Pro rugby was a massive success in the short term and now it’s a disaster.
Leinster couldn’t half fill the Aviva last night.
Munster were filling in 06.
Be very careful of judging short term results and their impacts.
Four day Cheltenham festivals has been a financial success but you’ll struggle to find one fan who enjoys it more now.
County players should be back with their clubs now even just to play a few county league games for a few weeks. Would do them the world of good before a knockout/backdoor championship starting in mid May.
Being holed up in an Inter County environment for 9 months straight from October to June/July isnt good.
I always remembered Ewan Mackenna on the radio banging on about how ireland would never be any good at rugby until they moved away from the private schools.
When it reality he was all wrong. The private schools are like the premier league football academies where nothing is done in half measures. The kids eat, train and prepare like pros in school. Clubs like cork con or Shannon simply can’t compete.
These academies are not good for the greater good. You simply can’t compete with them when they are done right. We are going down the professional route and it’ll be a disaster.
Sure that’s why the inter county managers pushed for the split season. It gives them a free run at the year and it again allows the stronger counties to exercise their off field advantages over the weaker ones.
It never had anything to do with helping the clubs.
The lads hard at it again
I think we can all agree that the split season zealots have done irreparable damage.
I’d agree that the hurling and football championships were fine in the 2002-2017 mould. Although to be fair to Limerick their two most dominant All-Irelands have actually been under that system in 2020 and 2021. Would you be advocating a return to the pre-1997 straight knockout? I think the qualifier system with a second chance was good.
He has a point though. I’d have gone to that if it was 2pm kick off today. Friday evening kick off with a week in advance is ridiculous.
Im a traditionalist, so straight knockout.
Those days will never return unless you marry league and championship
I know they wont.
It was a real cut throat system. Tipp v Clare in 2001 a prime example of that. Clare were probably good enough to win an All-Ireland that year but lost an incredibly tense game by a point to the eventual winners and gone.
It spiced up the provincial football championships in 2020 to be fair with Tipp and Cavan winning. Still ended up with the inevitable Dublin success though.
That’s an interesting one. In fairness, they won two of their four All Irelands under the ‘old’ system/* system. To not win two games in Munster in 18 and still win an All Ireland probably shows the advantage of the system I suppose.
For example, I don’t think Clare win that All Ireland in 2013 under the current round robin. Tipp got caught out v Limerick first day out (think Jason Forde pulled out from his debut with the auld sun stroke). They could have easily regrouped from there and got through Munster handy. Instead they faced Kilkenny down in Nowlan Park and were gone. That game took a fair bit out of Kilkenny who then lost to a not great Cork team. Kilkenny and Tipp were gone by the quarter finals after they were the dominant teams for the previous four seasons. Under the round robin, I think one of them at least would have made the All Ireland final.
Those Tipp Clare games at turn of century were ICONIC. You’ll never get that again when the stakes aren’t as high
I remember 2001 vividly.
Davy coming out the tunnel and sprinting like a lunatic up to the goals and banging his hurley off the crossbar for about 10 minutes.
Halcyon days.
I was watching it in a pub in Nova Scotia with a few Clare roasters.
Clare supporters were absolute savages back in those days.
Things have gone very mellow in the last 10 years.
We will never got those days back. The 99 games. My mother wouldn’t let me go as the leaving cert was on a few days later.
That was some Clare team. I think they peaked in 98 and would have won the All Ireland handy if they got to the final
Everyone has become too friendly with each other now through college and social media.
Back in those days, everyone from another county was deemed a ‘cunt’ and it lead to great bitterness. Nobody really hates each other anymore.
Drumcree Daly used drive Tipp people mental and likewise Nicky down in Clare.