Quite possibly but I think that going the regional way would have a far greater chance of succeeding than trying to turn the current intercounty system into a professional system with 30 odd counties.
There was zero interest in railway cup
I don’t know too much about it but I would imagine the much bigger English and French club scene carried that tournament a lot initially.
There was serious interest in the railway cup up to the 90s until there were more televised games and the introduction of the back door and it was shifted from being the show piece final on St Patrick’s day. It’s significance dwindled as smaller counties got more games and more profile as opposed to most counties being finished in the championship by early June after playing only one or two championshipo matches.
I think we need to be stressing more the amateur nature of the GAA and remove this culture of ridiculous commitment required.
It is killing the smaller counties. Lads aren’t prepared to give the commitment required and as a result the gap gets bigger to the larger counties where there are naturally more prepared to commit.
1 Like
A wonderful tournament in its day. I recall there being a sense of proudness when our much valued full back line was picked in total for the Connacht provincial team. That would have been early noughties and there was still as bit of interest in it.
3 Likes
Agreed.
I didn’t specify it but one of the main points of my argument was that if we did go professional with a handful of sides it would still allow us to retain and meaningful enough club and intercounty competitions. I would much rather there be a professional league of 8 to 10 teams with the main counties getting harvested of their best talent leading to a levelling off at intercounty level and leading to what would be a far more egalitarian intercounty competition where most teams could beat each other on any given day rather than forced marriages between the likes of Leitrim/Sligo, Clare/Limerick, Laois/Offaly, Longford/Westmeath et al just to try and close the gap to the likes of likes of Dublin, Kerry, Mayo etc or this horribly devised two tier championship which will only keep the smaller teams down
But a professional league would obviously harvest the better players and wouldn’t that effect the smaller counties more? Smaller pool etc
Back of fag box numbers
Currently there are 30+ intercounty panels. Lets just say 32*35 so 1120 intercounty players.
You have 10 pro teams who are limited to 35 players for the season - so 350 professional players in a given year, so less than a third of intercounty panelists. To start the league I would say that of that 350 pool to begin at least two thirds would come from counties in the top 2 divisions with the top half a dozen sides being the hardest hit and supplying a big chunk of it. Weaker counties will lose players alright but not on the same scale while bigger counties likes Kerry and Dublin could well lose players in the double figures and still have a talent base than would see them competitive against the majority of the sides in the country who have lost a handful of players,
As i said before, you still retain club and county underage and players not eligible to play professional until they are over 21 which would allow club and county to get to see the player emerge and would hopefully bring a bit of buy in to professional game from fanbase.
Let’s say Dublin and Kerry lose ten each, but Monaghan lose Ciaran McManus, Donegal Michael Murphy, Westmeath John Heslin. Who would suffer the more irreplaceable loss? Impossible to say I suppose.
Yeah, it is pure pie in the sky stuff in fairness and seeing how the GAA are handling the two tier championship stuff it appears that we are heading down an intercounty championship of haves and have nots for the foreseeable where football could well go the way of hurling where there are three or four distinct levels and the days of small counties getting their day in the sun all but gone.
They are completely gone. The Leinster championship is a foregone conclusion forever now I think. The all Ireland is Dublin v the one or two who might be competitive. Granted the drop off from Gavin could be significant but take mayo last 5 and Kerry last year out of it, no one else could compete with them.
For me the answer is to be found with how club championships are run all over the country.
A senior, intermediate and junior.
No ‘if you get knocked out of the main championship then you go into a loser one’. You are assigned initially and battle to get promoted. The higher you go up the more the commitment usually.
It’s there staring at us. But the Provincials have to go.
3 Likes
So this fella is saying limerick and clare join up for example to set up a professional hurling team? Sure they wouldn’t get 2 supporters. Crazy suggestion.
That could work quite effectively. Suppose the only concern would be that footballers in weaker counties might not like the Junior footballer label but it seems to work quite well in ladies football.
Just repackage the levels like they do in hurling. Meaghar, Rackard, Ring , McDonagh are essentially Intermediate, Junior A,B and C.
1 Like
8 in senior, 12 Intermediate, 12 Junior? Could work very well in my opinion.
It’s hypothetical you plank
Exactly re the ladies.
Think of your county’s intermediate championship and to a lesser extent maybe the junior championship.
Semi finals and finals are nearly as important as the senior. That’s the goal.
1 Like
Gga fans are very fickle