Duffy: don’t close the backdoor system yet

GAA Director General Páraic Duffy has admitted that there are “inequities” in the structure of the senior football championship but he has also told advocates for change there are no easy means of ironing out the kinks.

All eight provincial finalists have exited the All-Ireland prior to the semi-final stage for the first time ever and that shock run of results has been followed by a predictable outcry from the losers’ ranks.

Mickey Harte, Jack O’Connor and Eamon O’Brien all poked holes in the championship structures before waving farewell to the summer last weekend and the Tyrone manager, not for the first time, made the case for provincial winners to be handed a second chance.