The 2023 All Ireland Senior Football Championship (Sam Maguire Cup)

Also winning Tailteain guarantees you Sam entry the following year. If Meath or Kildare fail to make the Sam competition this year they will want to win Tailteain to gaurantee Sam entry next year as will teams like Clare, Limerick, Down Cavan etc.

What needs to happen is that within 5 years to get to a situation where promotion and relegation becomes oart of the Sam/ Tailteain competition

I wonder if you asked the Sligo players and management would they prefer to go Tailteann or Sam what would they say?

I dont care what they think, if they are good enough to compete for Sam they would be in Division 2, they got an easy route this year that isnt available to similar teams in other provinces due to seeding etc

The likes of Cork could potentially end up in the Tailteann which does no good for anyone. They are not a bottom 16 team.

If the end up there its their own fault. They lost a munster quater final so you could also argue they should be out already.

They are absolutely sidelining the weaker teams, it is unfortunate that people in charge cannot see the long term effects of this. I think people are asleep at the wheel here.

The most insidious change is that of entry to Sam Maguire. Previously every county was in the competition by default, now it is the opposite. Now the weaker counties are not in Sam Maguire.

That matters, that is a huge change, both in segregating the provincials (which are going to be dead within years) and also in the effect it will have on culture within the weaker counties. Kids used to dream of winning the All Ireland, now their county is not even in it and haven't got close in their lifetime, what do you think will happen to the pool of talent there? What do you think happens in a world where kids have no history of competing in a sport?

They are heading towards the same model as hurling, a segregated world where less than 10 teams compete and all the rest scratch about for minor trophies that mean little. You think kids in Fermanagh or Leitrim give a solid blue **** about Liam McCarthy trophy? Obviously they don't, they aren't in it and never will be.

Go down this road and within years the provincials will be dead, it will be 50/50 if the Tailteann cup retains its guaranteed prize of a place in Sam, eventually it will all come down to league placing and hey presto we get the one thing we should have been avoiding at all costs, the scenario where the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker.

I already know what people will say to this now, its already clear people can't see the woods for the trees. But in about 5 years time you will start to see the effects, and within 10 years a lot of people will be crying about where it all went wrong.

Because its the same thinking that created these structures in the first place.

By definition it will be the weaker teams in the TC, and when the weaker teams repeatedly finish bottom of the groups and take beatings from the top seeds, you will start to hear the cries from people lamenting these weaker teams taking a spot away from a "bigger" side.

Hell, we are already hearing that now in this very thread and it hasn't even started yet!

Those calls will come, and the 50/50 is how long the GAA will resist the call to change. Disagree all you want, but there is nothing outlandish about the scenario, people complaining about weak teams polluting their championship is exactly what leads to seeding in the first place.

Exactly - there are senior, intermediate and junior championships in every county in the country and the club players there would take your hand off for a county medal. Not sure why it should be different at IC level

I'm from Limerick I don't see the Tailteann Cup as a pat on the head.

I see it as a way for dedicated but not top class players to get to actually aim for something achievable.

Same as every junior and intermediate club footballer in the country.

Have any division 3 or 4 counties won an All Ireland any time recently ?

You're right, DOH!!

There is probably a lot of mixed messaging that I don't want to wade through, but when you look at what the all-ireland actually now is you get a lot of wording like this from the GAA website

and

"The remaining teams who don't advance to the AI SFC", I don't know of any reasonable way to read that except that we currently aren't in the AI SFC.

The provincials are no longer the all-ireland and it will absolutely kill them within a few years, I don't think there is anybody would disagree with that. And the more they die the more likely those automatic entries to the AI quietly disappear as well. First the losers spot, then the winners.

Again, this is not some crazy one in a million scenario, it is the more likely outcome.

Don't get your logic tbh. They are all in the FA Cup at some point. Only two teams can make it to the FA Cup final.

In an overall sense I do think the format will need tweaking for a few reasons but again most of them would be to plamas a few counties and plamasing a few is the reason the format needs to be tweaked in the first instance.

Current format is already consigning the provincials to the bin and I fully agree with you there. But the provincials have been going that direction in Leinster and Munster the past while now while the other two provinces have been genuinely competitive.

Lets just leave the goal posts where they started, thanks.

Isn't that consistent with the way it has always been referred to though? I think you are reading way too much into the name of any round of the compeition.

Like even back in the 1990s (pre-backdoor) the only part of the competition with the name 'All-Ireland' was the semi-finals and finals. Everything else was Ulster prelim round, Munster Semi, Leinster Final etc. So only 4 teams were in the competition that had All-Ireland in the title, but no-one would have said the other 28 were being excluded from anything.

There is senior intermediate and junior in every competition on the GAA (hurling has McCarty, McDonagh, Ring and Meagher cups) but Football the most popular of them cannot be tiered.

Every team needs a theoretical chance to win it. The last time a team outside D1 won it was in 2002 when Armagh won beating Kerry. Actually neither were D2 technically they were D3 as at the time there was D1A&B, with the rest in D2A&B.

Last time ( ignoring 2021 and COVID) had a decent run it was Clare in 1992, before that probably Sligo in 1975.

On every GAA competition except football there are tiers. Hurling has four. Every one of these is strengthening and improving except for the most popular Football.

The present tiered system is deeply flawed. If this year Westmeath or Clare/Limerick made the AI SF they will probably not qualify for the Sam competition next year.

There is no jeopardy in the group system no relegation and it's unlikely any D1 team will not make the QF unless we have a group of death with all D1 teams. The only reward is if you finish top of the group you go straight to a SF.

Mad to think some people want to go back to those simple times.

You would wonder how the game is in the healthy state it's in after 100 years of that nonsense.

What I think will kill the provinces is that big teams won't go for it anymore with a group stage to come after.

Maybe your right and teams will want the seeding.

In the qualifier era there has been a safety net as well. Provincial champions avoid provincial champions. More competitive games before the group stage. Players wanted more games. There are good reasons to still win the provinces. If a county has already qualified through the league, it might be sensible not to risk injury for some players. That's managing the squad. It might create an opportunity for provincial shocks.

To get through the group though with the intention of winning for a quarter-final spot or at least as runner-up for a home preliminary quarter-final, winning the province is the best route. At home to Seed 3 and away to Seed 4 is the best possibility of at least 2 wins that will go along way to securing second in the group at least. I don't think many counties will fancy travelling away to Croke Park, Castlebar, Galway, Killarney to name a few at the preliminary quarter-final stage.

Agreed. Especially when it was clear that there should be a two week gap between league finals and the provincial championships. The provincial championships should be played over 5 weekends. Only 2 games this weekend proves that.

-1. League finals.

0. Weekend off.

1. Leinster and Ulster preliminary rounds. Connacht and Munster quarter-finals.

2. Leinster and Ulster quarter-finals.

3. Connacht and Munster semi-finals.

4. Leinster and Ulster semi-finals.

5. Connacht, Munster, Leinster and Ulster finals.

It's crazy, was busy during the week so wanst paying much attention to media etc and was looking forward to watching a few games this wekend, couldn't believe it when i saw the fixtures