An idea for GAA Intercounty championship

Patser

Recently there's been a lot of chat on the radio, within the GAA and the GPA regarding the long football season ahead, player burnout and the club championship being messed around - so I'd just like to throw out my idea regards rescheduling the whole lot to see what people think.

1. Scrap the league - start the season later, into March with O'Byrne, McKenna etc

2. Turn the provincial championships, as much as possible, into a league situation. There's been a lot of talk of an open Champions League style draw, but that'll remove the local rivalry that drives a lot of the early games in the Championship as it is.

5 groups of 6/7 teams with only a little discommoding should be achievable. Munster stays the same with their 6. Connaught have 6 with London included. Split Leinster in 2 - North league ( Meath, Westmeath, Louth, Longford and I know Monaghan and Cavan) and South (Dublin, Kildare, Offaly, Laois, Wexford, Carlow, Kilkenny at a stretch). Ulster without Monaghan and Cavan now a 7 team league.


An argument could be made for 4 groups of 8 - whereby Wexford and Carlow are convinced of their long standing rivalry with Waterford and Tipp and play in Munster, Longford jump the Shannon to Connaught, as well as Donegal to compete against bordering Leitrim (that 2km border suddenly more important than borders with Derry, Tyrone and Fermanagh)

3. Let all the teams play a proper league, guarantees at least 5 games each from April into July. Top teams qualify, as does best of the runners up. Other 4 runner ups play off. Then on normally with the quarter finals.


Pros:
Shorter season
Maintains local rivalries (look at Westmeath's celebrations after finally beating Meath) and traditions (Cork v Kerry annual crowd puller)
Minimises travel costs and distances for fans, maximises tickets.
Gives every team a guaranteed minimum of championship games - current GAA proposal would have Div 4 teams possibly only having 1 game a year

Cons:
Sets in stone you opposition, same teams every year
Ulster still a dogfight, Leinster still weak, possibly even waeker again.
No tiered league where similar level teams play, lots of mismatches
The novelty matches that the current back door offers gone, teams that have never met facing each other.

Thoughts?

Fr Tod Umptious

Rearrange the "provinces" into 4 "regions" of 8. No NY by the way.
Keep the current back door system.

Pros
All teams play the same amount of games to reach the same point.
Apart from the realignment there is very little upheaval.

Cons
Some people are willing to die for the historic concept of "provinces".

Patser

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Rearrange the "provinces" into 4 "regions" of 8. No NY by the way.
Keep the current back door system .

NY could still play a traditional pre qualifier - maybe against All Ireland Champions - nice reward trip for winning, imagine the mess if they lost.

How'd the back door work after a league style grouping?

Fr Tod Umptious

Patser wrote: »

NY could still play a traditional pre qualifier - maybe against All Ireland Champions - nice reward trip for winning, imagine the mess if they lost.

How'd the back door work after a league style grouping?

Its not a league.
Its a knockout.
But each team starts with a QF, not this rubbish we have with preliminary rounds, byes into semi finals etc.

And in the qualifiers everyone joins at the correct round.
QF losers in the first, SF losers the second and final losers the fourth.

LeinsterDub

Patser wrote: »

Thoughts?

Deckchairs on the titanic