IT WILL END IN TIERS
Laois boss blasts calls for change as ‘comsumerist’
JOHN SUGRUE has rubbished calls for a tiered Championship as “consumerist”.
The Laois manager is also critical of the thinking behind the ‘Super 8’ format, which his team will bid to qualify for against Monaghan on Sunday.
After three of the four provincial finals were one-sided affairs, including Laois’ 18point loss to Dublin, there were renewed calls for a tiered structure.
Sugrue said: “Can people tolerate seeing a smaller team play in a provincial final? That’s the question. Or can they just not tolerate that and we’ll close it down?
“Then the scenario is, you go with a two-tier Championship, right? How many teams are going to be in the top tier? 16.
“So then you would imagine that the teams in the last 12 would be in the top tier Championship and as it stands so Laois would be in the top tier for next year.
“So then where do we go? Do we make a smaller top tier again? Will we bring it down to eight maybe, or something like that? And then you won’t have the lopsided games that are inconveniencing everybody to look at.
“Laois played in a Leinster final this year and ok, in the second half the game got away from us.
“I live in Laois now and there’s been a nice atmosphere around it and a lot of positivity around the place.
“You take that away and the likelihood of playing in a bigger game like that is less achievable and less achievable the more and more you take it away and the more and more you condense down these competitions to the elite.”
Sugrue went on to point out how seven of the nine counties in Ulster, six out of 12 in Leinster and all five in Connacht have tasted provincial glory in the last 25 years, although Munster has been carved up between Kerry and Cork since Clare’s shock success in 1992.
“So this is all rubbish as far as I’m concerned,” he added.
“It’s consumerism and it’s people who just can’t tolerate seeing a one-sided game.”
The Kerry native also has strong reservations over the ‘Super 8s’, which will be rolled out the weekend after next. “There’s already a congested fixture list which was widely spoken about and to a great degree common sense would dictate that it’s taking fixtures out as opposed to adding fixtures in that the GAA should be looking at.
“If you’ve got congestion, I don’t care what it is, whether it’s traffic or in your head, the last thing you do is put more into it, so that’s the scenario with the Super 8s.
“Realistically if you pip one of the big teams you’d like to think you’ve put them behind you in Championship. That’s what Championship is about.
“It’d be fantastic for us if we get to the Super 8s this year for sure and it’d be a great bit of work and that’s what we’re aiming to do.
“But the Super 8s is only achievable by eight teams and if you give a big team a first chance and then a second chance and they don’t make the Super 8s, well then they’re maybe not such a big team.
“But if you are a decent team with your house in order, the likelihood is you’ll make the Super 8s now because you’re getting two chances.
“As opposed to bringing on smaller teams, to a great degree the likelihood is it’ll condense the stronger teams into the Championship.”
Can people tolerate seeing a smaller team play in a provincial final? That’s the question..