2020 All Ireland SFC Pools

No waiting around from the end of the league, and we're straight into it this weekend with action in all 4 corners of the country. It should be bloody interesting this year with the reversion to the old style knockout format. The lack of a back door system should serve as a refreshing throwback to those of us who remember the pre-qualifiers era, altough the lack of crowds at the games will no doubt dampen the effect

Rules are the same as usual and are as follows;

1. Each Monday I will post up the fixtures for the coming week and by Tuesday or Wednesday I should have the league table of posters and points for the previous week just gone.

2. Latecomers will be accepted but points will be forfeited for any games missed.

3. Predictions will be accepted and valid by throw-in time of the first game of the weekend. The first game this season is Monaghan v Cavan at 1.15pm on October 31st. Any predictions for this game made after this time will not count (but any predictions made for other games not yet started will still count).

4. The points system I am using is similar to that used in the League pools. You get 2 points for predicting the winner of the game.
Should a poster predict within 2 points of the winning margin, that poster will receive 1 bonus point.
Should a poster correctly predict a draw, the poster will receive 3 points. Where a poster predicts a team to win but the result is a draw, the poster will get 1 point ONLY if the poster has predicted a winning margin of no more than 1 point.
I'll award one point if a person predicts a draw yet the result is a one point win for either side.
Needless to say, if you predict a team to win and they lose you get no points.

Note: Only the result after 70 minutes will be counted. For example, if Cavan beat Monaghan after extra time in the first game, only those who predicted a draw will get full points.

5. Bonus points will be awarded at the end of the championship for predicting the 4 provincial champions, as well as the All Ireland winners and runners up. 2 points will be awarded for each correct prediction.

6. Posters must predict provincial champions in their first post with their first round of predictions.
If a poster wishes to join after the first week has finished, they may post these predictions but a 20% penalty for each week missed will apply to the initial predictions.

7. To cut out a lot of time, if posters consistently fail to post their weekly predictions, I'll remove them from the overall tables.

8. If a poster makes two (or more) predictions for the same game week, the latest of these sets of predictions will count regardless of the score of each set.

9. Finally, with respect to the current restrictions and situation on the island, there is the distinct possibility of teams not being in a position to field, in which case the game obviously becomes null and void and no points are awarded, regardless of which county is awarded the walkover.