WOULD B GOOD

games that we are craving — earlier in the season and across the competition.

You’d argue what value is there in a Leinster title to Dublin, or a Munster title to Kerry at this point.

The players will always say it’s great to win another one, but it doesn’t have a lot of value to them now.

Overall though, it may create a system where the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker.

Playing maybe seven Championship games in nine weeks is going to test your squad.

Inevitably, you are going to pick up injuries.

Come week five or six of high intensity games, bodies are sore.

Guys at the top end of their careers would struggle to go week on week and do any proper training — the League is like that now.

Favour

It will favour a Dublin, a Kerry, a Tyrone, a Mayo that can genuinely rely on 40 men.

I suspect come week five or six with thinner squads, you could see some of the weaker sides in Division 1 take a few tankings.

Overall, they are the big losers in Proposal B.

That’s the law of the jungle. The smaller counties in the top division are going to really struggle to compete.

Maybe they can have a lag year in Division 1 and push hard in Division 2 to make the All-Ireland quarter-finals the following year.

Taking a helicopter view of the entire GAA, would a league based championship be better?

Yes it would. It would create more entertainment, more supporter engagement and better media content.

I think it would invigorate the game and I believe that’s what they are trying to achieve with this plan.

Three orfour home Championship ga mes a t Omagh next year for Tyrone would get huge buy-in from supporters, and I think other counties would be the same.

You’d need season tickets. It can’t be €35 a ticket.

At one point in my career, I went three or four years without playing a home Championship game.

That would never happen again in this system.

Overall, if you are looking at developing GAA as a sport and a brand, this can only be a positive.

There are a few anomalies though and we could see some counties adopt a strategy to avoid promotion and stay in a certain division, or drop out of another one.

For example, for Monaghan to make the last 10 of the All-Ireland, it would be much easier to finish in the top three in Division 2 than the top five in Division 1.

So, relegation isn’t a major drawback, and may even be welcomed.

Engineer

And if you can manage to engineer a third placed finish in Division 2, you won’t get promoted to Division 1 for the following year, but you would still make the preliminary quarter-final of that season’s

Championship.

By not being promoted to Division 1, you would probably have a better chance of making the knock out stages the following year.

In Division 1, the bottom three sides would be eliminated f rom tha t season ’s Championship.

Teams in Division 4 in particular could end up playing dead rubbers near the end, with no relegation.

Would recent Division 1/2 yo-yo sides like Cavan and Roscommon decide it is better to be relegated if they want to make the latter stages of the Championship the following year?

If they end up being promoted out of Division 2, and making the latter stages of the Championship, the reality is they won’t be competing in the All-Ireland quarter-final the following year, as they won’t make the top five.

Teams like this could also end up playing dead rubbers in their final games, with squads tested to breaking point by a hectic schedule of games.

Will the players see out these games, or might they go back to their clubs?

If you were bottom of the League and the club was putting you under pressure, it might lead to teams not trying, or even throwing games.

This could anger other counties and undermine the integrity of the competition.

You could see the top teams like Tyrone, Kerry, Mayo and Dublin starting to rest players if they win their first four games, compromising the rest of the League.

Tailteann

If Sligo, Leitrim, Carlow or Wexford for example, lose their first three games and realise they can’t finish top of Division 4, all they have left is the Tailteann Cup, which is a straight knockout competition.

Is that enough motivation to keep it going for the next three or four games?

With so many questions, you might start to wonder is this format the way forward? But ultimately, I think it is.

It seems like the strongest teams are being penalised and you have gone full circle, but maybe there is an argument for that happening.

The bottom three in Division 1 are always going to be the biggest losers.

That is the law of the jungle. You can’t have it every way.

Four or five teams have dominated football over the last number of years.

Maybe more games in the summer will bring on the likes of Cavan and Roscommon so they can break into the bracket of sides.

When you look at the details of Proposal B, I think it would be an improvement on what we currently have.