The road to Croker starts here. The anticipation already is off the charts.
It’ll be corks to lose
Hopefully they bring the final forward to the May bank holiday weekend
They should go the whole hog and have the hurling and football All-Ireland finals as an exceedingly attractive double header on Paddy’s Day.
Could somebody set up a separate thread for the 2023 Tommy Tallchin Cup?
New championship structure for 2’23 as well
Just 9 months or so to wait
Its like the lead up to the new NFL season.
I somehow missed this at the time.
This is some dog’s dinner of a format and will lead to a lot of very poorly attended fixtures.
“Champions league format”
I’d expect something like this to be the 2023 calendar:
January – The Most Rev. Dr. McKenna Cup, the Matt Byrne Cup etc. ABOLISHED
NFL dates: January 15, January 22, February 5, February 12, February 26, March 5, March 19, March 26.
Championship
April 9 – Provincial Preliminary Round
April 16 Provincial Quarter-finals
April 23 Provincial semi-finals
April 30 Provincial finals
May 14 Round Robin Series Matchday 1
May 21 Round Robin Series Matchday 2
June 4 Round Robin Series Matchday 3
June 11 Play-offs between second and third placed teams in Round Robin
June 25 All-Ireland quarter-finals
July 9 All-Ireland semi-finals
July 23 All-Ireland final
You’ll probably see the Most Reverend Dr. McKenna Cup played in December now.
The competition will need a new mascot. A cartoon impression of the bould Doctor himself dressed as Santa Claus.
Armagh vs Derry on Wednesday December 21st at a sold out Athletic Grounds will be something else.
Cahair O’Kane will be writing about “A Christmas Cracker”.
The semis could suffer however due to clashing with the World Cup final.
So the qualifiers are basically gone?
Groups are a disaster I think. Look at the Super 8s.
All Ireland final back 2 weeks to August 7th.
Yep.
What’s worse is that only one team will be eliminated in each four team group.
And the provincial championships become essentially meaningless. Slow and deliberate strangulation by stealth.
August 7th is a Monday in 2023.
August 6th so.