Kieran Shannon: A bold GAA championship for a magic summer
This year demands its own form of novelty, one that ensures that we have more than just three championship games that are between teams outside their own province. File picture: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
In all our concern and speculation as to when precisely our county players as well as our kids will get back out on a field, there’s been little debate but plenty of presumptions as to what our inter-county competitions might look like this summer.
In recent weeks the GPA, obviously upon some briefings from Croke Park, has been surveying its membership as to which of three format scenarios players would prefer.
At first glimpse it seems a progressive and consultative and open-minded process: Here’s quite the menu, what would you like on your plate?
Appearances can be deceiving though. Essentially only two choices have been offered as the third will be taken up by hardly anyone: No league and just a straight knockout championship.
And inherent in those remaining choices are multiple biases and constraints, rooted more in conservatism more than pragmatism. If you want a league, even a condensed one, then you can’t have a backdoor championship, at least in football; likewise, if you want a backdoor championship in football, then you can’t have a league. And any championship in either code will have to feature the provincial championships whereby if you lose a game in it, then that’s you gone out of it.
To which we’d ask: why? Why frame the debate and questions in such an unadventurous and uninspiring manner?
Take hurling. Why this year when every weekend is so precious should at least three or four games (and thus five or six weekends) be taken up with a national league when it doesn’t mean much to most of its players and counties the way it does in football?
The past couple of seasons the NHL has returned to being more of a warm-up, team-building exercise and while it was very useful to Waterford last year and would be to Cork and Tipp this year with where those respective teams are in their life cycle, almost all other contending counties are at a stage where they know who they are and who they have. They, like the rest of us, don’t need five weeks of phoney wars.
Instead, give them and us the real thing. War. Championship. Plenty of it.
Say counties are allowed back on April 5 or 12. Within five weeks, the footballers can and should be back playing league football. But hold the hurlers back a couple of weeks more. Allow them have that extra challenge game or two without having to play that third or fourth league game. Then on the weekend of May 22-23, let them unleash hell. Or rather, heaven. A round of provincial championship games in a round-robin provincial championships like the ones that thrilled us in 2018 and 2019.
This way every team gets at least four championship games. Let the top three in each province go through to the All-Ireland series, just like we had in 2018 and 2019. To speed things along, there might not be time for provincial finals — not that the Munster or Leinster Council should complain when they’re not so much losing a game as gaining at least five more than they did last year and what the GAA are proposing for 2021. Whoever tops Munster is handed the newly-named Mick Mackey Cup and is through to the All-Ireland semi-final, where they’ll play either the Leinster runners-up or whoever came third in Munster.
There’s no reason why it shouldn’t work. Allianz would still have a football league to sponsor. Cork and Tipp would still have a safety net while blooding new players. Teams wouldn’t be travelling much further than they would in a national league or teams did in last year’s — and likely will in this year’s — round-robin camogie and ladies football All-Ireland championships.
It still wouldn’t take any longer from start to finish to run off than last year’s championship did — both All-Irelands finals would be finished by mid-August — it’d just allow teams more games and to stay around longer than last year.
Because what’s the harm of that? In 2020, Covid numbers were rising the deeper we got into the championship; for the GAA, though they’d never admit, the more and sooner teams were knocked out, the better. This summer, the reverse will be true. The longer we go into the championship, the more vaccinations and fewer cases of Covid we’ll have.
The same logic extends to football. It is not right or fair when county careers are so short — two years will make up at least 25% to 33% of most players’ careers — that footballers should go a second consecutive year without a backdoor.
Last year’s format worked because there was a magic and a novelty to it. We were all Marty McFlys, transported back to a time and way we all thought was in the past. Monaghan and Kerry are gone after one game through a last-second score? Great Scott! But as that franchise showed, sequels can suck.
Last spring when some commentators were calling for an open draw championship, Kevin McStay pointed out that because the provincial draws had already been made the previous October, the GAA were wedded to that format. They’re not this year though.
This year demands its own form of novelty, one that ensures that we have more than just three championship games that are between teams outside their own province.
Run the truncated north-south leagues as proposed (three round-robin games for everyone, then a fourth game for some to decide relegation or promotion or who wins the D1 title).
But then have a 32-county open draw (If London can’t make it, then maybe give Dublin as champions a bye, but at least it’s not the bye to an All-Ireland semi-final which the Leinster championship currently is.) If a team is more than a division lower than the one they’re drawn against, they get home advantage. Kerry might have to go to Kildare; a Mayo to Fermanagh.
The following week, the 16 losers have one last chance, playing off against one another, while the 16 winners play each other. The round two losers will also have a backdoor but after by the time we’re down to 16 teams, it’s pure knockout.
It’d work. Every team would be guaranteed two championship games. Winning a game would have its own reward as you’d have home advantage next day out until the All-Ireland quarter-finals. You’re bound to have a dark horse or two make it through to at least the last eight. It wouldn’t take any longer to run than it would take to go from your provincial preliminary round to an All-Ireland final.
The only people whose nose would be out of joint would be the provincial councils, but last year their privilege took precedence over the players’ right to a guaranteed second championship game. It shouldn’t this year.
If the GAA are bold, this summer will be magic.
May 22-23: Round 1 provincial c’ship games. May 29-30: Round 2. June 12-13: Round 3. June 19-20: Round 4. July 3-4: Round 5. July 10-11: All-Ireland quarter-finals. July 17-18: All-Ireland semi-finals. August 1: All-Ireland hurling final
May 8-9: R1 NL. May 15-16: R2 NL. May 29-30: R3 NL. June 5-6: D1 final and all other relegation and promotion playoffs.
All-Ireland Open Draw Championship: Round 1: 16 games (If a team is more than a division lower than its opponent, it has home advantage). Sixteen winners advance to Round 3. Sixteen losers go into hat for Round 2.
Round 2: The 16 R1 losers playoff with the eight winners going through. Round 3: The 16 R1 winners playoff, with the eight winners through to the last 16 stage.
The eight winners from R2 play the eight losers from Round 3.
Last 16 stage. The eight teams that haven’t required a backdoor have home venue.
All-Ireland quarter-finals, first team out has home advantage
All-Ireland semi-finals
All-Ireland final
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