So the provincial championships are dead

dxhound2005

The Lost Sheep wrote: »

Im talking about the principal competition of the year which the league isn't in any form. Fans don't go to league in its current set up as its ultimately seen as a warm up for so many people to provincial/all Ireland championships...

And this is the elephant in the room which is completely ignored. In any other sport the best team in the country would be determined by a league system, home and away. Because of history the premier competition in GAA is the knockout competition. And because of history it is a completely lopsided format based on unequal provinces. I'm writing about football.

No amount of rejigging of this format can make it any better for the also rans. It is enough to give them one more chance and if they lose the second time bye bye. Otherwise it gets too far removed from a proper knockout competition. We got by for the best part of a hundred years with 16 teams having just one championship match every year, usually the same suspects. None of them have improved their position much by losing two matches and giving them five matches to lose will not help matters either.

Flukey

The FA Cup may be seeded, but it only has one trophy to win. The beauty of our system is that there is a trophy for at least 4 teams, and since the qualifiers have come in it can even be 5. So weaker teams have a better chance of winning something and have something to aim at. Even big guns have something extra to target, Mayo being the classic example having many Connaught titles, yet only 3 All-Irelands. Without the Nestor Cup, things would be far worse for them. There are teams who have a genuine chance of a provincial title, if not an All-Ireland, and that makes it more interesting. Teams would be less motivated without that possibility. A surprise winner of a provincial is more likely than a surprise winner of an All-Ireland.

It would not be the same splitting it off from the All-Ireland Championship. We already have separate provincial competitions in the form of the O'Byrne, McKenna and McGrath Cups and the Connacht League. They are not treated the same as the real thing by the counties to such an extent that they've had to drag in academic sector teams to try and jazz them up a bit. So the frequently floated idea of a separate provincial competition does not work. Things, with their imperfections, are fine as they are.

This topic goes around in circles in thread after thread, year after year, the same old thing, yet people still enjoy the championships through it all. Let's just do that and have discussions on more interesting things. So come on, quit all the moaning and sit back and enjoy it for what it is. If you are not happy with that suggestion, sit tight, there'll be another thread like this along soon and you can start all over again. If you miss that one, there'll be another soon after that. Along with the anti-Dublin threads, ticket price threads, All-Ireland Final ticket distribution system threads, match day costs threads, venue complaints threads, quality of referees threads and many other regular ones, the championship structure threads are very regular. So if you miss one, you don't have long to wait for another. The new and novel threads are far more interesting though.

K-9

threeball wrote: »

The provincials are a joke. They're the GAA equivalent of the triple crown. Nice but don't really mean squat in the greater scheme of things. Teams would enjoy winning a proper 2nd division league title as they would a provincial title if the right structures were put in place.
Mayo won 5 in a row today and they probably won't even go for a pint tonight. There's bigger fish to fry. Same goes for Dublin, Kerry and i'm sure monaghan have bigger aspirations too.

The fact that Sligo were even in one after one game against a team that was completely unproven shows just how ridiculous the whole system is. Good teams have faced one another and one has been eliminated while others get gimmes and buys to later rounds only to be hammered.
You should have to prove yourself in a proper league a get seeded for next years championship accordingly.

You've hit the nail on the head there, Sligo winning 1 game to get to a provincial final is a joke.

But don't worry, Flukey and others think everything is fine, it'll be grand, because, well, sure it has always been that way.

A simple start would be to seed the previous year provincial winners and say Division 1 and 2 teams, then you'd have something like the Leinster Hurling round robin competition first.

Maybe in Munster put the 4 other teams in a mini league and the 2 top teams go into the Semis.

Say Offaly, Longford, Wicklow, Louth, Wexford and Carlow in a group. They are all Division 4 or just promoted from there teams, top 3 go into the Quarters, or 2 groups, winners through and a play off.

That gives Division 4 and others counties more games, which is very important, and gives them plenty of competition before they play a Q/F. It's also very achievable targets and it's a sign of progress as well, rather than losing to Dublin or Meath and knocked out of the Qualifiers in June.

Ulster doesn't need much reorganising, Antrim could go into Connacht and again a mini league with London, Leitrim and New York, a play off against the lowest league team after that.

League performance would be the main determining factor so nothing to stop Antrim or Wexford moving up and others moving down.

The problem with Jim McGuinnes's idea is 16 is too many for a lower tier competition, there'd be 2 levels of standards in it again, which defeats the purpose. A Tommy Murphy idea isn't much good barring getting a Declan Browne in Croker.

So the half way ground, rather than doing SFA with the provincials as some want, or starting competitions that half the teams are at a disadvantage anyway, probably reinforcing inferiority in counties like Carlow, is to give the weaker counties more competition and games.

Mehapoy

Flukey wrote: »

The FA Cup may be seeded, but it only has one trophy to win. The beauty of our system is that there is a trophy for at least 4 teams, and since the qualifiers have come in it can even be 5. So weaker teams have a better chance of winning something and have something to aim at. Even big guns have something extra to target, Mayo being the classic example having many Connaught titles, yet only 3 All-Irelands. Without the Nestor Cup, things would be far worse for them. There are teams who have a genuine chance of a provincial title, if not an All-Ireland, and that makes it more interesting. Teams would be less motivated without that possibility. A surprise winner of a provincial is more likely than a surprise winner of an All-Ireland.

It would not be the same splitting it off from the All-Ireland Championship. We already have separate provincial competitions in the form of the O'Byrne, McKenna and McGrath Cups and the Connacht League. They are not treated the same as the real thing by the counties to such an extent that they've had to drag in academic sector teams to try and jazz them up a bit. So the frequently floated idea of a separate provincial competition does not work. Things, with their imperfections, are fine as they are.

This topic goes around in circles in thread after thread, year after year, the same old thing, yet people still enjoy the championships through it all. Let's just do that and have discussions on more interesting things. So come on, quit all the moaning and sit back and enjoy it for what it is. If you are not happy with that suggestion, sit tight, there'll be another thread like this along soon and you can start all over again. If you miss that one, there'll be another soon after that. Along with the anti-Dublin threads, ticket price threads, All-Ireland Final ticket distribution system threads, match day costs threads, venue complaints threads, quality of referees threads and many other regular ones, the championship structure threads are very regular. So if you miss one, you don't have long to wait for another. The new and novel threads are far more interesting though.

So basically never try to make anything better ever because what we have is 'fine' and you can't think of anything that might be an improvement...

wow sierra

What happened in the Connaught and Leinster finals does not mean the Provincial Championships there are dead. Sligo beating Roscommon and Westmeath beating Meath will still be many peoples highlights of the championship so far, and they will be remembered by the Counties for years, despite what happened in the finals.

There are lots of epic local battles in the Championship long before it is whittled down to the 4 or 5 teams with a chance of winning the All Ireland. The Provincial system is the best way to encourage these local battles, especially where weak teams who will be long gone by September are involved.

Jayop

wow sierra wrote: »

What happened in the Connaught and Leinster finals does not mean the Provincial Championships there are dead. Sligo beating Roscommon and Westmeath beating Meath will still be many peoples highlights of the championship so far, and they will be remembered by the Counties for years, despite what happened in the finals.

There are lots of epic local battles in the Championship long before it is whittled down to the 4 or 5 teams with a chance of winning the All Ireland. The Provincial system is the best way to encourage these local battles, especially where weak teams who will be long gone by September are involved.

I don't think that the provincials are dead, the crowds at the games will tell you they're not. However as a method of feeding the AI they're farcical.

Wacker The Attacker

rpurfield wrote: »

Yeah sure Meath are picking a weakened team for inter county matches on purpose. Jesus of all the arguments you can put up that's the maddest one. Some of Meath's best players against Westmeath were "only" from inter clubs :rolleyes:

Just to underline the point Cormac Sullivan, Cormac Murphy, Ollie Murphy, Conor Martin, Bob O'Malley, PJ Gillic, Jody Devine to name a handful all won All Irelands coming from non senior clubs.

They're picking a weakened because they haven't got the players.


Isn't this the whole point?