Eight groups, four teams each, it’s not a bad idea.
We can keep the provincial championships and have a fresh, new structure that will excite the nation. If it’s done right.
But the GPA have put forward a number of proposals to improve on the current football championship and to tighten up the overall GAA fixture list and, whilst the intent is good and definitely worth discussing, there are a lot of complications and concerns that are seemingly just there for the sake of it.
1. Can we please stop calling it a ‘Champions League-style’ format
We all know what a round robin is. The Champions League was not the first, and still the only, competition to employ it.
2. Seeding by provincial championship is hardly fair
Down are a Division One team but they have a bigger problem than most. They play their football in Ulster where there’s a 50 per cent chance they’ll meet a team as strong as Donegal, Tyrone, Monaghan or Derry in the first round. There’s another 25 per cent chance they’ll meet a side like Armagh or Cavan. The odds are they could be given the boot in their first outing.
Why is playing in Ulster being judged as relatively as playing in Leinster where 11 of the teams don’t play their league football in Division One? Where nine of them don’t even play in the top two tiers?
The idea of seeding teams based on their league performances doesn’t sit particularly well either considering the very nature of the GAA is gearing up for championship, but at least it offers some form of a more consistent judgement. But if this format gets off the ground, championship is where teams need to be rated for the most part.
3. This will not solve the hammerings ‘problem’
Teams running up big scores against other teams is dissatisfying, yes. But it is not a problem. It happens.
If it was really that unacceptable, the Rugby World Cup would be contested between six teams.
And, even if it was a problem, seeding teams into groups would do nothing to help it. You’d still have top teams playing weaker teams and, if anything, you’re just taking away the possibility that those top teams might play each other in a tight game.
That aside, those stronger outfits aren’t even where the issue lies. Of the teams outside of Division One (for next year), there were 11 games during the championship that were separated by double digits – and there were a lot of nine-point wins in there too.
Galway, Laois, Tipp (twice), Cavan, Offaly, Longford, Armagh, Fermanagh, Kildare and Tyrone all dished out 10-point hammerings (or more) in the 2015 campaign. 10 teams not belonging to the top tier were capable of doing that. It’s not something that can be rectified by putting them into groups with weaker teams.
It’s not even something that needs to be rectified anyway. If a team is better than another team, so what? We shouldn’t be punishing them for being good.
4. Why are weaker teams being given an advantage?
This is the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship. It is not the authorities’ jobs to make it easier for weaker sides.
Fourth seed teams will be given home advantage against top seed teams. If you top your group, you will play away from home in the round of 16 if you’re playing a weaker side? Why?
Why is the system being designed to work against better counties?
Why’s it being designed with any kind of agenda at all?
At championship time, all that should matter is that the best team wins fairly and that’s it. It needs to remain competitive – as in the actual format, not the standard. It is about winning. Not giving teams a leg up as if it was a half time U8 game that was too one-sided we’re trying to not make it look so bad.
5. Dublin to play away from home
LOL.
6. The qualifying system from the group is ridiculous
Why would we play a round robin system if only one team is getting left out of the group after all of it? What a waste of time.
At the moment, the proposal has the top teams in each group going straight to the last 16 with the second and third place sides in each going into a playoff to see who joins them in the top 16.
It’s just complicating the structure for the sake of it and it’s making an actual group format redundant because all you’d have to do is see off the Division Four team and then take it from there in a month’s time. It immediately makes the championship less competitive from the off.
7. A 45m kick shootout to decide games? Jesus…
Extra time if a game is to be drawn. If it’s still a draw, more extra time. If it’s still a draw, we have a 45m shootout.
Teams send forward five players and, if it’s tied after their kicks, it goes to sudden death. Of 45m kicks.
Because we’d all be sick at the idea that we could copy our soccer counterparts in any way and just do something logical like, oh I don’t know, a penalty shootout.
A 45′ is a very specialised skill. A very specialised one.
How many 45 metre placed kicks are scored in a game on average? 1.5? It couldn’t be too far off.
I’d be genuinely amazed if most teams had five people who’d even want to try it, never mind have a chance of scoring – a third of their team sent forward to kick a 45′?
If we’re really trying to tighten up the championship with no replays, what on earth do we have against penalties and actually using the ‘keepers too?
The overall idea of these proposals – partly anyway – are worth looking at but the finer details and the motivation for some of them are baffling.
If all these went through, we’d have an even bigger mess on our hands but it’s a starting point if nothing else. Please God let that be all it is.
