DOWN senior football manager Paddy Tally feels that the proposed regionalised national league grouping is a bit of a lottery for teams compared to the usual structures.
It is believed that Down will be added to the same Division Two group as Meath, Westmeath and Mayo, whereas the other promoted team Cork are expected to face Clare, Kildare and Laois.
This means that the newly-promoted Mourne side will play two teams that have dropped down from Division One, Mayo and Meath, which doesn't seem very well balanced, especially with less games to decide a team’s fate of relegation or promotion at stake.
“It seems a strange way to divide the league, it really puts you at a lottery straight away,” Tally said.
“When you look at Division One you would have all the Ulster teams playing each other and one of those teams is going to be relegated and like ourselves it is going to be very tight.”
It also suggests that some teams will only have one game at home while others will have two and while the Down boss would certainly be happier with Pairc Esler as a venue, considering enough odds appear to be stacked against his team, he isn’t expecting fans to return the games any time soon.
“My understanding is that the geographical is for the teams travelling and I can’t see any supporters being allowed into the game especially for the national league,” Tally said.
“The one thing that the GAA maybe is hoping for is that come the summer that with the roll out of the vaccine and whatever else is going on, that there’ll be the possibility of some crowds being allowed into the Championship games.”
The shortened inter-county season isn’t expected to get under way until the last week of February next year, with the Ulster Championship following straight after the National League and the All-Ireland final moved forward to July 17.
This leaves all teams with less time to prepare and given the restrictions due from St Stephen’s Day mean teams can’t train together the Down boss has his work cut out to have his side sharp and up to speed for Division Two football.
The GAA propose that the winners of the two top teams of the group will play each other in promotion semi-finals, while the bottom two teams will face off in a relegation battle.
“Normally in the national league you would have seven games and you would have games to get into it and you know you have matches to test yourselves against teams, but this is like a mini championship and those are going to be highly competitive and they are must win games from the outset,” said Tally.
“We really will need to be hitting the ground running, so how we prepare in those few weeks will be crucial, the restrictions are that we are not allowed any challenge games until the start of January
“We can meet up again in January with the new lockdown coming in and the new restrictions on Boxing Day there won’t be a lot happening, so we have to adhere to the regulations but when the restrictions are lifted, we look forward to getting back to training.
“So, you possibly could have two challenge games in February before we hit the league to try and get a team ready and that is not an awful lot of time.
''The only thing is that all the counties are in the same boat, it will be no different for Down than any other team.”
