Terrible beauty of the qualifiers

It was a gentleman by the name of HL Mencken, a 20th century American journalist, satirist and commentator known as ‘The Sage of Baltimore’, who once declared that he hated all sports “as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense”.

Mencken may have painted that particular picture with a ridiculously wide brush, but to look at an All-Ireland football championship designed — if that is the appropriate word — by committee and compromise is to think that maybe the man was on to something after all.

Not exactly the most ordered or logical of competitions for the first 120 or so years of its existence, the race to capture the Sam Maguire took on an even more unwieldy and random hue after the turn of the millennium with the advent of the qualifiers.

The Tommy Murphy Cup aside, it is difficult to recall a structure more unloved than the back door from which three teams will exit the championship for good today more than three hours before Sligo become the 33rd and last team to make their provincial bows.

You couldn’t make it up, except someone obviously did.

Yet, imperfect though they are, the qualifiers have had their charms.

Unique pairings, unlikely runs and the very fact that so many more counties have been afforded extra games shouldn’t be overlooked when the concept, surely, is replaced by something more than a sticking plaster.

The last five years alone have seen Longford defeat Mayo, Derry and Down and Wicklow take northern scalps of their own.

We have seen Kerry squeak past Westmeath in Mullingar by a point and, in 2009, the Kingdom squeezed by Longford, Sligo and Antrim on their way to another title.

One of the back door’s chief criticisms is that it has afforded the cream of the counties another shot at rising to the top, as was the case with Kerry six years ago, but sides just off that pace including Laois, Kildare and Tyrone (as they have been post-2008) have availed of the route, too.

All three found themselves at the bottom of the qualifier barrel in round one in recent times with Laois reaching an All-Ireland quarter-final and Tyrone and Kildare making it a step further.

The Lilywhites, remember, were the width of a crossbar from making it all the way to September.

“It’s mostly down to the attitude of the players,” explains Padraic Clancy who was part of the Laois team that featured in the first ever qualifier series back in 2002 and who enjoyed long runs through the back door with the county in 2012 and 2013.

“We did very well in 2012 when we beat Monaghan and Meath and then we got close to Dublin in an All-Ireland quarter-final, but then we got clipped by Tipperary early on one of the years as well. So, you just don’t know.”

It’s impossible to see any of the eight sides in action in today’s opening salvo of qualifiers bothering the fixture planners come August, but the reality is that few players or managers can be sure exactly what direction their seasons will take this afternoon and evening.

Of the eight round one fixtures in 2014, five were decided by a goal or less and another had only four points separating the sides.

The margin in the other pair was 17 and 21. Similarly divergent results run through the qualifiers like a stick of rock.

Of 41 first round games this last five years, there have been some wincing results. Nine games have been won and lost by double-digit margins, four of them by twenty points or more, but they have been exceptions to the rule.

In 2012, the highest margin in eight first round games was seven points and, for all the hand-wringing over Leitrim’s 21-point loss to Down last year and Wicklow’s 25-point embarrassment to Armagh the summer before, the fact is that all 32 counties have won a qualifier game since 2009.

That suggests a level of buy-in that may surprise some.

“I can only speak for myself and say that I was proud any time I put on a Laois jersey,” says Clancy.

“We were lucky to have some great days under Micko between 2003 and 2007 when we were making (Leinster) finals most years and it was always great to be in Croke Park marching behind the band.

“People have been saying that Laois were probably better off to have lost to Kildare last weekend and avoid Dublin in Leinster.

“I’d still say the Dubs in Croke Park is where you should always want to be, but you can see that Laois might get a chance to build again with some competitive games in the qualifiers.”

Many more will be thinking the same.

THE WEEKEND’S GAMES

All-Ireland SFC Round 1 Qualifiers Rd 1A:

London v Cavan, Ruislip, 2pm (P Neilan, Roscommon); Waterford v Offaly, Dungarvan, 2pm (F Kelly, Longford); Laois v Antrim, Portlaoise, 2.30 (Derek O’Mahoney, Tipperary); Longford v Carlow, Pearse Park, 7pm (D. Gough, Meath)