It’s time to tackle football inequalities

Here are some very important numbers: 144 — the number of points Dublin have won by in their 13 straight Leinster victories since 2011; 100 — the sum margin total of Carlow’s last six championship defeats and six — the number of seasons Waterford have gone without a win in the Munster senior football championship.

Will your county be in next week’s figures? Behind every number, there are real persons. Every time you complain about the football championship’s inequalities, you can help to lower these numbers.

Forgive the poetic licence taken with the Road Safety Authority’s jarring radio advertisement but when a lopsided result or two prompts the annual football championship debate only for it to die away with a chorus of head shaking. Well, this isn’t winter talk and it’s not going to go away. What has happened to Longford, Waterford and Carlow in recent weeks tells a sorry tale that can’t be ignored.

We can get it out of our pretty heads right now that the provincial competitions are on the table. They’re not and won’t be. Two of the three football results on Sunday might contest that fact but would putting Longford up against Mayo, Donegal or Kerry change anything, bar the margin of victory?

Three years ago, Ulster secretary Danny Murphy encapsulated the strength of the provincial championships: “At the end of the day, what you need is competitive games that are relatively close to the people who are going to them.” Closeness as in geographical proximity is one thing but closeness as in competitiveness is certainly another. Murphy also speaks from a lofty vantage point in a province, as his council rightly markets, “where matches mean more”.

The provincial system isn’t actually the problem. The jaded Champions League idea would throw up as much if not more non-events. The issue is a failure to recognise that football has become just as polarised as hurling, which at least has formed tiers to that effect.

So far this summer, in the 11 games excluding Galway’s win over New York, no team has beaten another in a higher division, the closest being (Division 2) Cavan’s one-point loss to (Division 1) Monaghan.

Four years ago and just three seasons after Tyrone won an All-Ireland, Mickey Harte said at the outset of the championship that the chances of his Division 2 team winning an All-Ireland were extremely slim: “I don’t think that anybody from Division 3 or Division 4 — no disrespect to them — are going to win the All-Ireland. In fact, it is highly doubtful anyone from Division 2 is going to win it.” He’s yet to be proven wrong.

Three years ago, we outlined our own proposal for a championship restructure. It comprised 32 counties being divided into four groups of eight based on current provincial boundaries. Each groups would be split into two sub-groups of four with each county having three games. The sub-group winners would qualify for the provincial finals. The four provincial winners would face off in All-Ireland preliminary semi-finals with the winners qualifying for the semi-finals.

The eight second-placed divisional group teams would go into a draw to face one another with the four winners taking on the four provincial runners-up. The victors of those four games would then be reduced to two with the pair going forward to face the All-Ireland preliminary semi-final losers for the two remaining All-Ireland semi-finals spots.

A total of 69 games, nine more than the current championship, it would barely tax clubs more than they are currently affected by the inter-county scene. In fact, it would provide county boards every year without fail with a most precise guide of when to stage club matches.

However, the idea was harebrained. As the Football Review Committee’s vanquished provincial redrawing proposal proved, there is no appetite in the GAA for even marginal changes to the status quo. Provincial councils regard a scalpel as a shovel. In fairness to the Leinster Council earlier this year, they attempted to provide their weaker football counties with the opportunity to build up steam in a round-robin system before taking on the likes of Dublin. They put forward a motion at Congress that recommended provincial councils be permitted to devise their own championship formats. It was overwhelmingly rejected by 83% of delegates.

Incidentally, empowering provinces in such a way was part of former GAA president Seán Kelly’s championship reshuffle, which he put down on paper in 2012. It was a sophisticated proposal but could be distilled into four main points: retain the league and provincial championships letting each province decide their own format; following provincial championships, split the championship into two open draw, knockout competitions — the Sam Maguire Cup and a “Tommy Murphy Cup” secondary competition; for the first year, all eight provincial finalists qualify for Sam Maguire Cup with the other eight selected on the final league position; after year one, the top two Tommy Murphy Cup teams qualify for Sam Maguire Cup along with six best league finishers who haven’t qualified through their provinces.

Combining the old with the new, it was and remains a brilliant blueprint. Fundamentally, every county has an opportunity to win the ultimate title. Yet Kelly’s scheme has been largely ignored by Croke Park. As we wrote here last month, his high-profile term in office hasn’t been forgotten in the corridors of power. If a fantastic means of helping to fix the GAA’s premier football competition is ignored because of the author, then that is really a sorry case. Sorrier than Longford, Waterford and Carlow.

Ultimately, it is about where you’re from

Beggars can’t be choosers and unfortunately that is exactly what Galway hurlers were when they asked for Saturday’s Leinster quarter-final replay to be staged in Pearse Stadium.

Just as they have discovered in their attempts to join the province’s minor and U21 hurling competitions, they are truly outsiders.

It seems crazy and anti-promotional that Galway have played just one championship game on their own soil in seven years. But then Clare, Waterford and Antrim to a lesser extent can also talk of a lack of home comforts too. Compare that to the now well-rehearsed stat of Bernard Brogan, now aged 31 and in his ninth full senior season, not having yet kicked a ball in championship fare outside Croke Park.

By including Galway and Antrim, it may have seemed Leinster was more a name than a province. The presence of Kerry or Derry in the qualifying group next year will further inculcate that belief but let there be no doubt that when it really matters it’s not about who you are but where you’re from.

Rebel comebacks good timing

Once it was Kerry who were regarded as the kings of comebacks. Mike McCarthy, Sean O’Sullivan Eoin Brosnan and only Paul Galvin this year shelved their retirement plans for another go.

But following the returns of Alan O’Connor and Brian Murphy to the respective Cork football and hurling panels, Kerry’s neighbours have stolen that particular mantle.

Neither man would have been coaxed back to merely sit on the bench in the same way Brian Corcoran was persuaded in 2004. Both O’Connor and Murphy would have known they had the upper hand when it came down to bargaining. It says a lot about Cork hurlers’ defensive crisis that Murphy was recalled 12 days out from facing Waterford, just as much that the full panel only reconvened last Tuesday week for the first time since losing the Division 1 final. Compare the two and Murphy’s reappearance seems the lesser gamble.

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