I can smell an uprising. Something special is brewing.
Another baffling element of the split season hurling championship & promotion of the games debateā¦you could have 3 hurling matches from the secondary competition shown live on terrestrial TV on a weekend in February (league match on Saturday night on RTĆ & two games on Sunday on TG4). Yet weāve just had a championship hurling weekend where no game was shown live free to air. The sheer, brazen stupidity is mind-blowing. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
As for the football, I donāt know anyone whoās following the championship. Iāve hundreds of unread posts on the football championship thread, which is contrary to forum admin protocol, & Iāve no idea who was playing today or the scores. I know at least 14 people like that. Folk who would have gone to games, watched games, watched the highlights, engaged in the championship. They just let it wash over them now & ignore it. The GAAās basically presiding over the death of intercounty competition.
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While destroying the clubs while they are at it.
Everyone is waiting for the super 16 to see what 12 teams are left standing.
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Iām really disappointed nobody on TFK thought up of that āMicrowave Championshipā term.
What was the context in him using it? I donāt watch the split season championship Sunday Game.
An 11 week, split season, blitz style championship with half of it hidden in a dark corner of the internet behind a paywall.
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Thatās fucking outstanding. Iād say thereās a lot of fellas embarrassed they were supporting this shite.
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There was a small band of us who called out this split season nonsense from the start. The tide is turning though as the utter folly of it plays out.
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And it isnāt even a split season itās 80 percent county 20 percent club.
Fellas were sold a pup.
The GGA was dying from the moment cable tv took off but the rooral nature saved it for a while. I always said that the growth of the broadband internet would damage the GGA more than any other hobby on the island and that the National Broadband Plan would kill it. It appears that the GGA are turbo charging their own decline with this streaming app.
If you think the old lads will stop with this app then you have another thing coming to you.
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The championship should be 2 or 3 weeks later.
What is your overall solution please?
Croke park wants the clubs to fail. They are merely an inconvenience as they move towards 8 team leagues playing home and away from march to September.
In ten years time inter county players wonāt be playing with their clubs.
They wonāt be able to finance a pro tournament is thatās what they are going for. GGA GO is going to be a money pit.
You seem to be confusing the split season with television scheduling.
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Thereās far too many inter-county games. Take the football championship - 29 games in the provincial championship phase which is now finishing. 24 games over 5 weekends coming up to whittle 16 down to 12 and another 11 games after that.
Thatās a 64 game championship in a tournament that either Kerry or Dublin or maybe Galway at a push are going to win.
With the championship largely having now evolved from a knockout to a league style competition, do we need a league anymore? Either the league or the pre-season OāByrne Cup/Walsh Cup/Dr McKenna Cup should go.
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Thatās a definite fair point.
The big problem seems to be the All Ireland finals being played too early. I donāt think you can ever go back to September.
August would be perfect. 3 months for clubs. All Ireland club finished by the end of January.
Thereās just far too many games. Nobody can keep up. Itās beginning to feel a bit like baseball season in the US where hardly anybody tunes in during the 162 game, play every day for 6 months regular season before tuning in for the post season in October.
Thereās little or no sense of occasion to most championship games now. 3 weeks for teams between championship games is the ideal timeframe.
Heavy lifting in club championships in August is not a good idea either. I was invoked last year with an adult hurling team. On a personal level, I can only go on holidays in August. A lot of our players were in the same boat too so plenty of absentees during early rounds with holidays. 3rd week in August is time enough for county championships to be cranking up. With better weather and facilities, pitches are generally pretty good now into November.
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Would love to hear the Dalo Podās opinions on this, but unfortunately, they areā¦ behind a paywall 