You again have to wonder about the people making these decisions, they seem utterly clueless. If the majority of people on here (from what I see of the posts) think this is a ludicrous idea how has someone in headquarters not went "ah just a second lads". It's like they are trying to copy the different competition approach that is used in hurling. It works there because there was never any hurling to speak of in the counties in the Nicky rackard and lory meagher cups. Football has always been played to some level at every county bar Kilkenny. I would think most counties would see it as an insult.

Andy (Laois) - Posts: 371 - 17/01/2016 08:46:27    1817088

Another Tommy Murphy that no one will care about. Anybody who is from a Div 4 county knows that it is hard enough getting players to stay for the qualifiers, most years when these teams are knocked out of the provincials their best players head for the states. This competition would be another flop like the Tommy Murphy with managers struggling to get 15 players to commit.

Louth Gael (Louth) - Posts: 1227 - 17/01/2016 10:08:42    1817094

Well whatever about this particular flag the GAA are raising, any talk of change or modification runs aground on the same old rocks.

As ever the GAA reflects Irish society: we bitc# and moan about this and that - politics, housing, education, policing, corruption, sports administration - but when someone comes along with a suggestion of change, the first reaction by many is to maintain the status quo or else to point out its flaws or why it won't work etc, etc.

To me its quite simple either you keep the All Ireland structure the way it is, or you change it. You can't have both.

If you want to change it then you have to realise, that for whatever talk about giving more resources to weaker counties, giving them more games, allowing them to play at a higher standard, there is no structure that can be put in place to make the All Ireland a competition where 25 odd counties have a realistic chance of winning, year in year out.

There will always be the Kerry's and Dublin's at the top and the Carlow's and Waterford's at the bottom. That's just sport and that's just life.

I think people need to get real and realise the only way forward is to have a two-tier championship.

Let everyone take part as normal in their provincial championships - give them an opportunity of winning Sam - but once they are knocked and the provincial championships are over, you break it into a top 16 and bottom 16 All Ireland - with proper promotion and relegation and League standing having a significant bearing.

And they have to be strong enough to propose and implement radical enough changes and stick with them: no watering it down to such an extent that, like the Tommy Murphy Cup, it becomes irrelevant and despised.

Until GAA players, supporters, clubs, County Boards and Central Council come around to this way of thinking, we will continue to just shuffle deck chairs as our Titanic heads for the iceberg...

TheHermit (Kerry) - Posts: 6354 - 18/01/2016 12:16:25    1817331

There will always be the Kerry's and Dublin's at the top and the Carlow's and Waterford's at the bottom. That's just sport and that's just life.

I think people need to get real and realise the only way forward is to have a two-tier championship.

Ahh go away..The rich get richer and feck the poor

Wicklow or Carlow are a long way away from winning an All Ireland but the GAA needs to push the Meaths,Kildaes,Rosscomon,Cavans etc.. to become contenders for the all ireland and then the wicklows and carlows can be the current rosscommon,meath standard with the chance of an upset.

2nd tier competetion is not a good idea IMO

lasertech (UK) - Posts: 129 - 18/01/2016 14:54:10    1817398

lasertech

I agree, I would only entertain the idea of a second tier competition if all teams got an equal crack at the main competition first. I think if you removed weaker teams from the top tier competition it would do nothing but damage to the sport in those counties.

The Gaa are idiotic at best for even considering reintroducing the tried and failed Tommy Murphy cup in an almost identical format as the origional. I honestly don't know what the hell they're thinking, it's both baffling and worrying to think they know this is a proven failure, with a generally lack of interest from weaker counties yet they want to reintroduce it, I mean which monkey is in charge here because he doesn't seem to know what he's doing!

Htaem (Meath) - Posts: 8657 - 18/01/2016 15:49:16    1817416

Why do supporters of the bottom tier counties show up to games - is it because they believe the will win the All Ireland ? why do players of the weaker counties turn out every training session, because they will will the All Ireland, the answer is no to both of these, they turn up because they love the game and they want to see their team doing well or they want to win something with their team. Make that meaningful and people will get behind it.

zinny (Wexford) - Posts: 1805 - 18/01/2016 15:49:53    1817417

I think an intermediate all Ireland championship would be a good thing but it would have to be marketed as such and set up along the lines Jim McG suggested not as an after thought. It works well at club level and I think it's realistic for every county to have a team good enough to contest at this grade at least every 10 years. Change is very slow in the GAA and it'l probably never happen

lillyboy (Kildare) - Posts: 429 - 18/01/2016 16:28:21    1817434

Why do supporters of the bottom tier counties show up to games - is it because they believe the will win the All Ireland ? why do players of the weaker counties turn out every training session, because they will will the All Ireland, the answer is no to both of these, they turn up because they love the game and they want to see their team doing well or they want to win something with their team

Kerry v Tipp - 1st rd in Munster last year - 12,ooo showed up - mainly Tipp fans who genuinly believed they were going to dump the All Ireland champions out of Munster - Tipp will have the same belief facing Cork this year
Wicklow v Meath - 1st rd in Leinster - Wicklow players and supporters travelled to Navan with firm belief they were going to beat the Royals and reach a Leinster semi - final which would of been a huge day for the county - In the end they were beat by 4 points and had two men sent off,The Wicklow fans have spoke all winter about what could of been if they had 15 on the field.

This is why the players and supporters keep turning out year after year,The belief,the chance to overcome the greatest obstacles,That one day the impossible will be achieved like Leitrim did in 1994 or Sligo in 2007 - Like Clare did in 1992 or Westmeath or Laois won provincials or Fermanagh or Wexford reaching semi finals.
Thats what we base it all on

lasertech (UK) - Posts: 129 - 18/01/2016 16:38:21    1817435

Htaem 100% agree.

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 18/01/2016 19:24:33    1817485

Breathtaking proposal for all the wrong reasons, as outlined by many here. It really is extraordinary that these guys that supposedly run our association could conceive of this notion.

If this goes through I fear it pushes Carlow (and maybe one or two others) ever closer to the edge of the cliff that we've been drifting towards for the best part of the past decade. The last time they tried this, the TM Cup, Carlow had to withdraw because we were unable to raise a team. That's right - there weren't 15 players in the county with the interest in participating and that would have come just weeks after a full panel would have trained hard through the winter up until elimination from the Leinster championship. It's hard enough to hold players for the qualifiers but it can be done as they hope for a couple of winnable games early if the draw is kind and then maybe a big day against a big team. Asking us to play the same teams we're already sick of playing in a non event B championship will be met with complete apathy I have no doubt in Carlow at least. And, if we don't have the qualifiers then there's only the Leinster championship left and maybe it won't be worth it to train for that either. Then we won't be able to get players interested in that.

The guys in HQ will destroy the GAA but I'm not sure they'd notice.

Onion Breath (Carlow) - Posts: 1412 - 18/01/2016 19:47:36    1817488

Guys I didn't hear your opinion on my neat trick to address the championship while retaining the provs unchanged.
Here I present again.
'8 Qual Rd 1 losers (3rd chance)' host '8 Prov SF losers' in new Qual Rd 1B (or Open Draw).
'4 Prov Final losers' join 16 Rds 1 and 1B winners in 20-team Open Draw Rd 2.
'2 new Champs Rd losers' join 10 Rd 2 winners in 12-team Seeded Draw Rd 3.
2 unbeaten Prov Champs and 6 Rd 3 winners contest the AI QFs.
If Muns and Conn SFs only are two-legged, all 32 are guaranteed 3-match minimum.
OR, if you don't like the 3rd chance in Rd 1B - simply do this instead -
4 Prov Final losers added to existing Qual Rd 2; 2 new Champs Rd losers to 12-team Rd 3.
Again, 2 unbeaten Champs and 6 Rd 3 winners contest the AI QFs.
You see - the Cork/Kerry loser now is in the AI Last 24; the winner the Last 14; only 2 Champ Playoff winners are guaranteed Last 8.
Putting it another way- with 8 teams weeded out early and 4 Prov Champs, the remaining 20 are put in the same Rd 2, with 5 wins required to lift Sam.

omahant (USA) - Posts: 2618 - 18/01/2016 20:42:52    1817502

Who is going to go to these B games?

valley84 (Westmeath) - Posts: 1890 - 18/01/2016 20:48:49    1817505

I don't understand what is so special about the football championship that makes it unacceptable to play at your own level. Hurling is difficult because there are not enough teams at a similar level but football has more than enough decent teams to have an interesting second tier.

The only way a second tier will work is if they change the whole structure of the football championship.

2 groups of 16 - Champions League style format.

Top team goes straight into the quarter final, 2nd and 3rd of each group play a qualifier round to meet the quarter finalists. This will ensure that the group games remain competitive. Groups seeded based on league standings. Bottom 4 teams from the groups into relegation. Loser goes down, no second chances. Every team gets at least 4 championship games.

Same format in the second tier except the bottom 4 teams go into a shield competition.

All second tier games to be played as curtain raisers to tier 1 games to promote the lower tier. It will obviously be frowned upon at the start but once people realise the importance of winning the second tier (to get to the first tier) then eventually it will become an entertaining competition.

This format will also make the tier one games more competitive instead of the usual muck we see in the early rounds of championship.

Faithfull (Offaly) - Posts: 573 - 18/01/2016 21:31:49    1817513

Onion Breath

Good post and why people persist in putting forward B championship proposals when Division 3 & 4 teams not only don't want them but have expressed their opposition to them, is beyond me. Also I don't like the McGuinness proposal either which has been championed quite a lot lately because it still excludes 16 counties (or half the country if you like) from the main championship = no good, forget it.

This proposal from the Gaa is probably nothing more than a cheap token gesture that they know won't go through but will allow them to worm out of the issue and pathetically claim 'well we tried'. I mean we can forgive stupidity but this is a very disrespectful, cynical move by the Gaa (especially considering they didn't even debate the GPA's proposal) and the if the GPA have a pair of balls anywhere in their ranks they must take drastic action here and also sever their by now almost romantic "working relationship" with the Gaa.

Htaem (Meath) - Posts: 8657 - 19/01/2016 09:24:40    1817534

Look, the 'new' proposal by the GAA offers nothing new.

I don't think Division 4 teams should be signalled out and dumped into a secondary competition.

However plenty of people on here, in the media etc, have come up with broadly similar suggestions that all teams go into their provincial championships as normal, i.e they still get a crack at Sam. But once they get dumped out, they go either into a Top 16 or Bottom 16 competition based on their League standing and previous record in the All Ireland series.

If people really want a change to the All Ireland structure, some such reform as that is the only one that makes the most sense and satisfies as much of the grievances as possible.

Moving provinces to 8 teams each, putting in a Champions League format, turning the All Ireland into a League competition will not do anything to make the bottom 16 counties in Ireland serious All Ireland contenders in the short or medium term. It will simply allow for an increase in matches, most of which will be dead rubbers.

TheHermit (Kerry) - Posts: 6354 - 19/01/2016 12:03:41    1817587

One part that CC dont really take into consideration with their 8 team B Championship

The gap between the top five in Division One to the mid table teams in Division two is far greater than the gap between those division two teams and the teams in Division Four.

We have about five or six teams that are heads and shoulders above the rest so if they really wanted a B championship, it would actually be Division One with eight teams on its own and the rest of the 24 teams in the B Championship but of course nobody is going to propose or vote for that.

The likes of Fermanagh and Offaly have categorically said they want no part of a B championship so we need to listen to the teams it will fundamentally affect and bin this farce of reconstruction plan.

shaggykev (Donegal) - Posts: 203 - 19/01/2016 12:24:25    1817601

Mickey Harte has spoken. he is 100% correct

http://hoganstand.com/ArticleForm.aspx?ID=249243

s goldrick (Cavan) - Posts: 5518 - 19/01/2016 14:16:51    1817658

If they want to go down the 2 tier route, then why not run the provincial championships off. Then simply, Division 1 and 2 teams compete for the All Ireland Senior, while the Division 3 and 4 teams compete for the All Ireland Intermediate. In both championships, there is a back door for 1st round losers only.

Regarding relegation, it occurs through the leagues with bottom 2 teams going down. So if a Div 2 team gets relegated through the league to Div 3, it will compete in DIv 3 and Intermediate the following year. If a team in the bottom 2 of Div 2 win the championship, then the 3rd bottom team goes down.

Promotion is similar to relgation (i.e through the leagues). However, the winner of the Intermediate championship is automatically promoted to Div 2 and the senior championship. So, if the winner is in Div 4, they catapult up to Div 2 along with the winner of Div 3.

it sounds complicated in writing but it actually is relatively straight forward. Lots to play for throughout the year and teams are guaranteed 3 champ games (including provincial). It gives weaker countries something realistic and worthwhile to achieve whilst challenging for a championship. County boards, players, teams, management and supporters have short term and long term goals to aspire to.

breakingball22 (Louth) - Posts: 419 - 19/01/2016 14:26:54    1817664

One part that CC dont really take into consideration with their 8 team B Championship

The gap between the top five in Division One to the mid table teams in Division two is far greater than the gap between those division two teams and the teams in Division Four.

You my friend are 100% correct

shea (Kerry) - Posts: 409 - 19/01/2016 15:24:16    1817697

they cant win haha
last summer they were all whinging looking for a b championship.
they propose it and they whinge they are excluding teams.
you cant win with people looking for changes every week.
best teams come to the top no matter what format

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 19/01/2016 16:20:29    1817724