The league is our main goal every year,itās actually a competition we can win.Weāll probably never win Connacht again unless we really get our house in order but weāre light years behind Mayo and Galway,I always point to Roscommon/Monaghan and Fermanagh as the template we should be aiming for as weāre always competitive with the bigger counties underage but we donāt drive on from 16 upwards.Fot the amount of money we spend weād be better off playing in a straight k/o championship.Id be in favour of scrapping the provincials and just have a senior and intermediate all Ireland.
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Agreed. Will have a proper read of it later on.
Iād be a very casual watcher of Aussie Rules. Iād be way more inclined to watch a game between Collingwood and Carlton than between Greater Western Sydney Giants and Fremantle because I know there will be 95-100k roaring their heads off at the Melbourne Cricket Ground at the former, whereas there will be 10-12k not massively enthusiastic supporters at the latter and lots of empty seats.
Iām interested in Collingwood v Carlton as a casual viewer because I know the core audience is big and it cares deeply about the result.
Itās the same dynamic in any sport really. That said you can make a small crowd look good - if itās a small venue and itās full.
I think because of the idiosyncrasies in the GAAās structure there will always be some element of bloating. But I donāt think the current hurling championship format is bloated, itās too condensed if anything. Three months exactly end to end this year and you could play nine games in that time. Six and a half months end to end if you go from the start of the per-season tournaments. The feeling of bloating comes because itās only inter-county that gets spotlight in that time (bar the finishing of the All-Ireland club championships in January). What I would like to see return - but probably never will return because inter-county managers have been given too much power and the inter-county gameās demands have become ever greater - is for the inter-county game to tip away for seven/eight months or so, but for clubs to have generous access to players within that time frame. The sort of situation that pertains with rugby where the provinces have generous access to players in certain windows. That way youād bring county and club to the boil at the times of year which are best for both. And with a bit of organisation and a bit of planning at a central level and a will to do it, you could do it. But that genie is probably out of the bottle now.
The first thing you look at when you look for spectacle is how something looks. Limerick v Clare in front of a full Gaelic Grounds on a baking hot day automatically has incredible spectacle. No guarantee the game lives up to expectations but you have all the ingredients that right before throw in people are rubbing their hands in expectation. Clare v Dublin at the same venue had the feel of a League quarter-final. Sure you can get an odd game which turns into something exciting even if the crowd isnāt great but itās harder.
Part of the problem with All-Ireland quarter-finals is poor selection of venues. Youād be as well to give the defeated provincial finalist home advantage just because youāre likely to draw a bigger crowd. Clare v Dublin at Cusack Park 11 years ago is burned into my mind and despite it not feeling like it at the time was in hindsight one of the most enjoyable matches Iāve ever been to.
The problem with the semi-final venues is more intractable because the GAA arenāt going to take semi-finals out of Croke Park because of premium ticket and corporate commitments. A lot of hurling semi-finals attract in the region of 45-60k and really you need minimum 65-70k to escape that feeling of loneliness in Croke Park.
This is a great article.
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In the long run an occasional glorious day is more memorable than a decent period of consistency but no glory, and then a fall away. Emotionally, a shock, glorious win is more satisfying. So many times, one glorious day make a playerās whole career feel worthwhile.
Colm Collins did a smashing job with Clare but they donāt really have any days which will be talked about in 10 or 20 yearsā time, whereas Tipp do, despite being less consistent. One feels the whole thing with Clare will probably fall apart a bit now Collins has gone and a few key players have gone too.
I know Iāve said this a load of times but the inter-county football calendar that was there between 2001 and 2007 was to me the optimum.
You had that 1A/1B/2A/2B league system which gave everybody a solid level of football without letting the strongest teams completely gallop away, the gap between a 16 team Division 1 bracket and a 16 team Division 2 bracket being much less. If a team got promoted they could realistically hope to stay in 1A or 1B. There was a genuine Division 2 League title to aim for. In any given year promotion meant youād get a crack at Kerry or Tyrone or Dublin the following year. The overall league system gave teams a good grounding of football to build off for the championship because it was more even and more mixed, whereas now the NFL is ultra-elitist and come championship time those gaps show hugely, and are only likely to show more with the introduction of the round robin. Itās very hard to compete in championship without that solid grounding of good football. Most Division 3 and Division 4 teams have simply given up trying to compete in championship now and thatās a disaster. This has been allowed happen. It was a choice by the GAA and it was elitism - the desire that we see more clashes between big teams - that drove it.
In that 2001-2007 period and even for a good while after the abolition of the league system in 2008, the back door/qualifier system took away that dissatisfaction of training all winter for one game but it still kept the on the day nature, teams without realistic hope of an All-Ireland could still aim at a provincial title which meant something, and other teams could aim at a good back door run and a chance of a shock or two.
Particularly in the 2001-2007 years that whole calendar struck such a good balance.
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Cahair definitely looks in here. Hi Cahair.
I enjoyed the article. I particularly agree with the point about a meaningful club league which stands on its own two feet as a competition teams want to win. Itās a point Iāve consistently made here, especially in response to the trend where certain posters contradict themselves by trotting out the mantra that club players need a regular programme of meaningful fixtures yet simultaneously poo poo any club game that isnāt championship. These are mutually exclusive concepts. You canāt have a regular programme of meaningful fixtures for club players if leagues arenāt taken seriously - unless you want ridiculous formats like seven or nine guaranteed club championship games. Which is not championship, not workable and not interesting.
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Its some failing in GAA that Leagues are treated so shabbily in most Counties and even at Inter County too.
The Roll of Honour for League titles should mean something.
I dont know how you change attitudes though.
Thereās a lot of guilty fellas on here so supported a season where the clubs essentially get no look in until august.
Itās impossible to predict exactly the ramifications for a few seasons but how sustainable is it delaying the club championship for less than 1 percent of the players.
Highly unsustainable is my prediction.
The junior soccer and rugby seasons run very well and you get a lot more games too.
I always felt inter county gaa should be like like international windows in rugby and soccer with the clubs getting far more meaningful games across the calendar.
No matter the competition when there is a load of players missing on both sides it completely takes the sting out it.
The training stuffers too. You could be down county players, leaving certs, j1s and fellas working outside the county who arenāt coming back mid week. It takes the fun out of training when numbers are way down and it also means the standard of training is not good either.
If you are lucky enough to have underage county players or senior panelistās they often set the standard training and command the respect of other players. Taking that away until august has to have an impact on the club training too and the standard of the club game.
All of these things are decided by one major factor: Money.
The GAA wonāt change the current fixtures schedule as they believe it makes the most revenue. As @Cheasty said, the big problem currently is how bad Cork, Meath, Kildare and Wexford hurlers are so poor.
You know youāve been right about this all along. An INTERNET Giro dāItalia.
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The biggest problem is all the whinging done about facilities in the likes of thurles and the Gaelic grounds so no doubt thereāll be a clamour for millions to be wasted on more white elephants.
Thatās where all the round robin money will end up that lads are waxing Lyrical about.
Iād say it will be a few decades before they put money into another stadium with casement being the main priority.
The main reason for revenue is the ladies football/camogie expenses situation which will likely increase strain on GAA finances.
You obviously donāt remember clubs been knocked out of championship in May and June after 1 game? Id take 3 championship games over that anytime.
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Theyāve really just fucked the whole thing for no real reason only to extend the inter county season for another few games which in turn sort of made the league a bit pointless.
I donāt see your point here. Nobody is calling for a return of that whatsoever.
I remember the 3 game championship in Limerick alright.
Iād be interested to see the revenue figures for the football championship this year, and Iād be very interested in the average attendance figures.
Another figure we wonāt get but which would be very telling would be the total attendance figures as a percentage of total capacity.
It is possible to moderately increase the absolute numbers of spectators in a championship while dramatically decreasing the figure for total attendance figures as a percentage of total capacity.
With the exception of the Ulster final, there was nothing even close to a sell out in any game in the football championship until the knockout stages. Even in the first knockout round attendances were poor at three of the games. These swathes of empty spaces in stadiums are very bad for the championship.
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The new system has 48 extra games, 24 of which are at Sam Maguire level. Then you have the 4 preliminary games which are another money racket.
They are definitely making more revenue but there is probably a lower % attendance.
Nobody watches these games and nobody goes to the games.
Any sort of short term revenue bump will not do anything for the gaa in the long term.
They need to move away from professionalism theyāve pushing for twenty years now or otherwise theyāll destroy it. Too few will be able to compete and people will lose interest.