Heard T.Carr, Banty and some journo discussing football. Main points I took from it: 1. Black Card: Game has gotten worse since it's introduction, in T.Carrs opinion "it's a joke". According to all 3 the Yellow was there to be used for those offences and never was. 2. Championship structure: Outdated and requires change, Mun, Lein, Conn championships are worthless, Ulster only competition. Not much in the way of suggestions apart from Ulster preliminary round losers to become part of Munster championship. 3. Sin bin: Only possible to apply at county level as level of refereeing at club level is atrocious. 4. Club football: In crises, lack of a defined schedule is killing clubs as players are walking away to other sports. 5. Investment in weaker counties (Carlow, Leitrim etc.) is a must. Example of investment in Dublin hurling bringing it to it's current level, similar aggressive funding and coaching programs required for weaker counties. 6. Many county sides do not have their best players as they don't see the point in all the training for 1-2 games. T. Carr made a point about Westmeath minors where if lads had a choice between playing for Westmeath or going to the Leinster Rugby academy, they'd take the academy every time. Suppose he should know as he worked with them. His own young lad plays tennis after all.
Not a big fan of either Banty or Carr, but I found myself agreeing with practically all of what they were saying.
I think the structure of the season could easily be condensed into two competitions which would help a lot of the other points discussed. I'd like to see the provincial championships be merged with the NFL, where each provincial championship is run on a league basis and the winners of the provincial league would go forward to the NFL semi finals. I assume Leinster & Ulster would need to have 2 groups in each province to run this off.
I like the GPA's suggestion of a league system for the All-Ireland championship. It guarantees teams a minimum of 3 championship games and added to their NFL games each side would be guaranteed a minimum of 6 competitive games which could lead to a shorter season allowing the club game to be scheduled.