Niland could play senior next year if Galway flop in 2024. Back in the good old days Niland would be much further down the road to senior inter county as he would have one if not two years with Clarenbridge seniors.
Thatâs the big difference people do not realise.
The likes of Noel McGrath, Richy Hogan and Joe Canning were dominating club senior games as u16s, now they canât play until u18, in Cork & Wexford I think itâs u19 which is simply baffling.
So the lads here want the All Ireland finals back to September yet want the inter county season shortened? That would be a hard one for the fixture makers.
Lads in general want it back to what it was back in 2017-19 or that. But want rid of the pre-season tournaments, but have the club season finish in the one year, but have the finals on Paddyâs day.
Whats unfolding before our eyes is just nothing short of a tragedy. Itâs just desperately sad and depressing and itâs going to lead to huge levels of trauma and mental illness among young people especially.
The gaa know full well they are probably wiping 10k off the attendance off the Saturday all Ireland semi final.
Yet had no issue jacking up the all Ireland final ticket to fleece the average supporter and not too long ago for your all Ireland final ticket you got two games too.
I actually donât mind the Saturday/Sunday all Ireland semi final weekend. Would love to stay up a Saturday if it ever suits or more importantly if Tipp are there but there does need to be a week between both the hurling and football finals.
Less meaningless stuff and more knockout. There are only 5 truly knockout games in the current Hurling Format and 3 of them take place at lunchtime/early afternoon on a Saturday.
I liked it in 2018 alright but itâs still not a great way to promote the games. Invariably one game gets lost but it mightnât be the worst thing theyâve come up with.
Semi final weekends are the way to go. The semi finals in 18 + 19 were excellent and didnât compromise each other. A great weekend for hurling neutrals.
There also was the sf replay and sf in 14 which were both iconic games.
2008 a classic of the genre. Leaving Dublin on the Saturday night of the Wexford v Armagh and Kerry v Galway doubleheader I was struck by the amount of Cork supporters whoâd made a weekend of it. They had a double header the following day. Quarter-Final v Kildare and the hurling semi-final v Kilkenny. Those exceedingly attractive and random double-headers seem to have been phased out under the current structures.
There was a real Augusty sun to those Football Semi Finals in 2014 and even a 6pm throw in for Kilkenny v Limerick on the last Saturday of July in 2019 had something about it.
But the first Saturday in July is just all kinds of wrong and that 2022 Semi Final between Kilkenny and Clare may as well not have been played at all.
