Jim McGuinness says Cork fell prey to an unfair championship structure.

Having topped Division One this year and taken Kerry to a replay in the Munster final, the Rebels crashed out of contention last weekend when they were hammered by a Kildare side who were relegated to Division Three in April and then drubbed by Dublin.

"I wasn't entirely surprised they were beaten by Kildare because of the context in which that match was played," McGuinness writes in The Irish Times. "We saw Cork becoming the latest victims of a championship structure which is at its most unforgiving for the teams which lose in provincial finals.

"Last week, I was amazed to see Cork were being quoted on odds of 4/1 on. I felt they would do exceptionally well just to scrape past Kildare because they didn't have what was the most important factor to allow them to recover from their defeat to Kerry: time. So it proved.

"After two big, summer-defining games against Kerry in front of a full house, Cork found themselves playing in front of 3,815 people on a wet Saturday night in Thurles. It must have felt like they were in an entirely different competition. It must have felt like a league game in February. And they couldn't respond, probably for a whole series of reasons. Cork were asked to take part in a race on Saturday night from a standing start while their opponents were already sprinting.

"This is unfair and it is one of the reasons why I have spoken about the need for a new structure for the All-Ireland which will make league form relevant, retain the provincial championships but which also then allows for an equal playing field for all teams: 16 teams in two tiers with teams seeded from 1- 16 and knockout games. No safety net to give the bigger counties a second chance. And - this is the crucial thing - no situation where one team is building psychological momentum while another team perishes. That levelling of circumstance would bring a cut and thrust and a true edge to the competition."

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