Tom McGlinchey: Time for a two-tier championship

Waterford boss Tom McGlinchey has called on GAA top-brass to put weaker counties out of their misery and introduce a two-tier football championship structure.

Waterford were defeated by 22 points yesterday while Longford lost to Dublin in Croke Park by 27 points, and McGlinchey says struggling counties want to play in a competition where they have a realistic chance of success, or at the very least can be competitive.

“There is only one thing we can do for 2015: get back together on Wednesday night and prepare for the qualifiers. That is the competition you are in. Long-term, I don’t know [where we go],” he remarked.

“It has been spoken about now at length for the last couple of years [a two-tier structure], even more so this year with teams getting big beatings. The powers-that-be have to actually decide are we going to have a two-tier competition because realistically no team wants to go out and take a beating like that. You want to play in a competition you have a chance of winning.

“Waterford are never going to win the All-Ireland. That is the reality of it. The powers-that-be have to decide are they going to allow this happen and continue or are they going to do something about it.”

Tipperary’s Peter Creedon, meanwhile, expressed concern over the injury to Colin O’Riordan on 42 minutes which forced the departure of the half-forward. The winning manager admitted the 19-year old has been troubled by a recurring hip problem.

“His hip is quite sore. He had a scan last week so fingers crossed, but it doesn’t look too good. His hips are at him — a common injury now for a lot of players. Please God it might settle down after a day or two.”

Reviewing a most comfortable win, Creedon was pleased by the 1-24 tally posted.

“We are moving on, we’re moving up a level alright, considering one or two of the U21s [three] played today, that’s great credit to the senior players. A few of them are finishing exams now so they’ll be back and ready to rock and roll for next week.

“It was a good win, the lads played very well in the first quarter and probably put the game out of Waterford’s reach. Very happy with their skill level and application.

“Some of the scores might have come a little bit easier than what you’d normally expect but look, what did we score, 1-24?

“That’s good scoring and we had a few goal chances. It’s going to be a different game completely in two weeks so we’ll get back to hard training now on Tuesday.”

Indeed, he was unsure how much of a benefit yesterday’s one-sided contest will prove when the All-Ireland champions roll into Thurles on June 14.

“Kerry will be warm favourites and we’ve just got to bring a level of performance which shows that we’re improving and we’ll see have we closed the gap on Kerry from two years ago [Kerry won their Munster quarter-final meeting by 2-19 to 0-8]. We’re really looking forward to having a crack off Kerry and see where we are.”