets rid of the unfairness of a club being relegated based on league performances despite missing 2 or 3 players who were away playing with the county team.
It happened in Armagh when Cullyhanna were relegated a few years ago. They were never an intermediate standard team despite some of the comments on this site when the topic has been spoken about in the past. They comfortably won the intermediate championship the following year before going on to win the All Ireland. If there had been relegation play offs in the championship I doubt they'd have even featured in them, and if they did they wouldn't have been the team to go down.