Daly not a fan of unwieldy 10-team top flight
Instead, Daly would prefer to see the return of an eight-team top flight — with two teams relegated and promoted each year. And Clare’s 1995 and 1997 All-Ireland-winning captain insisted that GAA chiefs should not have radically altered a system that he believed was working just fine.
He said: “I don’t really know why they changed it in the first place.
“I thought it just needed a bit of tweaking. I think we’d struggle with 10 teams. You’d be looking at nine weekends and if you got a bad run of weather, it would be a bad idea.
“There’s also about getting rid of the Waterford Crystal Cup — that’s fine, but you have training bans as well and a team back playing in the first week of February would be tempted to get back training in November, particularly if you’re fighting for your life in the league.
“There’s no easy solution for hurling but I’m in favour of eight teams, although one up, one down is too tight. You relegate two from Division 1, with two coming up to replace them. Either have two up and two down or relegate the bottom team, promote the top team in Division 2 and then have the second from bottom team in Division 1 play off against the second team in Division 2 for top-flight status.
“You don’t need a Division 2 final — the top team wins the league, gets promoted and is into a league semi-final, joining the top three in Division 1. There’s no need for quarter-finals, like they’re suggesting for next year. Four from Division 1B will contest a quarter-final next year so that means the third from bottom team in 1B is fighting for survival, but could still end up in the quarter-final of the National League. That makes no sense.”
Meanwhile, Alan Nolan is expected to retain his place on the Dublin team for Sunday’s Division 1 semi-final against Tipperary in Thurles. Daly’s team for the Semple Stadium showdown will be announced after training tonight — with 2011 All Star shot-stopper Gary Maguire still recovering from an eye injury.
Daly explained: “Gary is still out, he’s not quite right. The head is grand, the eye is grand and he trained over the weekend but twinged his ankle.
“Outside of that, Ross O’Carroll is still out with his back.”
Daly concedes Dublin are underdogs against Tipperary and believes the Premier County are on the verge of rediscovering their very best form under boss Eamon O’Shea, who coached the Premier County to All-Ireland glory in 2010.
Daly noted “If you took away their first match [against Cork], they’ve been very consistent. And their experienced guys are back to their hungry best — right through the spine of the team.”
“Paul Curran, Conor O’Mahony, Shane McGrath, Lar Corbett and Eoin Kelly — you could safely say that all of those guys played well against Clare.
“These guys have vast experience and Eamon is trying to get that unity back in the camp. It wasn’t that they were very disunited last year — you don’t win a Munster championship like that — but so much was made of the All-Ireland semi-final and the stories going around the place. 85% of those stories are complete bullshit but when you’re going bad, people love a story. But Eamon and [selector] Mick Ryan are associated with a winning team [2010] and it’s real back to the future stuff in Tipp.”
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