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

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

Presume tongue in cheek, but very unlikely Dublin will see Kildare again this year and Id expect them to account for them even more comfortably.

Id fancy Dublin to top this group now, they should give Sligo a good trimming l, whereas Roscommon will probably be happy enough to get a win (caveated depending on which version of Kildare turn up, the useless one or the quite good team, the quite good team could make things very tricky for the rossies).

No I think there are 12 teams in the 'quarter finals'

From https://www.gaa.ie/football/news/2023-all-ireland-sfc-format-explained/

"Twelve counties will advance to the All-Ireland SFC knockout stages"

The way it seems to go is that 12 teams qualify out of all these mini leagues but some are less important than others and so have to play a "preliminary quarter final" to join the anointed ones in the real quarter finals. It's daft - who else runs a competition like this in the world?

Anyways, best ignored for the moment and when we get to the semis, time to take notice!

Group winners on current form and direct to quarter-finals: Mayo, Galway, Dublin and Derry.

Runners-up on current form: Kerry, Tyrone, Roscommon and Monaghan.

Third place on current form: Cork, Armagh, Kildare and Donegal.

Preliminary quarter-finals:

Kerry v Armagh/Kildare/Donegal in Killarney.

Tyrone v Cork/Kildare/Donegal in Omagh.

Roscommon v Cork/Armagh/Donegal in Roscommon.

Monaghan v Cork/Armagh/Kildare in Clones.

Is there a rule that Kerry can't meet Cork again because they were in the same group? Kerry lucky there.

You would think that Kerry would take any of those three listed handy enough. And it might be an advantage for Kerry to get more match practice and more 'tuned in'. After the usual Munster cake walk. More games for Kerry means more improvement.

Tyrone v Cork could be interesting depending on which Cork turn up, Tyrone v Donegal - familiarity breeds contempt - Tyrone v Kildare - unless Glen Ryan has a master plan of making teams underestimate them - Tyrone facing Kildare is as good as a bye into the QF for the Red Hand County.

The Rossies v any of those three could be an tricky enough even with home advantage

Monaghan - probably wouldn't want Armagh - but would take the other two I think.

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I think this Prelim QF's is a good idea gets teams more games - without the option of a full on 'home and away' league. They could think of catchier name for the 'Preliminary QF's' though

What about 'An cúldoras' / the backdoor - or 'the gate for 8'?

Well it does chime with the GAA modern line on inclusivity. If this format does remain for a few years it will be interesting to see how many of these second chance teams push on to the business end.

armagh for example will be in a preliminary qf having lost 3 games in this year's championship.

But sure those anomalies happen in all sports. `in italia 90 in the soccer Ireland did not win one game in normal time and reached the quarter finals.

On the other end of the extreme in a GAA sense 1991 - Meath and Dublin were arguably the two best teams in the country but happened to be in the same provincial knockout championship. 1991 was the first time there was an open draw in Munster and Leinster since 1974. Dublin played four games of the preliminary round v Meath and were knocked out first round. Could people honestly say that the best two teams contested the AI football final in 1991?

It was just the vagaries of the way the competition was set up that allowed it. Roscommon for example had a nice route in a weak Connacht to the AI SF in 1991.

I think the unique problem that football has is you get this phoney war of the provincials and then a phoney war of the groups. It just seems to take so long to get to the real knockouts.

That's true this year, but I guess when designing a structure you need to take into account all possibilities inc best and worst case scenario. You can't rely on 'hope'. I think the couple of groups decided after 2 games in the two years of the super 8s made the GAA ultra cautious to avoid that happening again.

What people want is the excitement of knockout AND more games. But unfortunately you can't have both.

I can't think of a system that would get both anyway. And I suspect a lot smarter minds than the likes of me have really tried, and this is the compromise situation. I think it is OK.

But to me the provincial system is the major thing stopping any real progress and change. Until that goes, it really limits any proposed system. And it almost makes it impossible

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Linesmen and refs working out where they can get the best value feed in a carvery? 'There is one in Athlone that is great....half a cow they give ya'