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

salmocab

Splitting a county isn’t something that would just go to a vote and that would be it, it would need negotiation, funding and agreement. There isn’t a hope in hell the county board would agree to it, not that it would make it that far anyway as it’s a pipe dream. If anyone thinks that someone will propose it have it voted on then ratified they may need help. It’s not going to happen.

ShyMets

While I believe there is merit in the idea of dublin being spilt. If spits are on the agenda then so must county amalgamations. However I firmly believe that no county should be spilt or amalgamated without their express consent. It cannot come down simply by a vote of Congress

MayoAreMagic

But by the same rationale, Dublin wont be able to just do what they want to do and hold the rest of rhe country to ransom either. Im aware that turkeys wont vote for Christmas. However, if the options on the table were either split, or play in the railway cup, they might look at it differently.

All dub fans seem to do is reject every suggestion. They never make any themselves, other than stupid ones like amalgamate everyone else, so basically just leave it as it is. But that is completely unfair on everyone else. Have you any actual proper suggestions yourselves?

angel eyes 2012

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

But by the same rationale, Dublin wont be able to just do what they want to do and hold the rest of rhe country to ransom either. Im aware that turkeys wont vote for Christmas. However, if the options on the table were either split, or play in the railway cup, they might look at it differently.

All dub fans seem to do is reject every suggestion. They never make any themselves, other than just leave it as it is. But that is completely infair on everyone else. Have you any actual suggestions yourselves?

I have already suggested merging other counties and see how other fans like to have their county boundary changed e.g.combine Mayo/Galway, Meath/Kildare. Any takers.

salmocab

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

But by the same rationale, Dublin wont be able to just do what they want to do and hold the rest of rhe country to ransom either. Im aware that turkeys wont vote for Christmas. However, if the options on the table were either split, or play in the railway cup, they might look at it differently.

All dub fans seem to do is reject every suggestion. They never make any themselves, other than just leave it as it is. But that is completely infair on everyone else. Have you any actual suggestions yourselves?

Your coming up with bizarre options, split won’t happen and the railway cup is just nonsense. You’ve just given those two options as if it would end up as those two options, it won’t.
I have suggested before that a plan needs to be put in place to bring other counties along a bit. It needs to costed and funded however the modern reality is that only a few counties will ever really have a chance at winning an AI barring an odd exceptional year. The thing to do will be to identify the counties that could be strong enough to compete if they had better structures in place.
The difference between the top teams isn’t as big as people think and I suspect Dublin’s biggest advantage is that all the players can live work and train without putting in the ridiculous amount of travel that lots of other players have to do. The problem with that is it’s a societal issue and nothing that the GAA can do about that.

MayoAreMagic

angel eyes 2012 wrote: »

I have already suggested merging other counties and see how other fans like to have their county boundary changed e.g.combine Mayo/Galway, Meath/Kildare. Any takers.

Yes. Ive already outlined a combination of splitting dublin and combination of counties.
However the ones you have suggested are not really advantageous to the system as those 4 counties are already competing or are capable of competing in and around the level that we would be looking to reproduce across the board. I think you already know that but just want to suggest something that will put people on the defensive.

salmocab

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

Yes. Ive already outlined a combination of splitting dublin and combination of counties.
However the ones you have suggested are not really advantageous to the system as those 4 counties are already competing or are capable of competing in and around the level that we would be looking to reproduce across the board. I think you already know that but just want to suggest something that will put people on the defensive.

Counties being amalgamated will kill interest in those counties, people won’t be interested in bastardized counties. Player either I wouldn’t think

MayoAreMagic

salmocab wrote: »

Your coming up with bizarre options, split won’t happen and the railway cup is just nonsense. You’ve just given those two options as if it would end up as those two options, it won’t.
I have suggested before that a plan needs to be put in place to bring other counties along a bit. It needs to costed and funded however the modern reality is that only a few counties will ever really have a chance at winning an AI barring an odd exceptional year. The thing to do will be to identify the counties that could be strong enough to compete if they had better structures in place.
The difference between the top teams isn’t as big as people think and I suspect Dublin’s biggest advantage is that all the players can live work and train without putting in the ridiculous amount of travel that lots of other players have to do. The problem with that is it’s a societal issue and nothing that the GAA can do about that.

What is bizarre about it? In all reality they have openly treated and funded dublin as a province. Even dublin officials have stated dublin is more like a province while discussing the money being directed to dublin. Objectively speaking, the logical next step is to compete as one. I understand that nobody wants to see dublin in the railway cup, myself included. But if the cost is the ruination of the game at intercounty level, akin to the SPL, and dublin wont split into 2 teams, then what other option is there? The game itself is more important tham any 1 county team.

salmocab

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

What is bizarre about it? In all reality they have openly treated and funded dublin as a province. Even dublin officials have stated dublin is more like a province while discussing the money being directed to dublin. Objectively speaking, the logical next step is to compete as one. I understand that nobody wants to see dublin in the railway cup, myself included. But if the cost is the ruination of the game at intercounty level, akin to the SPL, and dublin wont split into 2 teams, then what other option is there? The game itself is more important tham any 1 county team.

You see you’ve doubled down on there being only two options.

MayoAreMagic

salmocab wrote: »

Counties being amalgamated will kill interest in those counties, people won’t be interested in bastardized counties. Player either I wouldn’t think

So your idea is grin and bear it. With lip service given to the, ultimately impossible task, of funding counties of circa 130,000 people on average, to compete regularly with a heavily funded county of over 10 times the population and zero fixed costs... Basically throw some money at them, we know it is a waste and it wont work but it might keep them quiet and let us keep creaming it...

MayoAreMagic

salmocab wrote: »

You see you’ve doubled down on there being only two options.

I havent. The amalgamations would come alongside splitting dublin. You could pick the cases that are suitable for it and offer them an option to amalgamate.

salmocab

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

So your idea is grin and bear it. With lip service given to the, ultimately impossible task, of funding counties of circa 130,000 people on average, to compete regularly with a heavily funded county of over 10 times the population and zero fixed costs... Basically throw some money at them, we know it is a waste and it wont work but it might keep them quiet and let us keep creaming it...

I see you’ve just typed a load of words and attributed them to me.

MayoAreMagic

salmocab wrote: »

I see you’ve just typed a load of words and attributed them to me.

I actually meant to quote a different post of yours, where you say thst money should be directed at the other counties. Which is basically the equivalent of the USA saying 'well give Somalia some money and we will have a war with them. We cant be fairer than that!'
It is only when you start looking at it that you realise, the two best options are in fact the railway cup or split dublin, or both.

salmocab

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

I actually meant to quote a different post of yours, where you say thst money should be directed at the other counties. Which is basically the equivalent of the USA saying 'well give Somalia some money and we will have a war with them. We cant be fairer than that!'
It is only when you start looking at it that you realise, the two best options are in fact the railway cup or split dublin, or both.

I can’t imagine any other sport in the world where the answer to these guys are very good is to make them worse rather than improve the other teams/competitors. Yes I said money should be directed elsewhere to make other counties stronger and you still aren’t happy. You’ve arrived at splitting or resurrecting a competition and forcing Dublin into it as the only options.

bruschi

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

I actually meant to quote a different post of yours, where you say thst money should be directed at the other counties. Which is basically the equivalent of the USA saying 'well give Somalia some money and we will have a war with them. We cant be fairer than that!'
It is only when you start looking at it that you realise, the two best options are in fact the railway cup or split dublin, or both.

its not the best option and is a really poor analogy.

The GAA implemented a coaching strategy for Dublin and heavily subsidised it. It has worked, clearly, but rather than make this an option for all counties, it was a closed shop for Dubin only for years. This also want some magical radical plan that Dublin came up with and went to get the money for it as if it was a best proposal gets it. It was a GAA implementation and countless other counties who had similar proposals and strategic plans were refused the funding allocation for coaches. Coaches within counties are not directly employed by the county, but by the province. So it wasnt even a case of going off on their own. The option just is not there.

But rather than splitting Dublin or cutting their funding, the GAA should be aiming to improve quality throughout, not dilute it. The strategic coaching plan that has been in Dublin for the past 15 years badly needs to be expanded to other counties. Only 5 other counties in Leinster have partial access to it currently. And thats it. It's far from a level playing field but all created directly by the GAA. Dublin work with what they get, of course they are going to look for as much as they can and improve things. But this is completely at the fault of the GAA for giving a completely over the top advantage to the team that already has all the most natural advantages already at its disposal.

MayoAreMagic

salmocab wrote: »

I can’t imagine any other sport in the world where the answer to these guys are very good is to make them worse rather than improve the other teams/competitors. Yes I said money should be directed elsewhere to make other counties stronger and you still aren’t happy. You’ve arrived at splitting or resurrecting a competition and forcing Dublin into it as the only options.

Im not making anyone worse. Im simply making 2 teams out of a de facto provincial team. That would in fact, improve the standard of players in the dublin area by exposing more of them to intercounty football.
In reality, i cant imagine any sport in the world that would have deliberately created such a mess by funding one team, who already had every advantage going, by so much more than everyone else. That simply needs rebalancing. My point is, rather than starving dublin of funds to do so, keep the lrogress going and make a 2 teams of it

MayoAreMagic

bruschi wrote: »

its not the best option and is a really poor analogy.

The GAA implemented a coaching strategy for Dublin and heavily subsidised it. It has worked, clearly, but rather than make this an option for all counties, it was a closed shop for Dubin only for years. This also want some magical radical plan that Dublin came up with and went to get the money for it as if it was a best proposal gets it. It was a GAA implementation and countless other counties who had similar proposals and strategic plans were refused the funding allocation for coaches. Coaches within counties are not directly employed by the county, but by the province. So it wasnt even a case of going off on their own. The option just is not there.

But rather than splitting Dublin or cutting their funding, the GAA should be aiming to improve quality throughout, not dilute it. The strategic coaching plan that has been in Dublin for the past 15 years badly needs to be expanded to other counties. Only 5 other counties in Leinster have partial access to it currently. And thats it. It's far from a level playing field but all created directly by the GAA. Dublin work with what they get, of course they are going to look for as much as they can and improve things. But this is completely at the fault of the GAA for giving a completely over the top advantage to the team that already has all the most natural advantages already at its disposal.

No its a good analogy, you are just shooting it down because you dont like it.
The fatal flaw with your idea is that nobody has a fraction of the resources dublin have so investment like that would be far less effective. Splitting dublin is the option that keeps the thing competitive. Dublin would have 2 very strong teams also. Just look at the amount of guys from the northside of dublin on the team. They would probably contest the next final. That alone shows you that it is the right way to go

salmocab

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

Im not making anyone worse. Im simply making 2 teams out of a de facto provincial team. That would in fact, improve the standard of players in the dublin area by exposing more of them to intercounty football.
In reality, i cant imagine any sport in the world that would have deliberately created such a mess by funding one team, who already had every advantage going, by so much more than everyone else. That simply needs rebalancing. My point is, rather than starving dublin of funds to do so, keep the lrogress going and make a 2 teams of it

Making it two counties doesn’t improve standards and would quite likely make it far less desirable to both support and indeed play for. I really don’t get what you want as it seems that so long as Dublin are split or hived off into a defunct competition you’ll be happy. Even at the expense of the game.

blanch152

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

But by the same rationale, Dublin wont be able to just do what they want to do and hold the rest of rhe country to ransom either. Im aware that turkeys wont vote for Christmas. However, if the options on the table were either split, or play in the railway cup, they might look at it differently.

All dub fans seem to do is reject every suggestion. They never make any themselves, other than stupid ones like amalgamate everyone else, so basically just leave it as it is. But that is completely unfair on everyone else. Have you any actual proper suggestions yourselves?

What complete nonsense.

The reason why a split is off the table at Congress is because the other 31 counties realise that once you move away from county boundaries, other splits and amalgamations are also on the table. You fantasise about a compulsory split of Dublin but optional amalgamations for others, a clearly unfair, unworkable proposal and treatment of a differential nature, yet no matter how many times this is pointed out to you, you keep coming back with the same point of view.

A reorganisation of county football to ensure competitiveness is possible, but it would involve splitting Kerry as well as Dublin and amalgamating many other counties. On one of these threads, I have previously suggested how this could be done. It is not just Dub fans who have rejected your ideas, but also there have been many constructive proposals based in reality from Dublin fans.

On the Railway Cup, I don't know how many times you have to be told that they don't exist anymore and haven't been played since 2016, yet you still come back and ridiculously suggest that a choice will be put on the table which would include that as an option. If you are interested in serious debate, you will take that fact into consideration, and drop the silly Railway Cup idea.

We can divide people on this subject into three.

Firstly, there are those conservatives who do not wish to see any change. Many Dublin fans fall into this category, but you should not underestimate the number of GAA people around the country who hold to the notion of the county structure and the place of Croke Park in GAA culture. Any change will meet strong resistance from this category. They are concerned primarily about the grassroots and the clubs, so your concerns about the inter-county game are falling on deaf ears. The inter-county game is supposed to fund the grassroots, and that is their main consideration. The fact that Dublin at the moment is the leading one of the 5 or 6 counties that win all the time doesn't bother them. The other 24 or 25 counties are only interested in ensuring that enough money comes in to fund the clubs.

Secondly, there are those who are concerned about the competitiveness of the inter-county game, as well as the future success of gaelic games. They know that splitting Dublin and Kerry to address the problems of Leinster and Munster are options, but that they risk alienating supporters of those counties, and losing traditional support. Similar risks attach to amalgamations, but the prospect of success for the amalgamated counties may make it more palatable than splits. However, this group also recognises that the current Dublin dominance still leaves them behind Kerry and is similar to many periods of Kerry dominance in the past, so any agenda about splitting or amalgamating is premature until the present generation of superb Dublin footballers passes on. They also know that they need to bring the rest of the GAA along with them in any change.

Thirdly, there are the bitter fans of counties who have lost out to Dublin over the last decade. Not all fans of those counties fall into this category, but those that do are characterised by a singular obsession with Dublin, rather than Gaelic games in general. People like Ewan McKenna rarely write about GAA without being able to mention Dublin. Posters like yourself rarely post about anything GAA without being able to mention Dublin. These are the saddest group of the lot and have completely unrealistic fantasies about how things are about to change. Many of them could do with going out to a few club games and falling in love with GAA again. For some of them, as their only interest is inter-county, that isn't possible, but then that means they really aren't true GAA people.

Finally, nobody has suggested amalgamating everyone else, rather that a discussion on splits has no hope of success without amalgamations also being on the table in a genuine attempt to increase competitiveness.

The key point is that any change should make it harder for any of the current Division 1 teams to win an All-Ireland, not easier. Otherwise, it is just envy and bitterness from the likes of Mayo and Kerry.

gaffer91

gaffer91 wrote: »

Dublin get millions more than every other county. Both centrally from the GAA and from their sponsorship partners. They are overfunded relative to every other county by whatever barometer you went to use- euro per head of population, euro per registered player etc.

They also have other advantages- they play all consequential games at their de facto home stadium of Croke Park, including All-Ireland finals and semi finals. They also have a massive population advantage on every other county.

gaffer91 wrote: »

They include funding, population, home stadium advantage among others.

Money: The central funding argument may hold some merit, but I've never seen a proper breakdown of this funding and what it goes towards......Just people screaming €17 million!!!! but anyway, what do you want them to do with all the extra sponsorship money? Turn it down? Split it with the rest of the county boards? What about all the other perks they and other counties receive....weren't Kepak giving the Meath players lorryloads of fillet steak in the late 90s......should thhey have been sharing with the rest of the class?
Population: How do you propose this is negated? By splitting Dublin up? Why not amalgamate other counties into super-teams and reduce the number of teams in each championship to, say, 16? Would Munster people go to see a Cork-Wexford Hybrid team take on Kerry-Waterford?

Clue: Would they fcuk

Home advantage: The other county boards have the power to change this but refuse to do so. What do you think should happen? All QF and SF games are played in Croker.....unless the Dubs are involved?

What other advantages do they have? Living/working close to their club grounds? Do you want them to have to train in a neighbouring county to try level the playing field?

There's a whole load of whinging going on but no real solutions being proposed by anyone other than "split them up". You only have to look at the opposition to merging other counties to realise how much of a non-starter this is.

harpsman

salmocab wrote: »

I can’t imagine any other sport in the world where the answer to these guys are very good is to make them worse rather than improve the other teams/competitors. Yes I said money should be directed elsewhere to make other counties stronger and you still aren’t happy. You’ve arrived at splitting or resurrecting a competition and forcing Dublin into it as the only options.

I can't imagine any other sport in the world where the governing body give the richest team 30 times more funding than most of the other teams, just because they have a big population.

I also can't imagine any other sport in the world where the richest team with the biggest population to pick from play all their important games at their home ground.

I can imagine, because its happened in every sport,including GAA, forming a second and even third or fourth team in an urban area whose population is exploding. to the best of my knowledge its even happened in Dublin where there are now 2 or more teams representing an area previously represented by one team. Its not a particularly new or profound concept.

odyssey06

harpsman wrote: »

I also can't imagine any other sport in the world where the richest team with the biggest population to pick from play all their important games at their home ground.

It's not their home ground. If it was their home ground 90% of the tickets for the All Ireland Semis and Final would go to Dublin supporters.

I can imagine, because its happened in every sport,including GAA, forming a second and even third or fourth team in an urban area whose population is exploding. to the best of my knowledge its even happened in Dublin where there are now 2 or more teams representing an area previously represented by one team. Its not a particularly new or profound concept.

Please provide example where a territorial based sport (not a club sport) compelled one of its territory based associations to split. Dublin does not represent an urban area. Dublin represents the geographic territory of the county of Dublin.

Bonniedog

You might as well be talking to them about Burkina Faso.

harpsman

harpsman wrote: »

I can imagine, because its happened in every sport,including GAA, forming a second and even third or fourth team in an urban area whose population is exploding. to the best of my knowledge its even happened in Dublin where there are now 2 or more teams representing an area previously represented by one team. Its not a particularly new or profound concept.

I'd like to see an example of this in a sport that is defined by geographical boundaries like, say, international soccer.

gormdubhgorm

blanch152 wrote: »

Thirdly, there are the bitter fans of counties who have lost out to Dublin over the last decade. Not all fans of those counties fall into this category, but those that do are characterised by a singular obsession with Dublin, rather than Gaelic games in general. People like Ewan McKenna rarely write about GAA without being able to mention Dublin. Posters like yourself rarely post about anything GAA without being able to mention Dublin. These are the saddest group of the lot and have completely unrealistic fantasies about how things are about to change. Many of them could do with going out to a few club games and falling in love with GAA again. For some of them, as their only interest is inter-county, that isn't possible, but then that means they really aren't true GAA people.

All very cogent points you put there no matter which side of the argument people are on. They cannot be refuted.

However, this point seems to be the nub of it on this thread.
The obsession with Dublin - disparaging Dublin's achievements by calling them the 'Dublin problem'
Before the final on Sunday the air was football is dead, some even said they would not watch the game because it was a foregone conclusion.

I knew it would be close game. I was really worried
Why? Because I have watched Dublin closely there has been clear dips in games that have not happened before with this Dublin team.
In both league and championship games. Lost to kerry in the league, shaky v Cork in super 8's should have conceded more goals.
Dublin had to flick the switch and play to thier optimum in a 15/20 minute period against a Mayo team who never say die on the SF.
Then of course there is the quality of the Kerry forwards against the shaky backline of Dublin - I could see big problems there. Kerry nearly got the three goals I thought they would need to beat Dublin before the game.

What will interest me is when Dublin are beaten (and I think it will be soon) and the minor/u20's do not seem to be of the same quality. If Kerry start winning and taking over where does this leave all the arguments that Dublin were the problem?
The fact is Dublin are not the problem they are/were the solution they have brought the level of gaelic football to stage that has never being seen in the history of the sport. The movement, game intelligence, athleticism and attacking flair has being copied by other counties.
Counties like Roscommon/Tipp had great teams at underage and followed this philosophy. Look at the levels of of play and standards of the Kerry minors.
Look at the standard of play of the Galway v Cork minor game on Sunday.

To me it is no coincidence that the standard of play and preparation in football has risen so dramatically since Dublin has set the bar.
The negative tactics of the constant men behind the ball of the Jim McGuinness era have fallen out of vogue because of Dublin.
Teams want to emulate the Dubs in thier style of play.
Micky Harte is now viewed as a dinosaur by some even in Tyrone. They see the styles of play other counties can produce and how far it can take them.

Even looking at the level of analysis on TSG by Tomas O'Sé do people honestly think the game would have moved on to such a high level of tactics without Dublin?
This Dublin team will have brought a young Kerry team on. A team who (as is the fashionable phrase) will have new 'learnings' from Sunday's game. Eventually Kerry will be holders of the torch again because Dublin will have pushed them to thier new levels.

All the hyperbolic, fallacious phrases like 'financial doping' will begin to look very silly indeed, and will fall from use until Dublin win again.

Since others misappropriate phrases borrowed from Soccer manager Arsene Wenger.
I feel justified in paraphrasing a soccer chant to the anti-dub brigade -

'You only whinge when we're winning'

Dr. Bre

Between 96 and 2011 dubs played most games at Croke Park , population was big but weren’t winning all Ireland’s . No calls for dubs to be split then. Now People don’t like the fact that their team not winning and even worse the big bad dubs are winning. Same people of course who thought Kerry Kilkenny dominating was great even though they are not even from Kerry or Kilkenny

Martina1991

Dr. Bre wrote:

Between 96 and 2011 dubs played most games at Croke Park , population was big but weren’t winning all Ireland’s . No calls for dubs to be split then. Now People don’t like the fact that their team not winning and even worse the big bad dubs are winning. Same people of course who thought Kerry Kilkenny dominating was great even though they are not even from Kerry or Kilkenny

I've no problem with Dublin winning when they're playing as well as they are. Even when Kerry were dominating ya couldn't help but admire the skill on display.

But between 1996 and 2011 dublin didnt have the financial inflation they have since. Its a hell of a coincidence they're looking more and more professional in their set up.

All id like to see is full transparency. From every county. How much are they getting. Where is the money coming from. What facilities do they have. Who is in their back room team. Are they getting paid.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

I didn't think Kerry or Kilkenny dominating was so great.

As for the argument that people only complain when Dublin are winning, people are hardly going to complain about something before it happened.

omega man

Dr. Bre wrote: »

Between 96 and 2011 dubs played most games at Croke Park , population was big but weren’t winning all Ireland’s . No calls for dubs to be split then. Now People don’t like the fact that their team not winning and even worse the big bad dubs are winning. Same people of course who thought Kerry Kilkenny dominating was great even though they are not even from Kerry or Kilkenny

But those Kerry and Kilkenny teams were naturally gifted with an abundance of talent whilst our lads (since 2011) are just genetically enhanced athletes doped up on cash...

harpsman

odyssey06 wrote: »

It's not their home ground. If it was their home ground 90% of the tickets for the All Ireland Semis and Final would go to Dublin supporters.



Please provide example where a territorial based sport (not a club sport) compelled one of its territory based associations to split. Dublin does not represent an urban area. Dublin represents the geographic territory of the county of Dublin.

Wow-you really are clueless, aren't you? Do Mayo get 90% of the tickets when the Connaught final is in Castlebar?

I've already given an example of a territorial based sport where territories have split/formed a second team. 2 actually-gaelic football and hurling.