All-Ireland Football Championship 2022

Sport
181

If they are doing away with the provincial groupings then I think they should draw 8 groups of 4, 3 round robin games. 1&2 into last 16, 3&4 into an intermediate championship.

Groups would be decided by seedings

Eg

Group A
1st in Div 1
8th in Div 2
8th in Div 3
1st in Div 4

Group B
2nd in Div 1
7th in Div 2
7th in Div 3
2nd in Div 4

And so on

7 games to win an All Ireland, every teams plays a min of 4 games and should fall into a grade where they can be competitive in after the groups. League standings will impact on how difficult ties will be

182

I’ve already fixed this problem on here before;

Ideally you’d abolish provincials altogether but in the absence of that common sense outcome I’d go with a format of the following for the football championship;

5 teams in Connacht in a group (maybe plus one*)
6 Teams in Munster in a group
Leinster 11 teams in two groups one 6 and one 5 (maybe plus one*)
Ulster 9 teams plus one always* so two groups of 5

Provinces with two groups would be seeded on basis of league position

Top two in Munster & Connacht play a final, top one in the two groups of Leinster & Ulster play a final.

What I mean by plus one is either London or New York. Ulster would always have one or the other, while the other team could rotate between Leinster and Connacht different years.

E.G.
So year 1; Connacht + London, Ulster + New York
Year two; Leinster 5+ New York, Ulster 4 + London
Year 3; Ulster 4 + London; Connacht + New York

I’ll explain my thoughts on this further below. **

We now have 6 groups of 5 or 6 depending.

“”""“Top 3 from each group in Connacht & Munster progress to last 16. Top 5 from Leinster & Ulster (top two in both groups plus best 3rd place finisher) progress.”""""

I’m changing this to being weighted on how many teams you have in Div 1 & 2. It was actually exactly the same as above, Ulster 5, Leinster 5, Connacht and Munster 3 each this season. But next season it would be 4 Leinster and 6 Ulster. You might need some lower limits and upper caps, i.e. 2 from each province minumum, 6 maximum Ulster and Leinster, 4 max from Munster and Connacht, but no need yet.

Now we’ve 16 left and we’ve somewhat addressed @Cicero_Dandi’s legitimate complaint that it’s much harder to progress from Ulster than say Munster.

That 16 would be seeded, 8 provincial finalists vs 8 non provincial finalists, with the 4 winners kept in different brackets so they can’t meet each other until last 4. Straight knockout other than that.

Exact same then for the 16/17 that didn’t qualify (assume New York would just drop out at this stage but you could figure out a format easily enough if they didn’t, bottom teams in two provinces play a playoff to make the next round, with the provinces involved rotating every year). As is always discussed this needs to be properly promoted etc.

Benefits;

  • Provincials are kept, with a big incentive to win them
  • Loads of games
  • Everyone has a chance of winning the AI at the start of the year
  • 16 coming out means you’ve no excuse to end up in the tier two contest if you are any use
  • Extra qualifiers from bigger provinces addresses, geographical number imbalance somewhat
  • League segment is, IMO, at the right part of the competition which is the start rather than the middle.
  • 4 knockout rounds should lead to better attendances and a few more shocks. The super 8 insulates the best teams from being ko’d before the semi finals, this format will not.
  • Tier two competition for weaker counties
  • New York & London series as discussed below.

**I know New York have issues with travelling but I have another idea which I think the GAA should do regardless of format. What I would do is hold a “New York series” so everyone in New York’s group travels to New York one weekend after the other all expenses paid and a serious push is made to promote the game over there. New York could play some of their “home” games in Boston, Chicago etc as well, spread it around different cities every year. I think it would be a great money spinner for the GAA and get someone like Aer Lingus on board as a sponsor to cover the cost of flights etc. Great for promotion of the game in the US, a nice trip for whatever counties they are drawn against etc. etc.
It’s not as necessary for London but I would consider it for them as well. Ruislip packed out every weekend for 5 weeks, be fantastic opportunity to promote the game. Different counties every year as well so you are getting a different part of the diaspora involved all the time.

I think the same should be done for the hurling where it’s even more of a no brainer, send 3 or 4 Christy Ring teams over to New York every summer, give them a great reward for their efforts and incentive to come back next year etc.

Anyway. Football championship solved.

@myboyblue send it on to Wooly

1 Like
183

The biggest weakness of the traditional system is particular underperforming teams.

These are, in order, i) Cork, ii) Meath, iii) Kildare, iv) Galway.

Fix that and you go a long way towards having four good provincial championships.

Cork v Kerry in the 2008-2013 period was always a smashing fixture and when you threw Limerick being competitive into things it made for a good championship.

Kerry did not have easy roads to the All-Ireland final in the 2008-2012 period, they were thrown into the back door in 2008, 2009 and 2012 and were undone in 2010 because they had had a tough path through Munster and picked up suspensions.

2 Likes
184

Fairly slim chance of fixing that though mate. Cork will improve but does that justify keeping a munster championship? Not for me anyway.

185

On the one hand you say there’s a slim chance of fixing these things, then you immediately contradict that by saying that something which would fix part of it, ie. Munster, will happen.

186

Cork will improve but the rest of the counties are miles behind in Munster. Cork improving does not jusify keeping Munster championship in my opinion.

187

Could the provinicial championships be retained with the winners all going through to the QFs?

8 places would then be up for grabs based on league rankings (or 7 along with preceding years Intermediate Championship winner)

Using the 2020 Championship for example.

It would be

Connacht - Mayo
Leinster - Dublin
Munster - Tipp
Ulster - Cavan

All 4 teams advance to the QF.

The remaining 8 teams would be:

Kerry
Galway
Donegal
Tyrone
Monaghan
Meath
Roscommon
Armagh

I don’t like the idea that a promoted team gets a higher grading a relegated one as the relegated one has played the higher level of football that year.

It also effectively means all Div 1 teams will be involved.

You could then run with either an intermediate Championship of 20 teams or an intermediate championship of 12 teams and a junior of 8 (likely all the Div 4 teams).

188

Provincial championships are a dead duck. Should be totally abolished.

189

I’d be very wary of getting rid of the provincial councils. Doing a lot of good work. Need to retained.

190
191

We need to retain the provincial councils

192

The structure of the Tipp SHC is the only way to sort this out.

Top 16 i.e. Division 1 & 2 teams (4x4 Groups in Sam Maguire)
Bottom 16 i.e. Division 3 & 4 teams (4x4 Groups in B Comp)

Top 2 in each group of Sam Maguire qualify for Quarter finals*
Top 2 in each group in B Comp qualify for quarter finals

Play your provinces off separately with everyone involved and the 4 winners are granted a Preliminary QF spot in the Sam Maguire Cup if they haven’t made it through the Group stages of Sam Maguire or if said team was in Group phase of B Comp.

Max 4 preliminary Quarter Finals between Provincial winners v 2nd Placed teams in Sam Maguire round robin, but there will most likely be none unless a team in B Comp or team that finishes 3rd/4th in Sam Maguire round robin wins their province.

1 up/down promotion/relegation between the two comps each year.

4 Likes
193

Before I listen to that is it a ‘debate’ where people actually listen to the others points and argue against them or one fella ranting ?

194

The Off The Ball lads would remind you of the advertising campaign for Eircom shares in the way they talk about Proposal B.

195

Not a hope of plan B going through by the looks of it.

196

Neither proposal will pass surely?

If we go with Proposal A it does nothing. Ulster stays competitive, Connacht might become a little more competitive if Cavan are sacrificed. Leinster hawks off a few of their weaker counties to Munster so effectively the two problem provinces in Leinster and Munster remain utterly shit.

Proposal B is even worse again and takes any sort of competition out of the Championship.

A doesn’t improve anything, B makes things worse.

If I had to choose I’d go with A over B.

Probably between Fermanagh and Cavan to be sacrificed in Ulster to Connacht, along with Longford in Leinster to Connact. You could see the benefit for Connacht football and Cavan/Fermanagh and Longford - probably a better chance of them being competitive there. No reason why Cavan can’t be competitive with Mayo/Galway/Roscommon and Longford are probably better than Leitrim, Sligo and London and would not have any great fear of Cavan or Roscommon.

Ulster loses a county but still remains very competitive.

Leinster loses three counties, Longford to Connacht and 2 of Offaly/Laois/Wexford to Munster. Let’s be blunt, all those 3 counties serve the same purpose in Leinster as they do Munster. Munster is a hurling province with Kerry then having a monopoly on football. Wexford, Offaly and Laois have been in the football doldrums for the past decade. I can’t see any of them giving Munster football a boost.

Effectively it’s more of the same.

Proposal B just looks horrendous. It’s like one of those horrible club championships some counties have with ridiculous extended round robin stages.

197

I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Crazy rule changes being passed by GAA Congresses are the more the norm than the exception in recent years.

198

Proposal B is a massive improvement on what we have currently. The Ulster championship is the only provincial worth a bollox and that will still be hotly contested in spring because there is genuine rivalry up there and the back door didn’t see it lose much if any of its edge. An Ulster title will still be important in its own right.
It then moves the best competition, the league, to the summer months while also making it way more competitive than it is now as teams are literally playing for their championship lives. The quarter finals will be a bit of a waste of time but that’s no real change and we’ll still have two good semis and a final. Also div 3 and 4 teams will have a great chance to have an extended summer every year instead of once in a generation like now.
It’s far from ideal and there are far better ideas out there but it’s on the table for now and is well worth a go. It’s difficult to stress how shite the current all Ireland football championship has become outside 2 or 3 games a year

199

Proposal B is a nonsense.

You can’t just join up league and Championship. It will ruin whatever chance the football championship has.

200

I disagree but we won’t know unless it’s voted in. Has it any hope I wonder ?