Three years is a fine and long term on top of whatever heâs put in already. I hope for Galwayâs sake they retain the impetus theyâve shown this year but Galway supporters are a fickle lot and itâs a results based business.
McDaidâs progress and form are the key here. Bookmark itâŚ
McDaid is a real talent.
lol
Galway are the best team in the country
The Kerrywankfest rolls on regardlesss
We
Are
Always
Relevant
We are GAA aristocracy
Weâre back where we have always been. Other counties spend the winter talking about Kerry, Kerry spend the winter talking about local squabbles and North Kerry Championships.
5 hours ago 3,093 Views 0 Comments
Image: Ben Brady/INPHO
GALWAY GAA CHAIRPERSON Paul Bellew says the split season has been a âgodsendâ for clubs, while warning that any alterations to the calendar would have a significant impact on their schedule.
Galway are at the knock-out stage in both codes, with the senior football quarter-finals set to take place this weekend.
Both senior hurling and Gaelic football county championships guaranteed a minimum of five group games, played on alternating weekends from the end of July to the start of October.
Source: Bryan Keane/INPHO
âIt has been really positive,â Bellew tells The42. âThe split season is a significant factor. Alternating every second week is firmly embedded in the county. Decoupling is firmly established as a must in the county.
âPlanning and organisation between the football and hurling committees is at an all-time high even with the complications from (reaching) the All-Ireland final.
âThere has been no case before the CCC in terms of adjudicating between a clash of football and hurling fixtures, even at juvenile level. Player feedback, club feedback, supporter feedback is extremely strong.
âGames are happening when they should be. In good weather, on good pitches. Attendances continue to increase across both codes. Gate receipts will surpass the million mark this year. That is a significant uptake on the last entire season, which was 2019.
âOn top of that, weâve streamed four games every weekend to a massive audience. The interest has been really strong with four-figure viewership on our matches in football and hurling. Such was the demand for U20 hurling that we streamed that midweek on a Wednesday night.
âIt was a necessity during Covid but is a good product now; it is an ingrained part of our offering. It doesnât inhibit the gate, it actually complements it.â
The co-operation between the countyâs various stakeholders also saw Galwayâs Kenny Park host a novel triple-header with a camogie fixture sharing billing with two hurling championship games last month.
Bellew is reluctant to comment on formats elsewhere but is keen to stress that recent proposed changes to inter-county season like flipping the calendar so the club goes first or pushing the All-Ireland finals a month back would have huge repercussions for their offering.
âThe split season has been a godsend for clubs. Just on a couple of the debates in recent weeks, it is not practical to flip the season for two reasons.
âFebruary and March are worse months on pitches than October and November. Clubs not going back at that time of the year are having a really positive impact on facilities and their ground. They are not trudging around in the muck in December and January, getting ready for an early club season.
âAll our evidence is October and November are less disruptive.
âThe great one is that if you run a club season first, intercounty will gobble it up. With the best will in the world, with intercounty looming over club, they will be pulled.
âI really enjoy the intercounty and we all love it, but GAA is a participation sport.â
Any alterations to the senior structure, such as moving the All-Ireland finals into August or September, would also have an impact on underage grades.
âThat would have a significantly damaging impact on our model. The success of ours is about the time of year. The weather, the pitches.
âNow if you push that out you jeopardise every element of that. The quality and quantity. Secondly, you will also have an underage competition which comes in and probably runs in tandem with the senior All-Ireland. That inhibits your ability to start that grade, U20.â
At one stage, Galway struggled to complete the U20 competition in a calendar year. In 2022, the league and championship were completed by September. Championship participation was up 97%.
Bellew boils it down to its essential components. What do you do with the one grade above U17 and senior and when do you play it?
When managed correctly, club competitions can thrive.
âIt is my position, and the clubs will have their say, I am happy to have U17 and one age grade between U17 and senior that serves as a retention tool, an effective competition and a pathway to senior or junior. I feel we have that in place because of how the competition is structured and when it is played.
âWhen people talk about retention they give a lot of anecdotal stories. We canât confuse demographic issues with retention. To me, they sometimes get mixed up. A club that could never field at a certain level because of demographics speaks about retention. The two areas need to be separated.
âWe always had retention issues in the GAA the problem is we donât have the metrics. We have anecdotal stories. We actually have never had more adult teams playing in Galway and it looks like it is expanding.
âWe have the difficult decision to make in terms of relabelling some of our competitions in hurling given the growth in clubs, with additional teams in a number of clubs. We may have to look at a junior D into junior E for the first time in Galway.â
The streaming is a great bit of business. Iâd say theyâre making serious money off it when theyâre going out of their way to show U-20âs finals. Youâd almost have a deluded sense of optimism that USA biscuit tin full of gate receipts might not be left in the boot of an unlocked Yaris.
thereâs some lads going to be finding dogs to kick after reading that
Limerick has roughly the same format, but we havenât done the on-off. Not sure which I prefer.
But I do think guaranteed 5 games is great.
The streaming is definitely something we are missing out on in Limerick. Weâve been doing one match a weekend and we could definitely do more. We should be doing as much as possible, and then putting together highlights packages. Iâm far from a social media expert but we should be all over that, it creates buzz, creates interest and will lead to increased attendances. Looks like Galway are doing that very well.
Paul Bellew is delivering.
Junior E. Jaysus, I may lose a finger yet.
Limerick will be back to the rubby soon.
5 group games is too many. 60 games in Galway I believe to eliminate 4 teams. Nuts.
Galway have got their timing spot on with regard the knockout stages.
This weekend is the optimum weekend for a County Quarter Final with 2 week gaps to the Semi Final amd Final. I said earlier in the week the optimum date for a County Final in your showpiece code is the Sunday closest to November 3rd which is what Galway are likely to be at this year.
10 weeks of round robin is excessive though and could be cut to 6 to bring more cut and thrust to proceedings.
Easy for Galway when their county champions have a bye into All Ireland semi final. Whatever about all ireland club football it is a disgrace all ireland club hurling is not finished before Christmas. 16 teams enter teams in competition compared to 32 in football. Last 16 November 6th Last 8 November 20th. Semi finals December 4th, final December 18th. Done and dusted pre Christmas.
Totally disagree.
After the huge success last year the optimum date now for the All Ireland Club Hurling Final is February 12th with the Semi Finals on January 23rd.
Seems a good egg
Read the article again
Told you that earlier in the season but you and couple of others were terrible worried about Carlow and Kerry.
Saw a similar article praising the success of gate receipts in Tipp too. Bums on seats tell a tale.
Carlow, Kerry, Waterford and Wexford were all totally dumbed down summer hurling blitzes.
Tipp, Cork, Kilkenny and Clare all got their timings wrong by 2-3 weeks.
The reason gate receipts are higher in Tipp is because the money is no longer collected in a USA Biscuit tin.
