BREHENY BEAT: THREE DRAWS ONLY MAGNIFY UNFAIRNESS OF FOOTBALL’S CHAMPIONSHIP STRUCTURE
Unjust provincial championships are somehow not even on the agenda
IT USED to take less than 30 minutes, including pointless analysis of the most predictable pairings imaginable, but now it extends to three days.
More specifically, three mornings, the time-scale that the GAA and RTÉ allocated for the provincial football championship draws.
They have been running on ‘Morning Ireland’ since Monday, tossing out the local pairings for competitions that won’t start for another seven months.
TV coverage was scrapped, presumably on the understandable basis that since hurling no longer requires provincial draws, there’s limited interest in watching balls being churned in a bowl before revealing that Cill Mhantáin will play Loch Garman in the Leinster football first round.
The excitement of it all! There’s Carlow v Offaly, Louth v Longford and Waterford v Limerick too. Not much ‘wow’ factor there either.
And then there was the focus on who would present Dublin with the first test in their six-in-a-row attempt. It turned out to be Westmeath, who have beaten Dublin in only three of 19 SFC games and who lost the last five by an average of more than 20 points.
Exempt
There was a proposal to give Dublin a bye to the semi-finals next year but it didn’t get through Leinster Council.
However, they did not change the system, whereby the four semi-finalists are exempt from first-round action in the following season. That perk comes with the added bonus that they can’t be paired against each other in the quarter-finals.
What’s wrong with having all 11 counties in the drum and running an unrestricted draw? Yes, it might pair Dublin and Meath, this year’s finalists, in the first round, but so what?
It used to be like that. And there was no fuss either. I can still recall how my colleague, Seán McGoldrick, came off the phone one day in late 1990 to declare: “you’re not going to believe this, but Dublin and Meath will play in the Leinster first round next year.”
Both were major forces at the time, but Leinster gave them no preferential treatment in the draw.
No more than the other provinces, they didn’t even announce when their draws were being made. McGoldrick found out by chance when he phoned Leinster secretary Michael Delaney on another matter.
As it happened, that draw turned out to be one of the most significant in GAA history as it took four games to separate Dublin and Meath in 1991, a remarkable saga that did much to increase football’s popularity.
It was also around the time when a campaign led by Clare’s Noel Walsh and others finally broke up the cosy arrangement whereby Kerry and Cork were always placed on opposite sides of the Munster draw, thereby ensuring they almost invariably reached the final.
That doesn’t happen now, but a form of protectionism still exists in Munster, who grant the previous year’s finalists direct access to the semi-finals. Why not have an unrestricted draw and let all six take their chance equally?
That Cork v Kerry will meet in next year’s semi-final was the headline from yesterday’s draws, which says it all about the system. The Munster final will get on fine without one of them, especially since their meetings haven’t exactly been riveting in recent years.
Other than running a rota system involving London and New York against the local five counties, Connacht operate an open draw, as do Ulster. Complete with inequality – both in terms of the numbers in each province and the methodology used in the draws – the provincial championship system is repugnant to fairness and competitiveness.
Dragging the football draw out over three days merely highlighted the nonsense of it all, yet there isn’t a single voice high up the command chain
who is proposing that the provincials be scrapped as the starting point for the All-Ireland championships.
Special Congress meets on Saturday week to decide whether to introduce a Tier 2 championship. The proposal has merit – although it’s weakened by including as many as 16 counties – but the problem with the wider championship system is far more pressing. Despite that, it won’t get a mention. Four candidates have already declared for next year’s presidential contest, but none of them dare suggest that the provincials lose their place in the All-Ireland set-up as it would wreck their chances of being elected. That’s realpolitik!
If you want an illustration of how unfair the current system is, take Leitrim as an example. They would have had to beat Roscommon, Mayo and Galway (all Division 1) to win Connacht this year, whereas Kerry won Munster by beating Clare (Division 2) and Cork (relegated to Division 3) and Dublin met no Division 1 opposition.
The 2020 draw pits Leitrim against Mayo in the quarter-final, with Roscommon or London in the semi-final. If they won those two games, Galway would probably await in the final. And since Carrick-on-Shannon isn’t big enough to host Connacht finals, Leitrim wouldn’t even have home advantage.
Compare that with what awaits Dublin and Kerry in Leinster and Munster respectively.
How in hell are the GPA standing by and allowing players to be treated so unequally?
How in hell are the GPA allowing players to be treated so unequally?