OUT of the mouths of babes…
Pondering this column’s content, I said to my wife, ‘The football championship really needs to be two tiers.’
‘Well, it wouldn’t be the ALL-Ireland then, would it?’, she replied.
That’s part of the beauty of the football championship that all counties, except Kilkenny, are involved.
Sure, the vast majority are unlikely even to reach the quarter-finals, never mind win it, but at least they feel like they’re part of it.
In contrast, look at a map of Ireland and consider the counties that participate in the senior hurling championship. If Kerry beat Derry to replace the demoted Antrim then there will be a clear north-south divide.
Indeed, has there ever truly been an All-Ireland Hurling Championship, one involving all or even almost all the counties?
Hurling zealots might factor that in when they wonder why football continues to have a broader appeal despite the superior entertainment that the caman code often offers.
My pondering was prompted by Dublin’s 27-point thrashing of Longford, following on from big SFC defeats for Carlow and Waterford (by Laois and Tipperary respectively, neither of them football powers).
Indeed those earlier losses perhaps should attracted more attention than Dublin’s win, given that their game pitted the biggest county by far in terms of population against the second smallest (only Leitrim has fewer residents than Longford).
The quality and quantity of coaching in Dublin has produced a tremendously talented panel, one that has been far too strong for the rest of Leinster in recent seasons, and for most of the rest of Ireland.
It’s obvious that the Championship should be re-structured in some way, to rectify its in-built numerical imbalances other than those caused by population.
Only four of the 11 counties that compete in the Leinster SFC avoid the first round of the qualifiers – that’s less than 37 per cent. It’s not much higher in Ulster, where 44.4 per cent (four out of nine) miss out on rounds 1A and 1B.
Yet in Munster, almost 67 per cent (four out of six) will not have to play until the second round of the qualifiers, at the earliest. In fact, due to seeding, Kerry and Cork cannot feature in the qualifiers first round.
Given that New York never win, three out of the five Connacht counties – 60 per cent – are guaranteed to reach their semi-finals and it’s usually 80 per cent as London don’t win very often.
That is evidently unfair, but the likelihood of change is minimal, especially given the response to the Football Review Committee’s quite brilliant proposal for solving that provincial imbalance.
Some counties from Ulster and Leinster were to be given what was effectively a THIRD chance (after their early provincial exit but before the usual second chance in the qualifiers) by going into Connacht or Munster, to bulk up the numbers and make those smaller provinces able to have eight-team competitions.
Yet that great idea was still rejected.
Some proposals for re-structuring suggest `Champions League style groups’, but on an All-Ireland basis, with four groups of eight teams, that would involve a Division One side playing two Division Four sides (and two each from the other divisions). That would lead to regular mis-matches and lack of interest from spectators.
Even if the format were to be eight groups of four teams there would still be some very one-sided matches.
It’s understandable that the less successful counties do not want an All-Ireland `B’ Championship to be introduced, though.
The attendances for those would probably soon start dwindling and although they might not drop down to the level of those outside the top tier of hurling, they would still become much smaller than in any new top tier for football. Television interest would be small as well.
It could also lead to a small number of the same counties yo-yoing up and down between the top 16 and bottom 16.
Antrim would be highly unlikely ever to meet Kerry again, as they deservedly did in 2009 (and scared them too). Fermanagh fought their way to an All-Ireland semi-final replay in 2004 but would be out of contention for the top tier based on their recent Championship record.
Avoiding a phrase that may be considered insulting, counties aren’t going to vote for their own exclusion.
Such change has to come from within the GAA, but change will probably only come if the bigger, more successful counties, those which are more attractive to advertisers and sponsors, start to complain about the lack of competition adversely affecting them.
The argument that Kerry win so many All-Irelands because of how easy Munster is to get out of is frankly laughable, as is the idea that Dublin are greatly helped by the relative weakness of the rest of Leinster.
There’s more merit in the contention that the Ulster SFC makes teams battle-hardened, teaching them how to win tight matches.
Besides, situations soon change in sport. Tipperary football is clearly on the up, for example. Remember too the widespread fear after 2013 that Dublin would win all the All-Irelands for the next decade?
The Ulster SFC is often said to be the only provincial football event with any depth of competition, and that’s largely true
However, for all Dublin’s recent dominance there have been five different winners of the Leinster SFC in this century, compared to just four in Ulster. There should have been six different winners in the eastern province but for Louth being robbed in 2010.
Connacht has had four different winners in the same timeframe and, without Monaghan’s triumph that ended their quarter-century drought two years ago, Ulster would have been a triopoly since 1998.
As a player pointed out to me several years ago, many of them already think in terms of two championships: their provincial competition and then the All-Ireland series. Even if it’s only a long shot to win a provincial title, at least you’re in the game.
I still think there should be two tiers, with placings relating to both League and Championship performances, making the former much more meaningful.
Yet the reality is that I’ll just have to 'dry my eyes’ and accept that Championship is Championship and it’s going to stay the way it is.
