The 2024 All Ireland Senior Football Championship (Sam Maguire Cup)

Paidi O'Sé in his book really showed how handy Kerry had it. Most of the time it was peak for Cork and Dublin. Roscommon were a bit awkward at one stage for them. But mostly could winter well as much as he liked. Then started do training later on to "tune in".

Today's championship is much better than it once was compared to that. But there is still a lot of fluff until the business end "after the provincials". Where it is the league in all but name, with a div2/3 team thrown in to make up the numbers.

Pile on the money on a draw with the bookies 13/2. It is the only logical outcome. And see if they will offer odds on 10 penalty misses or more.

Sligo are 11/2 for the Tailteann, good money to be made there as well.

Shows how ridiculous it is, doing a draw for a group before the games are even played. How can you expect teams to not look at that and then decide whether their next game is worth winning. Even if a manager is all in, some players will check out psychologically. Everything the GAA do seems farcical sometimes.

Kerry have no rival in Munster and have an easy draw should they win, so moot point. They will win Munster in 2nd gear. Neither Kerry or Dublin will face a division 1 team until the group stage and even then Kerry will only face one Division 1 team before advancing.

If Mayo win Connacht they are potentially facing a group with two other Division 1 teams if Armagh lose Ulster final.

That will be a total of 4 Division 1 teams Mayo will face. In a squad of limited depth and frequent injuries thats a big ask. At this level its about player management.

If Mayo go all out for a Connacht title, they might as well say goodbye to an AI. McStay is not stupid, he knows the limitations of his squad. Joyce would be the same.

I'd agree with Fr Tod here, both sides will want to win.

Apart from the feel good factor of being Connacht champions, if you win, you have a better chance of topping the group than if you lose (even though the winner will have a harder group overall).

I say give it a go (Mayo). They engineered a Seed 3 position last year, and that did not work out. It is only the second year of the arrangement, so expirement with getting Seed 1. Next year try for Seed 2.

why don’t they run all the provincials finals over the same weekend to give teams the a same breaks for the rest of the championship. Where Munster and Connaught get an extra week for same number of games

The current seeding in Munster was mainly driven by Clare, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford. A fairer system would be seeding based on league. 3 and 4 drawn against 5 and 6 in the quarter-finals. 1 and 2 drawn against the the winners in the semi-finals.

There are two possible provincial runners-up that Seeds 4 will fancy there chances of getting through. Seed 4 Cork finished second and Seed 2 Louth finished 4th last year. Seed 4 Donegal finished 2nd last year and Seed 2 Clare finished 4th.

Fully agree. The provincial championship draws could be after the league, using league placing for seeding.

The All-Ireland group stage draw then should be after the provincial finals.

Leinster and Ulster have an extra round to fit in. Connacht and Munster have every second weekend from 1, 3 and 5. Ulster spread their 4 quarter-finals over two weekends. Leinster is 1, 2, 4 and 6. 6 weekends is about the minimum that Ulster can work with.

I think it's ok to reward provincial winners as top seeds. Under the current format, it is the provincial runners-up who should be seeded based on league. Sligo were Seed 2 last year. Mayo were Seed 3. League winners Mayo had lost to Roscommon (3rd in Division 1). Sligo had beaten London and New York to make a Connacht final!

I was probably being harsh as Cavan will back themselves having well dispatched Monaghan and could well have beaten Tyrone, Meath will back themselves v Louth and cork v clare.

In fairness donegal gaa in it’s entirety was in dire straights the start of last year and our league/ulster form and then seeding reflected that. We did steady it in the groups under new management. Year before we were a few mins from beating Derry in the Ulster final, back again now, things can change quickly in Ulster!

The provinces seed their own championships. They would not stand for central interference. The League is good, but it is not played at championship intensity. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, when nearly every spoke is in place anyway. And again you want to ensure that no "weak" county ever gets a chance of mixing it with the big boys.

If the provinces were more balanced then the respective winners being seeded 1 wouldnt be an issue, but the reality is Dublin are virtually guaranteed to be top seeds for years to come, ditto Kerry. It's a bonkers situation. Also unfair on weaker counties, the likes of Sligo or Leitrim by virtue of a lucky draw might have only to beat each other to be in the Sam Maguire, that possibility is not open to weaker counties in Leinster and Ulster, seeding by league position is the fairest system.

Small tweaks to the current format:

1. Seeds 2, 3 and 4 on league placing, even if the GAA persist with provincial runners-up qualifying.
2. All-Ireland draw after provincial finals.
3. Winning a provincial title could be given the reward of 3 home games, with all other counties getting 1 home game each.
4. Otherwise if the provincial championship is moved before the league, provincial winners only should qualify. The winners of the four divisions could be rewarded with 3 home games. Where groups don't have a division winner, the top 2 seeds can be removed with an extra home game each.

Interesting statistical analysis of whether it's better to win or lose the connacht final on Sunday

Credit to @TsuDhoNimh for the idea

I'd imagine no jumping up and down celebrating after winning a provincial final. It's a bit of a 'tick box' thing with this 'All Ireland' format

All you need to know about the Connacht and Munster finals, according to RTE. Updated at 4:43 am, someone was up early.

https://www.rte.ie/sport/football/2024/0503/1447255-connacht-munster-sfc-finals-all-you-need-to-know/

They are dead anyway.

Decent half from Clare. Well able to create chances for scores. A 5 minute period with 4 points for Kerry the difference really.

It will probably remain a fairly tight game with Kerry pulling away in the last 15.

Nothing overly impressive from Kerry. Will still win though.

Id say they would like one big rattle without the jeopardy of being knocked out.

They look way off the likes of Dublin and fairly pedestrian.