Review Committee considering district realignment

TWELVE months ago it was a brave new world for Kerry football with the introduction of a new format for the county senior football championship.

The format, based on the Christy Ring Cup with its winners and losers rounds, was broadly – if not quite universally – welcomed. Certainly the championship ran smoothly throughout. Now, then, seems as good a time as any to assess the format and its successes and failures, what needs to be tweaked and what, in fact, can be tweaked.

County Secretary Peter Twiss feels the reason for the county championship’s success is that fairness is built into it.

“It rewards teams for winning and the four teams who are gone after the first two rounds really can’t complain after losing twice. As an administrator you want to come up with something that works for both players and supporters and I think there is a novelty to this. That’s not to say that people might like to see a different format sometime in the future,” he said.

Speaking prior to the qualifier match between St Brendans and Shannon Rangers, Twiss agreed that nine district / group teams does create an anomaly that needs to be addressed.

“I agree that nine is not perfect and that eight of each [including clubs] would be ideal. I would say that realignment of the nine is something that the Review Committee we have is place at the moment is going to have to look at.

“I can’t say where exactly in the county that might happen yet, but the one thing I would say to people is not to be afraid of any change that might be proposed,” he said of the situation relating to the divisional sides.

Of course, another issue on the horizon for the County Championship is the bringing forward of the All-Ireland Senior finals to August, an move Twiss agrees might lead to significant changes in the timing of the county championship from 2018 onwards.

“We’re still awaiting the proposed dates for this, but from what I gather it will basically compact the inter-county season in particular.

“We hope to give those dates out to everyone once we get them and plan around them, but our initial thinking would be to try and play competitions in bloc.

“That would mean, say, playing the Club Championships to a finish in the period between the National League and Championship, play the County Leagues over the summer months and play the County Championship once Kerry exit the All-Ireland,” Twiss said of the initial thinking for the 2018 season.

He agreed that such a proposal would represent a significant change to the way competitions have been ran in the county but feels it could work from the point of view of preventing conflict between different sides over the availability of players.

“We know how difficult clubs can find it to field over the summer and the pressure having a championship game can bring. Having league games over the summer might take some of that pressure off and make it easier for them to find players willing to play in such an environment,” he said.

He says it’s important to stress that the All-Ireland changes are only for a trial three-year period, something that would be similar with regard to any changes in the county, but the Secretary feels it’s important that there is no bringing forward of the dates for the Munster Club competitions to allow time for a spread out County Championship to be played.

“Ideally we want to have two weeks between each round of the County Championship. We do plan our fixture list every year on the premise that Kerry will be in the All-Ireland Final, but in being in the All-Ireland Final in any given year you are involved in the last major inter-county fixture, which means you have only six weeks at most to have all your teams ready for the Munster Club competitions.

“The case we would make to the Munster Council would be not to change what’s there for those competitions, although I do feel if the All-Ireland Club final is staying on St Patrick’s Day then the possibility of playing the provincial club competitions in January could be considered to have a better run into it,” Twiss said of the planning and thinking that needs to be done.

Overall, Twiss is happy with the progress that is being made on the fixture front even if he acknowledges it might not be to everyone’s liking.

“I always find bringing clarity to things is good and we are trying to address a lot of the issues that are out there. I know some of the changes might not be fast enough for some people but I always find that small steps are better. I find that if you go too radical with changes then it might collapse things totally.”