Cc @Locke
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Players are generally thickos who havenât remotely thought about the issues and who only care about their own narrow self interest. This cannot be emphasised enough.
But apparently in the GAA itâs some kind of âgotchaâ what they think.
Even the framing of the issues in that article is pure bullshit.
Any person with a brain knows the inter-county season needs to be cut back - but spread out more. Instead the issue is falsely turned into one of âif you want All-Ireland finals put back to September you automatically want more inter-county fixturesâ. Total straw man.
Clued in people want less inter-county fixtures, more club activity in between them, the power of the inter-county manager to be diminished, and the traditional dates for All-Ireland finals.
But the split season zealots never acknowledge that reality.
The problem in Ireland is the media and commentariat is so small and so connected and thus so compromised that the whole debate around these issues one of very poor quality, which contributes to the perpetuation of the problems.
There is massive groupthink around all these issues and those who arenât afraid to speak out get vilified on culture war lines for daring to voice the obvious reality that the emperor has no clothes.
As a player I love playing matches. Iâd enjoy the round robin in that respect. Unless you were an inter-county hurler from Waterford. Then youâd realise that the old qualifier system gave you a much better chance. Waterford would be regular All-Ireland quarter-finalists at least if they werenât stuck in the Munster Round Robin vortex.
Enjoy the Robin away but thereâs only so many weekends in the year. You either bin the league or the round robin.
They canât justify spacing out the games any bit more because thereâd be calls to release players back to their clubs in between.
The reason the men long ago who designed the GAA Fixtures calendar gave three and four week intervals between games was to allow club games proceed in between. For 100 years this worked well.
Then the I/C Managers wouldnât allow players back to their clubs in between I/C games so we are left with this current sorry mess which has dumbed the whole thing down to such an extent that nobody cares anymore and the GAA looks set to go bust within a decade.
Its some bloody achievement from the split season zealots in fairness.
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The inter county managers ruined players. Brought in some of the worst tactics known to mankind and turned 1000s of the sport while wasting millions of hard earned money and they are the fellas deciding the calendar.
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Its absolutely bonkers when you think about it.
The split season zealots are terrified of upsetting these people.
I/C managers who wouldnât let players back to their clubs should have been ran from the association. Iâve long held the view that you should need a licence to be involved in management at intercounty, and any reports of interfering in club activity or putting on a display like Hartes outfit on Sunday should see your licence revoked.
But are you even an intercounty player now if you donât have a sponsored car and a job in recruitment? The idea that every fella will go out and bust themselves for their clubs on a free weekend between intercounty games, when it puts all the perks at risk, is for the birds.
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Weâre constantly told by the spilt season zealots that club means more. Then they do a full 180, oblivious.
Players tend to follow their own narrow self interest. In Waterfordâs situation, that means high profile players opting out because they foresee a series of heavy defeats and arenât prepared to slog it out for a manager they donât like.
You even had that problem to a lesser extent with the back door when it came in 2001.
I think the gap between Division 1 and the rest in Gaelic football has been a disaster for the game. Itâs hard to bridge that gap now and turns so many championship games into one sided bores. Roscommon, Kildare, Cavan, all were yo-yo teams. Roscommon have kept at it but Kildare and Cavan have given up the ghost.
This is why you need a greater spread of standard in the NFL and a return to the 1A/1B/2A/2B format. Every team needs the games where they have a chance to win, and the games where teams have to really challenge themselves to compete in. Say in Wexfordâs case, they might have Laois one week, Fermanagh the next, then Dublin, then Roscommon. Thatâs a good spread of challenges. And they need it year on year. That gives you the grounding to maybe cause a shock. Louth have shown you can do it in this current system if you properly put your mind to it, but itâs harder, and the top teams are further away than they would be under the 1A/1B/2A/2B system.
Waterford are a quare one in Munster. Theyâre sort of geographically isolated from the rest. They donât have big rivalries with Limerick or Clare, and their rivalry with Tipp is an unappealing one for reasons I went into yesterday.
That leaves Cork as their chief rival in Munster, but really Kilkenny are their biggest rivals, and arguably Wexford would also be bigger rivals than the other three Munster counties on the basis of them both being sunny south east counties which start with W and end in -ford.
But nobody considers Waterford their chief rival, or close to it. Only in the 2000s and the rivalry with Cork were Waterford even on the radar of a big hurling county as a proper rival, for a while.
Liam Sheedy was awful for it - and now heâs big against the split season the way it is which is hyper-hypocritical of his beliefs
Would there be a modicum of self interest involved in your trenchant opposition of the split season?
How is the interest of the GAA as a whole served by a decline in public interest in the championships, a decline in media interest, and the traditional showcase months of August and September turning into a wasteland for media and public interest in GAA?
The championships exist and have existed for a century primarily as showpiece top level spectator sport. They are not blitzes or development competitions designed to provide non-competitive activity for everybody like Go Games.
Iâm not going to argue with you pal. Youâre 12 months making the same argument. There is an easy fix here. Move the AI Finals to August and all ireland club semi finals to January and the job is oxo.
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Finals in August is not much better than July. Itâs about tradition. Itâs about intangibles, itâs about feelings. This stuff matters greatly. Itâs like politics. Successful messages connect in the heart and the gut. You either get it or you donât. Those that donât get it are doomed to fail. The GAA currently do not get it.
The GAA after 120 years of refusing to change on anything have now moved to the other extreme and seem intent on throwing out every great tradition they ever had.
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Take a player like Noel McGrath who is integral dual player with his club that could potentially reach county finals in both codes.
You need 15 weeks to run the Tipperary championships in total.
If the all Ireland were to return back to September then it would leave 8/9 weeks to run off the Tipperary county championships. That means Liam Cahill would have to allow minimum 6 games between April & August to get it played off.
You are looking at 3 games in April and a game in May, June and July.
The problem is that competing counties like KK, Galway, Limerick donât have dual club players so Tipp/Cork/Wexford are left at an immediate disadvantage.
The split season is the only solution because of the above, august finals would be much better.
Two of the weeks needed to run the Tipperary championships should be in April.
Two in May.
Two in June.
Two in July.
Then you plough on from September.
And you play league games without county players in between. If players want games, take leagues seriously.
Every other sporting organisation in the world can do this, except the GAA.
But Tipp are competing with single code counties whose players only have one game per month, immediately a huge disadvantage that Liam Cahill wonât allow.
Well then Liam Cahill should be told to manage another team.