Provincial mindset will keep us in Dark Ages
THE provincial football championships may be at death’s door, but provincial mindsets are alive and kicking. In their recent annual reports to their respective provincial conventions, John Prenty and Michael Reynolds, the Connacht and Leinster CEO’s respectively, offered up a script which if presented in the classroom would have had them in the principal’s office on a charge of copying each other’s work.
Prenty, whose annual report can never be accused of being bland, suggested: ‘The provincial champions have got to get some leeway.
‘When we come back to review it properly, maybe the provincial winners will go straight to the AllIreland
quarter-finals and the other teams will play off in groups – in other words, a three-way play-off rather than a four-way play-off.’
And Reynolds’ end of year essay contained the following passage: ‘The present structure for the AllIreland Senior Football Championship may not be pleasing to all. That said and in the context of endeavouring to “save a week” it may be worth considering for the Sam Maguire, the four provincial winners qualify directly for the quarter-finals while the remaining 12 are grouped into four groups of three with the group winners qualifying for the quarterfinals.’
Given that every reform of the football championship – from the introduction of the qualifiers, to the Super 8s and now to the
current Super 16s construct – has been an attempt to compensate for the unfairness, inequality and imbalances of the provincial system, it takes some outside-thebox thinking to suggest that the best way forward for the game is to leap back to its failed past.
That will not happen for all kinds of reasons, not least because far from being viewed as a prize, the reward of being parked up for the bones of a month while the rest sharpen their competitive teeth is unlikely to hold much appeal to the game’s top teams.
And it would also ensure that the anomaly which existed prior to the Super 8s would return in that the only provincial winners would lose out on a second chance after losing a game in the Championship.
More importantly, though, and this is where the penny has still not dropped with those batting for the provinces, the current format – as with the Super 8s – was designed to ensure football was given a stage where the top teams got to play each other on a more regular basis in high summer.
This was done to compensate for so much of the lopsided uncompetitive dross which the provincial championships serve up and to go some way to level the playing field, where participation is not decided by entitlement but by merit.
Taking that away is not the answer.
Taking away the link between the provinces and the All-Ireland Championship most certainly is.