http://www.balls.ie/gaa/new-proposal-division-4-teams/321462 />
So they ditch it, and now a few years later they bring it back?

Can we just have Sean Kelly back as GAA president, he's the only bloody one in the last 15 years that did anything of relevance for our game...

Won't work as long as it is seen as second best- a place to go to when you have been thrown out of the main event.

Why don't they play this championship first and allow one winner into the championship proper..

Really though there is no need for a championship for Division 4 teams when we have Division 4...

bennybunny (Cork) - Posts: 3917 - 14/01/2016 10:31:36    1816508

Terrible idea.

They're going the wrong way with regards division 4 teams. If they are to improve long term the need to be playing better teams more regularly.

In Antrim we have huge problems getting our best players committing for the season. In my opinion this will make it worse in that regard.

Fair play to the guys currently happy to play division 4 but I can understand why a lot of our guys don't want to bother.

5 out 8 teams getting knocked out in qualifier round 1 isn't that bad anyway. 4 teams will get knocked out of Tommy Murphy cup round 1 also.

Whammo86 (Antrim) - Posts: 4223 - 14/01/2016 10:38:38    1816513

Tommy Markham would have worked fine if they promoted it, if they played the final as a curtain raiser to an All -Ireland semi final or something.

Look at how the Christy Ring has grown.

Why does it work for hurling and not for football?

Surely the players in Division 4 sides realise the level they are at and are not deluding themselves into thinking they can win Sam Maguire?

TheHermit (Kerry) - Posts: 6354 - 14/01/2016 10:55:58    1816521

what's the Tommy Marham cup ? .. never heard of it.

s goldrick (Cavan) - Posts: 5518 - 14/01/2016 11:46:01    1816551

Is it the Tommy Murphy Cup you are on about lads? Tom Markham Cup gets presented to the winning minor captain every September. Haven't a breeze who Tom Marham is however....

ceefarr (Mayo) - Posts: 39 - 14/01/2016 15:23:19    1816636

It's things like this that make you lose all faith in the Gaa, it was tried before and it failed, FCUKIN' FAILED!!! through lack of interest so why try it again?

Stupid, depressing, sh1te from the Gaa once again, take a bow lads, take a bloody bow.

Htaem (Meath) - Posts: 8657 - 14/01/2016 15:43:45    1816643

Its like the fiasco of the Tommy Murphy cup never happened.

The problem is that no Div 4 player wants to stay around for a competition that
means nothing to anybody.

Carlow play Waterford, Wicklow and London every year in Division 4. Who wants a competition
where we do it all over again ?

Now a proper All Ireland B with Div 3 and 4 teams makes sense !

carlovia (None) - Posts: 1517 - 14/01/2016 16:13:10    1816659

a few years back, a division 4 Limerick football team took Kerry to a replay in a munster final....

should they have been put into the Tommy Cup .....??

Balderdash

Liamwalkinstown (Dublin) - Posts: 8166 - 14/01/2016 16:36:27    1816671

it's a knockout competition and as such all teams should be included (the all-ireland, I mean).
if you want to improve then use the league. treat the championship for what it is, a day out.
the league is a much fairer competition and should be given more prominence.

i would say have a complete open draw. if you want to keep the provincials then keep them but not as part of the all-ireland series.

s goldrick (Cavan) - Posts: 5518 - 14/01/2016 18:53:23    1816715

Tommy Markham would have worked fine if they promoted it, if they played the final as a curtain raiser to an All -Ireland semi final or something.

Look at how the Christy Ring has grown.

Why does it work for hurling and not for football?

Surely the players in Division 4 sides realise the level they are at and are not deluding themselves into thinking they can win Sam Maguire?

TheHermit (Kerry) - Posts:968 - 14/01/2016 10:55:58 1816521


There's a few reasons why it's different for football than hurling.

The worst reason is tradition, but I mean it plays some part. Football has never been properly separated I don't think players or fans want to break with that now. The Christy Ring cup was an improvements on the competitions being run for the second tier counties.

Hurling is more lopsided than football. An earlier poster mentioned how a division 4 Limerick drew with Kerry in a Munster final. A team from the current NHL could lose by over 50 points to Kilkenny should they ever play them.

There isn't a huge fan base to worry about in the non-traditional counties in hurling. The 2014 Christy Ring Final had an attendance of around 3000. Over 7500 people watched Antrim versus Fermanagh in the Ulster championship first round game last year.

The movement of teams in the standings is less set in stone in football. You look at Fermanagh they lost a first round qualifier versus London in 2011. 4 years later they were in the All Ireland quarter finals. You look at Antrim in 2009 we got to the Ulster final lost to at top Tyrone side and then ran Kerry close in the 4th round qualifier. We were in division 2 in 2011. Now look at us. What's my point here? There isn't a fixed order of teams in football, next season Antrim will do nothing in football but that is not to say we can't in the future. I think partitioning the likes of Antrim off into a rubbish championship makes it more likely that those teams remain at that standard going forward. The reason being it makes it harder for us to get players committing to the team, we are less attractive to sponsors because they've less chance of having their name get any exposure through us and those players that do play get less exposure against playing better teams and so have less opportunity to improve.

For all these reasons I'd like less partitioning in league as well as championship. Teams don't need to be able to win something for their season to be meaningful and for fans and players to enjoy the experience of competing, just look at the Premiership where fans will turn out all season long to watch a team like Stoke of have 0 chance of winning the league. Look at the rugby World Cup also. The standards are tightening in rugby where weaker teams play against strong teams.

Whammo86 (Antrim) - Posts: 4223 - 14/01/2016 19:20:50    1816727

it's a knockout competition and as such all teams should be included (the all-ireland, I mean).
if you want to improve then use the league. treat the championship for what it is, a day out.
the league is a much fairer competition and should be given more prominence.

i would say have a complete open draw. if you want to keep the provincials then keep them but not as part of the all-ireland series.

s goldrick (Cavan) - Posts:3885 - 14/01/2016 18:53:23 1816715

I'd love it if we moved to a league based system. It'd be very simple a potentially v exciting.

Division 1- 12 teams
Division 2 split into north and south sections. 10 teams in each.

Single round robin in each league.

Top 2 in division 2 sections qualify for semi-finals. Winners get to promoted and play in division 2 final. Division 2 champion qualifies for All-Ireland playoff series.

3 and 4th placed teams in division 2 stay in with a chance of promotion. They play 3rd plays 4th from the other group. Winners of those ties play losing semi-finalists. Winner of those matches play against 9th and 10th placed division 1 teams for a place in next seasons division 1.

Division 1- top 2 qualify for All-Ireland semis. 3-5 qualify for quarter-finals along with division 2 champions. 6-8 stay up. 9th and 10th into the relegation playoff, 11th and 12th get automatically relegated.

There should be loads to play for right until the end of the season.

Provincial championships played as additionally competitions, getting played towards the end of the league series.

Every team guaranteed 10 matches. Can play a maximum of 11 league, 3 All-Ireland play off games and 4 provincial championship games. I think that's a nice length of a season. A little longer than Dublin's league and championship season last year but shorter than their season when you include the O'Byrne cup games.

Whammo86 (Antrim) - Posts: 4223 - 14/01/2016 21:49:21    1816765

Apologies I did mean Tommy Murphy not Tommy Markham!

Its a catch 22 situation really:

I understand totally the point of people saying the only way teams will improve is by playing the best teams.

But then again you can't devise a system where you can just parachute an Antrim or Leitrim into a division 1 standard group/league etc

Perhaps, as one of the posters said above, its time to introduce a proper secondary All Ireland that can be run in parallel.

Every county gets the chance to be in the straight knock out of the provincial championships.

But the lower 16 teams, based on their League standings, are then put into the All Ireland B championship. Winners to gain entry to All Ireland A the following year, regardless of their league standing for the next season? The only issue would be to devise a proper promotion/relegation from A to B, and to make the All Ireland B sufficiently high profile for it to serve as a sufficient carrot to keep teams/players interested.

I'll leave it to someone else to flesh it out, I've heard so many championship structure proposals and thought about so many myself over the years that my head is numb from them at this stage!

TheHermit (Kerry) - Posts: 6354 - 15/01/2016 10:53:00    1816800

How many sides have made the step up from Christy Ring to Liam or from Lory Meagher to Christy Ring with any success? Do most not come tumbling back down?

gotmilk (Fermanagh) - Posts: 4971 - 15/01/2016 12:04:02    1816824

But then again you can't devise a system where you can just parachute an Antrim or Leitrim into a division 1 standard group/league etc

You don't need to do that. You just need to provide those teams with more games plus allow them to play against better teams, it doesn't mean they play Dublin at least once a season.

Teams don't need to have a chance to win a competition for them to be playing meaningful matches and to be able to get something out of the season.

A big problem with current qualifiers is you have 5 Ulster teams going into round 1. The qualifiers could be linked more to the league. You have round 1 restricted to the 16 lowest rated teams to not make their provincial final. You'll get mainly division 3 and 4 teams in this. You'll get Antrim vs Tipperary, Carlow vs Sligo proper games for this level. You could even make this round a group based round to give more matches for these weaker teams. 8 progress to the next round where they play the 8 lowest ranked non provincial champions. 8 winners progress to the All Ireland last 16 where they join the top 8 seeds, the 4 provincial champions plus the next top 4 teams from the league.

Whammo86 (Antrim) - Posts: 4223 - 16/01/2016 09:50:53    1816981

I would like to test support for this idea here -
For the greatest impact with the least change, simply do the following -
'Prov Final and new Champs Rd' losers enter 20-team Qual Rd 2 and 12-team Rd 3, respectively.
'2 unbeaten Prov Champs' and '6 Rd 3 winners' contest the AI QFs.
Or, '8 Qual 1 losers (3rd chance)' host '8 Prov SF losers' in new Qual Rd 1B.
'4 Prov Final losers' to Rd 2 (with 16 Rd 1 and 1B winners); 2 Champs Rd losers to 12-team Rd 3.
Again, 2 unbeaten Champs and 6 Qualifiers in the AI QFs.
The above netralises the Prov imbalance - Uls Prelim Rd loser will most like be no worse off than a Muns bye team and be in the Rd of 20 or 4-team Champs Rd.

omahant (USA) - Posts: 2584 - 16/01/2016 17:06:10    1817033

The only way to improve is for counties to invest in underage structures n work their way up ... there's no silver bullet
Roscommon case n point spent a number of years floundering between div div 3 n div 4
Invested in under age development n now starting to reap rewards yea were no kerry r Dublin but we have a good competitive young team that have worked hard over the last few years
Folks need to stop the whining n just get on with putting the structures n place to develop football within their counties !

rossy15 (Roscommon) - Posts: 617 - 16/01/2016 19:56:32    1817067

What a load of rubbish, typical bs from hq.

royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 16/01/2016 20:02:34    1817069

An idiotic solution to a growing problem by an organisation that is getting more and more out of touch

breakingball22 (Louth) - Posts: 419 - 16/01/2016 20:40:41    1817073

Why do people on this thread insist on peddling their own solutions? Lads nobody that matters is listening!! As for the cc proposal? Still haven't addressed the core issue. The inequality of the all Ireland championship. Kerry and cork can still fix the draw to ensure they get direct entry to latter stages of all Ireland yet six ulster counties in top 16 will end up in rd1 of qualifiers. Rubbish proposal

mayotyroneman (Tyrone) - Posts: 1821 - 16/01/2016 21:54:56    1817085