The split season

I find it interesting that the split season zealots don't seem to be able to make an argument without resorting to personally abusing those who disagree with them.

Can you come up with a tangible plan to facilitate both the club scene and the inter-county season where there’s no competition between both for players that’s better than the split season?

Because I’ve yet to see one from you.

Or from anyone else who’s against the split season for the matter who’s been whinging about the split season for the last few years.

As for your nostalgia, I think it’s worth reminding you that in the past, there was only 3 games between mid July and mid September most years in either code. If we’re talking about promoting a sport, having three games over the guts of 2 months doesn’t really scream promotion.

The fact your idea is getting repeatedly rejected by the GAA public does suggest you simply don't get it.

You seem to think that it's more important for 30 inter county players to play 1 game on TV in August or September than for 10s of thousands of players to play meaningful games for their clubs in the summer months. What good is all this "promotion" if players quit from frustration at the lopsided playing calendar? That was the entire motivation for the split season.

You cite no evidence that dropping September finals is affecting the game, even after they're gone almost a decade, promising that we'll see it in decades to come. You're basically saying "ignore what you're seeing with your own eyes, and believe my theories instead"

Others are already explaining it to you, but by your own admission, you don't even understand what you're being asked to understand, never mind actually understand the substantive issue itself.

And interesting that you're doubling down on the abuse, by using that "eejitry" word again.

In terms of promotion for the game senior inter-county is a lot more important than senior club for the simple fact that much more people across the island are interested in going to senior inter-county matches and much more are interested on watching it on the telly.

But you're telling the public they're wrong?

How many people attend the club finals? How many watch the club finals on the telly?

Other major sports are well able to manage to integrate the playing of different competitions across the same time window. But the GAA apparently can't do it. Why?

What's a meaningful game?

As far as the public are concerned, inter-county is far more meaningful.

You're complaining about non-existent "abuse" while being personally abusive. Irony alert?

The fact that the gaa is off the national airwaves and out of sight for casual gaa followers can't be good. Of course club games are extensively covered in the local media but the national media is a gaa wasteland from August till the following January.

The likes of David Clifford, Tony Kelly , datragh fitzgibbon are out of sight, out of mind this time of the year. Kids can watch Premier league and champions league most night of the week in contrast

People saying it's not media driven and then talking about how the GAA is out of the media from August to January are missing a fair bit of irony. Every sport has it's off season ffs bar soccer one could argue and the last thing anyone wants is for the GAA to be more like soccer.

The NFL is the most financially robust sport int he world and they entirely shut down for a month after the superbowl, there will be a but of hype between the combine and draft and then nothing for another few months until the pre-season. I personally don't care one bit if GAA isn't rammed down the casual fans throat from August to January. I think some folks are swallowing the line that there is some kind of existential threat and if some kid watches the Champions league on a wednesday night in November then god help us we won't have a sinner through the gates for league matches the following year. It's complete nonsense.

And nor do I understand how you're interpreting my comment there as "personally abusive". I was merely referring back to what you'd said yourself:

I'm not sure what exactly I'm supposed to be "understanding"

In 2006 the GAA moved the dates of the All-Ireland finals to avoid clashing with An Corn Ryder. So clearly the GAA thought then that they wanted the field to themselves, as it were. And this universally acknowledged as being a sensible move.

The Olympics in 2028 have been moved forward to avoid clashing with the NFL's pre-season (now that seems over the top to me - the Olympics shouldn't be moved to accommodate non-competitive games of sumo on plastic grass).

The France-Ireland rugby game was moved forward a night to avoid clashing with the Winter Olympics opening ceremony, taking place in another country.

You can debate the rights and wrongs of those two moves, but it demonstrates that governing bodies in other sports are keenly aware of clashes and how they can affect media coverage for their showpiece events.

Yet last year we had the All-Ireland hurling final taking place at the same time as the finale of the British Open golf, taking place on the same island. The previous year we had the football final taking place on the opening weekeend of the Olympics.

And this year the hurling final is on the same day as the finale of the British Open once again, and the World Cup final?

Why?

The great sportswriter Con Houlihan wrote that "the night of the All-Ireland football final is the first night of winter". That was when it was on the third or fourth Sunday of September. The first night of winter should not be July 26th.

A common theme in posts on this topic is the apparent "need" to get rid of the provincial championships in favour of a rationalised, numerically perfect system.

The provincial championships are apparently old hat, say the MODERNISERS, the ALL CHAINJ IS GOOD people.

Yet three of the four provincial football finals last year were titanic occasions. Galway beating Mayo by one point at Castlebar, yet another epic Ulster final - the greatest day out in the GAA - and Louth winning Leinster for the first time since 1957.

If you were starting the GAA now, you would not proceed on the basis of provinces - because it's a haphazard and inherently unequal system - but when something is there for 138 years, you don't simply abolish it, because that tradition and that weight of meaning is too strong. These things have VALUE.

But we abolished the century of the weight of meaning attached to September All-Irelands and replaced it with faceless utilitarianism.

We, or should I say John Horan, with his "legacy" project, got rid of the "minnows" from the football championship ("you don't need to be involved beyond April 6th, Leitrim") and we offered them the all singing, all dancing Talcum Powder Cup instead.

Now inter-county football might as well not exist in at least 10-12 counties and the showpiece GAA offering on the telly on the second last Sunday in June is an "exceedingly attractive double header" of Kildare v Fermanagh and Westmeath v Sligo or some such in front of about 3k in Croke Park with the cameras put on the Cusack Stand side to try and pretend there's a crowd there.

But I suppose that's "progress".

It's stupid because by having finals in July you guarantee major clashes with other sports almost every year whereas in August and September you guaranteed largely uninterrupted mass publicity for the GAA and timeless occasions which evoked a lineage to over 100 years ago of the biggest matches taking place on the same days at the same time each year. I mean should we move St. Patrick's Day to May? Should we move Christmas to October? There's no inherent reason the dates of St. Patrick's Day or Christmas could not be moved, but yet we don't do it? Because we understand that certain festivals or feast days have their time and place in the year.

All this happened because of the unfettered drive towards elitism and the refusal of clubs to stand up to the power of inter-county managers. Unfettered elitism is also why we have the turkey of the Tallaght Hospital Cup and why the NFL system of 1A/1B/2A/2B (which promoted wide scale competitiveness by exposing more counties to a better standard of football on a regular basis) was abolished in favour of the current D1/D2/D3/D4 system which consigns vast swathes of football counties to permanent irrelevance or yo-yo status.

And there are serious problems in hurling too despite the apparent success of the Munster Premier League. It's like all inter-county hurling outside those current four gilded counties of Cork, Tipp, Limerick and Clare has ceased to matter. The Leinster round robin is a crock because there isn't nearly enough bitter border rivalry while Waterford can't compete in Munster. As for the rest, forget it. Offaly have had brilliant underage teams for the last few years but the structural barriers for them to compete are now so high that they'll likely remain in the doldrums. Antrim and Laois, forget it.

Now the clubs have "taken power back" and thrown the entire baby out with the bathwater.

@Arseboxing -

Some counties now have six round robin fixtures in their club championships. This is ridiculous. This is not proper championship. These round robin complexes are how we have Ballygunner type situations aplenty,

Have read through a lot of bumpf from you above and could reply on any number of points, but this one near the end of it all is particular proof that you're not properly clued in.

There were five games for each team in the round-robin stage of the Waterford SHC last year all right, but for most of the years of Ballygunner's dominance, there were only two matches in the group stage (the championship in those years being run on the basis of four groups for three, rather than two groups of six).

To claim that extensive round-robins are the cause of Ballygunner-type situations hardly stacks up, when even the Ballygunner situation itself didn't arise from them in the first place.

The Waterford SHC has used a variety of formats over the years with formats each year ranging from five group games to three to two.

Ballygunner's dominance stems from a few factors. i) Population, ii) economic dominance, iii) youth organisation, iv) formats and v) the drive towards elitism at senior level.

iv) and v) play into the hands of i), ii) and iii).

We've seen lots of other similar scenarios around the country, Rosenborg of old type situations where one team dominates a county championship to such an extent that most others essentially stop trying. Kilcoo in Down, Na Piarsaigh in Limerick, Ballyhale in Kilkenny, Portlaoise in Laois nand now Portarlington, Tullamore in Offaly, Portumna and later St. Thomas in Galway hurling, Corofin in Galway football, Scotstown in Monaghan, Crossmaglen in Armagh, and we now have the super club phenomenon in Dublin where Crokes, Boden, Na Fianna and Cuala are hoovering up every senior title in both football and hurling.

What can be said of club round robins is that they aren't of big interest to paying customers, they dilute the cut throat nature of a championship, and mainly exist to give players more games. But that's what leagues are supposed to be for.

why should 50 players dictate how and when the other 500 should play , its the best way forward , when it was the old way it was a total disaster , and it was constantly dictated by the intercounty manager , starting county championships in september and october was a disaster on the regular club player all to make way for a few ,

bandwagon supporters are nothing to the gaa, look at the league attendances and compare them to the championship , i would rather have 8,000 supporters all year than 42 ,000 fairweather supporters , its the clubs and the 8,000 supporters that make the gaa **** the fair weather supporters