The format from 2002-2017 is the optimal format imho but financially the GAA will never return to it.
No, he realised he wasn’t firing the money in the right way
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Put the ball over the bar and in the back of the net and no more about it.
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Is that not the same thing?
Anyway. This is just a freak group of players, fed by an exceptional management team and a well run county board.
When Iceland were going well in the football there was countries and journalists from all over the World going over there to see what they were doing and trying to mimic them. They are still doing the same things and are shit again. They just got a great crop of players
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Was it actually that good though? There were a lot of harmless years of hurling during the good old days. Were you better off losing the first day and coming through the back door rather than winning the Munster final and dealing with a month break. I don’t see how people think the round robin is that bad, we just need Tipp and Waterford not to be pathetic in it
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I can’t really speak for what it was like 2002-2008 or so but, after that, it was still pretty shit for club players in certain counties. Again, you just wouldn’t have the opportunity to train with the best players on your team because county training is running right through your club season. Maybe if Croke Park had actually taken a hard line on intercounty managers, it would have been different but again, within counties, there is no appetite in being a rat if it brings intercounty success.
Also, the provincials at intercounty level were largely worthless bar the odd team who hadn’t won one in a while. Mostly very tame games. Can still happen now obviously, but at least there are some knockout games in the provincial series.
It’ll be gas to hear the rationale in 5 or so years when we’re shit again and JP is still putting in the same money 
Waterford had an as or more talented group than the Limerick underage squads backboning the team today. It was a lot of talent by Limerick standards but I don’t think they become the players they’ve become without Kinnerk and the rest of the management.
If Limerick’s and Waterford’s management setups since 2017 were swapped would Limerick have even won one? Would Waterford have won a couple?
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Maybe it’s just because I’m on here, but when it comes to GAA, less is often more.
These round robins have games which mean something but in reality are fairly monotonous.
Yeah, I don’t really care one way or the other tbh.
I like some aspects of the round robin, I like the home & away trips to places like Ennis (& Walsh Park when that was an option). Think that part is a big success.
Obviously the dead rubbers and managers being able to rest players for Championship games is something that is historically alien to the GAA, and is never ideal.
But in the backdoor era, provincials were generally tame enough and even the qualifiers lacked spark a lot of the time too.
Now you had some great matches aswell, but I don’t really see any great difference in the general quality of matches tbh. Those between evenly-matched teams are generally good but there are lots of mismatches too.
Now you’re talking pal 
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@martinbreheny should we disband provincial championships and commence a champions league style competition? No… Not like the one we have already…
I think the whole 9 game round robin we have coming is going to be fierce boring all together.
9-game?
Less than 20 years ago (2004), Kerry faced Cork in the first round of Munster championship. Cork were on their way to the first of two All Irelands in a row. Kerry haven’t played Munster senior hurling since. There’s always been mismatches. Look at Leinster as an example. You can’t imagine any manager of Cork or Tipp being worried about facing Kerry (with all due respect) back in the day.
My own dislike for the round robin is purely selfish. Tipp have been shite at it (bar 2019). If they were tearing it up every year, I’d probably love it. Getting to bate all the other hurling counties in Munster in one season must be great craic.
Don’t be talking sense mate. The amount of damp squib games played in front of paltry crowds in neutral venues in the provincial championships between 02-17 has just been forgotten about around here. You’d have the odd classic qualifier then but most were shite.
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We are heading for that eventually.
The Top 10 all play each other.
It will be terrible.
I also think the Round Robin has thrown up plenty of surprises. 2018 nobody would have expected Tipp would have won no games. Remember they were only two years out from winning an All Ireland and another year out from narrowly missing a final appearance against Waterford. Last year you didn’t seem to have many here bar the Clare boys and myself I think tip Clare to get out. And 2019 when Galway (themselves finalists in the two previous years’ All Irelands) did not even get out of Leinster. There’s been plenty of drama in it.
This year, the expectation (rightly so) is that Limerick will win all five of their games in Munster. But no other game is a gimme. You might have three teams win a game each
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The Backdoor route worked. Top brass got greedy and it will backfire in the long term
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Oh yes… yeah I wouldn’t really be in favour of that to be honest. You do hear certain people pushing for it alright, but I do think that Championship should carry some jeopardy for as long as possible and that will be very difficult to factor in a 10-team league.
In that respect, I think two groups of 5 as we (almost) have is nearly the best of both worlds. Probably removing the provincial aspect to make it fairer. Or else just revert to the old format in which your provincials are basically worthless and it starts to get going then.
As I said, I don’t really care, much of a muchness to me. Both have pros and cons. I think the upcoming football format sounds bad though, trying to mix both. Either do one or the other.