The 2023 All Ireland Senior Football Championship (Sam Maguire Cup)

You said "smaller provincial grounds"

Not MacHale park.

Ah the defensive set up causes Mayo problems in certain grounds, but rarely in Croke Park. I would expect whoever beats Mayo will win the All Ireland

Don't worry, kildare fans are also baffled and bewildered. He came out after the Cork game in the league (hammered in newbridge) and said much the same:

Turning into a bit of a Steve Staunton appointment. Imagine davy burke (a man who has won an u20 all ireland with this group of players) was in the frame for this job

Dead rubbers are not 100% avoidable. Limerick played Wicklow in the Tailteann where Limerick had already won the group and Wicklow were already eliminated.

Clare have already been eliminated from the All-Ireland. Derry, Monaghan and Donegal are confirmed top 3. It'll be a good test of the carrot of winning the group or taking second at least for home advantage.

3 teams can still win the group. 3 teams can still be eliminated. The abacuses will be out on the final day.

Roscommon and Dublin achieved big wins at the weekend that are like a bonus point. Kildare and Sligo have to find unlikely wins or draws or lose by as least as possible to try and sneak through in third. Roscommon and Dublin will want to win the group.

Westmeath have to beat Tyrone. They then need Armagh to pickup at least a point against Galway. Galway could lose to Armagh and a Tyrone win might still see them top the group.

Clare are eliminated. Derry, Donegal and Monaghan will be playing to win the group.

15 of the 16 All-Ireland teams will be targeting a win for one reason or another in Round 3. This is what the GAA were banking on with 3 going through.

Yes,Galway are special,they don't like to be accused of using such agriculture football methods as a puke nordie defence,they do a nice Galway Shawl instead!

I was having a gawk at the Irish Independent paper there nothing but moaning about the championship format.

Spillane - 'Sold a pup'

Sweeney - 'New Championship Format Same Old Failings'

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My first thought was will those lads ever be happy?

Then I realised that the Dublin Club Championship has similar to this intercounty set up.

For example -

Senior 1 Championship football four groups of four and it works really well compared to the old structure.

'The Championship received another revamp in 2018 where the straight knock-out format was removed and replaced with a group format that contained 16 teams divided into 4 groups of four. The four teams who played in the semi-final the previous year were seeded and placed in separate groups while the other 12 teams were drawn into the remaining spots. Each team plays the 3 other teams in their group once and the teams that finish first and second within their groups qualify for the quarter-finals.'

Has a nice balance of getting teams games to improve and allows the quality to come through. It is now the same at intercounty level IMO.

Look at Westmeath OK they have not had the luck but have shown they are improving. If there was not this format where would Westmeath get the chance to take on the big guns and improve. Louth another team shown that they can take on the cream of country if they get their tactics correct.

Conversely this current format has shown up Kildare for what they are a flaky team with a manager clueless on how to correct it. Only for this format Kildare would have been viewed as a 'hard luck story' of Leinster. But the more games Kildare play the more inconsistent they are shown to be.

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The other alternative is to have a home and away league scrapping the Summer championship provincials, but the GAA is not ready for that. So IMO the current solution is the only one until cultures change. Lads like Spillane and Sweeney just come across as moaners for the sake of moaning.

I did not hear Spillane moan about the Dublin club championship group format which has suited his young fella when he played for St Judes.

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At the intercounty level lads seem to moan if three teams qualify out of four as being too easy. If two qualify out of four lads moan about how there are dead rubbers. It seems the moaners will always be heard no matter what but only when it suits.

There are 8 teams in the quarter finals. The four matches with these 8 teams work exactly like previous quarter finals.

And the term is completely nonsensical. How were Galway involved in probably the 3 purest games of attacking football in last seasons championship (Armagh, Roscommon and Kerry), if they're so defensive? Did they just forget to be defensive those days or what? Remembered it again for the Derry game and promptly forgot about it again the following day out?

You'd think, a mere 24 hours on from Mayo being involved in one of the worst championship games ever witnessed, played in perfect conditions, that it would've passed through your very consistently dense skull that teams can only play to their opposition

The main flaw within the current structure is that provincial runners-up like Clare Louth and Sligo are being seeded above Mayo, Roscommon, Tyrone and Monaghan.

If Clare were Seed 4 instead of Seed 2:

Game 1: Derry win over Donegal and Monaghan win over Clare.

Game 2: Derry win over Clare and Monaghan win over Donegal.

Game 3: Derry and Monaghan would be playing for the group win and quarter-finals. Donegal and Clare would be playing for the third qualifying spot.

No fixtures dates and venue confirmed for the final weekend, will they wait until after Tailtean Cup games?