Gaa split season,killing Meath football since 2011

[peddlerscross]

Nobody knows and nobody cares anymore.

Particularly from 2000 to 2016 the U21 championships were absolutely box office and must see Wednesday night crusades.

I know by 2019 the standard had already slipped a mile, but a Tipp v Cork Munster Final on a balmy July Evening in Thurles was still a bit of an occasion.

Now its a complete non event and box ticking exercise thanks to the split season.

[endakenny]

@peddlerscross

Nobody knows and nobody cares anymore.

Particularly from 2000 to 2016 the U21 championships were absolutely box office and must see Wednesday night crusades.

I know by 2019 the standard had already slipped a mile, but a Tipp v Cork Munster Final on a balmy July Evening in Thurles was still a bit of an occasion.

Now its a complete non event and box ticking exercise thanks to the split season.

This is not really a split season issue more that the change in age grades.

Despite that messing, It must be also remembered that over 20,000 attended the u17 hurling final last year so to say they are totally redundant is incorrect.

At least seniors can play u20 this year for the most part. Bringing back u18 & u21 would be a great move but looking at the recent congress it won’t happen.

[peddlerscross]

The minor final should have had 80k at it in Croke Park.

I have no idea who won the minor football final or where it was played and the U20 football final was played in Leitrim of all places. A nothing occasion.

March is not the time for these competitions to be starting and Harty Cup games had to be rushed off in early January on astro turfs to facilitate this nonsense.

[Malarkey]

@Cheasty

@Malarkey

Is there a nuance here, in that Birr and Corofin won those Club All Finals as part of the 1997 season?

The concept of a “season” I think is a modern one. It didn’t really exist back then as the time window for competitions stretched all over the place. A thing that is peculiar to the GAA is that competitions don’t start with a bang, like the first day of the Premier League or the NFL in America or the AFL in Australia. In GAA, competitions traditionally limp apologetically into action and slowly crank up. They’re like people who silently slip in the door. The competition is on, lads, but don’t tell anybody we’re here, it’ll dawn on people.

I think I remember one GAA writer (it was Donal Keenan in The Title) lamenting how “you wouldn’t know the GAA season was about to start” and that “the GAA should be doing more to promote the start of the season” but he was talking about the resumption of the National Leagues at the start of February 1997, the same leagues which had started the previous October, two weeks after the All-Ireland final replay. So surely October was the start of the inter-county “season” back then. But the previous club season ran on until March.

I would have always had the winners on St. Patrick’s Day as the All-Ireland club champions of that year, so for me Birr and Corofin were the 1998 champions, at the end of what you could loosely term the 1997-98 provincial and All-Ireland club championships.

The NFL do it differently, so the Kansas City Chiefs are apparently the 2022 “world champions” despite winning this title in February 2023, while the PDC World Darts Championship frequently only has one game played in the title year. For me, if you win a title in a calendar year, that’s year you’re champion of. The Kansas City Chiefs, 2023 champions, not 2022.

True enough. You could argue point either way.

[ChairmanDan]

The Munster Minor Hurling Championship is under way tonight with Waterford facing Limerick on an apparent paddy field of a pitch in Fraher Field. I passed through Dungarvan around 4.30 this afternoon and there was some rain coming down.

Fixtures have to be played though. It’s an exercise in box ticking and fixture fulfilment to keep the split season zealots happy.

[Perez2017]

@ChairmanDan

The Munster Minor Hurling Championship is under way tonight with Waterford facing Limerick on an apparent paddy field of a pitch in Fraher Field. I passed through Dungarvan around 4.30 this afternoon and there was some rain coming down.

Fixtures have to be played though. It’s an exercise in box ticking and fixture fulfilment to keep the split season zealots happy.

Who are Carlow playing minor mate?

[Pirlo]

@Cheasty @binkybarnes was it Westmeath hurlers who put Dublin out of the championship in something similar in 2004 in Portlaoise?

The Premier 'View'

[myboyblue]

Dungarvan Would be wet of a dry day

[Aertel220]

@Perez2017

Who are Carlow playing minor mate?

They beat Wicklow 3-19 to 1-10 at the weekend. Think it’s a separate Leinster section though with the top team getting to enter the main Leinster draw with the big boys.

[Cheasty]

@Pirlo

@Cheasty @binkybarnes was it Westmeath hurlers who put Dublin out of the championship in something similar in 2004 in Portlaoise?

I doubt even the players who played hurling for Dublin in 2004 could tell you who put them out of the championship that year

I can’t.

The Dublin hurling team existed in a sort of bizarre twilight zone around this point.

[Pirlo]

2006. Seem to remember it being on the telly.

[Cheasty]

I spent that evening stuck in a pub in Holyhead after the HSS was cancelled. At least I could drink, the driver could not.

[peddlerscross]

The split season zealots wont be happy until GAA and Hurling in particular is dead.

There’ll be a Tribunal into it in time.

I mean what sort of dangerous lunatic would think fixing Inter County Minor Championship games in Shannon of all places on a Tuesday night in March was a good idea?

[Aertel220]

@Pirlo

Cheasty @binkybarnes was it Westmeath hurlers who put Dublin out of the championship in something similar in 2004 in Portlaoise?

I think Offaly dumped Dublin out of the Leinster hurling in 2004. It was played in an exceedingly attractive doubleheader with a Leinster football semi-final iirc.

[Cheasty]

@peddlerscross

The split season zealots wont be happy until GAA and Hurling in particular is dead.

There’ll be a Tribunal into it in time.

I mean what sort of dangerous lunatic would think fixing Inter County Minor Championship games in Shannon of all places on a Tuesday night in March was a good idea?

I think it’s time to do up a list of cherished traditions that have been done away with.

1. The September air.
2. Having Up For The Match broadcast in darkness hours.
3. All-Ireland Minor finals in September.
4. Club finals on St. Patrick’s Day with a weather dependent walk up crowd.
5. Provincial finals in July. Ice cream days. Burger vans and traffic jams.
6. Midweek under-21 hurling games on long summer evenings on TG4. Games that particularly appealed to those in the 60+ age bracket.
7. NFL finals on the May bank holiday weekend, clashing with the first session of the World Snooker final.
8. International Rules boxing in association with Coca-Cola.

[Cheasty]

@Aertel220

I think Offaly dumped Dublin out of the Leinster hurling in 2004. It was played in an exceedingly attractive doubleheader with a Leinster football semi-final iirc.

Dublin hurling teams didn’t get dumped out Leinster. They were very quietly dropped into the bin, like a small saucer of potato peelings.

[peddlerscross]

9. That lovely window of Club activity in April/May when reports would go around the country of Maurice Shanahan scoring 2-12 for Lismore and flying it or Michael Fennelly/Henry Shefflin playing a game for Ballyhale Shamrocks after missing the previous 8 months through injury.

[Cheasty]

10. Saturday night qualifiers and RTE radio going around the grounds on a magical mystery tour.

Adrian Eames bringing us all the action from Wexford v Westmeath at Fortress Wexford Park. Leigh O’Brien knocking over 0-10 (0-8 from frees) and a fancied Westmeath team looking dead and buried before coming back from seven points down with 15 minutes left to scramble a draw, and then scrambling a draw again at the end of extra-time before winning the replay in Mullingar by nine points.

[peddlerscross]

11. Replays. Hastily arranged replays. I’ll let you write a better synopsis of all the badly arranged replays (Mayo v Kerry in 2014 immediately springs to mind) over the years.

[padjo]

@Cheasty

10. Saturday night qualifiers and RTE radio going around the grounds on a magical mystery tour.

Adrian Eames bringing us all the action from Wexford v Westmeath at Fortress Wexford Park. Leigh O’Brien knocking over 0-10 (0-8 from frees) and a fancied Westmeath team looking dead and buried before coming back from seven points down with 15 minutes left to scramble a draw, and then scrambling a draw again at the end of extra-time before winning the replay in Mullingar by nine points.

The day the new stand was opened in Wexford Park