National Forum

Late County Finals - Split Season

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Replying To lilywhite1:  "The intercounty season is too condensed under the so called split season tirawleybaron. Pushing the All Ireland back to the end of August would give players more rest between championship games and let players recover from minor injuries.
The GAA season is still intermingled. Club league games continue throughout the intercounty season."
There seems to be momentum gathering among pundits, gaa journalists (including ex-players), some GAA officials and some supporters to get a debate going with an ambition to move the finals back.
I can sense no buy-in from current players, club or county to even entertain a change back. A lot of supporters also, especially those that actively support and attend club games, don't seem to be as exercised, that is they are content enough with the shortened intercounty season.

sligo joe (Dublin) - Posts: 969 - 10/07/2025 15:52:04    2624847

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Replying To lilywhite1:  "The intercounty season is too condensed under the so called split season tirawleybaron. Pushing the All Ireland back to the end of August would give players more rest between championship games and let players recover from minor injuries.
The GAA season is still intermingled. Club league games continue throughout the intercounty season."
It's not intermingled. Club League games don't have county players playing in them.

Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 16529 - 10/07/2025 16:43:30    2624854

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Replying To sligo joe:  "There seems to be momentum gathering among pundits, gaa journalists (including ex-players), some GAA officials and some supporters to get a debate going with an ambition to move the finals back.
I can sense no buy-in from current players, club or county to even entertain a change back. A lot of supporters also, especially those that actively support and attend club games, don't seem to be as exercised, that is they are content enough with the shortened intercounty season."
I can see the argument that the intercounty season is too condensed myself. A far better solution to this problem is to have less intercounty games. Starting with getting rid of League Finsls.
I do also think that the AI Finals going back 2 weeks should be doable also, moreso for promotion of the games reasons than anything else, with club finals going back the same. I get the argument about pitches and light, but neither are any worse in the middle of October than they are at the beginning of the month.

Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 16529 - 10/07/2025 17:14:18    2624861

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Moving the all Ireland finals back, impacts club players in the 8-10 counties who might make an Ireland semi.
It means September start for the club championships and a race to get them done. A club player pulling his hamstring in the fist match, then misses the entire club championship - that just is not fair.

If they move the All Irelands to end of August, they then should move the entire provincial and all ireland club into the following year (Jan to March).
Curtail the league to 8 groups of 4 (max 5 matches instead of 8) and start it in March.

Intercounty season then has 3 less league matches and only runs for 6 months.
Switching to a round robin provincial system then gives back 2 matches

Extending the intercounty season out to 7 months is a bad idea. I dont know anyone who attends all the intercounty matches - having less of them will still have the same level of attendences, just bigger crowds at few matches.

tirawleybaron (Mayo) - Posts: 1505 - 10/07/2025 18:18:02    2624872

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Replying To Viking66:  "It's not intermingled. Club League games don't have county players playing in them."
That was always the case before the present system apart from when the GAA briefly had April designated as club month when county players could play with their clubs.

lilywhite1 (Kildare) - Posts: 3045 - 10/07/2025 19:00:12    2624885

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