Playing against weaker teams doesn’t make you stronger in any sport
No. Football is harder to be competitive in
You play at the level you are at and then move up grade. No different to junior, intermediate and senior at club level. Junior teams are not going to get better playing senior teams.
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But tiered championships don’t and won’t mean anything and it doesn’t matter how you dress them up. You’re putting lipstick on a pig.
Provincial championships mean everything.
Tiered championships will decrease competitiveness across the board because better teams will consistently play higher quality football while inferior teams will consistently play inferior quality football.
In discussions of this nature I consistently return to something said by the former Sligo player Neil Ewing. From 1999 to 2007 the League was divided more equally - there were two equal Division 1s of eight teams each, and two equal Division 2s of eight teams each, then you’d have the top two teams in each of these four groups qualifying for Division 1 or Division 2 semi-finals.
That was replaced by the current Divisions 1 to 4 format in 2008 I think.
That 1999-2007 format gave a much better spread of football in terms of quality for more teams, and the format helped to ensure the gaps between the stronger and weaker teams were less than they would otherwise have been. So you had a better chance of championship shocks because teams were being exposed to better standards of football, or at least teams weren’t being consigned to backwater divisions from which they had no hope of escaping.
If you want to return to a championship which has a better spread of competitiveness, I think you have to be looking at that sort of format for the League.
The problem is that given the structural inequalities that have grown under the 2008-present League system, it would probably take several years for those inequalities to lessen.
But it’s a long term problem, and can only be addressed by a genuine long term solution, of which a more equitable format is one aspect, but also obviously includes other off pitch things such as coaching and funding.
Short term sticking plaster solutions dreamt up by gombeens aren’t going to address them, they’re going to destroy the championship as an entity.
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This is inter county, completely different to club. If westmeath or kerry had a sustained spell in division 1 it would serve them far better than yoyoing between the divisions.
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The Tailteann Cup that they were going to run with allowed for all of that, I’m not sure why they have abandoned it without first trying it, or if it has been fully abandoned yet? One of the big criticisms of it from pundits like Brolly and McConville was that the GAA were not going to play the Tailteann final as the curtain raiser to the final for Sam Maguire, but to do that was a ridiculous idea anyway.
True, @Cheasty point about league circa 1999-2007 backs up your point. Only thing I will say is that game has moved to a whole level of professionalism in a minority of counties. For teams to aspire to that requires time. A tier championship achieves this better than retaining traditional format imho. Could provincial championships operate separately to all ireland series? Possibly as an all ireland series warm up?
Connaught and Ulster are the only viable and competitive provincial championships. Munster and Leinster are a joke.
Both codes would be far better off scrapping the entire notion of provincial anything, its a small country, why would you want to be playing the same 3/4 teams all the time.
As always the councils will never give up the cash
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Again though if the competitors in a B competition have already been in the main championship, they won’t care about a losers’ competition.
And it doesn’t even matter when you play it, because the concept of conferring importance on a competition purely because the final of it is played before a much more important match is a pure gimmick.
FA Cup finals used to have Celebrity Six A Sides as a curtain raiser. If the Tailteann Cup final was played before an All-Ireland final most people would have no more interest in the outcome of that than the crowd at the FA Cup final did in the outcome of the Celebrity Six A Sides.
One of the most pitiful things I’ve seen was Declan Browne trying to convince himself that winning the Tommy Murphy Cup final of 2005, played before the classic Tyrone v Armagh semi-final, actually meant something, rather than being the glorified challenge match it was. Nobody. Else. Gave. A. Fuck.
When I say that I saw it I mean I saw a brief glimpse of him raising the trophy on that night’s Sunday Game highlights programme, because I was in Quinn’s when it was actually being played.
Whereas you’d generally make it your business to try and get in and see the second half or the last 20 minutes of the minor final. But you’d do that not just because it’s played on All-Ireland final day. It’s because the All-Ireland minor final means something. Unlike the Tommy Murphy/Taliteann/Token Cup, it has intrinsic worth.
Intrinsic worth is coming out of the pub to catch the last 20 minutes?
Is that not because of the era you have grown up in? Would a tier championship not have the same impact on the generation that would grow up with it.
Its like me not liking the way hurling has evolved as it is different to the game I grew up playing and watching.
The current generation love it though as its what they have played and watch.
Everything evolves. Does not make it better or worse, just different.
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It has. Because of formats, traditions, populations, economic power, and differences in the quality of administration.
So redistribute that economic power and redistribute access to quality football. Redistribute what you can.
No. Not in terms of importance anyway. Once you separate them they become the McKenna Cup.
They should maybe try go with senior, intermediate and junior instead off 1,2 and 3.
I know there’s a junior championship already but if they do it right it would be great imo.
I’ve never seen a club win a junior or intermediate championship and not celebrate it. The Offaly hurlers seemed to enjoy their win last month.
A senior division of 10 maybe and then two 12s would work well.
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The All-Ireland minor final means something because the teams are battling to be the number one team in Ireland at minor level.
In, say, Proposal B’s Tailteann Cup, teams are battling for the title of 18th best team in Ireland.
In Proposal A’s Tailteann Cup, they are battling for the title of 25th best team in Ireland.
It’s a gimmick.
I’m fairly sure the idea of the new format is to address what those involved in the game consider to be the shortcomings of the current system, rather than to try and address what the lad who may or may not leave Quinns for the last 20 minutes of a minor final considers to be the shortcomings of the current system. There appears to be far more appetite from players and managers for change now than when the Murphy Cup was introduced, in no small part because the hammerings being suffered by the weaker counties have got far worse.
Era that’s rubbish cheasty. There’s grades and levels in all sports.
Nobody cared.
Yeah, but you’re trying to superimpose that on 130 years of tradition.
It. Won’t. Work.
What are Europa League finalists battling to be, and yet fans still travel to the games? The final of that also often involves teams who have been eliminated from the ‘A’ competition. The clubs and players themselves have a financial incentive of course in that, but the fans too turn out for the games.
They travel because it’s a piss up. English teams don’t take the Europa League very seriously. Compared to the old UEFA Cup, it’s much less prestigious.
Like, the old UEFA Cup was a serious competition. The Europa League is basically Sevilla’s baby now, but what have they ever done in the Champions League?
And dissatisfaction with the concentration of wealth in European club football is widespread. How many clubs have a remote chance of winning the European Cup now?
And the Premier League is demolishing all other leagues now in terms of both interest and wealth.