Qualifiers look beyond repair
Ah, the football qualifiers. The boulevard of broken dreams and losing teams. The second chance saloon where everybody knows your name: desperation.
Once the off-Broadway novelty act that drew in thousands by the bucket load, it’s nothing more than an off-Manhattan Island show now where once-great teams rehabilitate and the less-so great wallow.
Tomorrow’s visit of Limerick to Pearse Park marks Longford’s 13th consecutive season in the first round of the competition meaning they haven’t missed one.
Current selector Padraic Davis was on the team that lost to Wicklow in the competition’s inaugural year of 2001.
He brackets the counties who enter the qualifiers into three groups: the select few who see it as a detour to the quarter-finals, the majority who just want a longer summer wherever it may take them and then the few who can’t wait until the season ends. When teams such as Longford are so acquainted with this opening stage of the All-Ireland championship, things can be humdrum.
“Familiarity can breed that. It depends where you stand. There are teams that are good enough to get to a quarter-final and in some case like Galway can go on and win it; there are about one or two teams in that group.
“The biggest number of counties are in the middle tier where they’re beaten but want two, three or four wins to end the season on a good note. Then there are the other teams who only see the qualifiers as almost prolonging the agony. Whether they’re disgruntled or unhappy, there’s nothing for them to gain from the qualifiers.
“There are more teams joining that group. The allure of the qualifiers is waning all of the time and it has to be looked at.”
Even though he was injured for a good part of it, former Galway defender John Divilly remembers 2001 only too well, when John O’Mahony’s team gave the greatest ringing endorsement to the qualifiers by going where no county had gone before and claiming an All-Ireland via the journey.
Twelve years on and it just doesn’t feel the same. “At the start, it was fantastic, a brand new concept, more games for the players and more opportunities for supporters to watch them.
“In the last couple of years, its magic has diminished. It doesn’t have the same appeal and the current climate doesn’t help where it’s asking a lot of families to be going to games week-in, week-out.
“It’s the quality teams that are getting to the quarter-finals. The four teams that have won the All-Ireland through the backdoor are all traditional powers.
“We haven’t seen any of the second tier counties come through, not since the likes of Sligo in 2002 and Fermanagh in 2004, and the whole purpose of the qualifiers in the first place was to give lower ranking teams a chance to get into the latter stages of the championship. I think the appetite for it in the general public is gone.”
Divilly has seen teams build themselves up for provinces as they are their All-Irelands. Longford would be one of them and since the defeat to Wicklow there has had to be a recalibration.
But it’s the provinces where Davis believes the major issues lie.
He can’t fathom how the GAA can continue to run the premier competition on such a structure.
“It’s only one of two in Munster, Cork or Kerry, with Clare in ‘92 being the exception. Munster is a complete joke.
“Even when Cork and Kerry are drawn on the same side of the draw, the other team in the final are cannon fodder.
“In Connacht this year, you have the situation of Leitrim possibly getting to a final without beating a team from the province. If they don’t, a team from a different country could reach it. It’s a crazy situation.
“In Leinster, Dublin are going for their ninth title in 10 years. There’s three of the four provinces making no sense.
“I’ve always been a fan of the provincial system because there have been so many teams out there capable of winning a provincial title but maybe not an All-Ireland. You had Cavan in ‘97, Leitrim in ‘94, Offaly in ‘98, Westmeath in 2004.
“There are loads of examples and there’s no point in saying they could have won an All-Ireland because they wouldn’t have been able.
“But now there are teams who are incapable of even winning a provincial title and the GAA has to listen to any proposals to improve it.
“The problem is there are five different bodies running the All-Ireland championship, Croke Park and the four provincial councils. It doesn’t make any sense.
“The reality is at provincial level they don’t want to see the structure changed. There are jobs that need to be protected. They won’t say that but it’s the truth.”
Divilly strongly considers a Champions League-style format championship replacing the provinces and qualifiers with provincial competitions played in the spring.
“Scrap the pre-season competitions and replace the national league with the provincial series in the earlier part of the year.
“Have an open draw for the Championship with seeded or unseeded eight groups of four and only the top team in each going into the knockout stages. That’s three good games minimum for each county.
“Other than that, why not go back to pure knockout for one year and see if it recreates a buzz? Club championships would be played on time that and it would stop lads going to America for the summer!”
Divilly is a little flippant with that last suggestion but that comes from the same frustration that colours Davis’ words.
Whatever about separate provincial competitions, the former Longford forward maintains they can’t play any part in an equitable Championship format.
“Provinces are geographical so if I’m disagreeing with the current system, then I’m disagreeing with that system of grouping teams. If Longford and Westmeath were to move in with the Connacht counties, it’s no longer provincial. I’m open to any suggestions and maybe juggling counties from one province to another is an idea. Maybe it’s about splitting the 32 teams into four groups of eight and the lower two divisions of the national league don’t play for the Sam Maguire Cup.
“All I know is the status quo isn’t sustainable and that belief is really gathering momentum. Something has to change. The most credible opposition would be the Ulster Council because they still have a reasonably balanced championship.”
Ulster, though, can’t be replicated and neither, it seems, can the glory of the qualifiers ever be restored.
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