National Forum

Does Ulster Championship Benefit Ulster Teams?

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Replying To Loughduff Lad:  "Yout think the group stage in a Championship to get rid of 4 teams is good?"
I think its great. It makes the final round very interesting with every team having something to play for. Finishing 1st gives you a bye to the QF.

Only change I would make is getting rid of provincials and spacing out the league and championship

Temple56 (Westmeath) - Posts: 399 - 02/05/2024 11:34:32    2542434

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Replying To Temple56:  "I think its great. It makes the final round very interesting with every team having something to play for. Finishing 1st gives you a bye to the QF.

Only change I would make is getting rid of provincials and spacing out the league and championship"
But is it really needed and is that final round better than if it was just straight knockout?

Loughduff Lad (Cavan) - Posts: 2416 - 02/05/2024 13:01:57    2542451

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Replying To Temple56:  "I think its great. It makes the final round very interesting with every team having something to play for. Finishing 1st gives you a bye to the QF.

Only change I would make is getting rid of provincials and spacing out the league and championship"
Sorry for additional reply, but forgot to say to your 2nd point. What does getting rid of the provincials solve? Removing a Championship trophy that more teams have a chance of winning is silly. Is it because Leinster is bad? So we kill off Ulster and Connacht because the GAA have failed to address issues in other areas? We reward failure with failure?

I don't get it. Soundbites and groupthink stuff like this thrown out with no actual concept about what it means to do this. Championship then essentially exists for a few top teams to could win Sam

Loughduff Lad (Cavan) - Posts: 2416 - 02/05/2024 14:04:49    2542468

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Replying To Loughduff Lad:  "Sorry for additional reply, but forgot to say to your 2nd point. What does getting rid of the provincials solve? Removing a Championship trophy that more teams have a chance of winning is silly. Is it because Leinster is bad? So we kill off Ulster and Connacht because the GAA have failed to address issues in other areas? We reward failure with failure?

I don't get it. Soundbites and groupthink stuff like this thrown out with no actual concept about what it means to do this. Championship then essentially exists for a few top teams to could win Sam"
Play the provincial championships before the league with the winners getting top seeding. The rest make up from league placing which is played just before the championship. The current system is not fit for purpose and it all comes down to the provincial championships. Imagine Clare or Louth still in the running for a top seed while League champions Derry are considered 3rd seeds.

Winning a provincial championship is great and any county should be proud when they do it but the real goal is the Sam Maguire its the pinnacle of our sport. As stated above by a few posters the Ulster championship definitely gets in the way of teams going on and competing for the All Ireland. I bet you if you asked Derry players would you trade the two ulster medals over the last two years for an All Ireland medal I know for fact they would take hand all all for that All Ireland Medal.

Temple56 (Westmeath) - Posts: 399 - 02/05/2024 15:36:59    2542491

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Replying To Temple56:  "Play the provincial championships before the league with the winners getting top seeding. The rest make up from league placing which is played just before the championship. The current system is not fit for purpose and it all comes down to the provincial championships. Imagine Clare or Louth still in the running for a top seed while League champions Derry are considered 3rd seeds.

Winning a provincial championship is great and any county should be proud when they do it but the real goal is the Sam Maguire its the pinnacle of our sport. As stated above by a few posters the Ulster championship definitely gets in the way of teams going on and competing for the All Ireland. I bet you if you asked Derry players would you trade the two ulster medals over the last two years for an All Ireland medal I know for fact they would take hand all all for that All Ireland Medal."
You just said get rid of them, now back to before the League? Where has this come from? I see this loads but no one can answer how this works. How do provincials in January/February work apart from killing them off? Or is that the idea?

You're right. It isn't fit for purpose. Hence why I can't see why we bin old stuff that did work and keep hew stuff that doesn't work. Are we not allowed go back to things? Can't League, Provincials, and then knockout Sam and Tailteann work for what we need than inserting in useless group games for the sake of it?

Yes Sam is. But most can't or won't ever win it. They can for provincials. That's the point. You'd get rid of it and never have those days again for lesser sides. Even very good sides who come up against generational teams who win Sam.

Why does it have to be swapping them for an All Ireland? Would the question not be that if they don't get over the line and win Sam in a period of Dublin dominance, won't the Ulsters still mean they've something to show for a period with a good team?

Loughduff Lad (Cavan) - Posts: 2416 - 02/05/2024 17:23:22    2542515

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Could Ulster (and all other provinces) use the McKenna cup (McGrath cup, FBD league etc) to "filter" their senior championship.

Could the McKenna.cup not be used to remove the need for a prelim round ( and maybe even some q finals)

2025
Group 1 - Donegal, Derry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Antrim
Group 2 - Armagh, Cavan, Monaghan, Down

Ulster Championship
Q final 1 - Tyrone v Monaghan
Q final 2 - Cavan v Derry

Semifinal 1 - Q final 1 winner v Donegal
Semifinal 2 - Q final 2 winner v Armagh

You still have to win Ulster on merit but you'd remove some of the jeopardy and potential for a 4 game route via preliminary round

tirawleybaron (Mayo) - Posts: 1140 - 04/05/2024 15:33:50    2542832

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Replying To tirawleybaron:  "Could Ulster (and all other provinces) use the McKenna cup (McGrath cup, FBD league etc) to "filter" their senior championship.

Could the McKenna.cup not be used to remove the need for a prelim round ( and maybe even some q finals)

2025
Group 1 - Donegal, Derry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Antrim
Group 2 - Armagh, Cavan, Monaghan, Down

Ulster Championship
Q final 1 - Tyrone v Monaghan
Q final 2 - Cavan v Derry

Semifinal 1 - Q final 1 winner v Donegal
Semifinal 2 - Q final 2 winner v Armagh

You still have to win Ulster on merit but you'd remove some of the jeopardy and potential for a 4 game route via preliminary round"
The Ulster Championship isn't broken. The current format has lent itself to the competitiveness of almost all counties! The spread of provincial finalists and even AI progression is far and away ahead of other provinces. 9 teams and every one has made a provincial final this century. That's a good competition.

What's broken is how the All-Ireland fits around it. My two cents:

The fixture calendar is a disaster, and all attempts to fix it have been half-hearted and self-defeating. The All-Ireland Football Championship (excl Tailteann Cup) consists of 64 matches. Only 29 of these are provincial. This is too much football, and the fans have already turned their backs on the group stages. Cut them.

Whilst Gaelic Football is an amateur sport, it is imperative that they retain cup formats as the primary competitions. I am a firm believer in the "magic of the cup", and although a league format may lead to the best team winning more often, it means that the upsets aren't as important. Dublin can lose a shock one-off game to Cavan, but they'll still win the Championship. Let the upset mean something.

The provincial championships are your old reliable, competitive local derbies will sell tickets.How should the other provinces fix the lack of competitiveness of their competition? Re-distribution of teams? Amalgamations in provincials of Div 3/4 teams?

No team should expect to play less games than any other team. Kerry and Dublin have had no need to ramp up their intensity yet, whilst Donegal, Derry, and Tyrone have been taking chunks out of each other to win a prestigious Ulster Championship. Kerry can win the All-Ireland and Munster playing 8 Championship matches. Donegal would need to play a guaranteed 9 games to do the same in Ulster, and Monaghan/Cavan would have needed 10. It may seem like a small thing, but biases like this build up over the year and with a Matthew effect leads to runaway victors and an imbalance in competition, hence a devaluation of competition. Kerry won Sam playing 3 matches in 1980. What a waste.

Solution? Return to qualifiers and use League Seedings to decide where the provincial finalists enter the All-Ireland series. The top 16 teams in the final league standings, ranked 1 - 16. The two provinces with the best total scores enter the All Ireland series one stage later than the two provinces with the worst score. All Div 3/4 teams enter Tailteann Cup on exit from Sam Maguire (up until QF).

SurelyToGod (Donegal) - Posts: 399 - 04/05/2024 19:00:56    2542905

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