Cork and Tipp could get second tier reprieve
The two teams promoted from Division 3 of the Allianz League next year may yet earn a reprieve from the proposed second-tier championship.
GAA president John Horan yesterday agreed it would make more sense for any championship to be split after the provincial championships, based on 2020 Allianz League finishing positions.
That would be better news for the likes of Cork and Tipperary who, as the proposal stands, must reach the Munster final next year to earn a place in the qualifiers. However, this proposal would then put next year’s Division 2 teams at risk of missing out on back-door qualification, should they be relegated.
Horan said: “It looks like your status will be decided by where you actually started in the league, but in fairness, and I’ve been talking to a few people, it might actually be fairer to use where you finish. If you get promoted into Division 2, [it] might be a better option than if you get relegated out of it.
“These things are there to be discussed, that’s why we’ve time between now and the Central Council meeting in September.
“But if you think about it, if you’re a relegated team as against a team with the momentum of getting promoted out of Division 3, who should get the benefit? Or do you have to wait 12 months? In 12 months’ time you could be relegated again, so that’s something we’re going to look at. I’d be inclined to say it will happen that it’s where you finish.
Then that gives momentum to the league in the start of the year into the Championship, rather than waiting until the following year.
The winners of the would-be second-tier championship will earn a guaranteed place in the qualifiers of the Sam Maguire Cup the following season. Horan explained how it was not possible to give them re-entry in the same season.
“It’s not practical because the (second-tier) competition won’t start until after the semi-finals of the provinces have happened and to run off a competition, by the time you’d arrive with your winner, you’d be too far down the road, you’d be probably at the semi-final stages of the All-Ireland Championship itself. It’s not really a runner. There’s been no push for that either.”
As for the likes of Benny Coulter and Chrissy McKaigue coming out against the restructure, he responded: “Look, everybody has been crying out for this to happen, we’re now getting near to getting this over the line.
“Now you see people are flipping their stories and their attitudes. But I can only chair the meeting and everybody put their hand up in favour of it. I can only go by what the feeling on the ground is.”
Speaking at yesterday’s All-Ireland SFC launch in Scotstown GAA club, Co Monaghan, Horan was asked if his new fixtures calendar review committee could not have addressed the tiered championship as part of their remit. He said they can, but for 2020 the matter is now in the hands of Central Council and Special Congress.
“That option is there for them. The whole idea of pushing the tier two is to get an appreciation that tier two is accepted within the organisation. The last time we came in with a big fixture plan, tier two was in the middle of it and it just fell out the back door, it didn’t happen.
“It’s the norm in hurling, it’s the norm in ladies football, it’s the norm in camogie to have tiers, it always seemed to be a barrier in football. So we want to crack that barrier and that will actually give certainty to the fixture committee before they come back with their report that tier two has now been accepted within the organisation and they can fit it in with a structure.”
Horan remains a fan of provincial round-robin stages, which he attempted to bring in for Leinster during his time as provincial chairman.
“I wanted the round robin at the start [rather] than in its present position in the middle. The idea at the time was to give the weaker counties a competitive edge. We were looking at six or eight counties in Leinster would play two or three rounds in a round robin and leave the top two go forward to knockout. I thought it would have worked.
“It lost by 12 votes in Cavan. Can you imagine if the likes of Offaly got two or three games, how it would stand to them?”
He says it could also work for other provinces: “Munster is very much two teams and four teams in a real sense. You could say, the four teams could play off and take two out of it, they could benefit from that. Would Leinster do that? There’s a lot of sense to that. Is there an imbalance in the structure to do knockout, go to a round-robin and then back to knockout? Should you start with a round-robin and then go to knockout after that? It will be interesting to see what this (fixtures calendar review) committee come up with.”
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