Its not brilliant because deep down clubs donât want to be playing Championship in late July/early August with a million and one other things going on from J1âs to Holidays to Weddings.
The 3 month break can be a good thing to refocus if things didnât go well in April/May time, whereas now things can go to shit very quickly if you lose round 1 in late July.
Personally my own club always did well in the early part of the year, and there used be a great satisfaction when you had business taken care of in April with the whole year stretching out in front of you, pregnant with promise.
I think thatâs mostly nonsense, clubs are generally mad for it by the time it rolls around. Even so, they can put it back a few weeks. Putting it back a few weeks wonât mean people will suddenly have interest in the shocking system now in use for the intercounty football championship. The hurling is generally holding up fine attendance and interest wise in Munster anyway
Well the point of the current system is that you know your fixtures at the start of the year and can plan around these things.
I trained with a club and youâd be fried with frustration waiting for when the next fixture would be announced. The whole 3 or 4 months between an April match and the next game would lead to apathy in training and lads losing interest. Now you know with certainty when to peak for, when you can book your holidays etc.
Itâs very early days too and I mean very early but the new club seasons gives the clubs focusing on one code an absolutely massive advantage and one code is losing out in nearly all clubs.
Alarmingly football seems to be winning out in a lot places you wouldnât expect to. Itâs slightly easier to play you get that crossover with soccer maybe Iâm not sure.
The qualifiers were met with huge enthusiasm when introduced in 2001. So much so that there was a push to implement them in hurling the following year. The provincial hurling round robins received a nice bit of praise since their introduction in 2018 as well. Nothing wrong with change when itâs a positive one but the Sam Maguire round Robin and the change of underage age groups are two awful decisions.
I think with a few smart brains you could plan it out fine. If you knew on May 20th your next Championship game wonât be until August 20th at the earliest and if your County makes an AI Final, itâll be Sept 8th, what would be wrong with that?
I did see it coming but I didnât think it would sell out so quickly. Itâs a great example of how fixture makers getting it right can absolutely make an event. Leinster v Northampton at Lansdowne Road probably would have pulled 36/37k.
Novelty sells which is why Leinster are selling out Croke Park. But tradition and what is proven to work also sells, which is why the Ulster football final and the Munster hurling final were last yearâs standout GAA occasions.
The GAA really have no understanding of this and itâs only by accident and because they havenât yet got around to killing these games off fully that the Ulster football final and the Munster hurling final still survive.
A 25-30k mostly seated multi-sport stadium in a good location in Dublin which could accommodate GAA would be the job. The GAA should have approached the RDS and Leinster rugby about staging games there and possibly chipping in a bit towards redevelopment.
Would be a great venue for matches like NFL finals, Leinster finals and All-Ireland quarter-finals.
All we used to hear was players in counties that got knocked out early wanted more games.
Itâs proved they donât, they want a chance of winning and progressing in a championship, however the current format stops any chance they have of winning because the big teams get a second chanceâŚâŚand they usually win.
Have the league with the top 8 going into some CL format and then have the league final around the end of April.
Plenty of games for the GAA to get gate receipts and money in.
May June for club games.
Provincials start July with knockout games all the way to All Ireland finals. (@cheasty, could this be done on 2 months)
All Ireland finals first week in September.
Clubs have May/June to play with lovely weather keeping @Perez2017 and the childer on the sideline happy, the rest of the country have a summer GAA which most want with a knockout competition which will revive interest from all smaller counties.
Now it might not happen but if Cork beat Kerry in Killarney in July or Kildare beat Dublin and they were out out out, there would be some excited counties for the summer.
