Revolutionising the GAA Season – Reset, Reform, Relaunch

By Gavin Morris – former Wexford Senior Football player and U20 Goalkeeping Coach

Much has been said and written about the many different stakeholders feeding into the hottest and most sensitive topic in the GAA world, the GAA season. What is the GAA season? For some it is an ever-evolving door where little cohesion and purpose seem apparent. For others it is disjointed, laborious and with an undercurrent of frustration and disharmony coursing through the veins.

The problem is the solution is so obvious and so close, yet the little matter of recognizing it, is to realign the elephant in the room which has the whole GAA circle held to ransom, the four provincial councils.

No one believes having four uneven groups feeding into a knockout competition is fair and for certain its logic would not hold up in any other field sport throughout the world. Worse still it is a competition containing lop sided seedings from one all the way down to thirty-three. So why are we at the mercy of our four provincial councils?

The provincial council is embedded in the GAA history and culture of our games so forcing the wheel of change upon a rigid and fixated hierarchy structure is never going to be easy. Quite possibly one is relying on a rebellion of sorts before common sense can feed from the top right the way down through the association. But that is a very unrealistic scenario so in truth, this all requires strong leadership from the top. A willingness to step away from the status quo and create a legacy upon which such an elite and excellent competition deserves.

Creating an identity

I believe the basis of change involves merging the association’s best competition, the National League with the championship knockout structure along with moving the provincial championships to stand alone competitions. This is not an alien practice as Camogie already lead the way with such a structure.

By taking such a bold move, not only can we create an exciting championship, but we can include the word equality where all teams are treated on equal merit and competition is based on ranking not entitlement.

The spin-off is huge as this allows the GAA to generate and define a club season, a county season and more importantly an off season and pre-season.

Given a St Patrick’s weekend launch to the county championship season, this would provide county teams a 10-week pre-season period where all teams are back training at the same time. Pre-season competitions will be retained and a much needed off season of November and December can be attained for players providing that much needed rest and recuperation from the demands of a busy playing season.

With 32 counties currently competing in the league, we are looking at creating a two-tier championship of 16 teams in each competition with knock out qualification and relegation providing real bite to the latter end of the round robin championship.

The complaints from many quarters that second tier competitions do not get sufficient air time is a very valid argument. The obvious solution is to package rights to both tiered competitions separately. The BBC took over highlights rights to the second tier in English football which in turn created the desired exposure such a competition demanded. With the end goal been when Sky won the package back on the next renewal period, they subsequently spent the necessary time and resources on its production. Competition is good, and this is what is badly needed in the world of television rights on GAA production packages.

Provincial Championships

What about the Provincial championships? People will cry foul that the provincial championships will be devalued. But they’re can’t be much more devaluation to add on in the current climate. The triple A rating from decades ago is now long forgotten and junk status is the only credible explanation left for such a long-standing tradition, flawed on geographical segregation.

The likes of Carlow and Leitrim may bemoan at the suggestion that they will no longer be able to take on the top teams. This is not entirely true as they will still have access to division one teams via the provincial championships and as with any competition, the right to dine in the top divisions should be earned on the field via rankings and not through an outdated entitlement system where players feel it is ok to train for a day out and a comprehensive defeat. Sport works best under a ranking system and seeing various teams rejoice in promotion celebrations in March these past few years only illustrate this point. I have yet to see a team celebrate a defeat to a division one team in the qualifiers with the same abandon. Gaelic Football has got to the stage where the demands, the cost, the effort and training required means it’s no longer about participation but competing on a competitive platform. Viable returns from significant expenditure needs to generate a tangible investment.

We can save the provincial championships by creating a competition of importance on its own merits. Simple tweaks can enhance their profiles and reward the winners with home quarter finals in the knock out stages and better again reward tier 2 winners of a province with automatic promotion to next year’s tier 1 championship. Such a scenario would mean the bottom team in each group of tier 1 face automatic relegation thus meaning the need to host a relegation final becoming null and void.

Club Players

Where does this leave the club players? For many teams, the task of taking on two pre-season periods is very much common place these days and many would argue both unwanted and unnecessary. With this competition merger at a National level, we can create a club league season and a club championship season. Clubs can play their league competition from April to June and their championship season from July to October. Creating a culture of certainty is helpful to everyone from players, management, and official’s right through to fixture secretaries across the association.

From my own experiences of management, I have seen the merits of such a structure work very well in other counties where the Spring can be spent in preparation mode of looking at players, tinkering with systems and ideas before settling down to the business end of the championship season in late summer, early Autumn. Players have that added certainty of fixtures, scheduling and targets for peaking at the appropriate stages of the season. Several counties follow a similar calendar model and it is something that has plenty of merit as it complements nicely with the flow of their respective county teams season. A flow which would mirror with this exact proposal.

Granted such an idea can be trickier in heavily populated dual counties such as Wexford where the crossover of dual players is arguably higher than most other counties. Tweaking club championship structures or timelines accordingly would possibly allow for competitions to adhere to this proposed split season.

Proposal and Structure

Given its rightful ranking as the fairest and most competitive competition in the GAA season, it makes natural sense to merge the league into the championship structure thus creating equality and inclusiveness for all teams looking to be competitive and take part in meaningful and just competition at an appropriate time in the calendar i.e. late spring, early summer.

• Sam Maguire Competition 16 teams split into 2 groups of 8
• The Championship Trophy 16 teams split into 2 groups of 8 (a play on the second-tier football division in England which removes the element of a B competition from the mindset)
• Promotion and Relegation. Bottom team in each group in Sam Maguire playoff for relegation to the Championship. Winners of the championship trophy gain automatic entry to the Sam Maguire.
• For one of the league rounds – have a Super 8 weekend in Croke Park where on the Saturday, 4 games take place in group A Sam Maguire, and on the Sunday group B games take place.
• The following weekend, apply the same format for the Championship Trophy. This is a Super 8 for all 32 counties and helps avoid the anomaly of uneven home and away games for counties.
• Give provincial winners a home tie for quarter finals if we wish to attribute some meaning to this competition.
• Allow tier two winners of Provincial championship automatic entry to following years Sam Maguire competition. On the rare occasion that there is more than one tier two team wins a province (if history is a reference check), a play-off is required to determine the second promotion spot.
• A tier two provincial winner means automatic relegation for both team’s bottom in each Sam Maguire group.
• New York would still participate in the Connacht championship

County Season Timeline:

January – county teams begin pre-season training for a 10-week period.

February – O’Byrne Cup, McGrath Cup, FBD League, McKenna Cup pre-season competitions take place

March – championship begins with the season defined as follows:

• 17^th March St Patrick’s weekend – 1^st round of league championship in both competitions.
• 31^st March – 2^nd round
• 14^th April – 3^rd round
• 21^st April – first round provincial championships (Leinster, Ulster and New York)
• 28^th April – 4^th round (Super 8 weekend in Croke Park for Championship Trophy)
• 5^th May – Bank holiday weekend 4^th round (Super 8 weekend in Croke Park for Sam Maguire)
• 12^th May – quarter final of provincial championships – all provinces
• 19^th May – 5^th round
• 26^th May – semi final of provincial championships – all provinces
• 1st June – 6^th round
• 14^th June – 7^th round
• 21^st June – final of provincial championships – all provinces
• 5th July – quarter final weekend Sam Maguire – home and away games
• 12^th July – quarter final weekend Championship Trophy – home and away games
• 26th July – semi finals with double header in Croker on Saturday and Sunday of both competitions
• 9^th August – All Ireland finals of Sam Maguire and Championship Trophy 

Qualification to knockouts

Top 2 teams in Group A and B qualify for quarter final with home tie

3^rd and 4^th in both groups qualify for quarter finals and drawn away from home*

Teams finishing 8^th in Sam Maguire groups play off in relegation final

*Provincial winners given home tie.

Club Season Timeline:

March – June – County Leagues without county players

July – October/November Club Championships with county players

Pros

• Provide a competitive competition structure for all counties.
• Tier 2 teams still retain the opportunity to play Division 1 teams via the provincial championships.
• Tier 2 provincial winners gain automatic entry to the following years Sam Maguire competition
• Defined window for clubs to complete their championships from July to October for 16 teams and from August to October/November for 16 other teams.
• Close season November and December except for county champions allowing players the necessary off season to recuperate.
• Pre-Season defined as January, February and into middle of March providing 10 weeks of pre-season training.
• Club league season defined as March to June without county players.

In summary, watching games take place over the past couple of weeks, fills me with frustration that these games are not taking place every week for the next number of months. Wexford, Leitrim, Wicklow, Offaly and London to name a few have all spent a huge amount of time and money preparing for these games. The chance to improve and compete should be there again next Sunday and so on right through the next number of months. Yet they have been cast aside for 5/6 weeks in the hope they avoid a top-ranking side to prolong their summer. As Jim McGuiness would allude to, if you are hoping, you are fooling no one but yourself.