Changes in the GAA - super thread

'There will be no Allianz Hurling League quarter-finals in 2022.

The GAA’s master fixture plan for next year, seen by the Irish Examiner, does not include hurling league quarter-finals, the first time since 2013 the GAA has opted against quarter-finals in the hurling league.

No quarter-finals were played in 2020 because of the shutdown in GAA activity in March of last year, but they had been part of last season's initial fixture plan before it was ripped to shreds by the onset of Covid.

The round-robin section of the hurling league concludes on the weekend of March 19/20, with the semi-finals and final taking place over the following two weekends, March 26/27 and April 2/3.

The Allianz Football League final is also pencilled in for April 2/3, one weekend after the conclusion of the round-robin phase.

The provincial championships throw-in on the weekend of April 16/17, with the four provincial football finals fixed for May 28/29. The two provincial hurling finals are down for the following weekend, June 4/5.

The All-Ireland hurling quarter and semi-finals are in the book for Saturday, June 18 and July 2/3. The All-Ireland football quarter and semi-finals, meanwhile, go ahead on June 25/26 and July 9/10.

As has already been documented, the All-Ireland hurling and football finals will be played on July 17 and July 24.'

Another task force has been setup for football structures

This could end up being Option 2 without penalizing the Div 1 teams

I agree

What we learned from the Proposal A and Proposal B debates was the the provincials are still important and need to remain relevant to the championship and penalising Div 1 teams for being Div 1 teams is not a good idea.

The McGuiness plan keeps the provincials relevant and does not penalise any Div 1 teams.

I did a hypothetical championship based on it a few posts up and it looks decent.

The problem with the provincials in football is that if they are not part of the Championship them they become nothing other than pre-season events, no better than the FBD, McKenna cup etc.

And equally they have no place in being a major the determinate they are today of how a team gets into a All Ireland Series of the championship.

So they need to remain relevant in some shape or form.

And they are not totally without merit, no one was complaining about Leinster before Dublin became dominant, no one was complaining about Munster when Cork were going to to toe with Kerry in the mid 2000s. Connaught has always swung between being a two team and a three team province and Ulster is what we all know it is.

Proposals that give some sort of reward for winning the provincials (or for allowing a place in lieu of winning it) will go much further than Proposal B did.

Who's bright idea was it to schedule the All Ireland Club Finals the same weekends as National league fixtures, return of the Paddys Day finals would of been great but county management would lose access to a few players for most of the league campaign

Al Club Hurling semi finals taking place weekend of 22/23 Jan with the AI Club Football semis taking place the following weekend which is also the start of the NFL

Can see maybe some league games been moved around esp if a counties club/clubs are involved in the finals

Provincial championships do NOT need to stay relevant.

It doesn't matter if no one was complaining about the Leinster Championship before Dublin became dominant. They are dominant now, that is the problem.

There were plenty complaining about the Munster Championship when Cork was going toe-to-toe with Kerry in the mid-2000s, in that both counties had an easy run. Moreover, similar to the Leinster situation, the mid-2000s are over.

Ulster is what we know it is, a province that usually only 2 counties can win.

I'll give you Connacht for argument's sake, but it's usually a poor championship.

Basically, just because the provincial system has been around for decades, it doesn't mean that it should be kept.

Tell that to the people who run them

So apparently there are two new proposals, one called Red, the other Green

Red is a bit like Proposal B last year but this time the provincial winners get and runners up get bonus points in the league for winning and getting to the final.

Green would be like when have right now, NFL, then provincials then some sort of Sam McGuire and Tommy Murphy Coup V2.0 competition

How that would be configured we don't know, the article below is light on details, but I'm sure more will start to come out in the coming weeks

Most sports organisations will also have their own data analysts on top of using data providers... No?

According to the job description, one of the key responsibilities in that role is "Managing relationships with external data and analytics partners"

jjw8rrktwmhi1z5ujcss.pdf (gaa.ie)

FWIW, I work in data analytics for a large pharma company and we rarely use external providers; any that we have used have proven to be fairly poor tbh.

Depressing if these are the proposals, but better than the present system, anything is. The idea of giving bonus pts to the prov finalists would be fine in theory if the prov cships were equal but of course they are not. In Connacht, with a favourable draw Sligo and Leitirm could reach the final after one game, there isn't a hope that a similar level team could so in Leinster, and to do so in Ulster would be very difficult too

Here is what 2019 might have looked under the Green proposal for the Sam McGuire - everyone not in this list are in the secondary competition.

Provincial winners

• Roscommon
• Dublin
• Kerry
• Dongeal

Runners up

• Galway
• Meath
• Cork
• Cavan

So the groups would look something like

Group A

1. Roscommon
2. Meath
3. Mayo (1st in league)
4. Kildare (12th in league)

Group B

1. Dublin
2. Galway
3. Tyrone (3rd in League)
4. Armagh (13th in league)

Group C

1. Kerry
2. Cavan
3. Monaghan (6th in league)
4. Clare (14th in league)

Group D

1. Donegal
2. Cork
3. Fermanagh (11th in league)
4. Tipp (16th in league - not sure if relegated teams get in before promoted teams)

That looks decent enough, they would be a good scramble to come 2nd in all 4 groups, but there is plenty of leeway too because even 3rd in the group gives you a crack at the quarter final.

To me it's far better than Proposal B where even 6th in the league was losing out to a Div 4 team.