New championship structure

hippyrod

Why not have 8 groups of 4 using the league to seed teams (this would have the added benefit of making the league more important). The top two in each group go through to the last 16 for sam while the bottom two play off in a tier two comp. Both of these draws could be open or seeded according to where you finished in the group. This system would also gurantee each team 4 games instead of the current 2. Before the start of the championship the bottom two in division 4 of the league (mostly Kilkenny and London) could play off with New York (keeping them involved) for the last place. This system would also mean all teams are playing at the same time instead of one team having played 2 or 3 weeks running then playing a team who have had a 2 week break. This system would also allow a break county championship and for the hurling championship maybe take 3 weeks after the group stage, 2 weeks after the last 16 etc. Not sure where you could fit in the provisional chanpionship but i dont think they should be gotten rid of but that could be worked out. It would also benefit the likes of the sunday game on RTE instead of watching 1 or 2 bad or average games being over analysed at the start of the championship they would have 8 games to get through.

Syferus

Oh, not again.

Ren2k7

The current system is daft. Have four Provincial leagues instead. The top two teams from each league goes through to the Provincial final, like in the RaboDirect Pro12. Four winners then go to the All Ireland Semis. Simple, and better than these stupid Preliminary rounds.

munchkin_utd

Ren2k7 wrote: »

The current system is daft. Have four Provincial leagues instead. The top two teams from each league goes through to the Provincial final, like in the RaboDirect Pro12. Four winners then go to the All Ireland Semis. Simple, and better than these stupid Preliminary rounds.

theres not THAT much wrong with the provincials as they are (and they arent going to be abolished so you are literally wasting your time even suggesting it)

The main problem is that they take half the summer for only 3 or 4 rounds of games. Ulster for example only plays one game from each side of the draw on a weekend.

If you compressed the provincal championships to say 5 or 6 weeks in May and June rather than 8 (or 9 incl the prelim) dragging on to the end of July then there would be less waiting around for the qualifiers for those eliminated early and less compression of fixtures in August when you have REAL knockout games.

Ren2k7

munchkin_utd wrote: »

theres not THAT much wrong with the provincials as they are (and they arent going to be abolished so you are literally wasting your time even suggesting it)

The main problem is that they take half the summer for only 3 or 4 rounds of games. Ulster for example only plays one game from each side of the draw on a weekend.

If you compressed the provincal championships to say 5 or 6 weeks in May and June rather than 8 (or 9 incl the prelim) dragging on to the end of July then there would be less waiting around for the qualifiers for those eliminated early and less compression of fixtures in August when you have REAL knockout games.

I never suggested abolishing the Provincials. I just suggested reformatting them from a knockout tournament into a league structure like with the 6 nations. But I would agree about the length it takes to run these tournaments is too long.

DoctorMedicine

There is always something special about winning the provincial championship. Anything which abolishes that, should not be considered.

Mal-Adjusted

I don't know. the provincial structure as it is is messy. I mean, take today for example. Clare played one match and now they're in the Munster final. WTF?

The problem might stray from the fact that there is 5 counties on one provence, 6 i nanother, 9 in another and 12 in another. nothing is going to be very even.

jordainius

Here we go again....

I curse the day that the European Cup (soccer) ditched the old knockout format and introduced the group stages. Sadly, some GAA fans influenced by the Champions League see this format as the be all and end all.

I wouldn't mind so much but the format doesn't exactly work all that well anyway. It's bloated and full of dead rubber games in the final phases of group games, and the group stages weren't introduced for the benefit of the competition, they were introduced and expanded solely for revenue purposes as more games means more revenue. The Champions League is boring enough until it gets to the last 16 and knockout.

I'd give reasons why the current format is the best but I've already done that here two or three times in the last two years or so.

munchkin_utd

I just did a quick sketch of what a compressed provincial championship would look like, just taking ulster as an example.

You save the guts of a month by having more than 1 game on a weekend at the quarter final stage but teams all still have 2 weeks between games.
And its a far better situation for say Monaghan who have 4 weeks between the quarters and the semi currently.

And then you are finished the provincials far earlier leaving less congestion of REAL knockout games in August.

Old Date New Date
SUNDAY 20TH MAY 2012 no change Preliminary Round Cavan v Donegal
SUNDAY 27TH MAY 2012 SUNDAY 27TH MAY 2012 Quarter Final Monaghan v Antrim
SUNDAY 3RD JUN 2012 SUNDAY 27TH MAY 2012 Quarter Final Fermanagh v Down
SUNDAY 10TH JUN 2012 SUNDAY 3RD JUN 2012 Quarter Final Armagh v Tyrone
SATURDAY 16TH JUN 2012 SUNDAY 3RD JUN 2012 Quarter Final Donegal/Cavan v Derry
SUNDAY 24TH JUN 2012 SUNDAY 10TH JUN 2012 Semi Final Down v Monaghan
SATURDAY 30TH JUN 2012 SATURDAY 16TH JUN 2012 Semi Final Armagh / Tyrone v Derry / Donegal
SUNDAY 22ND JUL 2012 SATURDAY 30TH JUN 2012 Final Semi Final Winner v Semi Final Winner

Prop Joe

For anyone who is pro champions league structure for the championship,Just see how over the next few days how little anyone cares about Irelands final game,2 losses you are out!!....The championship would be riddled with them

doc_17

munchkin_utd wrote: »

I just did a quick sketch of what a compressed provincial championship would look like, just taking ulster as an example.

You save the guts of a month by having more than 1 game on a weekend at the quarter final stage but teams all still have 2 weeks between games.
And its a far better situation for say Monaghan who have 4 weeks between the quarters and the semi currently.

And then you are finished the provincials far earlier leaving less congestion of REAL knockout games in August.

Old Date New Date
SUNDAY 20TH MAY 2012 no change Preliminary Round Cavan v Donegal
SUNDAY 27TH MAY 2012 SUNDAY 27TH MAY 2012 Quarter Final Monaghan v Antrim
SUNDAY 3RD JUN 2012 SUNDAY 27TH MAY 2012 Quarter Final Fermanagh v Down
SUNDAY 10TH JUN 2012 SUNDAY 3RD JUN 2012 Quarter Final Armagh v Tyrone
SATURDAY 16TH JUN 2012 SUNDAY 3RD JUN 2012 Quarter Final Donegal/Cavan v Derry
SUNDAY 24TH JUN 2012 SUNDAY 10TH JUN 2012 Semi Final Down v Monaghan
SATURDAY 30TH JUN 2012 SATURDAY 16TH JUN 2012 Semi Final Armagh / Tyrone v Derry / Donegal
SUNDAY 22ND JUL 2012 SATURDAY 30TH JUN 2012 Final Semi Final Winner v Semi Final Winner

One issue with this is club teams. When do they play? County managers will be reluctant to release men for club games in the off week.

But in Ulsters case there should be more than one game per week

Fr Tod Umptious

hey , OP, why not use paragraphs

munchkin_utd

doc_17 wrote: »

One issue with this is club teams. When do they play? County managers will be reluctant to release men for club games in the off week.

But in Ulsters case there should be more than one game per week

With my "compressed" schedule there's still 2 weeks between each county game and for 1 semi finalist a full 3 weeks.

You could comfortably schedule club games in this 2 week break.
Maybe even having it on the first Wednesday after the county plays a game, in order to leave a 10 day preparation for the next championship game.

Agus

Ren2k7 wrote: »

The current system is daft. Have four Provincial leagues instead. The top two teams from each league goes through to the Provincial final, like in the RaboDirect Pro12. Four winners then go to the All Ireland Semis. Simple, and better than these stupid Preliminary rounds.

Plenty of problems with that too - for a start the large number of meaningless and/or uncompetitive games that would attract little interest. I can imagine a lot of complaints about the Munster league in particular.

munchkin_utd

A few posts up, I showed how a provincial Championship (Ulster) could be ran in nearly a month quicker with teams still getting a 2 break between games simply by playing more than a single solitary game per weekend.

Mickey Harte seems to agree that this is a simple way to free up time for club and other games.

"The provincial championships have to be tidied up quicker. This thing of taking a Sunday for every game in a provincial championship takes too long. There is no reason why a provincial council shouldn’t have one championship game on a Saturday and another on a Sunday. In fact there’d be an extra buzz about the game on a Sunday as a result of all the talk about the game on the Saturday," said Harte.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/harte-play-semis-off-over-one-weekend-212774.html

He also mentions having the Semi Finals on the same weekend which is along the same theme of trying to reduce the pressure in squeezing in fixtures at the end of the summer caused by artificially trying to spread too many games onto a Sunday afternoon.

jordainius

To those of you who think the Champions League structure is the be all and end all;

Take a look at the Champions League tables now, with one round left in the group stage;

13 of the 16 qualification places have been claimed. 13 of the 32 teams are out. So that's 26 teams for whom the final game doesn't matter.

All 6 of the remaining teams who still have a chance to qualify are playing against teams for whom the game doesn't matter.

There are NO games in the final round of group games where two teams are pitted against each other where they both need to win.

Bloated, and full of dead rubbers. It is not the way forward.

munchkin_utd

indeed

which is why I gave a worked out proposal to compress the provincial championships saving 4 weeks at the beginning of the championship which offers

a ) a solution that addresses the major fixture congestion in August with teams playing many weeks in a row in the qualifier series
b ) a politically acceptable solution, i.e. the existing format is kept as it is and therefore would have a high chance of being accepted at a vote at congress

I hadnt thought of the disadvantages of a champions league format like the GPA was suggesting, but by simply having a tighter scheduled version of what there is currently in place you still have the knock out element which was the reason the backdoor fudge was introduced in the first place.

jordainius

I'd be tending towards your way of thinking. The main issue is the scheduling side of things and not the actual structure of the championship itself.

I see your point and I'm not an advocater of the format per se but I'll offer a counter argument.

You can't base one particular year as the basis for disregarding a system.

Also there's far more of a gap between the Top 2 teams over most of the 3rd seeds and all of the botoom seeds.
You're talking about a monopoly of German, English, Spanish and Italian mopping up most of the places which is turn has pushed those leagues far and beyond the chasing pack.

In football there would be less of a gap between the top 3 teams in a group system, we'd really only have a small bunch of 4th seed teams who wouldn't be able to compete.

We also would have to seed our teams on a different basis so you would have teams fighting to finish as high as they can i.e If you finish bottom you're a bottom seed the following season.

PTH2009

Liam McCarthy Cup


10 Teams- Munster- Cork/Clare/Limerick/Tipperary/Waterford
Leinster- Dublin/Galway/Kilkenny/Wexford/Offaly

Provincial Championships (Munster and Leinster)

Quarter Finals- 2 teams paired off- Winners Qualify for Provincial Semi Final – Losers Goes to All Ireland Qualifiers.

Semi Finals- 2 matches/ 3 teams and 1 winner of QF- Winners Qualify for Provincial Final and All Ireland Quarter Finals - Losers goes to All Ireland Qualifiers.

Final- 2 Semi finals winners-

All Ireland Qualifiers

6 teams (3 Leinster and 3 Munster) - contains teams that failed to make Provincial final.

Open draw – 2 groups of 3 teams. Teams are named A1/A2/A3 and B1/B2/B3. Each team will play 1 home game and 1 away game.

Match day 1- A1 vs. A2- B1 vs. B2
Match day 2- A2 vs. A3- B2 vs. B3
Match day 3- A3 vs. A1- B3 vs. B1

The 2 Teams that finish 1st place in Group A and Group B will qualify for the All Ireland Quarter finals.
The 2 Teams that finish 2nd place in Group A and Group B will qualify for the All Ireland Quarter Final playoffs
The 2 teams that Finish 3rd Place in Group A and Group B will be eliminated from the Championship.

All Ireland Quarter Final Playoffs- 4 teams- 2 matches

2 teams that finish 2nd in Group A and Group B will be paired against the 2 Liam McCarthy B finalists. The 2 winners will qualify for the All Ireland Quarter Finals.

All Ireland Quarter finals- 8 teams- 4 matches
2 Provincial Champions
2 Provincial Runners Up
2 Group A and Group B Winners
2 QF playoff winners

2 Provincial champions vs. 2 QF Playoff Winners (Open Draw)
2 Provincial runners up vs. 2 Group A and Group B Winners (Open Draw)

All Ireland Semi Finals- 4 teams- 2 matches
4 teams will be paired off, 2 winners Qualify for All Ireland Final







Liam McCarthy B Championship.

6 teams- Antrim/Carlow/Laois/London/Westmeath/Wicklow. (Wicklow and London Qualify as Christy Ring finalists 2012).

Open draw – 2 groups of 3 teams. Teams are named A1/A2/A3 and B1/B2/B3. Each team will play 1 home game and 1 away game.

Match day 1- A1 vs. A2- B1 vs. B2
Match day 2- A2 vs. A3- B2 vs. B3
Match day 3- A3 vs. A1- B3 vs. B1

The 2 Teams that finish 1st and 2nd place in Group A and Group B will qualify for the Semi Finals
The 2 teams that Finish 3rd Place in Group A and Group B will playoff for Relegation.

Semi finals-
1st Group A vs. 2nd Group B.
1st Group B vs. 2nd Group A.

The 2 winners will qualify for the Liam McCarthy B cup final and the All Ireland Quarter Final Playoffs.
The 2 losers will be eliminated from the Championship.