These play-offs are WAY OFF
Leagues are devalued by so many teams’ aversion to reaching the final stages
WHEN it comes to manufacturing its own mythology, nothing quite beats the Premier League.
Even the trophy itself brings its own story. Cast by Asprey London, the Crown Jewellers, there are actually two identical trophies — the one the title winners get to keep, plus a replica. Both cast from 24-carat silver gilt with the base made from malachite, the green colour of the stone meant to represent the field of play.
Underpinning the trophy design is this idea of ‘The Three Lions of English Football’, with two of the lions perched above the handles on either side.
According to the Premier League blurb: ‘When the captain of the title-winning team raises the trophy, and its gold crown, above his head at the end of the season, he becomes the third lion’. Of course he does. Now that this year’s competition has turned into a proper title race between three teams — Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool — with 10 games to go, the idea has already been floated about whether another replica trophy might be needed, to be on hand to be presented to the winners on the season’s last day if it goes right down to the wire.
IF you suggested that the top two — say City and Liverpool — should progress to a league final rather than the outright winners being awarded the trophy, you’d get a lot of funny looks.
Meanwhile, back on this island, the idea that the team who finishes top of a league competition, after a set number of games, should actually be awarded the trophy continues to be regarded as a step too far.
At least in Gaelic games where inter-county tradition dictates play-offs must take place. If not quarter-finals, then semi-finals or at the very least a final.
Now in fairness to the GAA, the idea of play-offs have been questioned, particularly since the split season has been introduced where inter-county action is compressed into a tighter timeframe to allow for the AllIreland finals being brought forward to July.
While Divisions 1 to 4 in football will be decided by a final between the top two teams, the hurling League still clings to semi-finals.
But the question has to be asked how long either of the current practices can continue.
When the staging of play-offs ends up doing damage to the credibility and the value of the competitions, then surely a rethink is needed.
Of course, supporters like another day out and the GAA like the revenue-generator of another big gate but it can’t be to the detriment of the competition as a whole.
Mayo’s fate last year was a case in point. Win a national title in Croke Park on the first Sunday in April, beating neighbours Galway in the process, but end up being dumped out of the Connacht Championship by Roscommon the following Sunday.
A week’s grace is no proper lead-in period from one major competition to another. Little wonder Mayo manager Kevin McStay has already talked down the value of defending the same title, along with chief marksman Ryan O’Donoghue and others.
If it was a straightforward process where the team with the most points is deemed the division winner, imagine how differently Derry would have viewed last weekend’s home encounter with Dublin.
Already on eight points with four wins from four, a win would have killed the All-Ireland champions’ chances of winning the title and meant Derry just needed one more point from the remaining two games against Mayo and Monaghan to be crowned champions for the first time since 2008.
They could have wrapped up the title this Sunday with even just a point away to Mayo. The thrill of having the trophy presented to them at MacHale Park would have added another layer to the fixture.
Having no final frees up an extra week, so even McStay and Mayo might have looked at the value of successfully defending their crown ahead of a trip to Gaelic Park to play New York in the first round of the Connacht SFC on April 7.
In Division 2, Donegal or Armagh could have been crowned champions this weekend rather than worrying about the likelihood of meeting again as the top two in a League final between two fierce Ulster rivals — a match that would be completely overshadowed by the actual Ulster Championship just around the corner.
Similarly, in Division 3, Westmeath versus Down has a winners-takes-all look about it while in Division 4, Laois would just need a point at home to Leitrim.
Of course there is value in those teams outside Division 1 in particular gaining valuable exposure in playing at Croke Park in a showpiece final but again, not if those finals dent the credibility of the same competition by being staged too close to the Championship.
So it’s either find a more coherent calendar or simply award the winners of each division the League title — the same way that so many other leagues around the world operate.
In hurling, it’s the very same. Kilkenny goalkeeper Eoin Murphy, spoke on the topic at the John West Féile launch at Croke Park on Tuesday.
‘Obviously, you do want to win because it’s a national competition… no disrespect to it whatsoever but I do think teams certainly in the last couple of years are taking a more delicate approach to it just because of that window after the League is so small.’
TAKE the likes of Clare. Do they really want to embrace the potential prospect of playing reigning League champions Limerick in a final just a fortnight out from a Munster SHC first round meeting?
Again, that perhaps explains Brian Lohan’s ‘only the League’ response to an encouraging early win away to Waterford at Walsh Park.
Given that the current format for Division 1 is of two separate groups of six, a final is required before it moves to a slimmed down seven-team top flight next year. But it doesn’t require semifinals. And doesn’t require a final next year when it will be a seventeam meritocracy where the best team after six rounds deserves to be crowned champions.
Instead, we are left with the anomaly of counties in football and hurling, for the most part, taking the group stages of the League more seriously than the play-offs. Which only does the competitions themselves a disservice.