NOW OR NEVER
In the year that’s in it, timing is key... so renewed push for fresh open-draw format makes sense
LAST Friday, the Gaelic Players Association made a wide-ranging presentation to the GAA’s Central Competitions Control Committee where among other things, it claimed that more than three-quarters of their members wanted the inter-county championships to be completed in this calendar year.
In that, the players’ voice chime with the noise coming from Croke Park. GAA president John Horan has raised the possibility of the 2020 championship spilling into the early months of next year, but it’s believed the preferred option is to conclude everything this year, even if that means the AllIreland finals taking place the weekend before Christmas.
Where the views of players differ from officialdom, though, is on the form that this year’s football competition should take.
While the CCCC are understood to be planning to proceed with straight knockout, based on the provincial model, players support an open draw. ‘A 32-county open championship to ensure fairness across the board if the only available option is a knockout competition,’ GPA chief executive Paul Flynn explained. On this issue, players and county managers are on the same page.
Back in March, Clare manager Colm Collins, a long-time advocate for change, suggested to this newspaper that the uncertainty caused by the pandemic meant that 2020 was the perfect time to experiment with an open draw.
‘This would be an ideal time to put the 32 counties into a hat,’ Collins told Sportsmail. ‘It would be the perfect way to go and people would find it so appealing that it would be a fantastic move for the GAA financially.
‘I would imagine a Championship with novel pairings would draw huge crowds and everybody would start out from the same place. Imagine Dublin having to train in the knowledge that they might draw Kerry in the first round of the Championship.’
Westmeath manager Jack Cooney made a similar call a few weeks later, saying this was ‘the year to try something different and something novel’ while a couple of weeks ago, Donegal boss Declan Bonner added to that consensus. ‘If there ever was an opportunity for an open-draw Championship, it is this year. I presume the four provincial councils will be holding firm on their championships but everything being fair, and if the playing field was equal, then the open draw with 32 teams in it is the fair way of doing it,’ Bonner said.
Following the inception of the back door in 2001, it became fashionable to say that the football championship didn’t truly begin until the August bank holiday weekend, which was the traditional date for the All-Ireland quarter-finals. Things have altered since the Super 8s came into existence, but the sentiment remains the same. Football doesn’t get serious until we are down to the final eight.
Dublin’s dominance in Leinster, winning 14 of the past 15 titles, and Kerry’s rule in Munster, where they have won the last seven titles and nine in the last ten years, have enhanced the sense that the provincial model is outdated and no longer fit for purpose, at least in football.
Even the Ulster championship, along with Munster hurling, often held up as the reason to persist with such an archaic system, is no longer the minefield of popular imagination. Three counties have shared the Anglo-Celt Cup – Donegal, Monaghan and Tyrone – for the past decade. And in the Noughties, only two counties (Armagh and Tyrone) won the title. If anything, Connacht has been the most competitive football province in recent years.
In such unprecedented times, Croke Park had the opportunity to try something different by grasping the nettle of a provincial championship model that has been on life-support for years. The GAA president even hinted at that in an interview with The Sunday Game last month.
‘One of the big challenges is to tackle the monster that is the traditional feature of the GAA that is the provincial championships. Ulster and Munster, you’d find it very hard to move in terms of the Munster hurling championship and the Ulster football championship,’ Horan said.
This was evident in the annual report of Ulster council secretary Brian McAvoy last December when he detailed his concerns about the proposals to restructure the football championship. ‘The provincial championships are a core tenet of the GAA and ending them would be a grave mistake which would erode part of our core fabric,’ McAvoy wrote.
That attitude is still widespread, and Croke Park must weigh it up as it contemplates how this year’s truncated championship will look. There is a strong feeling that the provincial system is sacrosanct and can’t be touched.
However, the players and managers, those competing, have a different view, especially in this extraordinary year. This crisis has handed the GAA an opportunity to run a championship without the imbalance inherent in the provincial model.
There was a chance to ensure that every football team will start this year’s All-Ireland championship from the same place. It was a moment where they could have ensured fairness across the board, as the GPA has said. A level playing field. Instead, despite the wishes of players and managers, it appears the GAA is going to persist with the provinces. If it does take that course, it will have let this crisis go to waste.
“Ideal time to put 32 counties into a hat”
“Ending them would be a grave mistake”