Football Crisis - What's to be done?

MayoAreMagic

bucketybuck wrote: »

If population is king, then why do Antrim struggle?

Because unlike in Dublin these days, the game isn't popular.
And before you say it isn't popular in Dublin - How many divisions are there for mens gaelic football in Dublin? How many teams in each division?

keane2097

Jampip wrote: »

In the games against Mayo and Donegal, when they needed to, that was what Kerry resorted to.

It wasn't.

Big Ears

robbiezero wrote: »

Dublin are not that much stronger than Cork or Kerry and possibly Mayo if the new management manage to keep them at their levels of the previous few years. The Kerry squad is arguably as strong.

Dublin has had "10" times the population for as long as the GAA has existed. Why are they only "dominating" in the last 5 years. And I use the word dominating very loosely here. Its a good period for Dublin but there is no guarantee it will last, it is far too soon to be talking of breaking up Dublin.

Not that I'm arguing for the splitting of Dublin but that's not strictly true.
When the GAA formed Dublin took up less than 1/4 of the population of Leinster. Today it is over 1/2.

keane2097

Splitting Dublin in two doesn't make any sense. Split it in 13 if you're using the population vs 150k argument. Why is two teams with a million against other teams with 150k any better than one team with 2 million against the rest? If anything it's worse. One team can get caught on the hop, two teams will probably split the wins between them for eternity if the population advantage is so significant.

Why not combine Mayo with Leitrim, Galway and Roscommon? Seems as feasible if not more so than splitting Dublin into 13.

Also, this seems to have a tangential connection at best to the discussion on modifying the playing rules to make the game a better spectacle.

MayoAreMagic

keane2097 wrote: »

It wasn't.

True. In fairness, Kerry beat mayo in the middle third with david moran having a stormer. They pressed mayo high up the pitch and got rewards from that, albeit with Cormac Reilly putting in an all-star performance for them... They weren't defensive though.

keane2097

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

True. In fairness, Kerry beat mayo in the middle third with david moran having a stormer. They pressed mayo high up the pitch and got rewards from that, albeit with Cormac Reilly putting in an all-star performance for them... They weren't defensive though.

They were a bit, but your man is talking rubbish about them having 14 men behind the ball. It just isn't true. Doesn't even need to be true for him to have a reasonable POV.

robbiezero

I don't really think any rule changes are necessary quite yet.
Teams cannot win with a defensive system only. Derry will not get anywhere unless they add a reasonable attacking element to this system, they were utterly inept on Saturday night on the attack. Donegal added this in 2012 which made them a much better side to watch.

MayoAreMagic

keane2097 wrote: »

Splitting Dublin in two doesn't make any sense. Split it in 13 if you're using the population vs 150k argument. Why is two teams with a million against other teams with 150k any better than one team with 2 million against the rest? If anything it's worse. One team can get caught on the hop, two teams will probably split the wins between them for eternity if the population advantage is so significant.

Because they don't have to be exactly the same as regards population. Kerry often beat cork for example, but cork have a much bigger population. I think the case with Dublin is they have gone past the point where the difference can be absorbed, they are dominant at all grades bar the odd surprise loss. That isn't the case for Kerry in munster or mayo in Connacht etc.
Splitting them would make it harder for them at the start and you have to keep them competitive. There is no point taking them out of the equation by splitting them into 8 or 10. 2 would be a reasonable experiment. I genuinely think 2 teams would be a good move.

keane2097 wrote: »

Why not combine Mayo with Leitrim, Galway and Roscommon? Seems as feasible if not more so than splitting Dublin into 13.

Well nobody is saying split Dublin into 13, just 2. Splitting one team into 2 strong teams makes more sense than joining up 4 teams, 3 of which are competing in the top 2 divisions.

keane2097 wrote: »

Also, this seems to have a tangential connection at best to the discussion on modifying the playing rules to make the game a better spectacle.

Well people are saying the defensive football is being played to counteract Dublin. Maybe people are looking at it the wrong way. If everyone needs to play defensively to get near Dublin, why are we changing everyone else and indeed the game itself? Surely the common denominator is the strength of Dublin here?

MayoAreMagic

keane, Im agreeing with you re kerry

bucketybuck

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

Because unlike in Dublin these days, the game isn't popular.
And before you say it isn't popular in Dublin - How many divisions are there for mens gaelic football in Dublin? How many teams in each division?

So now the metric isn't population, but the notoriously variable "popularity"?

keane2097

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

keane, Im agreeing with you re kerry

Oh yeah I know you are, sorry if there was any confusion.

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

Because they don't have to be exactly the same as regards population. Kerry often beat cork for example, but cork have a much bigger population. I think the case with Dublin is they have gone past the point where the difference can be absorbed, they are dominant at all grades bar the odd surprise loss. That isn't the case for Kerry in munster or mayo in Connacht etc.
Splitting them would make it harder for them at the start and you have to keep them competitive. There is no point taking them out of the equation by splitting them into 8 or 10. 2 would be a reasonable experiment. I genuinely think 2 teams would be a good move.




Well nobody is saying split Dublin into 13, just 2. Splitting one team into 2 strong teams makes more sense than joining up 4 teams, 3 of which are competing in the top 2 divisions.




Well people are saying the defensive football is being played to counteract Dublin. Maybe people are looking at it the wrong way. If everyone needs to play defensively to get near Dublin, why are we changing everyone else and indeed the game itself? Surely the common denominator is the strength of Dublin here?

If you read that back it starts to look very much like population has no correlation with success and isn't much of an advantage at all.

Or to put it another way, try to imagine what the GAA would look like if population wasn't a huge advantage and see if it would be anything like the above.

Miccoli

2 points for a shot outside the 45.

Mal-Adjusted

bucketybuck wrote: »

If population is king, then why do Antrim struggle?

As you well know, at least half the population of Antrim think GAA is the devil, same goes for Down and Armagh.

That said, the idea of splitting Dublin into 2 teams is stupid and really has no place in a thread about defensive tactics.

Tombo2001

robbiezero wrote: »

I don't really think any rule changes are necessary quite yet.
Teams cannot win with a defensive system only. Derry will not get anywhere unless they add a reasonable attacking element to this system, they were utterly inept on Saturday night on the attack. Donegal added this in 2012 which made them a much better side to watch.

I'd question that one.

They didn't hit that many wides. The fact is that they were defending a lead until late in the game. They weren't trying to attack.

I'd have thought Dublins shooting was far worse on the night.

And bear in mind, windy evening, rain sheeting down, crowd booing them.....hostile conditions in more way than one. Derry did a pretty decent job given what they set out to do; they were still in the game with five minutes to go.

GBXI

As has been said many times in the thread already, the rules, broadly speaking, do not need any changing. Though I could write a thesis on ways to improve Gaelic football, but nothing would get past the dinosaurs in Congress!! Just because Brolly has one of his rants, does not mean that anyone needs to pay it any attention.

Anyway, my point which has been touched upon a few times above already, is the sheer ignorance towards the Donegal team of the last 4 years. In 2011 they were overly defensive and thus couldn't get past Dublin. But in the 3 seasons since then under McGuinness they have been one of the most attacking and exciting teams in the country. In 2012 they were the most impressive AI winners in a long time, in my opinion. They defend and attack in numbers, with no little skill in terms of scoring. This from a Mayo man by the way!

Anyway, football is going through a very interesting time and I for one have no interest in seeing sweeping changes to the game.

keane2097

I think there's possibly more complaining about Donegal being misunderstood than complaining about Donegal these days.

MayoAreMagic

keane2097 wrote: »

If you read that back it starts to look very much like population has no correlation with success and isn't much of an advantage at all.

Or to put it another way, try to imagine what the GAA would look like if population wasn't a huge advantage and see if it would be anything like the above.

I would disagree. To me, it reads like I am saying that there is a critical mass as regards population, where, when exceeded, simply outweighs all other factors. An example would be an archery competition, where one guy gets one arrow to hit the target, while the other gets 2, then 5 then 10, all the way up to 100. The first guy might be a far superior archer, but at some point the second guy is going to start beating him, due to the sheer volume he has available. In this case, the second guy has become just as good as the first, but he is still getting his 100 shots. Im just suggesting we make it fair again.

I cant for the life of me figure out how you can say I claimed it wasn't an advantage. I said that to a certain point, other metrics can have an influence that can maybe absorb the imbalance in population. For instance, if nobody in the county plays the game then population isn't really an issue. That was the case in Dublin to an extent, but now the game is hugely popular. It is a results driven analysis really, with the combination of all factors, measured in how strong the squads being produced are. And clearly, as it stands, the results are telling us that Dublin have gone far too strong compared to everyone else. This would resolve the problem.

Tom Joad

Talk about splitting Dublin is just bringing a strawman into the discussion. Absolutely nothing to do with the thread topic unless you let the two Dublin teams play together to counteract the blanket.

dog_pig

keane2097 wrote: »

I think there's possibly more complaining about Donegal being misunderstood than complaining about Donegal these days.

I would just ask for cool heads on this from people. I feel that two years ago we had a chance to move away from this when Dublin won a fantastic All-Ireland playing expansive, free-flowing football.
"But then Donegal brought [defensive football] to a new level last year when they beat Dublin in the semi-final using those tactics.
“We all know what the problem is but trying to solve it is going to be a very difficult task without making radical changes, and nobody wants to do that.

When you read tripe like that from GAA officials are you surprised?

MayoAreMagic

Tom Joad wrote: »

Talk about splitting Dublin is just bringing a strawman into the discussion. Absolutely nothing to do with the thread topic unless you let the two Dublin teams play together to counteract the blanket.

Well people were saying that basically every football team is gone so defensive now because they simply cannot match Dublin. So if Dublin is the common denominator then obviously there is an issue around the strength of Dublin compared to all the other teams.

davegrohl48

Does anyone have any attachment to 15 a side anymore?
Full backs and full forward don't generally operate around the square anymore. So it's not as if we are losing some type of King of the square full back versus full forward contests from the game.
I'v coached a team in 13 a side and it was a very good spectacle with plenty goals. The usual nonsense without any thought is spouted that it wouldn't change anything.
It simply can't be as defensive with 13 a side. The midfielders and forwards in posession have more space in which to shoot or pass.
The other rules that need immediate adjustment from Jarlath Burns group.
- The slowing down of frees is dire. Almost every free is being delayed and is leading to scuffles. A poster mentioned Aussie Rules had this problem and they introduced a 50 m instead of 15 m penalty. Problem solved overnight. Do we need anymore evidence? A very similar sport had the exact same problem and the proposed solution worked
- The black card is ridiculously light weight. A team can receive three black cards and still not be down a player. You have three free chances to prevent goals by doing a drag down.
- The steps rule is not being applied early enough. If you tuck the ball up and run direct into contact you do not have extra steps to wriggle your way free. There are some high profile players who are pulling the p*ss with the amount of steps they take, it's one of the main components of their game.

DoctaDee

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

Well people were saying that basically every football team is gone so defensive now because they simply cannot match Dublin. So if Dublin is the common denominator then obviously there is an issue around the strength of Dublin compared to all the other teams.

Ah stop please... it wasn't Dublin who were handing out the towelling to Donegal pre McGuinness .. you've others to thank for that

Godge

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

It absolutely is stronger. Plus, you don't seem to factor in that there are numerous players in Dublin that, given the opportunity could develop into high level county standard players. I mean if donegal, Kerry, tyrone and mayo can put together teams with roughly 150,000 people, then surely Dublin can make 2 with 1.5 million?

Kilkenny and Kerry are different - they had the same resources as everyone else and then went to dominate. If you split Dublin and one of their teams dominated for a decade that would be fair enough, because they would have had the same starting point as the rest.

Has it not occurred to you that the reason for that is because it is so unbalanced? If donegal had 10 times the population of everyone else in ulster, that would just be a stroll too.

It is mostly fans of teams like Mayo, Cork, Donegal and Kerry who argue for Dublin to be split up (as well as local rivals Meath and Kildare). The rest of the country don't care because it wouldn't change their chances of winning All-Irelands or Leinsters.

It is not for the good of football that people like you want Dublin split up, it is merely to increase your own county's chance of glory.

If Dublin ever dominate and win four-in-a-row like Kerry in the late 1970s you might have a point. The current crowd haven't even matched the achievements of the 1970s team that won six Leinsters in a row and got to six All-Ireland finals in a row.

Envy and jealousy rather than the good of football are driving attempts to split up Dublin. Similarly, you will see people here and elsewhere praising the defensive muck because it has worked effectively against Dublin.

Now I don't have a problem with any of that except for the pretense that fans of counties are interested in the "good" of football. They are not, they are interested in their own county and its success.

Godge

GBXI wrote: »

As has been said many times in the thread already, the rules, broadly speaking, do not need any changing. Though I could write a thesis on ways to improve Gaelic football, but nothing would get past the dinosaurs in Congress!! Just because Brolly has one of his rants, does not mean that anyone needs to pay it any attention.

Anyway, my point which has been touched upon a few times above already, is the sheer ignorance towards the Donegal team of the last 4 years. In 2011 they were overly defensive and thus couldn't get past Dublin. But in the 3 seasons since then under McGuinness they have been one of the most attacking and exciting teams in the country. In 2012 they were the most impressive AI winners in a long time, in my opinion. They defend and attack in numbers, with no little skill in terms of scoring. This from a Mayo man by the way!

Anyway, football is going through a very interesting time and I for one have no interest in seeing sweeping changes to the game.

There is a lot of truth in this.

Also people forget that Dublin were beaten by Donegal last year and the final featured two teams that played defensively all year. Success will be copied and if a defensive team can beat either type of set-up, then that type of defensive set-up will be copied.

What the game needs is for a team like Dublin or Mayo to consistently beat the defensive teams but occasionally lose to an attacking team in a shoot-out. That will swing the pendulum back towards attacking teams because success will be copied. We might have seen the start of that on Saturday night when Dublin set-up slightly less attacking and despite the conditions favouring the ultra-defensive Derry team, Dublin won out.

davegrohl48

Godge wrote: »

There is a lot of truth in this.

Also people forget that Dublin were beaten by Donegal last year and the final featured two teams that played defensively all year. Success will be copied and if a defensive team can beat either type of set-up, then that type of defensive set-up will be copied.

What the game needs is for a team like Dublin or Mayo to consistently beat the defensive teams but occasionally lose to an attacking team in a shoot-out. That will swing the pendulum back towards attacking teams because success will be copied. We might have seen the start of that on Saturday night when Dublin set-up slightly less attacking and despite the conditions favouring the ultra-defensive Derry team, Dublin won out.

Dublin won but the game as a spectacle was beyond dire. The game is there to provide entertainment at some level. There wont be any return to open football without rule changes. The percentage of open games the last five years is tiny. You really think we'll return full pendulum swing to open football for the majority of games without rule changes? 13 a side will help weaker counties be more competitive. Leitrims Emlyn Mulligan has more game winning impact in 13 a side compared to 15 a side.

davegrohl48

Godge wrote: »

There is a lot of truth in this.

Also people forget that Dublin were beaten by Donegal last year and the final featured two teams that played defensively all year. Success will be copied and if a defensive team can beat either type of set-up, then that type of defensive set-up will be copied.

What the game needs is for a team like Dublin or Mayo to consistently beat the defensive teams but occasionally lose to an attacking team in a shoot-out. That will swing the pendulum back towards attacking teams because success will be copied. We might have seen the start of that on Saturday night when Dublin set-up slightly less attacking and despite the conditions favouring the ultra-defensive Derry team, Dublin won out.

Dublin won but the game as a spectacle was beyond dire. The game is there to provide entertainment at some level. There wont be any return to open football without rule changes. The percentage of open games the last five years is tiny. You really think we'll return full pendulum swing to open football for the majority of games without rule changes? 13 a side will help weaker counties be more competitive. Leitrims Emlyn Mulligan has more game winning impact in 13 a side compared to 15 a side.

JRant

The only problem I see in the game is a lack of strong referees.

The amount of off the ball stuff going on is ridiculous.

Now considering there is a ref, 2 linemen and 4 umpires I can't for the life of me understand how they don't see it.

Players will always try to stretchthe rules and it's up to the ref to put order into a game.

Alot of the pulling and dragging would be gone overnight if the refs clamped down on it.

JRant

davegrohl48 wrote: »

Dublin won but the game as a spectacle was beyond dire. The game is there to provide entertainment at some level. There wont be any return to open football without rule changes. The percentage of open games the last five years is tiny. You really think we'll return full pendulum swing to open football for the majority of games without rule changes? 13 a side will help weaker counties be more competitive. Leitrims Emlyn Mulligan has more game winning impact in 13 a side compared to 15 a side.

If you want open football then the easiest solution is to do away with the winter league and begin games in April/May.

When the ground firms up the better players can thrive. If we persist in playing on sodden pitches then the fare will not change.

There's no need for 13 a side. Plenty of room on a pitch for 15 each when teams use the space properly.

corny

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

Well people were saying that basically every football team is gone so defensive now because they simply cannot match Dublin. So if Dublin is the common denominator then obviously there is an issue around the strength of Dublin compared to all the other teams.

Ah... 'people' said did they.:rolleyes:

McGuiness worked out this structure when Dublin were also rans. Teams then copied Donegal because its effective. **** all to do with Dublin.

Dirty Dingus McGee

13 a side should have been brought in about 10 years ago in my opinion and should definitely be considered as an option to improve the game.It would leave more space on the field and loosen the game up a bit.

The only negative about 13 a side is that some coaches would use this as a licence to increase physical training and run the sh1te out of players at the expense of their skills.