Complete overhaul of the championship & the league needed?

CAPSLOCK365

In football:

For all the talk of the 'backdoor' opening the championship up to weaker counties, we still have the same old faces in the semi finals of the hurling and especially the football each season.
Calling the championship a championship is plain wrong imo. It's a cup competition and a cup competition does not find the best team in the country as a rule.
The league on the other hand should and would find the best team in the country if it was treated seriously by everyonein the game. that means for one thing the powers that be switching the season around to put the league on in place of the championship.
Run the 'championship' in Feb/Apr as the cup competition it obviously is, relegating it behind the league and there you have it, two intersting competitionsthat should get good attendances instead of one that gets poor attendances and one that only gets big attendances at most at ten games a season.

Similar for hurling, I suppose, though I haven't given it much thought.

Erin Go Brath

The cream will always come to the top regardless of format. Kilkenny in the hurling and Tyrone and Kerry in the football will more often than not find themselves in all-ireland finals, whether its a league or knockout format.

I think theres a case for scrapping the provincial system in hurling more so. Have 2 groups of 6 teams with the top 2 teams in each group meeting in the semi finals.

EG. Group 1 Kilkenny, Waterford, Cork, Dublin, Offaly, Antrim
Group 2 Tipperary, Galway, Limerick, Wexford, Clare, Laois

Winners of Group 1 play runners up of Group 2, winners of Group 2 play runners up of Group 1 in the AI semis. Kind of like the league format a few years ago for the Championship.

Pro: All teams guaranteed 5 Championship games.
Anti: If 3 good teams were in the same group somebody would be losing out.

DC_Roscommon

I know it has been suggested before but maybe a champions league style format but with more emphasis on the league.

8 groups of 4 teams.

The top 6 teams in Division 1 + the 2 promoted teams in Division 2 = Top Seeds.

Relegated teams from Division 1 + 3rd,4th,5th,6th in Division 2 + the 2 promoted teams from Division 3 = 2nd Seeds

and so on....

thunderdan

I agree with a league format, why not make the National League more useful in determining seedings etc - it would make the games played more meaningful and more people may actually start to care about games played outside summer months.

tommyfitz

DC_Roscommon wrote: »

I know it has been suggested before but maybe a champions league style format but with more emphasis on the league.

8 groups of 4 teams.

The top 6 teams in Division 1 + the 2 promoted teams in Division 2 = Top Seeds.

Relegated teams from Division 1 + 3rd,4th,5th,6th in Division 2 + the 2 promoted teams from Division 3 = 2nd Seeds

and so on....

Totally agree. Every county gets at least 3 championsip games every year.

Gingy

Champions League, groups, pools, this won't work, That happened in the hurling qualifiers for a few years and was a complete disaster. The games were generally ridiculously one sided and attendances were abysmal (less than 100 at Dub v Offaly). No matter what system you have, don't worry because Kilkenny agus Ciarraí will always be there.

Daysha

The best solution I ever read was posted here a few months ago. I'll try dig it out cause it really is worth a read.

LeoB

Erin Go Brath wrote: »

The cream will always come to the top regardless of format. Kilkenny in the hurling and Tyrone and Kerry in the football will more often than not find themselves in all-ireland finals, whether its a league or knockout format.

I think theres a case for scrapping the provincial system in hurling more so. Have 2 groups of 6 teams with the top 2 teams in each group meeting in the semi finals.

EG. Group 1 Kilkenny, Waterford, Cork, Dublin, Offaly, Antrim
Group 2 Tipperary, Galway, Limerick, Wexford, Clare, Laois

Winners of Group 1 play runners up of Group 2, winners of Group 2 play runners up of Group 1 in the AI semis. Kind of like the league format a few years ago for the Championship.

Pro: All teams guaranteed 5 Championship games.
Anti: If 3 good teams were in the same group somebody would be losing out.

Good idea but I think Westmeath and Carlow would have a problem with this. The fact is they won the right to get promoted and the Hurling people should stick by what they originally decided and relegate 2 counties.

As I see it some of the hurling counties are as patronising as the people who run the games. How often have ya heard the spin "Its great what the weaker counties are doing to promote hurling but they aint taking my seat at the top table". With the crap that went on this year as an example. In my opinion the people were saying we are better than than the weaker counties they cant replace us, even tho they won the right to replce us. What a joke.

Orizio

The system is fine for boths codes. The Football championship has been good this year imo, while the Hurling championship's problems can't be solved my structural tinkering.

Blackjack

Orizio wrote: »

The system is fine for boths codes. The Football championship has been good this year imo, while the Hurling championship's problems can't be solved my structural tinkering.

Agree with this - to be honest, it's fine as it is - the Hurling championship has it's problems, but that's due to the dominance of Counties like Kilkenny etc.

The solution is to deal with how counties deal with Hurling at underage level and take a patient view, IMO.