The Dominance of Dublin GAA *Mod warning post#1*

Charles Babbage

"Leaving Dublin as a single team is far, far more dangerous for Gaelic games than splitting them. "

That's it. The rest is just detail.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122025408#Comment_122025408

Thing is, they are not complaining like you are. O'Rourke was on the tv after the game saying that players like McCarthy, Fenton, Kilkenny and O'Callaghan are the best to have played the game.

If you were picking an all-time greatest team now, those four along with Cluxton would be knocking the Kerry lads off the team. In a team of the last 50 years, only John O'Keefe, Jack O'Shea and Pat Spillane would make the team. The rest would be mostly Dublin.

gaffer91

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122025706#Comment_122025706

Nobody is disputing that Dublin have some great players. We've said that they have repeatedly. Whether they have great players or not has no bearing on whether Dublin are unfairly advantaged over everyone else.

In fact, some of the reasons Dublin can field such great players is because of their unique unfair advantages- for instance, Dublin's population advantage gives them with a higher absolute number of top-tier players within the county. The Games Development funding that Dublin alone were favoured in helped to improve those players as they grew up, in a way that would not have been possible in other counties. Their ongoing funding advantage that Dublin have over everyone else helps to maintain them at the top of their game. And so on.

RoyalCelt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122024666#Comment_122024666

Good. The GAA deserves to suffer for being so biased towards the most dominant team in Leinster. I hope the gap grows dramatically. Trying harder to just close the gap a little plays into their hands. I hope Dublin win 30 Leinster's in a row until they eventually move Dublin out or just cease the competition.

Galway don't compete in Connaught hurling so there is precedent.

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122025395#Comment_122025395

My solution would be to take Dublin out of Leinster.

As regards 'unfair advantages' - that exists throughout the game.

If you start targetting Dublin then where do you stop.

Should Leitrim population 35,000 have to compete with Galway population 260,000?

Should Fermanagh 53'000 have to compete with Derry 280,000?

Why does this only apply to Dublin.

The all-Ireland is competitive at the latter stages and has been throughout Dublins period of dominance. Of their all Ireland final wins, most of them were one score games and two were drawn.

If Kerry, Derry, Galway, Mayo or Tyrone come up against Dublin in a semi final or final, I'd expect it to be a decent contest.

I still dont buy for one minute that a split is going to be easy. For example, who are the coaching panels - if the clubs dont want it in the first place.

Why not join Meath and Kildare together - that would be just as 'easy' as what you are suggesting. Sure just pick the best of the two panels.

Because its those counties that have the problem here, not Dublin.

By all means, financially even things up - but being honest, I dont think the Meath county football team is short of resources.

Sure take Dublin out of Croke Park. Make them play in Navan. But Meath were offerred that and didnt take it.

tritium

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122025383#Comment_122025383

we can absolutely say that if we’re Kerry fans looking to protect our place on the roll of honour- the rest of us not so much

telling you’re focusing on populations again when you’re offered a solution that levels out everything else but does the same for your team. The one natural advantage that’s always existed for Dublin, the one that rarely made much difference. The one that is utterly offset by the issues Dublin faces that were so eloquently detailed by other posters and which you utterly failed to address and then tried to spoof your way through. Maybe you’d be up for restricting access time to pitches for other teams when you’re trying to fix football… will you hell

tritium

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122025395#Comment_122025395

Stadiums can be shared? Isn’t a big part of your issue the sharing of one particular stadium at the behest of other teams in Leinster?

you really couldn’t make this tripe up….

And yet when a solution is offered that addresses the issues you don’t want to know because your beloved Kerry would also see their unfair advantages cut back

tritium

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122025490#Comment_122025490

How’s that working out in hurling

Particularly dark humour when a particular poster in the early days of this thread was predicting a hurling Armageddon due to Dublin.

tritium

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122025408#Comment_122025408

so how would that make them competitive against say Kerry, with the long list of long standing unfair advantages Kerry benefit from

the back door gives us a glimpse of where these teams are at. Kerry putting 7 goals past Kildare a few years back seems to tell us Dublin might not be the problem

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gaffer91

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122026139#Comment_122026139

That solution has already been discussed here and rejected unfortunately- it does nothing to address Dublin's unfair advantages in population, funding and playing at home. The damage from these unfair advantages stretches far beyond Leinster (although the biggest impact is felt there).

The issue is the scale, nature, combination and duration of these advantages. Yes, there are population differences between other counties but the gaps in absolute numbers for Dublin dwarf everyone else- For instance, the gap between Dublin and Cork is larger than the gap between Cork and Leitrim. So Dublin is such a statistical outlier, so many standard deviations away from the average that the GAA needs to take special measures for their unique circumstances. So the gaps between the counties you mentioned are negligible when compared with Dublin.

Same for funding- there are differences between counties, but nothing on the scale of the differences that Dublin has. And Meath are absolutely short on resources when compared to Dublin, as all counties are. Even though the All-Ireland is more competitive than Leinster, it's still not a fair competition, the advantages for Dublin exist there too and harm all counties. It's not success that is the problem- it's success that comes from an unfairly advantaged position, as Dublin's has.

Voluntary amalgamations can be offered but Dublin should be split on a mandatory basis- it's too dangerous for the future of Gaelic games not to do it.

gaffer91

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122026386#Comment_122026386

I'm focused on addressing the catastrophic unfairness that exists in Gaelic games that comes from Dublin's unfair advantages. Only a split of Dublin will do this. Yes, other reforms can and should be considered but everything else pales in comparison with the urgency of splitting Dublin to help the GAA. I'm glad you accept that population is a natural advantage. But unfortunately there is nothing that offsets the population advantage in Dublin's case- they just have additional unfair advantage after additional unfair advantage piled on top.

gaffer91

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122026414#Comment_122026414

Well Dublin divisional sides would still have to play some games at home. No, they shouldn't play essentially every single game at home, as Dublin do currently, including finals and semi-finals, but there would be some. I'd like things to be fair for all teams. And I love all counties, I want to see a level playing-field, and the best way to do this is by splitting Dublin. Your proposals that involve pointless tinkering with Provincial competitions, which should be abolished anyway and are only a part of inter-county competitions, do nothing to address Dublin's unfair advantages.

gaffer91

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122026457#Comment_122026457

Dublin alone are uniquely unfairly advantaged, as discussed. No other county is. While there are discrepancies in say population and funding between other counties, these utterly pale in comparison with Dublin's differences- that's why Dublin alone should be split. The fact you have to reference a game from 9 years ago shows how utterly bereft of arguments you are. But losses, even hammerings, are not an issue as long as they come fairly. This is true for all counties except for Dublin. In Dublin's case, when they win currently, they've won unfairly. When they do occassionally lose, they were still unfairly advantaged, they just didn't take full advantage of it. This is one of the reasons why splitting Dublin will help Dublin- they can finally take some real pride in their wins, unlike at present.

gaffer91

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122026535#Comment_122026535

There has been a marked improvement in the Dublin hurlers, no doubt about it. But just because a team doesn't win every year doesn't mean they aren't unfairly advantaged (this holds true for the footballers as well). For instance if a team started in the Premier League with a 10-point advantage every year, but don't win, they are still unfairly advantaged. Similarly, Dublin start with insane advantages in population, funding and playing at home. Even when they don't win, they remain unfairly advantaged.

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gaffer91

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122026804#Comment_122026804

Improvement from before the overfunding really started in earnest in the mid-2000s. Yes they always had a population advantage in Dublin but that was only grounds for a two way split. It's only since the funding blew up that a 4+ way split really became necessary. But as above, even a team doesn't win every year, it doesn't mean they aren't unfairly advantaged. For instance, Dublin were unfairly advantaged population wise in the late 1990s, even though they weren't winning much then.

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gaffer91

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122026848#Comment_122026848

They play other sports outside the capital too, that's not unique to Dublin. A 4+ way split is indeed necessary now, Dublin's unfair advantages have just been allowed to persist for too long. It's not just population, it's also funding, playing at home etc. The combination of advantages Dublin enjoys are probably unique in sport.

How do you propose dealing with Dublin's unfair advantages if not by splitting them?

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Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122026931#Comment_122026931

Who cares about China and India in soccer? They are not the subject of this discussion, stop trying to derail it.

What is your solution for the dominance of Dublin? A DUP style, "Dublin says NO" is not enough, what do you propose?

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gaffer91

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122026931#Comment_122026931

Thanks for that anecdote. It proves absolutely nothing. There is a lot of competition from other sports outside the Capital as I said.

Can you provide some evidence for China pumping in vast swathes of money? And then compare that to other countries? China and India don't have same combination of advantages that Dublin have. If China had a bigger gap between it and the second biggest country (although India now has a larger population than China anyway) than the gap between the second biggest country and the smallest, had millions and millions more in funding than everyone else, played all their games at home etc., then we would have a situation roughly equivalent to what Dublin enjoy. But that's not the case.

gaffer91

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122026978#Comment_122026978

Are you really going to claim that Dublin aren't unfairly advantaged over every other county? That's clearly not correct. Even most Dublin supporters don't think that is true anymore.

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gaffer91

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122027013#Comment_122027013

It's unfair because Dublin alone get to play all consequential games at home, have received tens of millions from the GAA, their sponsors, the Irish government etc more than every other county in recent decades, have a playing pool that dwarfs even the second biggest county etc. There are differences between other counties, sure, but nothing of the scale that Dublin have. And then they have all these advantages in combination too. That's why I and other neutrals want Dublin to be split, for the good of the GAA (and Dublin would benefit too). If you said something like that I'd probably be happy.

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tritium

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122026741#Comment_122026741

thank you for finally conceding that you have no interest in addressing the catastrophic unfairness that has existed for far longer due to the unfair advantages of you own beloved Kerry. To be fair I suspect most of us realised what your agenda was even when you were hiding away your allegiances earlier in the thread but there’s a certain integrity to having it all on the table.

I don’t think even the Kerry county board, who, as noted throughout this thread, have enjoyed decade upon decade of unfair advantages, have ever come up with the idea of gerrymandering their way to an all Ireland. You must be very proud of your innovation….

gaffer91

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122027068#Comment_122027068

There are differences between counties other than Dublin, that's true, but nothing of the scale, nature, combination and duration of advantages that Dublin enjoy. All other differences pale in comparison. And they have them in combination. The stadium has to be situated somewhere, that's true, but Dublin play all their home league games too as well, and there is no reasons some semi-finals couldn't move to Cork/Limerick etc especially when the capacity is no longer needed as interest continues to decline.It's not about success alone, it's success in Dublin's case that has come off of a grossly unfair platform. So I wouldn't split Limerick or anyone else, just Dublin.