BACK DOOR BOYS FACE SCRAP FOR SURVIVAL
Qualifier specialists Longford will struggle to keep in touch in the brave new world of the Super 8s
IN MANY ways, Longford football is both the poster boy for keeping things as they are while also being the greatest advocate for change.
That is the ultimate paradox, so let me explain. Since the introduction of football’s back-door in 2001, few other counties have stepped through it with such relish.
When typically they put the frighteners on Donegal back in July before coming up short, it marked their 34th qualifier match.
Their record stands at 17 wins, 17 defeats and where they are coming from a 50 per cent strike rate constitutes something more than breaking even.
They are the only county to have played in every first round — a number of the game’s other lesser lights were briefly excluded when Division 4 teams went straight into the ill-fated Tommy Murphy Cup for a couple of seasons — and in that time they have beaten the good and those aspiring to be very good. They have beaten Derry three times, Down twice, Monaghan and — most famously of all — Mayo in 2010.
But if the qualifiers have provided the county with a release from the prison that Leinster has become, it still has not allowed them to run free.
For all their relative success in the qualifiers, they are one of nine counties who have not managed to reach the All-Ireland quarterfinal.
Little wonder, then, that they are not getting too excited about the introduction of the Super 8s, which next year will replace the old knock-out quarter-final round.
But it might explain why they looked on enviously as Congress voted in September to ensure that second tier hurling teams were provided with a pathway back into the business end of the Liam MacCarthy Cup.
Longford, like all other lower-tier football counties, objected last year to a Croke Park proposal for a second tier Championship, principally because no such access point back into the All-Ireland series was on offer.
The players, through the ballot box of the Gaelic Players Association, made it crystal clear that they were totally opposed to a standalone second tier competition — they instead proposed an all-encompassing Champions League structure which was not even considered — and Longford manager Denis Connerton believes that in three years’ time the players’ voices must be heeded.
‘We need to do something,’ he insists.
‘The one thing I would say is that whatever format we come up with it has to be led by the GPA because it has the backing of the players. And the players need to have a massive input because if you devise a competition structure which they have had no input into then it is very easy for them to walk away from it.
‘The players have to come up with a format that they are happy with and, if they do, it should benefit everybody,’ added Connerton.
There is a massive imbalance in the provincial system
A proposal originally conceived by former GAA president Seán Kelly and given oxygen last year by Jim McGuinness in his newspaper column, which proposed to retain the provincial championships while using the Allianz League for seeding purposes to create a two-tiered Championship, caught Connerton’s eye.
But it had a major and reoccurring flaw. ‘Whatever format they come up with has to include an access point into the Sam Maguire for what are considered second tier counties.
‘That was a good idea and it could have worked but the one thing that plan did not accommodate was an access point back into the Championship. It is going to be very hard to get support for a format that does not provide that pathway for developing counties,’ he argues.
The fly in the ointment is that any structure change will have to work around the tired and — many would argue — failed provincial system.
Next year will mark the 30th anniversary of Longford’s last appearance in a Leinster semifinal and Connerton believes that if the unbalanced provincial system is retained, then at the very least it needs to be reshaped.
‘There is a massive imbalance in the provincial system, you have 11 counties in Leinster, nine in Ulster, seven in Connacht and six in Munster.
‘It is an old system and people are afraid to tamper with it due to history, but logic dictates that we have to go with an even number of teams in each province. If that means teams being forced to move then so be it.
‘When you look at the hurling now, with Galway included in Leinster, there is no reason why football can’t follow suit.
‘We have to get the balance right because you have to travel a long way to make any ground in Leinster,’ he argues.
But with Dublin casting a large shadow over Leinster — Connerton conceded that it is ‘quite possible’ that the champions could win 19 out of 20 Leinster titles — reform of the provincial structure won’t come close to creating the space for counties like Longford to breathe. Neither will the Super 8s. ‘I think the last time we were involved in that was in 1968 and they called it the Super 4s back then,’ jokes the Longford boss.
But playing on the fringes is no laughing matter. Counties like Longford need to be brought in from the cold, shown a little love.
‘Our big quibble is that we don’t get enough home games. I have had seven Championship games as manager and just one of them was at home,’ explains Connerton, who is heading into his third season in charge.
‘The qualifiers have changed for the worse. At one stage if you were drawn against a Division 1 team they had to travel to your ground and that promoted the game in your county.
‘In the last two summers, we have had to travel to Down, Monaghan and Donegal, how does that create that big-time buzz.’ It doesn’t. And if counties like Longford can’t get their summer kicks soon, it may take more than structural reform for them to find that buzz again.