A New Football Championship Structure idea...

Big Mouth

How about this...the Provincial championships take place in April / May and consist of league tables like the six nations (Leinster having two seperate leagues with winner of each meeting in the final) and then in August / September the championship has a structure exactly like the World Cup.

The idea is the Provincial tables have a direct impact on teams seeding for All Ireland Championsip. It will give the Provincial leagues a similar status as the six nations or Euro Championships and also provide a seeding platform for the 8 group 4 team All Ireland championships.

It would be great to see a group like Dublin, Limerick, Roscommon and Cavan for example.

Any one agree / disagree?

DH2K9

Big Mouth wrote: »

How about this...the Provincial championships take place in April / May and consist of league tables like the six nations (Leinster having two seperate leagues with winner of each meeting in the final) and then in August / September the championship has a structure exactly like the World Cup.

The idea is the Provincial tables have a direct impact on teams seeding for All Ireland Championsip. It will give the Provincial leagues a similar status as the six nations or Euro Championships and also provide a seeding platform for the 8 group 4 team All Ireland championships.

It would be great to see a group like Dublin, Limerick, Roscommon and Cavan for example.

Any one agree / disagree?

Already a thread on this... http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055958434

Big Mouth

Well i'm talking specifically about the Provinicals = the six nations and the All Ireland = World cup..do away with league and have something like "test" or friendly matches in between.

PatsytheNazi

Big Mouth wrote: »

How about this...the Provincial championships take place in April / May and consist of league tables like the six nations (Leinster having two seperate leagues with winner of each meeting in the final) and then in August / September the championship has a structure exactly like the World Cup.

The idea is the Provincial tables have a direct impact on teams seeding for All Ireland Championsip. It will give the Provincial leagues a similar status as the six nations or Euro Championships and also provide a seeding platform for the 8 group 4 team All Ireland championships.

It would be great to see a group like Dublin, Limerick, Roscommon and Cavan for example.

Any one agree / disagree?

Sorry but have to disagree with you. Reckon things are ok at the moment. Indeed it's turning out to be a very exciting championship. Wonder what kind of odds you would have got that all the qualifier teams would get through to the semi finals ?

hisholinessnb

I reckon its fine as it is.
No whingeing from Tyrone or Kerry will change that, they werent exactly up in arms complaining the years they won through the back door.

Shane10

well one thing is for sure, we can and should never go back to the way it was before the qualifiers.

would it be possibe once you get to the quarter finals right, the teams drawn against each other play twice. if its 1-1 apiece then the winner goes through on the most scored. would only be 1 extra game. its gives the champions a second game and the qualifier. then the 4 eventual winners go the the semi as usual.

(C) QF1 V QF 2
(C) QF3 V QF 4
(C) QF5 V QF 6
(C) QF7 V QF 8

popebenny16

i am sure that i posted about this months ago but my basic idea was to merge the League and Championship, in that you run home and away matches from Feb to June in four groups of 8. At the end of that we have the top 16 who start the next phase as a straight knockout leading to the finals as normal in september.

you also have plenty of time for club fixtures during the summer too.

Magi11

Shane10 wrote: »

well one thing is for sure, we can and should never go back to the way it was before the qualifiers.

would it be possibe once you get to the quarter finals right, the teams drawn against each other play twice. if its 1-1 apiece then the winner goes through on the most scored. would only be 1 extra game. its gives the champions a second game and the qualifier. then the 4 eventual winners go the the semi as usual.

(C) QF1 V QF 2
(C) QF3 V QF 4
(C) QF5 V QF 6
(C) QF7 V QF 8

I think this is a good idea but with one change. The first leg of these games should be played at a venue of the Provincial Champions choosing. So last weekend you would have had Tyrone v Dublin in a packed Omagh, Roscommon v Cork in a packed Hyde Park, Meath v Kildare in a packed Navan and Kerry v Down in Killarney. This would be the tangible reward for winning the Provincial title, it would also possibly counter balance the advantage that the qualifier teams have.
It also means that some of our grounds that spend most of the year with the wind whistling through them would get a game of national importance and the local economies would get a boost. All 2nd legs are played as double headers in Croke Park over the following 2 Saturdays.
And before anyone says that the 2nd leg of Kildare v Meath would be unimportant as the Kildare lead was too big, Meath gave up last Sunday when they went 4/5 points down, this wouldn't have happened if they were playing in front of their own fans and had a second leg to fight for.

Barlett

hisholinessnb wrote: »

I reckon its fine as it is.
No whingeing from Tyrone or Kerry will change that, they werent exactly up in arms complaining the years they won through the back door.

In fairness Mickey Harte has to been talking about changes for the last three or four years and he's completely right. The Championship is lopsided and the fact that you play one or two games less for winning your provincial championship isn't a good enough reward.

The proposed changes from Tyrone seem the most logical and least difficult to cater for and a complete rethink of the fixture system would help, there really is no reason for say Galway playing their first match in the first half of May while say Leitrim don't play until the end of June.

I know dealing with County Boards can be difficult but there should be more co-operation in the running off of Club Championships. Even the club scene has way too big a gap when it comes to playing matches and this isn't because of inter-county interference.

Anyway I would assume Tyrone/Dublin will put forward their proposed changes to the Championship once more at next years AGM. I would think there'll be more interest taken in it next year than there was when it was defeated at this years AGM but it all depends on the media attention it gets.

Separately, I think the GAA could have avoided this talk about Championship stucture if they hadn't included the Quarter Finals in their corporate box deals, because if Provincial winners had home advantage for the quarter finals it would've been an adequate reward for going undefeated in their province.

aDeener

Big Mouth wrote: »

Well i'm talking specifically about the Provinicals = the six nations and the All Ireland = World cup..do away with league and have something like "test" or friendly matches in between.

christ almighty. you are honestly proposing doing away with the secondary competition in favour of challenge matches. i can't find the words to describe such a proposal

Dermotsull13

As someone kinda mentioned above then if they are not going to give the provential champions a second chance then surely they could embrace the idea of giving them home advantage/choice of venue for the quarters as mentioned above. Surely winning a provential title should bring some sort of significant reward that what it currently has. You would have got fairly large crowds in Killarney (45k) / Navan (32k) / Roscommon (30k) and Omagh (25k). Thats 132k. The total attendance in Croker over the weekend was 109k.

How many qualifiers would fancy their chances going into the home patch of the provential champions instead of currently going to a neutral ground in Croker? Also the 4 week layoff between some provential finals and the quarters is too long. Teams lose match sharpness and intensity in that length of time.2 weeks is ideal. Have 2 provential football finals on 2 weeks before the quarters. The other 2 finals on 3 weeks before the quarters and rotate the sequence every second year.

namloc1980

Dermotsull13 wrote: »

As someone kinda mentioned above then if they are not going to give the provential champions a second chance then surely they could embrace the idea of giving them home advantage/choice of venue for the quarters as mentioned above. Surely winning a provential title should bring some sort of significant reward that what it currently has. You would have got fairly large crowds in Killarney (45k) / Navan (32k) / Roscommon (30k) and Omagh (25k). Thats 132k. The total attendance in Croker over the weekend was 109k.

How many qualifiers would fancy their chances going into the home patch of the provential champions instead of currently going to a neutral ground in Croker? Also the 4 week layoff between some provential finals and the quarters is too long. Teams lose match sharpness and intensity in that length of time.2 weeks is ideal. Have 2 provential football finals on 2 weeks before the quarters. The other 2 finals on 3 weeks before the quarters and rotate the sequence every second year.

Quarter finals must be played in Croke Park under the corporate box deals.

I like the idea that was mentioned elsewhere of re-aligning the provinces into 4 regions of 8 teams each, North , South, East and West. You would keep traditional rivals together (Cork-Kerry, Galway-Mayo, Dubs-Meath, Tyrone-Armagh etc), retain a 'provincial structure' but have the same number of games and teams in each region so that planning out the season would be much easier and you avoid ridiculous situations like this year where Galway started their Connaught campaign on the 2nd May while Leitrim started theirs on the 20th June....7 WEEKS later!

Play the regions off as now with the qualifiers as they are. Once you get the four regional winners and the 4 qualifiers, instead of the straight quarter-final knockout, have a system identical to the Australian Rules system. Let's take this season for example. The 4 regional winners play each other (Tyrone, Roscommon, Kerry, Meath) in the usual rotation that the GAA uses, for 2010 Ulster v Connaught and Leinster v Munster. So let's say Tyrone and Kerry win and go straight into the All-Ireland semi-final. Meanwhile the 4 qualifers play each other, say, Cork v Kildare and Down v Dublin. So let's say Cork and the Dubs win - Down and Kildare are now eliminated and go home.

Cork and the Dubs go forward to meet the losing regional winners for a place in the All-Ireland semi finals. This system would give a regional winner a second chance.

DH2K9

namloc1980 wrote: »

Quarter finals must be played in Croke Park under the corporate box deals.

I like the idea that was mentioned elsewhere of re-aligning the provinces into 4 regions of 8 teams each, North , South, East and West. You would keep traditional rivals together (Cork-Kerry, Galway-Mayo, Dubs-Meath, Tyrone-Armagh etc), retain a 'provincial structure' but have the same number of games and teams in each region so that planning out the season would be much easier and you avoid ridiculous situations like this year where Galway started their Connaught campaign on the 2nd May while Leitrim started theirs on the 20th June....7 WEEKS later!

Play the regions off as now with the qualifiers as they are. Once you get the four regional winners and the 4 qualifiers, instead of the straight quarter-final knockout, have a system identical to the Australian Rules system. Let's take this season for example. The 4 regional winners play each other (Tyrone, Roscommon, Kerry, Meath) in the usual rotation that the GAA uses, for 2010 Ulster v Connaught and Leinster v Munster. So let's say Tyrone and Kerry win and go straight into the All-Ireland semi-final. Meanwhile the 4 qualifers play each other, say, Cork v Kildare and Down v Dublin. So let's say Cork and the Dubs win - Down and Kildare are now eliminated and go home.

Cork and the Dubs go forward to meet the losing regional winners for a place in the All-Ireland semi finals. This system would give a regional winner a second chance.

You took that straight from the Sunday Game :):):)

namloc1980

DH2K9 wrote: »

You took that straight from the Sunday Game :):):)

They mentioned it but that knockout system is in use in Aussie Rules for many many years and it's also used in Rugby League in England. The Sunday Game certainly didn't come up with it.

DH2K9

namloc1980 wrote: »

They mentioned it but that knockout system is in use in Aussie Rules for many many years and it's also used in Rugby League in England. The Sunday Game certainly didn't come up with it.

It is a good idea but at the end of the day the GAA won't go through with it because:

1 = They want the system to stay the same.
2 = If they go through with it everybody will be saying that "the GAA did what the Sunday Game told them to do" so are therefore influenced by it.

namloc1980

DH2K9 wrote: »

It is a good idea but at the end of the day the GAA won't go through with it because:

1 = They want the system to stay the same.
2 = If they go through with it everybody will be saying that "the GAA did what the Sunday Game told them to do" so are therefore influenced by it.

They could ignore the Sunday Game and just say this system is successfully in use in Aussie Rules and other sports around the world.

DH2K9

namloc1980 wrote: »

They could ignore the Sunday Game and just say this system is successfully in use in Aussie Rules and other sports around the world.

I know but no matter what they say and after the CCCC with Kerry etc, people will feel that the GAA is influenced too much by TV.

rebel girl 15

Duffy has ruled out changes

GAA Director General Páraic Duffy has said there will be no change to the structure of the football All-Ireland Championship.

All four provincial title winners - Meath, Tyrone, Roscommon and Kerry - were beaten in last weekend's quarter-final rounds, leading to calls for a rethink on the structure of the Championship.

The qualifier series is perceived in some quarters to give provincial losers an advantage by allowing them to play a series of games before the All-Ireland quarter-final round.

But Duffy insisted that making changes based on a single year would be a mistake.

Speaking at the Vodafone GAA Player of the Month awards for July, he told GAA.ie: 'I was involved in the qualifiers the time they were brought in.
The first thing I would say about the qualifiers was they were never devised to give people a second chance. It was devised initially to make sure teams got more than one game in the Championship.

'If you go back to the time it came in the big complaint was that they trained all winter, they lost one game and they were out of the Championship. So the original focus was to make sure every team got a minimum of two games and it does that.'

Duffy emphasised that the All-Ireland itself remained a knock-out competition.

'The second thing is, there are two ways of qualifying for the All-Ireland series, which is a separate competition. You can qualify by the provincial championship route or by the qualifier series and the best eight teams presumably qualify for the All-Ireland series which is a knockout competition.

'It's a separate competition so at that stage, would it be fair to give the provincial champions a second chance and not give the other teams a second chance in the provincial series? So that's the rationale behind it.'

Kerry manager Jack O'Connor and Tyrone manager Mickey Harte both of whom saw their sides eliminated after provincial wins, were critical of the system in the wake of their team's losses.

But Duffy added that the qualifiers had been in place for 10 years, and that the record of provincial winners was strong over the entire period.
He said: 'The other point I'd make about Jack O'Connor's comments is that in the last 10 years since the qualifiers began this is the first time that the Munster champions haven't qualified for the semi-finals. So nine times out of 10, the Munster champions have made the semi-finals.

'In fairness to Mickey Harte, he has raised this issue before and he feels it's unfair but it's impossible to have a totally fair system given that different provinces have different sizes and so on but I think it would be wrong to make a decision based on one year.

'This was unique, this is the first time ever that the four provincial champions have gone out at the quarter-final stage.

'On the law of averages, it was always going to happen some time. So to change our structures because of that would probably be a mistake.'

Pete_Cavan

The big problem with the current situation is the difference in the number of teams in each provincial championship. This leads to some teams having long lay offs between provincial finals and All Ireland quarter finals so they have no momentum going into these games. In other years where qualifier teams lose in the quarter final some people say they are tired after playing 4/5/6 weeks in a row while other teams have time to recouperate.

The 6 Nations/World Cup idea creates too many matches and leaves no time for county championships during the summer. It also devalues a provincial title. Even with the seeding thing a team could still end up in a very difficult group. Based on this years provincial championships, Dublin, Cork, Armagh, Kildare and Derry could all be lower seeds. A team like Roscommon could end up in a group with two of these plus a top seed like Kerry or Tyrone and would never make an All Ireland quarter final in that situation.

Read post #25 here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055958434&page=2 to see my suggestion for a new format, which I still think is the best solution.

DH2K9

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

The big problem with the current situation is the difference in the number of teams in each provincial championship. This leads to some teams having long lay offs between provincial finals and All Ireland quarter finals so they have no momentum going into these games. In other years where qualifier teams lose in the quarter final some people say they are tired after playing 4/5/6 weeks in a row while other teams have time to recouperate.

The 6 Nations/World Cup idea creates too many matches and leaves no time for county championships during the summer. It also devalues a provincial title. Even with the seeding thing a team could still end up in a very difficult group. Based on this years provincial championships, Dublin, Cork, Armagh, Kildare and Derry could all be lower seeds. A team like Roscommon could end up in a group with two of these plus a top seed like Kerry or Tyrone and would never make an All Ireland quarter final in that situation.

Read post #25 here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055958434&page=2 to see my suggestion for a new format, which I still think is the best solution.

It will never happen because of the provincial councils meaning you would have to divide more than just the senior champioship. Because of the history of the provincials they would never get rid of them.

Pete_Cavan

DH2K9 wrote: »

It will never happen because of the provincial councils meaning you would have to divide more than just the senior champioship. Because of the history of the provincials they would never get rid of them.

Im not saying get rid of the provincial championships, just rejig them a bit. The other problem with using the provincial championships to seed teams for a world cup type draw system is a team in Connaught can become a top seed by winning two games (maybe beating London in semis and winning final) whereas a team in Ulster may have to win four games to get top seeding. Hardly seems fair and not a true reflection of the strength of teams. The problem will always be the number of teams in each province and the only way to get a fair and even championship for each team is to have the same number of teams in each province, we have 32 teams and four provinces so it just makes sense to have 8 teams in each.

Although, thinking about it, this is one of Irelands national games so there is something fitting about doing it as awkwardly as possible for old times sake so that everyone can have a good whinge about it when they loss, our real national pass time.

popebenny16

you could get rid of the qualifier system by having either a round robin system leading to the finalists in each province or a qualifier system within each province so that a qualifier plays in the final.

duffys stance makes sense, the AI is knockout. the backdoor was designed to give each team at least two games and you get that by getting to your provincial final.

alphasully

Seperate the Provencial championships from the All Ireland series. Play the Provencial championships after the league but over by the middle of June Make the all Ireland series open draw as well and do away with the qualifiers. this will ensure that all counties get at least two games( reason qualifiers came in) and make the All Ireland a 'one chance' Championship again

J Cheever Loophole

alphasully wrote: »

Seperate the Provencial championships from the All Ireland series. Play the Provencial championships after the league but over by the middle of June Make the all Ireland series open draw as well and do away with the qualifiers. this will ensure that all counties get at least two games( reason qualifiers came in) and make the All Ireland a 'one chance' Championship again

A Provincial Championship that was not linked to the All Ireland in some way would become a meaningless exercise, i.e. another McKenna Cup, O'Byrne Cup etc.

The reality is that the current Championship format is unfair and thus needs changed - this unfairness is directly related to the discrepancies in numbers between the Provinces that has already been pointed out.

Unfortunately though, the Provincial Championships are here to stay, as getting rid of them would be a step too far for the GAA.

The pressure for change - some sort of change - is though growing by the year and it is likely that some minor amendments will be made to the current format within the next few years.

jordainius

Too much analysis of the structures. The current format IS working in both hurling and football, the only real outstanding issue is scheduling.

Provincial championships must be retained. Take this year for example, Limerick, Louth, Monaghan, Sligo and Roscommon are all teams who realistically were never going to win the All-Ireland, but they all appeared in provincial finals, Limerick and Louth came close to winning silverware, Roscommon did win silverware. Why on earth do people want to take that away?

As a Limerick man, I know that winning a football All-Ireland will never happen in my lifetime. Take away the more realistic opportunity of winning a Munster title and you've killed my interest forever.

A champions league format is not what the championships need; the reason the champions league is structured as it is is purely for financial reasons; people seem to forget that about half the group games in the champions league are dead rubbers, and many times we are faced with the following scenario's;

• teams already qualified playing each other
• a team already qualified playing a team whose qualification hopes are over
• two teams whose qualification hopes are over playing each other
• a team with nothing to play for playing a team who needs the win

The current format brings importance to every game. Whether or not it is the provincial or All-Ireland/qualifier series; the winner advances or wins a trophy and the loser goes out. That's what the championship is all about.

J Cheever Loophole

jordainius wrote: »

Too much analysis of the structures. The current format IS working in both hurling and football, the only real outstanding issue is scheduling.

Provincial championships must be retained. Take this year for example, Limerick, Louth, Monaghan, Sligo and Roscommon are all teams who realistically were never going to win the All-Ireland, but they all appeared in provincial finals, Limerick and Louth came close to winning silverware, Roscommon did win silverware. Why on earth do people want to take that away?

As a Limerick man, I know that winning a football All-Ireland will never happen in my lifetime. Take away the more realistic opportunity of winning a Munster title and you've killed my interest forever.


A champions league format is not what the championships need; the reason the champions league is structured as it is is purely for financial reasons; people seem to forget that about half the group games in the champions league are dead rubbers, and many times we are faced with the following scenario's;

• teams already qualified playing each other
• a team already qualified playing a team whose qualification hopes are over
• two teams whose qualification hopes are over playing each other
• a team with nothing to play for playing a team who needs the win

The current format brings importance to every game. Whether or not it is the provincial or All-Ireland/qualifier series; the winner advances or wins a trophy and the loser goes out. That's what the championship is all about.

You make some very good points. However stating that our current format brings importance to every game is I feel misleading. As a for instance, I recall our match in the first round of the Ulster Championship in 2003, when we as All Ireland Champions, played Monaghan. We were significantly depleted by injuries, with a number of our bigger names carrying knocks and sitting on the bench.

With about ten minutes to go, it was clear the ship was going to go under, unless immediate action was taken. However the big names stayed on the bench for another day. Monaghan recorded a famous victory, but for us there was a feeling that we knew we had bigger fish to fry. Monaghan's season soon went up in smoke, and we played in that year's All Ireland Final. What value did Monaghan's first round victory ultimately have?

The point you make about the value of provincial titles to so called 'weaker teams' is also valid - I think though it is clear that the so caled 'stronger' teams would appear to place much less value on these titles than before, and that in turn places a question mark on the exact value of these titles.

Either way though, the Provincial Championships are still linked closely to progress in the All Ireland Championship, and the relaity is that this allows some teams an easier passage than others. That surely cannot be ignored, and is why some would consider getting rid of the Provincial Championships.