GAA Special Congress (Sep 30th)

Stacksofwacks

mickmackey1 wrote: »

There was a reasonably clear article on rte.ie which has now disappeared. It implied that yes, 4th and 5th are out of the c'ship and also contradicted a statement by a poster above that Kerry will automatically replace the 5th place Munster team (if winning tier2 obviously). So for now it's just a big....

Would make more sense to have the 4th team in each province play the tier 2 finalists having 4 tier one counties out of the championship after the round robin stage while Meath and Carlow are still left in the championship seems a bit wrong to me

Ropaire

HurlingRanker wrote: »

Prop Joe wrote: »

On a separate note this does nothing for developing counties,Now people have different views on this but getting a Laois/Carlow/Antrim competitive would that be such a terrible thing?

How competitions are structured will have absolutely no bearing on the competitiveness of those counties. The league format was changed several times in it’s history under the misguided belief that simply granting those counties the opportunity to play top counties more regularly will make them more competitive, gets trialed for a few years, nothing changes and the format is restructured.

The issue is more to do with numbers of players and clubs and underage structures within the those county’s. There’s as few as three hurling clubs in some Meagher Cup counties.

How can the GAA call hurling our national game if theres now 10 counties playing it? If you want to promote the game in these counties then give kids something to aim for. Merge them into something like Connacht (without Galway), Leinster (without tier 1 counties) and Ulster regional teams and let them play in the Liam McCarthy. It's the only way they'll be competitive and it would give potential All Star players in these counties an outlet to show what they can do. This restructure is just another way of dressing up the same thing we already have to squeeze a few more quid out of it at the expense of the club's, but it will do nothing to promote the game. If anything its kicking those teams that are trying to develop by putting a glass ceiling in place that they won't ever break now. They may as well go around and collect all the hurls from non tier1 counties cos it's clear the GAA don't give 2 ****s about them at this stage. They could even sell them for firewood while they're at it, make a few more quid.

Realt Dearg Sec

When were there more than ten counties playing hurling at the top level?

nice_guy80

the 'hurling counties' love shafting all the other hurling counties

protect their hegemony

Westmeath should have beaten Offaly this year and ran Tipperary close down in Semple. If they had met Dublin they would have probably beaten them.
Yet now they're down in Tier 2 with no chance to play in their own Leinster championship!

Mehapoy

nice_guy80 wrote: »

the 'hurling counties' love shafting all the other hurling counties

protect their hegemony

Westmeath should have beaten Offaly this year and ran Tipperary close down in Semple. If they had met Dublin they would have probably beaten them.
Yet now they're down in Tier 2 with no chance to play in their own Leinster championship!

They have a chance if they win tier 2 next year they play Leinster championship the year after and have a home preliminary quarter final.

FCIM

The restructured championship - think the GAA have a lot of work to do here. First, the provincial finals are going to effectively be replays of matches a few weeks previous. This year where Cork played Waterford in the All Ireland semi having played them in the Munster championship was unusual and came a good while after they had already played. Now the norm will be for teams to meet again in a provincial final and they could well have met a week/fortnight ago. Quarter finals should avoid this problem but semis may not. There's also potential for dead rubbers in the group matches. Offaly, without disrespect, are likely to be dead and buried before the final round of matches and could be playing a team which is already in the provincial final, looking ahead and unlikely to risk their starting 15 in a meaningless tie. Be interesting to see how the GAA manages that.

Under 21 - this has been needed for years. The semi finals will now be competitive, Galway get more matches and the Ulster teams may get more competitive hurling earlier on if they can avoid the big guns like Kilkenny, Galway and Wexford.

Minor - again this may serve Antrim and other northern counties well. Competitive hurling is what helps teams develop and again if they manage to miss the big guns in the first rounds this could help.

Extra time (additional) - this is welcome particularly as burn out is such an issue.

Free taking competition - this needs to be managed accordingly. I'm not a fan of deciding matches on one skill alone but players in specialised positions who don't typically take frees shouldn't be forced into this position as it could end up being heartbreaking for say an exceptional full back with no or limited free taking experience who makes a hames of a free and costs his side the game. Has potential to backfire and could be replaced with the team who either scored more goals or the one with more overall scores going through similar to rugby awarding try scoring after it's own penalty shootout debacle.

Short kick outs in football - I have less than zero interest in football so I won't comment on this.

An aside to the new championship could be with season tickets. The hurling season ticket could be slightly revamped to include the four guaranteed championship games. Would mean a rise in cost but would be very welcome particularly if they included the "can attend any match" provision which is in place for the league (from a selfish viewpoint, there's already talk of Waterford playing at Nowlan Park whilst they work on Walsh Park).

Bonniedog

Don't really see the point in changing the hurling structure. It has worked well enough and gives "weaker" teams a chance to come through the Leinster round robin. If you don't do that then really there is no grounds for complaint. if you do then you get a crack against one of the big guns. GAA people are obsessed with changing things for no good reason!

The kick out change in football is obviously a way of getting at Dublin/ Lets call a spade a spade. Curious thing is that it you look at any team, inter county or top club, they all now employ a similar strategy to Dublin.

Didn't take a genius to realise that kicking a ball to your own player was preferable to booting it down the pitch in the hope that one of them might. Comes under rubric of intelligence. Some people won't be happy until every player on pitch is back to 1910 midfield melee for the ball.

Ropaire

The league is irrelevant now too as the championship more or less has the same structure. 1A is Munster with 5 very strong teams, 1B is Leinster with 2 or 3 strong teams and cannon fodder to practice on. We're basically running off the same competition twice so why bother having a league now?

FCIM

Ropaire wrote: »

The league is irrelevant now too as the championship more or less has the same structure. 1A is Munster with 5 very strong teams, 1B is Leinster with 2 or 3 strong teams and cannon fodder to practice on. We're basically running off the same competition twice so why bother having a league now?

1A has four Munster teams and two Leinster, 1B has one Connacht which plays in Leinster, one Munster, three Leinster and one Ulster so it's not an exact comparison but yes it does feel a little repetitive.

Davys Fits

Ropaire wrote: »

The league is irrelevant now too as the championship more or less has the same structure. 1A is Munster with 5 very strong teams, 1B is Leinster with 2 or 3 strong teams and cannon fodder to practice on. We're basically running off the same competition twice so why bother having a league now?

While I wouldnt agree with your 1a/1b comparisons, yes the whole thing is becoming league like, and what is wrong with that. More really competitive games between the top teams with some knockout games in the provinces and a back door for the tier 2 teams.

Ropaire

So why do we still need the league in its current form if it's basically a dry run for the championship with a very similar structure to the championship?
More county games over the summer will reduce the weekends where club games can be played, surely makes sense to shorten the league a bit to free up some more weekends for club?

PTH2009

What are the likely championship dates next year ???

I've heard the provincials will be over by the June bank holiday weekend

Agus

PTH2009 wrote: »

What are the likely championship dates next year ???

I've heard the provincials will be over by the June bank holiday weekend

It's explained here.

https://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2017/1001/908864-gaa-season-2018/

I do feel it improves the structure of the season a bit.

Bonniedog

If GAA is in competition with other sports, what is point of closing the senior championships in August?

marvin80

When will they do the draw for the Championship?

Be interesting to see the fixtures, venues and the dates they'll be held.

HurlingRanker

Ropaire wrote: »

How can the GAA call hurling our national game if theres now 10 counties playing it? If you want to promote the game in these counties then give kids something to aim for. Merge them into something like Connacht (without Galway), Leinster (without tier 1 counties) and Ulster regional teams and let them play in the Liam McCarthy. It's the only way they'll be competitive and it would give potential All Star players in these counties an outlet to show what they can do. This restructure is just another way of dressing up the same thing we already have to squeeze a few more quid out of it at the expense of the club's, but it will do nothing to promote the game. If anything its kicking those teams that are trying to develop by putting a glass ceiling in place that they won't ever break now. They may as well go around and collect all the hurls from non tier1 counties cos it's clear the GAA don't give 2 ****s about them at this stage. They could even sell them for firewood while they're at it, make a few more quid.

Connacht and Ulster regional teams would get hammered in the McCarthy Cup.

Connacht ex Galway would be competitive middle of the road Ring Cup side at best.
Ulster would be a tiny bit (but not much) more competitive than Antrim at best, in other words would struggle to maintain McCarthy Cup status.

Ulster have never won the Railway Cup.

Merging weaker counties doesn't increase the quality of players within those counties. Plus, they would be a logistical nightmare. Particularly Ulster.

munchkin_utd

wee bit of concrete news from todays examiner on various dates

Duffy confirmed the All-Ireland SHC final will take place on August 19 next year. The football decider is likely to happen on September 2 as Croke Park is set to accommodate part of Pope Francis’ visit to Ireland next year on the weekend of August 26.

The Allianz Leagues are in line to finish by the first weekend in April with the championship commencing at the start of May.

The new hurling structure will mean there will be only a live televised football championship draw on RTÉ on October 19. The master fixtures calendar for 2018 is set to be released at the end of November. The provinces will decide the draw for the round-robin games — each team will have one break weekend.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/hurling/special-congress-pressure-on-waterford-in-hurlings-new-era-460078.html

munchkin_utd

someone was asking earlier for the video stream, which doesn't seem to have been available live, but there's now at least some clips on you tube of the main debates
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=GAA+Special+Congress+Motions