Emlyn Mulligan supports Horan’s call for two-tier championship

Experienced Leitrim attacker Emlyn Mulligan has backed GAA President John Horan’s bid to bring in a B football championship, potentially for the 2020 season.

Horan has been a consistent advocate of a second tier championship and stated at last weekend’s Annual Congress that a Special Congress could be convened later this year to rubber-stamp it.

Mulligan, on the cusp of a historic promotion to Division 3 of the Allianz League, said that he’s behind the proposal, claiming that many weaker counties have no chance of Championship progress under the current model.

“This league has been competitive and brilliant for us but six weeks later we’re being asked to jump up three divisions to play a Division 1 side,” said Mulligan, whose side play Roscommon away in the quarter-finals of the Connacht championship in May.

“In reality, if we’re to win Connacht this year, we’ll probably have to beat three Division 1 teams; Roscommon, Mayo and Galway. It’s very unrealistic to expect a Division 4 county to do those sorts of things in the summer.

It’s hard to know what the right solution is either. We’re all ambitious, we all want to play the top teams but Division 4 teams have taken a lot of hammerings over the years. The reality is that when the league is over, the amount of hope those teams have is very limited each summer.

“Personally, I’d like to be involved in something that I have a real and proper chance in but I accept that everyone has their different opinions on it.”

The fear among Division 3 and 4 counties is that they may be cut loose in a B championship and forgotten about, with minimal media coverage.

There’s also the outside hope of a breakthrough summer, like Leitrim enjoyed in 1994 when they last won Connacht.

“I think Carlow beating Kildare in the Championship last year and us beating Louth papered over a lot of the cracks there too, those results aren’t the norm,” said Mulligan.

“I’d like to see it coming in but it has to get a proper profile. Counties can’t be just cut adrift. There has to be something there to entice players to want to win whatever the competition is. Maybe that would be a way back into the main Championship, a separate All-Stars, a holiday for the winners or something like that. If it gets proper profile and good coverage, it could definitely work.”

Leitrim play London on Sunday knowing that a win in Carrick-on-Shannon could secure their promotion to Division 3.

They beat Limerick in Kilmallock last weekend, ironically the exact venue where their relegation to Division 4 was confirmed 11 years ago following a one-point defeat.

A draw would have kept Leitrim up that season but Mulligan, top scorer on the day, failed to convert a late free. “Unfortunately I missed it and I remember walking off with my head down afterwards and some Leitrim fans abusing me as I was coming off the pitch,” said Mulligan.