The bright side of sport: Time for a Championship change

Steve Neville believes it is time for a change to the GAA Championship structure.

On Tuesday last, Tony Considine wrote in his Irish Examiner column that last weekend was "the worst weekend of hurling in a very, very long time."

And maybe he had a point.

As expected Kilkenny, Tipp and Galway all blitzed their opponents in displays of hurling where many admired the ability, but few enjoyed the spectacle as a contest.

Kilkenny put five goals past Wexford beating them by 5-25 to 0-16

So perhaps now is the time to embrace change and form a 'B Championship', a new competition where teams don't get hammered by 20-odd points in June.

A competition for teams who struggle to get a taste of success.

Dublin recently beat Longford by a score of 4-25 to 0-10 in the Leinster GAA SFC quarter-final

We asked in this column before should there be a second tier All-Ireland competition and 60% agreed.

So how do you go about bringing in the second tier competition?

There have been a few ideas already thrown around and everybody will want to have their say on it.

Will the National League be scrapped? Will the Provincial Championship be thrown out?

No one seems to have been able to come up with a universally approved method and somehow I don't think I will either.

But lets give it a go.

First things first, we keep the National League but tweak it. Same as before, every team plays each other once in each of the four divisions. But at the end of this, in each division three teams get promoted and three get relegated.

And this is where the change occurs.

Promotions and relegations taken into account, the teams in division 1 and 2 get seeded and all teams go into an open draw for the All-Ireland Championship. A straight knockout competition.

Limerick suffered a 1-16 to 4-23 loss to Tipperary last weekend

After the first two rounds of the knock out competition the winners advance to the latter stages of the All-Ireland. But any side that looses in the opening two knockout rounds are entered into a B Championship - an All-Ireland Shield if you will.

But the important thing is this. Both Championships are given equal resources. Funding, TV rights, locations. We have seen secondary competitions in football with the Champions League and Europa League where this hasn't been done.

The Europa League is seen as a joke competition that is an afterthought to the teams that play in it. Treat a second Championship with respect and it will get respect.

In the case of both Championships, the final is played off as a double header. Give it an equal billing with the top championship.

This method gives the League a real purpose. With a triple promotion/relegation it means teams have to perform if they want to stay/get into division two. By getting into one of the top two divisions means getting seeded and a chance for a more successful campaign.

There was a theory kicked about with the English national team. Keep the players eligible for under 21 level playing at that level. The theory was that with all the young players being picked for the senior team, it left the under 21s depleted with the likes of Raheem Sterling, Jack Wilshire and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain being summoned to the senior team.

If they stayed with the under 21s they probably would have won a European title or two. They would have got a taste of winning and success at international level. The theory is that success breeds further success.

If teams win the B Championship they get a taste for success. They will want more success and want to beat the Kilkennys and the Tipperarys. They’ll battle to get into division 2 and once it’s a knockout competition anything can happen.

No doubt this idea is far from perfect. It probably has a few flaws and it will certainly have its critics. But what is certain is that their needs to be a change.

And a change from what is currently on offer would certainly be a change for the better.