Division 4 teams - making up the numbers in the championship

Boom__Boom

Was looking at the results of how the various Division 4 teams get on in the football championship.

Basically I looked at how the teams who played in Division 4 got on the same year in the championship.

Over the last 5 years (2010-2014) Division 4 teams have played 99 games in the championship.

Out of these 99 games, the Division 4 teams have lost 66 times.

Of the remaining 33 games, the Division 4 teams have won 29 and drawn 4.

However of the 29 games won, 17 were against either another Division 4 team or New York.

The other 12 wins, 8 were against Division 3 sides, 3 against Division 2 sides and 1 against a Division 1 side.

When you look at the wins against the Division 1 & Division 2 sides, things actually look even a bit grimmer, as 2 of the wins against Division 2 sides were against the same side in the same year (this was clearly a side who were having a miserable year - they had only won 1 game in Division 2 and had been relegated to Division 3 that year).

This also doesn't take into account some of the horrific hammerings that have been handed out to Division 4 teams.

I knew Division 4 sides had a terrible record in the championship i just didn't realise how bad it was, especially when it came to playing teams outside Division 4.

theoneeyedman

So, basically your extensive research deducts that Division 4 of the NFL contains the worst teams in the country: they are weaker than teams in D3, considerably weaker than those in D2 and very much weaker than those in D1....

Who knew?

Seriously, the bigger question for the GAA is whether we continue on the current path and end up with the top 6 or so teams getting stronger and the rest getting (relatively) weaker, or do we look at redistributing the wealth and resources to level the playing field somewhat.

Mal-Adjusted

At the end of the day, only one team from a select few is going to win, so in effect almost all counties are making up the numbers. My own county is a Div 4 side and this summer we won two games, both against other division 4 teams and that was considered a good year. At this stage, there really isn't any point in having so many no-hopers in the hunt for Sam.

theoneeyedman wrote: »

Seriously, the bigger question for the GAA is whether we continue on the current path and end up with the top 6 or so teams getting stronger and the rest getting (relatively) weaker, or do we look at redistributing the wealth and resources to level the playing field somewhat.

I think another idea might be to cap what each county board can spend on their inter-county teams at something that is reasonable attainable for most sides and any excess can be pumped into clubs. That way, the "haves" can't go out and hire a small army of fitness coaches and physios unattainable to the "have nots" while at the same time don't have to grumble about money being taken out of their own set-ups.

homerjay2005

there needs to be more done to have more games for these teams - they need to play each other in some form of group.

a proper senior b championship needs to be set up also with incentives for the latter stages.

munchkin_utd

homerjay2005 wrote: »

there needs to be more done to have more games for these teams - they need to play each other in some form of group.

a proper senior b championship needs to be set up also with incentives for the latter stages.

errr, this is what is being proposed in leinster

The Leinster Council has approved in principle the introduction of a round-robin element into the Leinster Senior Football Championship from 2016.
The details of how it will work and which counties will be involved are still being worked out, but it is planned to bring a finalised proposal to congress.
A 'Qualifier Group' system is already in operation for the Leinster hurling championship, with Laois, Carlow, London, Westmeath and Antrim competing for a place in the Leinster championship proper.
Many feel the football championship would benefit from a similar set up, with suggestions that any football round-robin format could have six teams in two groups of three,
For the 2015 League, only Dublin will have Division 1 status.
Laois, Kildare, Meath and Westmeath will be in Division 2. Wexford and Louth will be in Division 3, with Longford, Offaly, Wicklow and Carlow in Division 4.

http://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/football/2014/1002/649539-leinster/

keeponhurling

What was the one match where the div 4 team beat the Div 1 team ?

klairondavis

keeponhurling wrote: »

What was the one match where the div 4 team beat the Div 1 team ?

Wicklow v Kildare in 2008?

Boom__Boom

klairondavis wrote: »

Wicklow v Kildare in 2008?

Longford 1-12 Mayo 0-14 in 2010

Brought an end to John O'Mahoney's time in charge

http://www.mayonews.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10139:omahony-goes-as-mayo-fall-to-longford&catid=14&Itemid=100008

I only looked back as far as 2010.

Found this as well

http://mayogaablog.com/?p=5464

Boom__Boom

klairondavis wrote: »

Wicklow v Kildare in 2008?

Micko giving McGeeney a nice introduction to the championship management business

http://www.breakingnews.ie/sport/mhgbcweyqlgb/

iDave

Booting teams out of the championship and forcing them into some B championship wont help them. It will just crystalize their position as a weaker county and kill football as a spectator sport in the county. Look at the lower hurling comps, name one county that's emerged from them, just one that has become a hurling power as a result of playing in a lower competition.
GAA needs to rid itself of all these communists. We're not all equal and never will be.

homeofhurling

did offaly not win the leinster from division 3 in 97, there are a good few teams in division 2 and 3 that are as far off winning the championship as teams in division 4.

nice_guy80

Roscommon won a Connacht Championship from Division 4 in 2010

London got to a Connacht final in 2013

redlead

Clare, Waterford and Tipp are all hurling counties and always will be. The top players will always chose hurling regardless of how much money is put into football and booting them out of the All Ireland will lose what little interest there is in the sport. To be fair to Tipp they would give a lot of teams a good run for their money though.

Wicklow, Leitrim and Carlow are just always crap at both codes. Not sure what can really be done about that. Perhaps someone from those counties can enlighten us?

Dirty Dingus McGee

homeofhurling wrote: »

did offaly not win the leinster from division 3 in 97, there are a good few teams in division 2 and 3 that are as far off winning the championship as teams in division 4.

Offaly were in Division 4 that year.

Although that Offaly team were an example of an underachieving county and weren't really a proper division 4 standard team.They hammered everybody in division 4 that year and remained a Division 1/Division 2 team up to around 2006.

nice_guy80

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

Offaly were in Division 4 that year.

Although that Offaly team were an example of an underachieving county and weren't really a proper division 4 standard team.They hammered everybody in division 4 that year and remained a Division 1/Division 2 team up to around 2006.

the divisions were re-calibrated the previous year I think

KevIRL

redlead wrote: »

Clare, Waterford and Tipp are all hurling counties and always will be. The top players will always chose hurling regardless of how much money is put into football and booting them out of the All Ireland will lose what little interest there is in the sport. To be fair to Tipp they would give a lot of teams a good run for their money though.

Wicklow, Leitrim and Carlow are just always crap at both codes. Not sure what can really be done about that. Perhaps someone from those counties can enlighten us?

Podge Collins might disagree with you

Clareman

Sure we might as well tell the FA to only have premiership teams in their cup, or the IRB to only have tier 1 teams in the rugby world cup, actually just tell every sports organisation world wide to just have the top teams in their competitions. Let's assume that the top teams now will always be the top teams and there won't be any changes

Mal-Adjusted

iDave wrote: »

Booting teams out of the championship and forcing them into some B championship wont help them. It will just crystalize their position as a weaker county and kill football as a spectator sport in the county.

In fairness, could it really be worse that at the moment? where you're a no-hoper who's best possible result would be getting the odd win over a mid-tier county once a decade? And that's ignoring the countless hammerings they'd get.

iDave wrote: »

Look at the lower hurling comps, name one county that's emerged from them, just one that has become a hurling power as a result of playing in a lower competition.

I think you're missing the point of the lower tier competitions. Giving lower tier counties something that's actually achievable is a good thing. They have problems, such as running them off in the start of the summer with no meaningful promotion and deliberately blocking advancement through the tiers, but these can be fixed. Do you really think the likes of Kerry would be better served by being thrown into Munster every summer?

iDave wrote: »

GAA needs to rid itself of all these communists. We're not all equal and never will be.

what?

redlead

KevIRL wrote: »

Podge Collins might disagree with you

his dad probably has a fair bit to do with it

Dirty Dingus McGee

nice_guy80 wrote: »

the divisions were re-calibrated the previous year I think

I think the divisions were re-calibrated for the 97-98 league so Offaly despite being in Division 4 in 96-97 were promoted to the top tier for 97-98 and ended up beating Kerry in that years league.