Crap county's Day in the sun ?

Yavvy

What do you guys think of this report from Gaa.ie ?
Seems like a good Idea except for one thing.
It will take tickets away from the headline matches.
Everyone knows once you get to all Ireland semi or if Dublin are playing
There are no tickets to spare all 79,000 seats are needed and shouldnt be waisted on lesser counties playing badly.

Incoming GAA president Sean Kelly has pledged to press ahead with plans to set up a second-tier All-Ireland championship, to ensure that weaker counties get games at Croke Park.

If implemented, weaker counties would play in a competition that would effectively be the old All-Ireland 'B' Championship in another guise. However, the somewhat derogatory name would be dropped and changed to something like the All-Ireland Shield and crucially, the deciders would be played as curtain raisers to the normal All-Ireland finals in September.

"Every player in the Association should aspire to play in Croke Park but unfortunately that's not realistic under the current structures," said Kelly. "By staging a secondary competition and running it alongside the latter stages of the All-Ireland championships, we would ensure that all players had an equal opportunity to be part of the glamour occasion at Croke Park."

The idea has already attracted a lot of support in Tipperary, whose footballers could be one of the counties to benefit most from the idea. If adopted, minor matches would lose their status as traditional curtain raisers on championship match-days, but seeing as successful minor teams tend to come from the prominent counties anyway, the loss is not so great when balanced against the potential gains in counties where the games are not as strong.

Wicklow boss John O'Leary has also welcomed the move, as one who has tasted the glory and is now seeing the other side of the coin with a weaker county. He believes that a tradition of failure creates a negative mindset in players and is a very difficult cycle to break.

"The vast majority of players will never get to play in the new Croke Park unless the system changes. That's wrong because it's their stadium as much as lads from Dublin, Galway and Kerry," he said.

Koo

Translation: The GAA want to milk as much money as possible out of the people of the country.

Waylander

I agree with the concept but I do not think the matches should be curtain raisers for the champioship matches. As alany said it would make getting tickets near impossible. For the Dublin v Armagh match last year I had to queue for 4 hours in the local club for one ticket, this would be made alot worse if there was another match on before it.

Yavvy

Waylander in the future if you need tickets drop me an email,
I had 2 spare tickets for the Armagh game last year..

I dont belive in selling to scalpers and it took me a while to find a real dubs supporter to take them.

Anywho..Its seems we are all in agreement that the minors should stay as the curtain raiser for bigh matches..besides I loce to wath the minors play. thay may not ahve the orginisation or strenght but they have the skills thats for sure and they are usually very entertaining

Waylander

Cheers Alany, believe or not the day before the match I got 5 tickets and struggled to use them all. I haven't not got ticket yet but thanks for the offer. Likewise If you are stuck send me a pm and I will see what I can do for you.

Yavvy

its a deal.. Can you get me some cocain too ?

ironbrew

*Gasp**Gasp* isnt that illegal?

Waylander

Nah, its legal in Dublin.

Yavvy

yeah if cocain was illeagal then so would e's and speed and hash
all if which you can but cheep on the corner of moore and grafton street

or check out www.yokesdirtcheap.ie

ahahahahah

kingconor

In reply to the original post, no i don't think they should introduce this system!
It'll just piss off the residents, and destroy the novelty of going to Croke park!!
I also hope the GAA scrap the back door system!! They won't though!

Waylander

Actually I think that back door system has totally revitalised the championship. It is a total succes, why would you want them to scrap it? Look at the likes of West Meath, Sligo and Limerick who have come on in leaps and bounds over the last two seasons. It gives the so called lesser counties additional days out, which can only be an aid to these counties improving their performances.

CHRIS GREER

As an occasional watcher of GAA- can someone with a longer-standing interest in the game please tell me why is a hurling game between (say!) Waterford and Killkenny played in Dublin??

Waylander

Only finals and semi finals would be played in Dublin, and the reason for that is capacity. Even Croke Park cannot hold all the people who want to see these matches.