Potential football leagues reformatted.

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Lone Shark
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Potential football leagues reformatted.

Post by Lone Shark »

Following on from the point I read somewhere that Dublin haven't met Meath or Kildare for years in the league, the thought occurred to me - while personally I think the leagues should revert to a div 1/2/3/4 format, assuming we want to keep the current system - local rivalries are the lifeblood of the GAA, and we should be encouraging more supporters to travel. Games like this weekend with Tyrone travelling to Killaney, Cork to Ballyshannon, Tipp to Derry and Limerick to Crossmaglen etc don't exactly do that - so how about making it regional? Not necessarily provincial, because those teams meet all the time, but if we had it generally laid out in a NW, SW, NE, SE format, with the top two in each qualifying for the quarters, it would make much more sense from a supporters point of view, and it would also help reduce some of those county expenses that are becoming an issue. a typical layout could be

NW - Sligo, Donegal, Tyrone, Derry, Leitrim, Mayo, Fermanagh, Roscommon

SW - Galway, Clare, London, Cork, Kerry, Offaly, Westmeath, Limerick

SE - Waterford, Wexford, Carlow, Kildare, Wicklow, Dublin, Laois, Tipperary

NE - Antrim, Armagh, Down, Cavan, Monaghan, Louth, Meath, Longford

The benefits obviously vary greatly, and in particular for midlanders such as ourselves it's not any better, but for a county like say Limerick, which only had Galway or Laois as anything approximating a local game this year, it would be a huge benefit. The main drawback I see is that it doesn't give an awful lot to compete for to the really weak teams - but to be honest, Tipp and Waterford would get scutched no matter who they played, and it could only benefit mid tier teams in the long run to be playing better quality opposition. Let's be truthful - Offaly would have very little chance of winning a div 1, but we'd still much rather be there than in Div 2 where we'd be one of five or six lively contenders.

What do ye think?

Doon Massive
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Post by Doon Massive »

What about relegation?

Will we have a few teams in the comfort zone, not really bothered.....

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Lone Shark
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Relegation

Post by Lone Shark »

You would, but my take is that that's the case in two out of four divisions anyway - and this would be compensated for by the fact that more games would be "local" games, which are competitive by their very nature. I think the games where teams tend to be not bothered are when they've travelled 150 miles for an end of season game and none of their supporters can be arsed are the games where the effort levels tend to drop moreso.

Truth be told I would prefer divs 1/2/3/4, or even just 1/2/3 with 11 teams per group, but if you are splitting them up into an A & B, I think regional is a lot better than just arbitrary.

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