Fiddling with the Fixtures

By Aidan O’ Brien

The president of the GAA, John Horan, recently announced his intention to push forward plans for a two tiered inter county senior football championship as soon as next year. There has been lots of rumblings about this over the past few years, but it now seems clear that change of the current format is imminent. It is badly needed not only to address the issue of providing meaningful competition but also to provide more equity and more opportunity. By now, in very early June, 8 counties will have exited the championship scene and will do so almost unnoticed and with very little sympathy shown.

GAA fixtures are a complex business. Most players, mentors and supporters bemoan the process especially at club level where it is almost impossible to plan with any degree of certainty; even the gift of the so called ‘club month’ of April has been widely flaunted with several counties playing no championship games during this period. The problem is even more pronounced in counties properly committed to both codes such as my own adopted county of Wexford.

However, while pointing out the problems is, as in every walk of life, very easy to do, providing viable solutions is not so. Putting the whole process into some context before beginning to examine the detail of fixtures structure is, in my opinion, necessary first. When one hears the managers of teams who have suffered very heavy defeats at the hands of top division teams rejecting any suggestion of a second-tier competition, one is compelled to at least ask why they would feel so strongly about this. The managers of Carlow and Louth, Turlough O’Brien and Wayne Kerins respectively, both suffered heavy defeats recently in the Leinster championship but, yet they are adamant they want the retention of the provincial series and a shot at the ultimate prize, the Sam Maguire cup. I would propose a system where any masochistic desire to get a flogging could be coupled with one which provides some reasonable chance of success.

It is also worth asking why it is felt that players would be largely indifferent to playing in a secondary competition when the same players strain every sinew to gain divisional promotion or at worst avoid relegation in the National League which currently has 4 tiers. Indeed, any county Junior final victory is, in my experience, celebrated as joyously as is a Senior one. I have been fortunate enough to manage teams to win county titles at all grades from Junior to Senior and I felt a similar level of achievement in all of them. I didn’t detect any strata in the forms of celebration afterwards either.

One other concern repeatedly raised in relation to a secondary competition is the level of media attention it will get, and reference is made to the paucity of the Joe McDonagh Cup coverage on The Sunday Game. While it would be most welcome to have such a competition given adequate coverage across all media outlets, it should hardly be a criterion in determining whether to proceed with it or not. Those of us who soldiered in the 1980’s with the likes of my native Westmeath, or indeed before won’t have had the lens of the RTE cameras trained upon our efforts unless making to make it to a Provincial Final at least. It didn’t dull our enthusiasm.

I believe every team should set out on the journey to ‘Sam’, each starting equidistant from that ultimate prize, unlike the current system where teams from one province may have to play several more, and often difficult, games to get there than those from another. The provincial series can be retained as a stand-alone competition, possibly replacing the likes of the O’Byrne & McKenna cups but should not feed into the All Ireland series.

I would suggest 8 groups of 4 teams, seeded, with each playing the other so that everyone has 3 games initially. This will result in some one-sided games for sure, but it does give the minnows a shot at the big fish without everything resting upon the result as the outcome of the game for a 4^th seeded team against a 3^rd seeded team, for example, will for both those teams be more important, most likely. Despite what some might have us believe, the ‘weaker’ counties do relish a shot at the top sides even though the outcome is unlikely to be favourable. I was manager of Wexford when in 2014 the prize for beating Longford was a Leinster Semi-Final outing against Dublin, then reigning All-Ireland champions. We failed but being in Croke Park throwing what we could muster at the Dublin beast was where we wanted to be. Besides, I would practically guarantee some shock results if what I proposed were to be implemented.

With the initial series of games played, 3 for each team, I would suggest the top 2 in each group go forward to compete for the Sam Maguire while the bottom 2 from each group go forward to contest the second-tier competition. Everyone has had a chance to compete for ‘Sam’ and now everyone still has something realistic, particularly for the second-tier teams, to aim for. It may well be the case that the most invidious place to be is among the counties outside the top 6 who remain in the hunt for the Sam Maguire but at least such teams will feel some achievement at being among that cohort and may well blossom for the fact.

What structure the two championships would follow from this point is one I would be open to opinions on, but even knock-out from this point on would mean every county had a minimum of 4 championship games. The option to increase this by having further group games is also there.

There are other proposals such as one Kieran Donaghy set out on Sky Sports a few weekends ago and all are worthy of consideration as far as I am concerned provided they ensure equality of opportunity for all counties in the first instance and subsequently provide realistic opportunities of achieving success. The most imposing obstacle to progress in this area is of course the Provincial Championships because of the revenue generated for Provincial Councils, money which it must be said can be seen in coaching schemes across the country. Because a Provincial Championship divorced from the All Ireland series is not going to attract current numbers it would mean some of the All Ireland series revenue would have to be returned to the Provincial Councils.

I am well aware the above considers only one strand of the many that comprise the GAA fixtures calendar and that for those charged with the task of trying to find an optimal solution they must take all the others into account simultaneously but at least let us all resolve to, as John Lennon almost said, give change a chance.