Changes in the GAA - super thread

The Munster and Leinster Championships should both be guaranteed 5 teams. The one with a 6th team should be determined by the Joe McDonagh Cup.

If Kerry win the McDonagh Cup this year. They should be promoted as the 6th team in Munster and the 6th team in Leinster should be relegated.

Next year then, the 6th team in Munster should be relegated and the Joe McDonagh winner promoted to their province.

This ensures that the 6th place team is always relegated and the McDonagh winner is always promoted to their province.

BTW: If the McDonagh runner-up were ever to win the All-Ireland, unlikely to happen for sure, then the All-Ireland winner instead of the McDonagh winner should be promoted. A GAA solution for a GAA problem!

I accept your point too. There are pros and cons.

If they insert a rule that R1 winners cannot play in R2, it'll be a good fit for their structure. If 2 teams with 2 wins play in R3, they are playing to win the group. The 2 losers are playing for the 3rd spot, every game has something on the line.

If they do not insert that rule, it could suit 2 teams with a win each to draw their final game so that the team without a win cannot catch them.

If the two R1 winners cannot play in R2, it guarantees the group cannot be won until R3 and no team has been eliminated. Each team definitely has something to play for in R3.

If you win your first 2 games and those 2 teams have a win each, they cannot finish above you in R3 on the head to head.

R1: Tyrone beat Cork and Mayo beat Kildare.

R2: Tyrone beat Mayo and Cork beat Kildare.

R3: Cork and Mayo cannot win the group because of the head to head. Kildare cannot finish 3rd because they have lost to both Cork and Mayo. Only one of Cork and Mayo can finish on 2 points. Cork or Mayo on 2 points cannot be caught by Kildare due to the head to head.

R2 variant: If Tyrone and Mayo cannot play in R2, the group cannot be won until R3.

Head to head came in a few years ago, it's been accepted as common knowledge but it very understandable at the same time that some might be unaware. It usually comes up in discussion on the final weekend of the league.

Head to head is better. Beat a team gives you the advantage over them. R1 winners avoiding each other in R2 is not complicated.

Someone was saying that in the Dublin Championship, the R1 winners meet in R2. That suits when 2 teams advance from a group.

H2H and no dead rubbers can both coexist:

Where 2 teams advance from a group of 4, the R1 winners must play each other in R2.

Where 3 teams advance from a group of 4, the R1 winners must play each other in R3.

Bob's your uncle and Fanny's your aunt! Job done and we can all get on with the game!

Time will tell. It was to under consideration for the Super 8s but the pandemic championships put an end to that.

Hurling Championship Threads

Don’t think there’s any Sporting Organisation in the world that makes it publicly available for free anyway but by right they could have it public behind a paywall. I don’t see the harm but in reality I don’t see a massive money maker from it, given the cost of bandwidth to host that many matches and develop a product around it too. Don’t see a genuine demand for it.

The split season, having a clearly defined club season. Think they should move the finals forward a few weeks though

Thats what i thought initially but the argument is that county managers etc would be pulling club players from games and no matter how you might empower co boards to over rule this, we all know how things happen on the ground.

I think there would have to be a draw for the teams going in via their league placing. They couldn't just say 'best League Team goes in with Munster Champions etc'.

At the time they said it'll be -

No 1 seeds = 4 provincial champions. I guess these can be assigned to a group.

No 2 seeds = 4 provincial beaten finalists. Logically these should go into different groups than the 1 seeds.

No 3 seeds = next 4 teams via league position.

No 4 seeds = next 4 teams via league position *.

• There is also a place reserved for Tailteann Cup winners if they haven't qualified via any of the above methods. Presumably there's also a place reserved for All-Ireland Champions in the unlikely event they don't otherwise qualify (though it's plausible in the case of Div2 Derry in a tough Ulster Championship). So it could be as few as 6 teams via league position.

I doubt they've put much thought into whether they want to avoid a group ending up as 3 teams from the same province etc.