Sean Kelly: ‘I’m sorry we didn’t persevere with the sin bin. It’s time to reintroduce it’

REFLECTIONS on the 2015 championships have been under-whelming to say the least. I mightn’t altogether agree with that downbeat assessment, but one has to take the majority view on board and debate what needs to change to improve matters.

It’s odd when the time, effort and dare I say, sacrifice of all involved - officials, management, back-room staff or players - was never higher that the product isn’t matching it. The demands on players is enormous - we’ve heard of players giving up work, changing jobs, not to mention curtailing social life - all in pursuit of a place on the starting 15 and an All-Ireland medal. We are told the bar keeps rising but the entertainment and enjoyment is not following suit.

If this were a business, we would be asking questions. Investment in a business has to bring results - otherwise the model changes and investment dries up or goes elsewhere. So what’s wrong with the GAA Championship? Well, there are two obvious reasons for the “mediocrity” of entertainment - first, there are too many one-sided games and the other is the style of football (perhaps hurling too).