THE WEEK IN SPORT

Damian Stack looks at some of the stories making backpage news over the past seven days

Tier 2 looks a lot like the Tommy Murphy

WE’VE been going back and forth all week about the merits of the new tiered structure for the All Ireland senior football championship.

The thing is we can see both sides of the argument. We can see that the status quo wasn’t really working for the weaker counties, but we can also see that what awaits them isn’t some sort of utopian ideal. As a matter of fact it may well turn out to the dampest of damp squibs.

The success or otherwise of this project will depend on what level of buy-in it generates from the most important stakeholders of all – the players. If they’re expecting big games and big crowds on big stages with lots of coverage then they’d probably want to think again.

Having covered plenty of Christy Ring Cup and Joe McDonagh Cup action over the years we can safely tell you that Tier 2 action just doesn’t generate that sort of interest from fans or media – outside of the local press – alike.

The flip side of that is that as competitions go the Joe Mac and the Christy Ring are actually really rather good. The standard of play is good – much better than people who’ve never gone to one of those games might be inclined to think – and the level of competition can be quite ferocious. A Joe Mac Cup for football wouldn’t be a bad idea at all. The trouble with the Tier 2 championship as constituted is that it’s little more than a plate competition. Success or failure in the McDonagh is meaningful. In Tier 2 it doesn’t really matter.

Yes it would be nice for teams to win a cup, but even if they do win the thing outright they’re not going to be promoted. Promotion from and relegation to the second tier depends on how teams fare in the National League (and in the provincial championships). Look maybe it’s no harm to have a glorified plate competition for weaker counties. The trouble as we see is that it most likely won’t get the sort of buy in it needs. There’s very little difference between this and the ill-fated Tommy Murphy Cup experiment.

Sadly it will probably have a similar outcome.

Cheery fans strike discordant note

IT was with a certain amount of bemused astonishment that we watched the Irish crowd in Tokyo react to the horror show playing out in front of their eyes. As the All Blacks went up through the gears and through the Irish lines there seemed to be very little diminution of cheer from the green clad army up in the stands. If anything there seemed to be giddiness to them from what we could see from television.

At one stage – possibly before Ireland got their late consolation tries – the camera panned to Joe Schmidt in the coaching box alongside his assistant and soon to be successor, Andy Farrell. The two men sat stony faced as you’d expect. Schmidt head in hands the very picture of despair. In the background, however, the Irish fans were having a party. Literally dancing and laughing as Schmidt’s world collapsed around him. It made us wonder how much it really meant to them? And what it means to the country more generally?

Does it hurt enough when Ireland lose? And could that be part of the reason why we so consistently lose at this level? We posed the question on Twitter as to why the Irish fans in the stadium were so cheery and the most consistent answer was: the gargle.

Okay fair enough a lot of those fans may have been fairly well on it, but still it was deeply weird to us and comparison with the Irish soccer team singing during Euro 2012 when the Spanish put four past us in Gdansk isn’t really apt. Nobody expected Ireland to beat the reigning World Champions in Poland, unlike in Japan.

Failure should hurt and in most other sports it does. Walking down Jones’ Road after the All Ireland football final replay a couple of months ago we don’t recall seeing too many smiling Kerry faces. It was much more a case of – in the words of the late, great Con Houlihan – house private, no flowers. If the boot was on the other foot there’s no way Kiwi fans would react the same way. Demanding fans, cranky, sometimes irrational fans have their role to play too.