This is a drum worth banging.
And banging and banging and banging.
Last year, Roscommon won three games in the championship. It took them to the Connacht final. By the time they had played their sixth game of the summer, they hadn’t even reached the quarter-finals of the All-Ireland.
Kerry, meanwhile, won three games against two different teams and that took them to the semi-final.
One team wins three games and it guarantees them a place in the last 12 of the competition. Another wins three games in the same competition and it guarantees them a place in the last four.
This is football.
If Kerry's embarrassing route to a potential semi-final doesn't spark change in the #GAA, nothing ever will https://t.co/GhUemNvTcr
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) July 24, 2016
It doesn’t help anyone.
It didn’t help Roscommon or Derry – two teams who had won three games but found themselves two rounds off where Kerry did – and it certainly didn’t help Kerry who had to go into an All-Ireland semi-final against the might of Dublin having played against Clare and Tipperary and that’s it.
The provincial structures are no longer acceptable.
Every team in the All-Ireland championship is supposed to be on an even keel coming in and yet some teams are trying to qualify for the quarter-finals through a six-team tournament and others through a 12-team tournament.
Players, fans and each individual county should not accept these dinosaur conditions anymore.
They’re not fair, they’re not logical, and they’re a massive part of the reason why the championship is dragging out for so long for so many counties because Kerry only have two provincial games to play compared to an Ulster or Leinster side who will have four or at least three.
How on earth can anyone form a rationale argument for why Monaghan would have to play at least 100 per cent more games than Kerry to get to the same stage? Or that Dublin would have to play 50 per cent more?
Monaghan’s 2017 path to the last eight
Fermanagh
Cavan
Armagh/Down
Donegal/Tyrone/Derry/Antrim
If Monaghan lose the Ulster final against what will likely be Donegal or Tyrone, the odds are that they could be playing Dublin in the quarters if they win another game to get there.
Kerry’s 2017 path to the last eight
Clare/Limerick
Tipperary/Cork/Waterford
If Kerry advance, they are on the side of the quarter-final draw that would see them avoid a clash with the Ulster or Leinster runners-up.
Dublin must start a game earlier than the Kingdom do. Mayo must do that too. Sligo and Monaghan must start even before all of them.
Never mind the fairness in opposition standard that different counties must face because of some outdated and abstract notion of provincial borders, but the fairness in the amount of games each of them must play to get to the same place is ridiculous.
And Kerry don’t want it either.
What’s worse is that there’s absolutely no need for it.
But until someone sees sense, top teams like Monaghan will have to plough through an Ulster minefield and take a road at least twice as long as the most successful team in Ireland have to take. The only reason for it is because of where their county is placed on the map.
