Division 1A 2003 - Tyrone, Armagh, Cork, Kerry, Galway, Dublin, Roscommon, Donegal.
Division 1 2021 - Tyrone, Armagh, Monaghan, Kerry, Galway, Dublin, Roscommon, Donegal.
Spending caps for sure. Sponsorship redistribution. Anything that will help to equal the pot for preparation among county teams. And again, more exposure for the many to regular better football, not the inferior football they currently get.
Perhaps some smaller neighbouring counties, Sligo and Leitrim or Offaly and Westmeath and Longford for instance, could amalgamate club leagues to give themselves a higher regular standard of club football - because in smaller counties, club football will overall be of a lower standard than in the stronger counties. They would still retain their individual club championships.
Can’t imagine any issues there, the GAA have found it real easy to deal with payment of managers so overseeing spending caps should be a doddle. When you say exposure to better football what you are also saying is exposure to regular hammerings - whether the hammerings stop first or the footballers suffering stop first is the gamble you take.
Which is exactly what we have tried up here with hurling, by and large it has been a complete waste of time. I think it’s worth trying in places but don’t be expecting any big improvements from it.
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That’s very selective. Monaghan at that point were a much weaker team but that exposure to better football helped them build over the coming years and that year they pulled off what was a massive shock against All-Ireland champions Armagh in the first round of Ulster.
Fermanagh reached the League semi-final from Division 1B, Laois reached the final from it. Those league campaigns set those counties up for excellent championship campaigns that year. Fermanagh would go on to reach the All-Ireland semi-final in 2004, only losing by two points in a replay. Why were they able to do that? Being exposed to regular quality football in the league was a major reason.
Wexford reached the League final in 2005. Being exposed to regular quality football helped them enormously.
In my time going to Dublin league matches in the 1990s and up to 2007, Dublin played all of the following:
Limerick, Antrim, Louth, Clare, Leitrim, Offaly, Fermanagh, Sligo. Unless the format changes, think it’ll be a long time before they play any of them again.
Yes but back then Dublin were a middling intercounty side, it would be like comparing them to Meath or Kildare now. What’s more interesting is the bottom 4 teams in Division 1A and 1B back then we’re London, Carlow, Leitrim, Antrim, Louth, Waterford, Clare, Derry.
In 2021 the Div 4 sides were
London, Carlow, Leitrim, Antrim, Louth, Waterford, Wexford, Sligo.
So because you can imagine trying to equalise spending will mean some issues doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try it?
As well as exposing weaker teams to better football, you’re also exposing better teams to worse football.
Within a few years you should see an evening out effect. And that’s what you want. You want competitiveness.
Hurling has tried the tiered approach. It has failed completely as regards those teams who are in the sort of 10-14 bracket - Offaly, Laois, Antrim, Kerry Down, Westmeath.
It’s one small possible improvement among many.
Perhaps one of the reasons Dublin were a middling inter county side back then was because they were not being reinforced year on year by a consistent standard of football other counties were not getting.
Meath and Kildare are and have been exposed to a consistently inferior standard of football for the last decade or more. That makes development all the harder.
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No, but its no harm to have some realism. Cathal McShane could very well have been in Australia rather than Croke Park last week, would the resources used by Tyrone to get him home be available in other counties? And do they show up on Tyrones annual account?
Is it a good message for the GAA to put out that they are going to change the league format in the hope of lowering the standards of the best teams?
The millions and millions pumped into the game there, and the county board getting their act together, were significantly more important in that turnaround I’d say.
Did Banty’s expenses show up on Wexford’s?
I’m not sure what “message” has to do with anything. The reality is if you want a competitive championship you either try and equalise the standard of regular football teams are exposed to or you watch the strong counties gallop into the sunset forever.
If counties were to look at it in that cold-eyed, analytical fashion, we might have an eight team championship left. Yet they have always bothered, regardless of their realistic chances of provincial or even outright success. Players still want to compete at the highest level available to them.
This probably isn’t the solution, but there’s nothing wrong with looking at it. Fwiw, I know lads with Tommy Murphy medals and they remember the day in Croker and they’re rightly proud of them.
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Which is most likely to have a positive effect on a young footballer in Belfast? -
The GAA have announced a change to their championship format with the Tailteann Cup giving Antrim a greater chance of more games in summer and a final in Croke Park
The GAA have announced a change to the league format which will see Antrim suffer hammerings from top counties, but hopefully these top counties being exposed to Antrim will make them a little worse at the game and close the gap eventually.
I didn’t say they weren’t. But the money Dublin got was primarily to increase grass roots participation, which was right and proper. Players filtering through should be a natural by-product of that. But that grass roots money is separate to inter-county. It was about the GAA trying to compete with other sports in Ireland’s only metropolis.
Dublin obviously have a natural economic advantage in terms of attracting money and expertise which will help to prepare an inter-county team. It’s by far the biggest city in Ireland and the economic and intellectual powerhouse of the country.
If, say, 50% of the sponsorship money Dublin can attract was redistributed to a central fund to be pooled equally among all counties, that would appear to me to strike a good balance. Companies will always want to be associated with the Dublin team and the larger pot of money they are willing to pay to be associated with Dublin, but others could also feel the benefit.
Antrim are probably the biggest underachievers in Gaelic football.
Have Antrim come with a serious proposal to the GAA about pumping in money? Belfast is Ireland’s second biggest city. Antrim GAA would appear to me to be an attractive sponsorship opportunity. West Belfast has Ireland’s largest concentration of GAA clubs.
If Antrim got their house in order at administration level, they could start building a team. If that team got regular exposure to a good standard of football, they’d know the standard they needed to achieve. If they started, say reaching Ulster finals, the Antrim football team suddenly becomes a thing to attract mass support in a similar way to how Dublin did after 1974 and how Armagh did in the late 1990s.
What has being consigned to lower tier hurling done for the Antrim hurling team? Nothing, as far as I can see. The gap now to the established hurling counties is as wide as it has ever been.
A county with no profile in the game at all are not an attractive sponsorship opportunity sadly. Do you know what would really help - if the county could get a game in Croke Park and some silverware to display from it. Antrim camogie were there last week, and the clubs had the saffron flying at their grounds and the game got some positive exposure.
Not sure that’s true, they had a disappointing championship this year but a very positive league. The game is now growing in the city, and claiming some silverware with the Mcdonagh Cup has been a further help in promoting the game in the city.
But what we want is an across the board competitive championship, as much as possible anyway.
If Clare were in Division 3 of a League turned championship, what awaits them?
The chance to emulate 1992 is gone. If you win your division you’ll likely lose to a Division 2 team in the knockout round. If you somehow win that you’ll be hammered by one of the big four or five, who are constantly pulling away.
All the while, the attractiveness of the All-Ireland championship as a whole consistently declines.
Those Clare players might be proud of their Tommy Murphy medals, Declan Bowne might be, but the truth is nobody else cared. Whereas winning Munster in 1992 will live forever.
I’m reminded of a quote by Australian coach Leigh Matthews after the 1998 International Rules series. He compared the series to the Vietnam War. “Because nobody outside those directly involved in it gives a fuck about it.”
The Tommy Murphy Cup didn’t even pass that bar. If any team wanted to win the competition, chances are they’d win it, because most of the teams in it didn’t care about it.
But getting to Croke Park has to mean something. Antrim reached a Tommy Murphy Cup final. They may even have won one, I can’t remember. It did nothing for them.
I can remember them beating Down in 2000 and nearly beating Derry. And reaching an Ulster final in 2009 and being very competitive with Kerry. They brought huge crowds to that Derry match in 2000 and to the 2009 Ulster final. But they never pushed on from those.
And they will likely continue to have disappointing championships. What’s a good championship for Antrim in hurling? Winning the McDonagh and being on the up side of the yo-yoing before the inevitable down side of it the following year? I can remember Antrim reaching an All-Ireland final and seriously contending to reach a couple of others. They’re a million miles away from that now.
That happen as it is? If players in weaker counties were bothered about whether random armchair punters care, they wouldn’t get involved at any rate. It’s a complete irrelevance to a fella in Wicklow/Carlow/Louth etc whether a punter in Cork or Dublin spares them a thought. Whether you personally don’t care about a secondary competition is equally besides the point. Those competitions will be sustained by the counties that play in them, or they’ll wither away; but the current system shouldn’t be sacrosanct.
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the National football league is the best competition the association has…but yes league QFs and SFs are total nonsense
here is what i would do, we are in a dream situation with 32 sides
-
play the league, promotion , relegation as per usual, no league final, top place gets the cup
(7 weeks start to finish) -
championship
this comprises 8 groups of 4, seedings are based on league division. for example top 6 div 1 and 2 promoted sides top seeds, etc.
Each team plays 3 group games (3 sundays)
top 2 go into last 16, QF, SF and final (4 sundays)
bottom 2 in each group go into a lesser tournament of similar format
Easy
imagine the amount of matches
the last 16 would be epic, 8 games over a weekend…its a 7 week duration IC championship,no replay play to finish
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It didn’t happen nearly as much in the 2000s. It isn’t about what the players think - it’s about what the punters think. And punters aren’t fools. A championship has to attract crowds. If the All-Ireland football championship isn’t attractive to spectators, and it won’t be if it’s too predictable and samey year on year, it goes into a death spiral as a competition in the same way the Leinster championship has done.
If the Leinster championship suddenly became competitive again, if people felt there was a realistic chance of Kildare or Meath or Laois beating or at least seriously competing with Dublin, it would suddenly be revitalised as a competition.
If we had genuine competitiveness, the 2001-2017 format is the best available format to exploit that. It strikes a great balance.