The merit of a second chance for provincial champions
Some may argue that convening a once-a-year meeting attended by hundreds of delegates to debate the multi-faceted and complex workings of the GAA is unwieldy in the extreme, but it remains an undeniable fact that decisions taken in relation to the staggering 123 motions before Congress this weekend will most likely have long-term ramifications at all levels of the organisation.
One of the more interesting bigger picture issues to make it to the clár this year concerns the second chance motions from Tyrone County Board and St Joseph’s-O’Connell Boys/Naomh Olaf in Dublin which relates to a further round of games for provincial champions should they lose at the quarter-final stage of the football championship.
It is proposed that the four provincial winners would play off against each other in two quarter-finals, with the winners advancing to the last four of the championship. The two losers would then play-off with two teams from the All-Ireland qualifiers in the two remaining quarter-finals, for the remaining two semi-final spots.
It is of course entirely apt that this motion should come from Dublin, who having won five provincial championships in a row, subsequently fell at the next hurdle in three of the five years since 2005. Tyrone, the county who has most impinged on the Dublin psyche in that period, are perhaps surprise supporters of the motion given that they might well have lost out had such a structure existed in 2005 and 2008 when they looked particularly vulnerable having stuttered through the qualifier rounds prior to their blossoming at quarter-final stage.
The Tyrone support for the motion might have as its genesis their defeat to Meath at the quarter-final stage three years ago when the game came at the wrong time for key players like Stephen O’Neill and Brian Dooher. It was around that time that the reform agenda got pushed centre stage by the two dominant Ulster teams, Armagh and Tyrone — both having lost three of the previous four quarter-finals between them and both having yielded momentum in the period of inactivity following their provincial win.
Perhaps too though, it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that Tyrone aren’t acting out a perceived self-interest and that their motion has, at its heart, a genuine sense of equality and fair play.
Tipperary’s motion number 42 on today’s clár proposing the addition of two video referees to the list of match officials for senior inter-county championship matches comes from a specific perspective in light of last year’s All-Ireland hurling final — as does Kerry’s support for the mark, given their catching capacity at midfield during the league experiment.
Cynicism is, therefore, inevitable.
Tyrone secretary, Dominic McCaughey, made a compelling case during the week when pleading with delegates from the various units to support the motion for the second chance — even appealing to the bottom line commercial view in GAA these days. By suggesting that those who would be availing of the second chance would be almost by default, crowd pullers, McCaughey was playing on a very tangible appreciation of money in GAA circles these days. We might just take the Tyrone motion at face value and accept that it is being proposed in the interests of fairness and natural justice.
Apart from appealing to the need to do the right thing, the second chance motion has the added benefit of making the provincial championships more relevant. In an era where how championships are won has provoked as much debate as who actually won them, an early August lifeline for a provincial champion would add value to Tyrone’s wins in 2005 and 2008 and to Kerry’s back-door successes of 2006 and 2009. Since it appears that abolishing the provincial championships is not on the agenda, a safety net outside the province might make the provincial championships more meaningful and more attractive to the Machiavellian teams who haven’t always tuned in until August weekend and thereafter.
For example, instead of playing Meath in a do-or-die situation as they did last year, an emerging team such as Mayo would be given an extra chance to flourish and develop as provincial champions before eventually swimming with sharks.
An extra outing could make all the difference for such a team and make them less vulnerable to predators like Kerry and Tyrone who play the latter stages of the championships as the heavy hitters in golf play the last nine holes of the Masters on a Sunday.
The maggot in the apple is, of course, that extra round of games between provincial champions and its possible impact on club fixtures throughout the country. It will be argued by naysayers that the extra game might not necessarily be scheduled for the following week, thus delaying club fixtures in the various counties as county team managers will almost inevitably insist on having their players available to them and denied their clubs in the interim.
The short answer and obvious remedy to that is to do as suggested by Dominic McCaughey this week and compress the fixtures at provincial level as happens (irrespective of media demands) in the Ulster championship. Many of the players whose teams have benefited from the back-door games being played in quick succession have expressed a desire for such a structure on a permanent basis and all the physical training experts are now telling us that such a games schedule sits neatly with the periodised training methods that are so much in vogue.
The long answer and more challenging remedy is to have all county boards stick rigidly to an agreed fixture list within their own counties and to institutionalise the holiday period for club activity in early to mid August — as now happens in Kerry and other counties. Incorporating this flexibility into the calendar in counties with a stronger dual tradition than Kerry’s might prove troublesome but surely after many years of trying, we could arrive with lateral thinking at the stage where all players can reasonably expect a more regular programme of fixture scheduling.
