ormond

yes it may be and a lot of other sports do follow same template but nearly all would be professional too
the gaa works because of the fact its about where your from and local rivalries
the structure is fine
we have far more countys winning all irelands and coming through over a ten year period than other sports do with their templates
the champions league and heineken cup are both arranged to suit the bigger clubs and only get interesting from quarter finals
so it always makes me laugh when I hear people saying the all ireland only gets serious from the quarter finals
and looking to change structures

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 29/05/2014 21:04:36    1595456

PK57
County: Louth
Posts: 1252

1595185
hill16no1man, I agree we shouldn't copy soccer, but you cant really be suggesting that the current system works(or even makes sense). For example ,if Tyrone beat Monaghan then they will have beaten Down, and Monaghan to reach the semi finals of Ulster, while Galway only had to beat London to reach the semi-finals in Connacht.


the amount of teams in each of the our provinces is the problem
geography is to blame on that
but the four seperate competitions leading to a knock out stage works realy well
the only change I ever see happening would be to make it an even 8 teams in each province or region
whatever you want to call it and then you would have a level playing field for all teams and the qualifiers would have a clear timescale

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 29/05/2014 21:08:09    1595458

white.n.blue
County: Monaghan
Posts: 196

1595428
Yea I think that would require a professional set up.
16 games at a minimum with one every week is too much for an amateur. Unless they completely give up club football players could play 40 games a year if they had a decent club championship run. God forbid if they won the county and had to play for a club all-ireland!

add in duel players at club level

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 29/05/2014 21:09:15    1595459

we have far more countys winning all irelands and coming through over a ten year period than other sports do with their templates
the champions league and heineken cup are both arranged to suit the bigger clubs and only get interesting from quarter finals

champions league - 8 different winners in past 10 years
Heineken Cup - 5
All Ireland football - 5
All Ireland Hurling - 4

bad.monkey (USA) - Posts: 4624 - 29/05/2014 21:27:23    1595471

29/05/2014 21:04:36 hill16no1man
ormond yes it may be and a lot of other sports do follow same template but nearly all would be professional too
the gaa works because of the fact its about where your from and local rivalries
the structure is fine
we have far more countys winning all irelands and coming through over a ten year period than other sports do with their templates
the champions league and heineken cup are both arranged to suit the bigger clubs and only get interesting from quarter finals
so it always makes me laugh when I hear people saying the all ireland only gets serious from the quarter finals
and looking to change structures Virtually all other sports have same template as its proven to work and that occurs at amateur level in those sports as well as the elite amateur level and pro level
The structure is most certainly not fine. Championship is main competition yet has teams only guaranteed 2 games. That is mental!!!! What other sports have that
You don't have far more counties winning all Irelands as proven by other posters.
Champions league and Heineken cup are not arranged to suit the bigger clubs and are completely fair to all sides from the beginning of the competition unlike the race for sam/liam.

ormondbannerman (Clare) - Posts: 13473 - 29/05/2014 21:39:52    1595477

Hill speaking a lot of sense on here , theres an assumption players want more games , just look at the response of the Antrim coach on playing five weeks in a row , apart from saying not fair he said he was patching up players to send them out as they had game after game ,
I already asked about squad sizes , no one has responded
i said club game would suffer Ormond said it wouldn't , so let me be specific if there is a county game each weekend who coaches the kids takes them to their games many parents attend also , two places at one time issue lads
Cost I don't know about you guys I love Dublin , I attend as often as I can hurling and football , its four of us each time pretty much most of the time , a game every weekend for five months out of my price range .

Damothedub (Dublin) - Posts: 5193 - 29/05/2014 21:51:47    1595485

Excellent thread. about time we started thinking about something like this. The GAA calendar is totally outdated, lopsided, needlessly messy, and inconvenient. While league of Ireland teams and rugby teams have dozens of games per year, most of our county teams have only 10 0r 11 (not counting the provincial leagues) and about 8 of these are in the national league, a competition treated with open contempt by managers and players.
A county like Sligo or Louth may end up only taking 2 or 3 matches seriously in a year. Very, very difficult to get people on board with this system.
For what its worth I believe we should go back to the old knockout format for the championship, and for the league have two ,groups of 16 teams who play each other once (with promotion and relegation for the top/ bottom 2) and have both competitions played alongside one another like the rabo and Heineken cups. This takes place over 4 or 5 months, and the rest of the year is for clubs.
I think the hurling system is okay. teams are taking the leagues seriously now, which is a good thing, and the championship format is the best of a bad lot imo.

joncarter (Galway) - Posts: 2692 - 30/05/2014 08:27:16    1595493

Damo players already play 6/7 league games so go far in the championship and you have about 11/12.
Add to the Mckenna Cup, O Byrne Cup etc and that adds up to that number already!
I sure if there was a league type structure cost would kept down for ticket prices.

Anyway unlikely to see anything changing as all the provincial councils still have too much power.

woops (Kerry) - Posts: 2073 - 30/05/2014 08:44:03    1595498

bad monkey

those 5 teams are in the last 6 years however in gaelic football
and if compared to the template of english or scottish football which is the original posters template
there is a huge differance
when I mentioned champions league and heineken cup I was talking about the fact that the structure is
arraneged to make sure the biggest clubs will make the quarter finals

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 30/05/2014 09:40:12    1595508

ormond

how is the premiership proven to work its a 3 or 4 horse race every year
how many clubs have won it or the socttish league or the spanish league
how is that mental ? because rugby dont have that is it ormond
well the six nations is the biggest rugby tournament and you play 5 matches max
and the rest are friendlies in an entire season.
absoultly not true
them competitions are designed to make sure the biggest clubs make the quarter finals year in year out
they seed the groups so this happens

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 30/05/2014 09:45:38    1595510

Some merit in what is being proposed. The current system is certainly outdated, I think we're all mostly in agreement on that. However the GAA has to decide once and for all if it's the clubs that drive the county or the other way about. Another point to consider is if it's OK to have Intermediate (Christy Ring) and Junior competitions in hurling at IC level, then why not for football. There's only 1 provincial football (Ulster) that could actually be called competitive. The qualifier system suits larger counties and I don't see how it benefits most of the weaker teams as they get 2 games instead of 1, which to my mind doesn't do much for the game in those counties. At a minimum, play the league and championship in the same time frame, scrap the qualifier system in football, abolish U21 championships. My own preference is for Div 1,2 to play for Sam (Senior), Div 3,4 Tommy Murphy (Intermediate), competitions to be played in parallel in the same time frame as the league (June-Mid Sept). I'm sure in typical GAA fashion, some hybrid system involving provincial councils will evolve, just so "tradition" can be upheld.

moylagh (Meath) - Posts: 484 - 30/05/2014 10:29:40    1595528

Lots of calls here and elswhere for abolishing the U21 championship without any reasons given for doing so. Where any opinions have been expressed as to why the U21 championship should be abolished I haven't been convinced/swayed by any of them.

lilywhite1 (Kildare) - Posts: 2990 - 30/05/2014 11:48:43    1595557

Sounds more like an American style structure a la the MLS or NFL than anything from the English Football League.

For me relegating club matches to October-March would be a disservice to club players.

roundball (Tipperary) - Posts: 2514 - 30/05/2014 12:09:46    1595567

hill16 I used 10 years as you had mentioned it. I would play inter county games between May - Sept only. The rest of the year would be for clubs games

bad.monkey (USA) - Posts: 4624 - 30/05/2014 12:40:35    1595593

But Roundball that is already happening. Donegal and Dublin won't play any more club championship games until their county side is finished for the season.

I think club championship should have its own window set in stone from the start of the year so people can plan their lives and the club leagues can continue throughout the summer adjacent to the All Ireland Championship minus the county players. Remember intercounty players make up less than 5% of the playing population.

That means players like Karl Lacey and Bernard Brogan will no longer play or train for their clubs from May to September. So what? They'll still be able to represent their club in the club championship.

Playing club championship from Febuarary to April is more optimal for supporters/players than running off the championships in the depths of winter. The finals will all be played at a tradiioanlly warmer/dryer time of year(yes we do have to allow for the aul living in Ireland factor)

If we have set season and set club time and set intercounty time it will mean less training and more games. Jim McGuinness can still have access to his players from Feb-April but he cannot stop matches being played and all teams are in the same boat across Ireland

Club Championship begins the season
All Ireland is the height of summer
and Club All Irelands finishes the year off

I'd maintain Sigerson Cup in Feb too as the standard is excellent and with no league games it can find the traditional hardcord GAA audience without national league distraction

Typical calendar could look like this
06-Feb Sigerson Cup Starts
09-Feb Club Championship starts
23-Feb Second round of Club Championships
09-Mar Third Round of Chub Championships
23-Mar Quarter final of Club Championships
06-Apr Semi Finals of Club Championships
20-Apr Club Championship final in each county
04-May All Ireland Football Championship starts
18-May Round Two
01-Jun Round Three of matches
08-Jun Round Four of matches
15-Jun Round Five of matches
29-Jun Round Six of matches
06-Jul Round Seven of matches
13-Jul Round eight of matches
27-Jul All Ireland playoffs-5th-12th best teams
03-Aug All Ireland quarter finals
17-Aug All Ireland semi final
24-Aug All Ireland semi final
28-Sep All Ireland Club Championship gets under way
05-Oct All Ireland Club Championship
12-Oct All Ireland Club Championship
26-Oct All Ireland Club Championship Final

shaggykev (Donegal) - Posts: 191 - 30/05/2014 12:47:18    1595601

Any comparison with the EPL is ridiculous, as in the PL, the top couple of teams are battling it out for either the title, Champions league places, or Europa league places, while beyond that, there is a financial incentive for teams to finish as high as possible. Also, i don't think any relegation play off would attract a crowd. Its been mentioned before, but having a system similar to American football makes sense, as it allows local rivalries to continue, while also allowing teams to play teams outside of what they usually would in the current provincial system.

PK57 (Louth) - Posts: 1653 - 30/05/2014 12:49:49    1595604

Liam the reason I asked if you play is these 2 lines in your post

Start in late April, finish in Spetember. Games every weekend for everyone

Club players then do what? Even if ye fix games for the same dates as inter county some clubs will struggle to field missing there county players plus how do lads go and support there county if they had games fixed for the same day/time?

Play club in september to March you said. So basically throw the non elite players out in the cold windy muddy unplayable conditions and let them be happy they have a game? If anything its the club games that need to be ran through the summer. Look at the state of some of the pitches during the provincial club championships. Makes a mockery of it. Or the Dublin club finals for example being played in October/November! November to January should be dead months nothing going on in them

Brianmac78 (Dublin) - Posts: 1168 - 30/05/2014 12:52:20    1595606

shaggykev
County: Donegal
Posts: 58

Jesus Christ lad, go outside and kick a ball or something

white.n.blue (Monaghan) - Posts: 249 - 30/05/2014 16:56:25    1595747

woops
County: Kerry
Posts: 1015

1595498
Damo players already play 6/7 league games so go far in the championship and you have about 11/12.
Add to the Mckenna Cup, O Byrne Cup etc and that adds up to that number already!
I sure if there was a league type structure cost would kept down for ticket prices.

Anyway unlikely to see anything changing as all the provincial councils still have too much power.


Woops have you seen how many players we get through for those games , massive , we have an o Byrne cup squad , a league squad which takes a more familiar look , then you get the championship , do the maths how many games Dublin play v how many someone like B Brogan plays
Also in regards to attendances enough said o byrne cup ( die hards ) league (die hards + genuine ) championship ( hey its sunny +genuine+diehards)
You say your sure if there was a league structure cost would be kept down for ticket prices , what have you based that on , reason , history , instinct ? Big revenue from the dearer championship games would not be allowed to slide .

Damothedub (Dublin) - Posts: 5193 - 30/05/2014 17:16:17    1595766

30/05/2014 12:52:20
Brianmac78
County: Dublin
Posts: 616

1595606
Liam the reason I asked if you play is these 2 lines in your post

Start in late April, finish in Spetember. Games every weekend for everyone

Club players then do what? Even if ye fix games for the same dates as inter county some clubs will struggle to field missing there county players plus how do lads go and support there county if they had games fixed for the same day/time?

Play club in september to March you said. So basically throw the non elite players out in the cold windy muddy unplayable conditions and let them be happy they have a game? If anything its the club games that need to be ran through the summer. Look at the state of some of the pitches during the provincial club championships. Makes a mockery of it. Or the Dublin club finals for example being played in October/November! November to January should be dead months nothing going on in them

Well said Brianmac 78

Some of the biggest supporters I know are current lads playing , unknowing or unwittingly the lack of thought respect shown to the club player is mind boggling .

Damothedub (Dublin) - Posts: 5193 - 30/05/2014 17:22:45    1595771