Three weeks short: Time constraints forced GAA into knockout Sam Maguire Cup

Dublin captain Stephen Cluxton lifts the Sam Maguire Cup following December's All-Ireland final win over Mayo. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

The GAA were three weeks short of being able to implement a qualifier system in the 2021 All-Ireland senior football championship.

For the second season in a row, the Sam Maguire Cup will be a knockout competition as the GAA have not been able to make enough time to give counties a second bite of the cherry in the revised 20-week inter-county season, a reduction of seven from the original schedule. In total, the games period is 16 weekends.

As the Liam MacCarthy Cup involves 11 teams, it can again feature a backdoor element for teams beaten in the provincial championships. The All-Ireland SHC final has been scheduled for August 22 and the football decider seven days later.

The Central Competitions Control Committee (CCCC) choose not to compromise the Allianz Leagues or the club window from September to facilitate a second chance element in the All-Ireland SFC.

“You needed another three weeks — it’s as simple as that,” admitted GAA director of club, player and games administration Feargal McGill, secretary of the CCCC. “Otherwise, you would have games on top of each other.

“There were two things that influenced it: you were going to have to take that time off the club season which you didn’t want to do or you were going to have to shorten the league season further. To the vast amount of counties in football, the league is the more important competition.

“There were three things up for grabs — the qualifiers and Tailteann Cup or the other two, which was to maintain the number of games in the league and then protect the club window. That’s what it came down to. We felt the end of August was the latest we could go with the inter-county. You could have squeezed them a little tighter? I’m not so sure.”

The only difference in the 2021 Liam MacCarthy Cup from last year is the introduction of Antrim to the Leinster SHC. The losers of a preliminary round qualifier will be relegated to the Joe McDonagh Cup in 2022.

Like last year, London, New York and the English counties won’t be involved in the Championship. The UK teams will also miss out on the league due to Covid-19 travel protocols that would their involvement impractical.

The Allianz Football League commences on May 15/16 with the four divisions split into two four-team groups, North and South, as had been the plan in December. After three rounds, the top two in each divisional group will face off in semi-finals.

There will be league finals on June 19 and 20 but only if the counties involved in them aren’t playing the following week in the provincial championships. If that is the case, the teams will be deemed joint winners with those in Division 2 and 3 promoted.

The bottom two teams in each divisional group in Division 1, 2 and 3 will go into relegation semi-finals with the losers being demoted for the 2022 season. There will be shield semi-finals and final for those teams in Division 4.

The Allianz Hurling League will begin on May 8 and 9 as Division 1 and 2 counties overwhelmingly supported a guarantee of five league games so their run-in will be three weeks from April 19.

There will be no geographical split as had been touted earlier in the year. Instead, the leagues will be played on a similar format to last year except there will be no league final unless the teams meet in the Championship as was the case with Limerick and Clare last year. A hurling league relegation play-off will be played as a curtain-raiser to an All-Ireland senior hurling semi-final in August.

Regarding the shorter preparation period, McGill said: “It was something suggested to us by some of the hurling counties — that they felt they’d be satisfied with three weeks so we said, well let’s test the water here and see if that’s the view of the other Division 1 and 2 counties and it turned out it was.

“There are people in the backroom teams of all those counties who understand sports science a heck of a lot better than me and they were reasonably satisfied with the trade-off to get the extra game versus the lead-in time.”

The provincial draws in the Sam Maguire and Liam MacCarthy Cups will take place on RTÉ Radio and TV the week after next, the Munster SFC and SHC draws taking place on Morning Ireland on Monday week. The schedules of the leagues could be confirmed by the CCCC next week.

There remains no news about when the outstanding 2020 U20 and minor championship games or when the 2021 competitions in those inter-county grades can commence. “The big question is the vaccine roll-out on those things,” said McGill.

“When the time is right, we will be told we can do that. We will keep the pressure up to get it done but there are lots of other people in the queue as well waiting to do various other things in other facets of life.”

The exclusive county club championship period begins from the start of September and comprises 11 weekends up to the the middle of November. All-Ireland finalists will be allowed to stage county finals on November 20 and 21 and it is expected their counties will receive byes in the provincial club championships due to start that same weekend.

The provincial club competitions will run until December 18 and 19 and resume on January 8 and 9 2022 with All-Ireland club semi-finals pencilled in for January 22 and 23 (hurling) and January 29/30 (football). The senior finals are down for February 12 and 13 and the intermediate and junior deciders taking place the weekend before.