There was not. The April club month was in play which was a disaster.
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How is it a bigger disaster than playing club championships in a blitz format with lads off on J1s or holidays all over the place?
The GAA isnât just the players, though it isnât doing a very good job of serving its players. The GAA has a duty not just to itself but to Irish society to maximise its media exposure and keep itself at the centre of Irish society in its prime months. Why? Because the latter stages of the championships is an Irish ritual in place for over a century, it has been the rhythm of Irish life. You do not fuck with tradition in such a fundamental manner.
It beggars belief that the GAA has allowed itself to be dragged down a culture war rabbit hole by bad faith culture war arguments such as that article above. It has done so because for 30 years it has steadily refused to stand up to inter county managers and fight the clubsâ corner. Now it has simply given up because itâs too hard and ushered in the GAAâs very own Brexit.
Every other sport runs competitions across each other. The GAA canât do it because theyâre not arsed trying.
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Look, we have been down this rabbit hole before. The only county it worked successfully was Kilkenny during the old format which is an outlier as itâs a one code county. With the new round robin format, it wouldnât even be possible there.
As I have said repeatedly, the all Ireland finals should be put back a fortnight and an extra week between the hurling & football finals.
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This position is perfectly reasonable â but still really only amounts to tinkering around the edges in overall terms. The Munster Championship is cure and poison. Terrific in its way but a pure hinderance. Provincial structure needs to go, as does the league.
I think some version of this arrangement would be near optimum:
1 Two groups of five, with an open draw the first season under this rubric. For the following seasons, the All Ireland Final pairing of the previous year should be seeded apart from each other in the two groups.
2 Each team in the group of five plays each other twice, home and away. This emphasis would lead to some marvellous games in smaller venues. There would also be the dynamic of seeing how the first dayâs result compared to the second dayâs result.
3 Knockout follows this version of league/championship. The top two counties in each group get seeded in the quarter finals. The bottom team in each group meet in a relegation final. The loser gets replaced for the following season by the Joe McDonagh Cup winner, with the relegation factor tending to eliminate dead rubbers.
4 Knockout proceeds over four to five weeks.
5 Each county is guaranteed at least nine top flight games.
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How many weekends do you envisage being needed for this format?
The Munster Championship is THE jewel in the crown of the GAA. It would be foolish and sacrosanct to rid of it.
Wexford are pretty shit at the moment and with due respect to supporters from KK, Galway and Dublin they donât bring the same razz to games during the early rounds to make such a format a success.
The current hurling calendar is fine although something needs to be done about the league.
Iâd reward the league winners with either an extra home game or point head start in the round robin. The other option is to go back to the old league with the top 6 and 7-12 in division 1B. The latter wonât happen for financial reasons.
We nearly always agree but not here. Mistiness about the Munster Championship is holding back hurling â same as the old âone chanceâ knockout system did.
Could anyone seriously argue against a version of that open draw arrangement being a far better â and much fairer â structure for hurlingâs progress?
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A Complete short termism.
B Driving to Galway to go to Wicklow.
It may be fairer but just like the SEC is the jewel of college Football in the USA so is the Munster championship when it comes to hurling.
Those round robin games in your format sound like something designed by sky sports for rugby league. Fair, equal with some good games but overall a mirage of games like Tipp v Antrim or Cork v Wexford that are played in front of empty stadiums and are pretty dismal.
What holds hurling back is the lack of clubs for young players to play the game. Take Offaly for example, thereâs clubs in the county who purposely have the wide nets behind the goals to stop young lads shooting sliothars over the bar. Thereâs no real quick fix for this only to focus on urban areas like Naas, Leixlip, Wexford town and refocus on towns like Portlaoise & Tullamore where there is a tradition for the game but it has been let go.
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Eggs have to be broken â especially long hatched Munster eggs. There is no need to play five league rounds followed by four/five round robin games followed by knockout. And sentiment(ality) about the Munster Championship is the sheet anchor preventing progress.
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Eminent sense, which I applaud as warmly as possible. But a separate issue to optimum intercounty structures.
They are the golden eggs that Iâm not ready to break. The majority still think like this imo.
Your version of progress sounds tremendously mundane compared to the current brilliance of Munster and occasional subplots in Leinster.
Youâd likely be left with the same 2 teams fighting relegation each year and same counties playing round robin games with little at stake.
Anyhow an interesting conversation that we will not agree on but important to discuss.
Dublin ran its fixtures just fine. If Dublin were able to do it, no excuse for anybody else.
Sure look if a fundamentally useless manager can win 18 leinster titles you can write it off as a competition
You are a bit of a card, alright. The two of diamonds.
Given that under your plan the top two teams in each group would go into a quarter-final, that means eight teams must go into quarter-finals, which would mean each county plays eight round robin games and just one team in each five team group would be eliminated.
Given these games would be cross-province with no provincial championship trophy at the end of it, these games would effectively become seeding games and no more.
For argumentâs sake your groups might be:
A
Limerick
Cork
Waterford
Galway
Antrim
B
Kilkenny
Tipperary
Wexford
Clare
Dublin
In these groups, Antrim are obviously going to finish bottom of Group A, while in Group B itâs obvious that 4th and 5th place would be played out between Wexford and Dublin (plus ca change). The winner of this battle will be stuffed in a quarter-final.
The crowds would stay away in their droves, and there would be no provincial finals either.
It would be a disaster for hurling.
The Munster championship isnât sacrosanct for no reason. Itâs because itâs a mesmerising competition. Itâs Leinsterâs job to try and match it. That means everything humanly possible should be pumped into raising the standard in the counties which have the potential to make Leinster an attractive championship, namely Wexford, Offaly and Antrim/Laois.
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National Leagues are our best and fairest competitions. Would love to see something like this come in. Home and away league followed by knockout is the most common format all over the world. It has a very natural run and League winners arenât really getting the cachet they should so what is the point? It should be all the one competition starting around late March.
I know a lot of people donât like them, but I really enjoyed the few Saturday night league games down in Cork when I was living there a few years ago. Awkward for supporters coming and going but the atmosphere under lights was really good and it looked brilliant on TV watching back. You could market that.
What Iâm getting at is people will make new traditions. Iâd love to see a few Limerick games in Kilmallock again with the right opponent. Portlaoise and Tullamore are really underused right now under present set up.
What if the Group winner got a home semi final, could you imagine an All Ireland semi final in Nowlan Park? Imagine the magnitute, the totality of that event! If one is worried about losing revenue playing a semi in a smaller venue, why not play it over two legs home and away and decide it on aggregate? Imagine Tipp v KK home and away in an AI semi final. Take my money.
Putting the games in the right venues and at the right times is a huge thing. I hate half empty grounds. It makes important events seem less. I wouldnât mind having no games in Croke Park till even the final. The semis would absolutely blow the doors off. It could also revive something like Railway Cup if that were to be there and would give AI club finals in Croke Park heightened status. A road to Croke Park narrative writes itself.
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Go back to the 2001-2017 format in football, do away with the groups, they donât work.
Munster hurling works, if you have four week gaps you take away the dynamic in both provinces where teams with weaker panels canât last the pace.
Intersperse the club championships and the inter-county championships. Three round each of club championship from April to June. Leave 10 weeks from the start of July to early to mid-September for inter-county.
Fit your club leagues in on the inter-county weekends and in July and August. Finish off the club championships from mid-September on.
April 9 Inter County Hurling Round Robin 1
April 16 Inter County Football Provincial Prelims
April 23 Club Hurling Round 1
April 30 Club Football Round 1
May 7 Inter County Hurling Round Robin 2
May 14 Inter County Football Provincial Quarter-Finals
May 21 Club Hurling Round 2
May 28 Club Football Round 2
June 4 Inter County Hurling Round Robin 3
June 11 Inter County Football Provincial Semi-Finals/Qualifiers Round 1
June 18 Club Hurling Round 3
June 25 Club Football Round 3
July 2 Inter County Hurling Round Robin 4/Football Qualifiers Round 2
July 9 Inter County Hurling Round Robin 5/ Football Qualifiers Round 3
July 16 Football Provincial Finals
July 23 Provincial Hurling Finals
July 30 Football Qualifiers Round 4
August 6 All-Ireland Hurling Quarter-Finals
August 13 All-Ireland Football Quarter-Finals
August 20 All-Ireland Hurling Semi-Finals
August 27 All-Ireland Football Semi-Finals
September 3 All-Ireland Hurling Final
September 10 All-Ireland Football Final
September 17 Club Hurling Round 4
September 24 Club Football Round 4
October 1 Club Football Round 5
October 8 Club Football Round 5
October 15 Club Hurling Quarter-finals
October 22 Club Football Quarter-Finals
October 29 Club Hurling Semi-Finals
November 5 Club Football Semi-Finals
November 12 Club Hurling Finals
November 19 Club Football finals
November 26 Provincial Club Hurling Quarter Finals
December 3 Provincial Club Football Prelims
December 10 Provincial Club Hurling Semi-Finals
December 17 Provincial Club Football Semi-Finals
January 7 Provincial Club Hurling Finals
January 14 Provincial Club Football Finals
January 21 All-Ireland Club Hurling Semi-Finals
January 28 All-Ireland Club Football Semi-Finals
February 11 All-Ireland Club Finals
Well put, as usual. But I do not agree, tout court â if only because corralling a supposed inevitability within a Leinster Championship scarcely seems a superior option â and you gloss it as a massively superior option â to corralling the supposed inevitability within an open draw group.
There is also the issue of Munster natives â especially a particular strain in Tipperary (not anyone here on TFK, in fairness, I should add) â droning on about how there is an inherent advantage in coming from the Leinster Championship. If there is, and the same lads appear not to have the wit to discern same, they are turkeys voting for Christmas. I am naturally reluctant to pay such voices much heed.
I also feel a guaranteed nine top flight matches for a Liam MacCarthy county, over the medium term, means they would improve â or would never improve, in any structure. Clarity might as well come dropping sometime.
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Obviously I completely agree on this front. But the two possibilities are not antithetical in the slightest.