With many county managers these days switching teams - why not allow limited transfers of players too to counter the competitive gap that exists in inter-county competitions ?
Say, each county retains 9 players only, eligible under existing rules - and then 'drafts' the remainder of the county panel from the 'unprotected' players left in the 'draft pool' ?
Draft order is the NFL and/or AI Championship ranking in reverse - Div 4 teams picking first, and say, Kerry picking 32nd in Draft Rd 1 etc....
Imposing 'organic' 9-player retention should limit distortion.
What do you think ? - I'd prefer this to professionalism - which I think is coming !

omahant (USA) - Posts: 2593 - 12/08/2015 16:39:06    1768957

Why don't we just raffle off players. More even distribution of talent and a nice little earner for county boards, everybody wins!

Hank_Scorpio (Meath) - Posts: 60 - 12/08/2015 16:49:55    1768969

I would also like to see the on field 15, to be limited to 9 protected players - for this, I suppose each county would need to choose a geater number of home grown players in the team panel.

omahant (USA) - Posts: 2593 - 12/08/2015 17:04:50    1768981

What incentive would we have in producing our players then. We're not winning due to a massive population, we have the 14th highest which means we have to work extremely hard to develop players to stave off factors like other sports and immigration (including far away parts of Ireland and obviously abroad). Under your system a huge part of our incentive to work hard to produce players disappears.

I think a more workable solution is to put a cap on inter-county training costs and ever-expanding backroom teams. It's not right that some counties dont have the right or possibility to receive the same coaching, S + C, advanced innovations that certain teams get and expect them to be able to compete on a level footing on the field of play.

KYTitletown (Kerry) - Posts: 816 - 12/08/2015 17:19:05    1768999

Not in a million years omahant. Totally against the ethos of the GAA.

There's possibly an argument for 3 extra league games, with teams playing one team from each other division. It's tough on the likes of Longford to take on Dublin in the championship when they've had no such test in the league. At least one league game against a division 1 opponent during the league would set them up in some way for the battle ahead.

legendzxix (Kerry) - Posts: 7846 - 12/08/2015 21:52:05    1769190

Granny rule.
Players can declare for another county. There must be a lot of good players in strong counties that can't make it onto their own team. Especially in hurling it would make a big difference to teams like Offaly or Westmeath Carlow Antrim.

crikey (Australia) - Posts: 355 - 12/08/2015 21:54:25    1769192

Interesting idea and to be fair to the original poster you need ideas to be generated all the time.

What I'd like to see is stars who finish the game to be given the opportunity to help weaker counties. Tommy Walsh in the hurling is a prime example. The experience and skill this man has in gold. I don't know how involved he is in GAA right now, but if he was to be someone promoting hurling in so called weaker counties he would surely get a response.

slayer (Limerick) - Posts: 6480 - 13/08/2015 09:34:27    1769232

To KYTitletown -
Fair point about Kerry over producing talent only for ir to be drained away under my idea - but I was focusing more on levelling competition rather than letting the strong grow stronger.
While Kerry in football and KK in hurling are no high population centres, their financial pull gives them another edge o some counties.
Whether population or tradition - I'd like to see all 32 counties in with a shout of Sam or Liam.
The NFL has done a reasonable job here in the US - team annual salary cap (like your cost/ investment point) leading to greater competition. As they say here in the US, any NFL team can beat another on any given Sunday - not entirely true, but a lot of strides made.

omahant (USA) - Posts: 2593 - 13/08/2015 21:41:41    1769793

Crikey I believe the granny rule or something similar to it was once in play. I know in 1994 when Leitrim won Connacht Declan Darcy and a number of other players were Dubs who had ended up playing for counties of their parents.

gotmilk (Fermanagh) - Posts: 4971 - 14/08/2015 09:16:01    1769844

Can see the point but disagree. Besides how many players would travel for training or move altogether?

DoireCityFC (Derry) - Posts: 1580 - 14/08/2015 09:36:14    1769864