The split season

Couldn't agree more. I strongly feel the league goes on far too long. Everyone loses interest near the end, players , management, supporters.

Oh, come on. Do I really have to spell things out for you to this degree?

The other poster said Spillane and Cahill et al wouldn't know about the likes of Carlow football or Laois hurling. And he was right. But as you point out, not many outside a county itself would be fully familiar with that county's championships anyway. In fairness, it was too harsh a stick to beat them with.

But the point is that you misinterpreted this as the other poster saying that Spillane and Cahill know nothing about clubs at all. That's where you were wrong, and where you remain wrong.

If there's anything that sums up the ludicrousness of this condensed season its seeing 2 of the best u20 hurlers in the country named on the bench for an all Ireland final ( granted one of them is carrying an injury).

I don't blame managers or players BTW, its the way the gaa just see these competitions as an inconvenience and once they can say all competitions were played off on time that's more important than young lads unable to take a full part in the biggest game of their career to date.

Its total madness and infuriating.

Rabbite started the game, Niland has always been injury phrone.

He'd an hamstring operation last year before he was even in the Senior panel.

You don't think there was anything wrong with this scenario?

Provincial Final Late November/ December

All Ireland semi final early or mid February

Final middle of March

Playing 3 games over the course of 13 or 14 weeks was madness when you reflect on it.

it worked for years and years… i see where your coming from.. 2/3wks is plenty between games… but it was an enjoyable day out.. like i said i was there several times…

I spent many a St. Patrick's Day in Croke Park myself for the club finals. I may well have been sitting close to you on at least one occasion. You might even be the person who spilled a bottle of orange all over me one year! 😀

And yes, it was always an enjoyable day out. But I don't think we can say "it worked", from the point of view of the way to run a championship, or preparing a club team for probably its biggest match ever.

I firmly believe the GAA will ultimately see the error of their ways and push out championship to give it time breathe. Plus don't get me started on inequality with hurling championship and specifically the 4th best team in munster. I understand the whole split season for club etc. but if this continues as is, you're going to see a big fall off of interest with the casual Gaa fan. I think the top brass underestimate the damage the profile of the sport will endure if this continues. In years to come we'll be looking back and wondering why there was a decline of interest!

Yeah that's because if your in an All Ireland final you don't care if it's Xmas Day, Patrick's Day or middle of the summer, having a 3 month gap between a provincial final and All Ireland final was insanity when you reflect on it.

Indo Sport podcast recently replayed an interview with David Gillick they did last year. They were on the topic of the growing interest in athletics and the larger championships. This is what Gillick had to say:

"I really saw that in Munich in 2022. That was the first time that suddenly when I came back everyone was talking about athletics and there's a number of things in that, one, the time zone. So like people are turning on at an hour that suits, so everybody's watching it. I also think there was a shift in terms of the Irish sport calendar. So there wasn't a whole lot of GAA in August and I think the only show in town became athletics and I think that kind of happened again last year."

Nice of the GAA to step aside and leave what used to be the most important sporting and cultural aspect of the Irish summer to others.

The only way back to a mixed season is to go rugby style and have intercounty players have clubs in name only the way rugby still pretends pro players still have AIL clubs.

There is no other way back.

It is comparable though because it has been proven that players can't mix in and out of intercounty and club when the intercounty game is up to 12 to 15 games like it is now.

It's the same problem rugby had when the pro game started to expand.

A proper integrated Feb to October Calender would achive this with club and inter county windows. Crucially with real sporting consequences for counties who do not make inter county players avaialbe for club championship windows. The current system givs certainty to current players but has a high risk of losing out somewhat on the next generation due to the reduced visiblity of the elite level.

At the end of the day an Intercounty football team can expect to play max 15 games and similar for a club team. There are loads of weekends to fit it all in with just a bit of planning. The old system failed becuase county boards becoame subserviant to the IC managment. A minimla amount of governance would stop that