Restructuring the cross country season

emerald007

Various threads this year about the Inter Clubs, Intermediates and Novices cross country races seem to have ended in various suggestions on how each race might be changed to increase the participation at the county, province and national level. Rather than tweek the individual races I think it would be better to propose larger more radical changes to how runners and clubs qualify to be able run in the these races at each level.

We should retain the three levels (novice, intermediate and senior) and keep the (county, province and national) regional medal structure. I agree that the senior inter-clubs and inter-counties should be merged. Gerry Farnan should be retained as the blue-ribbon Vet's race.

At the moment any runner is eligible to enter races at all three levels and can run these at the three regional levels. I think we need to introduce a minimum level (time or position based) above which a runner must finish before they can proceed to the next level of competition. The current system only excludes the top three and runners on gold medal winning teams.

At the start of a given season we would have a new promotion rule which would means that only runners in the top 50% of positions can proceed to the next level. From novice to intermediate we should only see the stronger runners proceeding. This same rule also helps runners who may have made senior level in the past but haven't put in the same amount of work this year, they would be "demoted" to the intermediates for the next year.

In terms of the club competition, it seems that clubs can choose to skip certain events and target specific races. Again the new rules would state that clubs must enter teams at each level in order to proceed to the next level. This would give us a better idea of the real strength of clubs, since they will now need bigger squads of runners to complete at the three levels. By ensuring clubs enter at the country and provincial level we ensure better numbers at these races, but it will also lead to a better quality of team and runners to the national level.

I appreciate tracking who is eligible for each level becomes tricky but we'll assume the national organising body will be able to provide the IT infrastructure to track this for us.

Thoughts?

YFlyer

Get rid of the Intermediate. Any athlete that medals in the Novice is good enough to be in the Seniors.

BeepBeep67

Makes sense in theory for larger counties, I like the idea of progression and 'earning a place' in the Intermediate or Senior, the administration of this would be fun and games!
However for smaller counties it's hard enough to field teams from everyone that's eligible, if this was reduced further you would be just left with a handful of counties with teams.

I do think though you should have a single Senior 'blue ribbon' National XC event, once that's a fairly stable fixture in the calendar everything else just needs to fit around that.

emerald007

YFlyer wrote: »

Get rid of the Intermediate. Any athlete that medals in the Novice is good enough to be in the Seniors.

The medal winners aren't the issue here really. With only three medals in any race, the medal winners and the group going for the top three only represent about ~5% field. The aim here is to try and make the competition better for the majority of runners in the middle band.

emerald007

BeepBeep67 wrote: »

However for smaller counties it's hard enough to field teams from everyone that's eligible, if this was reduced further you would be just left with a handful of counties with teams.

For smaller counties use the Sli Cualann model, and allow individual runners who make the standard from smaller clubs group up to complete at a county level. The structure of GAA senior football clubs in Kerry is another example.

pconn062

+1 on the blue ribbon national championships.

I think the intercounties and the inter-clubs should be combined and held in early November for selection for Euro cross. And I agree with Lindie Naughton, the inter-counties should be scrapped, we are not the GAA, we compete in clubs, not counties.