20-25 years ago, Waterford footballers were more or less at the same level as Clare, Limerick and Tipperary. The County Board in Waterford have ran football down to a level now where itâs little better than Kilkenny. Waterford beat London in the league earlier in the year. Think thatâs the only match theyâve won league or championship in 3 years.
Thereâd be plenty of pockets in the county where football is strong, but football has no chance. Club Football Championship in Waterford probably wonât get going until early October. Split season just pushes the weaker code in counties more to the margins.
Tipperary won three football games this year across McGrath Cup, League, Munster Championship and Tailteann Cup. All three wins came against Waterford. Thats some fall from grace for a County whoâve been in two AI Semi finals in the last 7 years. They could barely fill the 26 man panel for their lsdt few matches.
The split season effectively ending Gaelic Football as a pastime in the county within two years.
Iâd say less than 15 Clubs entered the Club League in Tipp this year.
Dromahair in Leitrim won no game in the league, no game in the 5 team group league system âchampionshipâ but won the Relegation final to retain Senior statusâŚâŚTell me Iâm dreamingâŚ
I threw that a like, but itâs a load of shite. Derry might be pursuing the holy grail but itâs not like weâre dublin with rakes of cash and rakes of players, itâs just because a good club scene happens to be there when a handful of good players inevitably turns upâŚevery quarter of a century or so. Weâll be nowhere again soon enough.
The Al Qaeda cup is an excellent proposition. If fermanagh, Tunbridge Wells or leitrim happen to harbour some ambition then go with a core group of committed players and try to win it. Itâll be a fine first stepâŚ
Oh, i almost forgot- dry your eyes
If you lose twice in Championship, you should be gone. Write it off as a bad year and move on.
Now in a bad year, teams have to go through with an endless number of defeats (often hammerings) that suck the life out of players and ultimately kill interest.
Large swathes of Tipperary, a lot of the south and good chunks of the west would be Football country. You go through Tipperary All Ireland Hurling winning teams pre 1971 âfamine yearsâ and they were mostly all drawn from from a 10 mile radius of Thurles. Werenât Babs and Mick Roche the first All Ireland winners from clubs from the south, and even at that Mick Roche was a Waterford man.
Very few counties anymore where thereâs a will to promote both codes. Carlow is actually a bit of an outlier there. County Board do very little to promote hurling and itâs the hurling strongholds mostly in the south of the county that drive it on.
Thereâs an appetite for more football. The league is getting better year on year, derryâs matches against donegal and monaghan, whilst not at ulster championship level were certainly better than any of the other three provincial championships and recent all irelands. Thereâs a solid argument for making the ulster final the finale and showpiece of the ga season.
I responded with a sympathy like. Your disrespect for the secondary competition is noted in your failure to at least properly respect itâs title. It appears that your good self, along with some others here feel itâs witty/ cool/ or plain derogatory to title it as they please.
That appears to be the way itâs going now, all about being hip/cool/edgy. Itâs opinionated, educated cunts like yourself are first to pull up the ladder when you escape from the boggy ground and snigger at the likes of ourselves and our beleaguered D4 associates as if we were nobodies.
I canât wait for the longed for Border PollâŚ.Iâll think of yourself and ponderâŚâŚ.
We just need to use the 2021 Championship summer as a template regarding timelines (Started in late June and finished in late August) & formats (Knockout/backdoor in hurling and happy to have a backdoor in Football and start it a little earlier if necessary)
There should definitely be a window where county players are released to Clubs after the National Leagues for 4-6 weeks from mid April to mid/late May. Whether counties use this window to play Club Championships or just Leagues is up to themselves.
Tipp and Limerick appeared in Munster Finals in 2002 and 2003 respectively so I think it may be a stretch to suggest that Waterford were at their level 20 years ago but I was only talking to someone lately who was telling me that they used to be a far better footballing county back in the 90âs. Theyâve gained very little traction since. Getting within a point of Galway in a qualifier back around 2013 was probably one of their highlights. They had the Indian sign over Wexford for a couple of years too (2018/19). I seem to recall them making a rare appearance on the Sunday Game live against Kerry around 2006. Iâd say they havenât been on it since.