Football season in need of overhaul to revitalise game
There was a danger there that the hurling championship was going to be completely overshadowed by the drama of football’s two semi-finals and its novel as well as deserving final pairing but some equilibrium has at least been restored. It is only right too, because while it’s been one of the most satisfying hurling summers in a long time, it’s been one of football’s most mediocre.
Donegal-Mayo in September and their epic semi-final wins has glossed over so much.
The big advantage hurling has over football is that nearly every televised championship game is a clash between the top-eight sides. Tipperary’s Munster title, and with it the Munster championship, has possibly been somewhat devalued by their abject display against Kilkenny last month, but every game in that provincial championship this summer offered compelling drama.
It was clearly the most refreshing Leinster championship in years.
On the eve of this year’s Donegal-Cork semi-final, this column commented that there had been only one really thoroughly satisfying game in the 2012 football championship: Tyrone-Armagh in a packed Athletic Grounds, when Tyrone eventually won a shootout 0-19 to 1-13. Meath-Kildare was about the next best thing. Down’s comeback against Monaghan in the Ulster semi-final was also good fun but other than that, we were struggling.
In Munster there was nothing like this year’s hurling equivalent when Tipp-Limerick, Tipp-Cork and Waterford-Clare had us reeling at just how magical that game and provincial championship remains. Neither was there a football qualifier this year to thrill us like the hurling clashes of Clare-Dublin in Ennis or Clare-Limerick in Thurles.
Why is it? The truth is the top teams in football don’t play each other enough in the summer, not up until August anyway. Which is amazing, considering how often they play each other during the wet and cold of the spring.
It’s been my privilege to be a backroom member of the Mayo senior football team this year as a sports performance coach.
Up until 10 days ago we were constantly hearing that we had beaten “nobody” to make it to an All-Ireland semi-final. Reaching the league final was supposedly something to be sniffed at, so was winning Connacht, and apparently so was beating Down. Now it’s Dublin that have to keep hearing how they had beaten “no one” to make it to the last four.
In one five-week spell we played Donegal, Cork, then beat Dublin, drew with Kerry in Tralee, then beat them in Croke Park before having a couple of weeks off before playing Cork in Croke Park. Then we had nothing for eight weeks. We went from having played seven games in eight weeks to having none for eight weeks. Then we played Leitrim. The feast or famine schedule of games is farcical.
It’s fair to say at the moment there is not a question about who the top five teams in the country are. Nor is there a doubt who’s sixth — Kildare. Or seventh — Tyrone. Or eighth — Down. In time, teams will break into that eight but that top five are staying in that top eight for the next two years at least. Yet up until the Ulster final, the only clashes between these teams were Cork-Kerry, Donegal-Tyrone and Kerry-Tyrone, which as it transpired, all proved to be edgy, ill-tempered affairs because of the shared history between the teams.
The strength of football is that while it has plenty of decent mid-cut teams, we don’t see the elite sides playing each other often enough, while in the spring they probably play each other too often.
We’re not suggesting the provincial championships should be scrapped outright; winning provincial silverware last year was a fundamental confidence block for both Donegal and Mayo in their progression to being All-Ireland finalists. But reform them. Maybe scrap your O’Byrne Cup and the league itself. Start in early March with a provincial league, the placings of which dictate your seeding in the provincial championship, which is run off in May. Then have a senior and intermediate All-Ireland championship, 16 teams in each, with pools of eight teams in each. The top team in each pool makes it through to the All-Ireland semi-final. Second and third make the All-Ireland quarter-final playoffs. Bottom side in each group in the top flight are relegated. The two finalists in the second 16 play senior football the following year.
We look at a team like Monaghan with a new manager, Malachy O’Rourke. Say they’re drawn against Donegal in the first round of the Ulster championship. He might gain his team promotion to Division Two, lose narrowly to Donegal and then get drawn to Cork in the second round of the qualifiers. How do you measure a season like that? By their league form? But say they make the Top 16 of the championship, stay in it, take a few scalps like Kildare at home, maybe Galway away. That’s a good season. They’ve beaten “someone”.
Teams need more championship games, and football needs more top televised games to thrive. We shouldn’t be waiting until August for the proper football to begin.
* kieranshannon@eircom.net
