Yes but I don’t think Leitrim and Carlows main competition to focus on should be the one Dublin and Kerry are in. The funny thing is at the start of the year they actually do have a chance to compete in the Sam Maguire.
Should hull be in the premier league, should north Kildare be in the heineken cup, should Fergal o Brien be at the crucible every year.
It’s genuinely beyond belief you think tnere shouldn’t be a tier 2 Gaelic football competition for teams knocked out of the main competition
There shouldn’t be a Tier 2 competition because there never was in the past and the game got on just fine without it for 130 years. The couple of previous attempts that were made at a Tier 2 competition were rightly treated with derision and this one is being too despite the GAA’s desperate attempts at a hard propaganda sell.
The major reason for why a Tier 2 competition wasn’t needed was that GAA has traditionally been primarily about the club, and playing inter-county was treated as a privilege. This meant that preparation was largely levelled because players pent most of their time with their clubs. Most counties could beat each other on a given day. The power of the inter-county manager transferred the balance of power to inter-county set ups which are now run like professional rugby teams. But only the monied and populated few can sustain that. That power has never been challenged and now it has turned into the cult of Big Backroom with spoofers everywhere professing their expertise online and promoting Big Backroom as an industry providing jobs to justify their existence, in the same way the horsey people do. The top teams get the best, the rest get the spoofers.
The more you focus on round robin, the more you favour the rich and the populated and the best.
An amateur representative team sport which has inherent imbalances and where you can’t sign players requires a primarily knockout format to thrive as a competition which can sustain spectator interest. Representative sport in a small country like Ireland does not have the population to sustain a league or round robin as its primary format. Even in the very small areas like Munster hurling where it does (perhaps temporarily), that comes at a major cost to the teams outside that golden circle.
A representative sport like Gaelic football - where the gaps between counties have traditionally been bridgeable within short time spans and continue to be so (look at Derry) requires a secondary league competition which is as equitable as possible, with the theoretical gap between the top and bottom of the league being one year only. This league competition should be the grounding for teams to enable them to compete in the more important knockout football.
Throw in the awful scheduling and venue making and awful broadcasting deal on top of the awful format and you’ve got an absolute clusterfuck which threatens to permanently reduce the championships to irrelevance in vast swathes of the country.
I would agree with a lot of that. I think there is a place for a second and third tier championship to give teams from 13 to 32 more games in summer realistic chances to compete for things but they will always be seen as secondary/shield competitions.
As I have said before - every county should be starting the championship on an even footing - consigning teams to the Tailtainn cup barring they get to a provisional final doesnt do much. If they want more games then make the provinces incorporate a round robin element and use the league for ranking here. Give the 4 provincial winners spots in the all Ireland series and make everyone else go through the back door.
First 8 teams eliminated in the first round go into the third tier. Next 12 go into second tier and surviving 8 are in the All Ireland series proper with provincial winners. Would add far more buzz and a knockout element to proceedings. Play the second and third tier in conjunction with the Sam maguire with games as curtain raisers so when teams do play in Croke Park there is an atmosphere when the game is in the melting pot.
This already has the look of a bit of a mismatch
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It seems they’ve even had to split up a lot of the Laois fans in case they start a fight with each other.
They made a big song and dance about the semi finals on a Sunday and then stick the final on a Saturday. You couldn’t make it up.
BOOM. Game on. Down backs terrible there
Goalie made some tit of that.
There’d be lads roaring at Ryan McEvoy to go down on it there rather than using that fancy piece of skill.
Havern, kerr and murdock will just pick off scores here. Few of the laois lads seem to lack top level fitness.
One of the all-time great halves of football…
Up Down,Down up
Wow
Woof. The destination of the prestigious Thalidomide Cup is back in the balance.
The Talia Shire Cup is coming home to Down.
They saw that out very professionally.
Poor @myboyblue will be disappointed to hear this when he gets into the ground for the Kerry match
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Hard be too disappointed there considering last year. We had to be a lot tighter and defensive for fear of a repeat and as a result didn’t have the same danger to us going forward. Still, could have won it and wouldn’t have been undeserving.
Barry’s goal was a fucking screecher, as good as Zachs into the same goal all those years ago. But he was the only forward who showed up for a number of reasons. A very disappointing showing from Evan.
All in all a bit disappointing end but not the worst day in Croker over the past 12 months nor the worst season.
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