New championship structure

[Plain of the Herbs]

Follow this schedule through to November - the Leinster club football championships will be likely to be on 26/10, with the hurling on 02/11. And the Intermediate hurling winners will possibly be due to play in Leinster on 19/10. Bear in mind this relates to 2015 and there is a good chance a dual club (I'm thinking Shamrocks or Ballinamere-Durrow) could be Offaly's representatives in Leinster. Their respective footballers could also be simuntaneously challenging for football honours.

This could lead to chaos, and that's without a draw/replay scenario or a postponement.

This is what bugs me about 'GAA think'. Now, the GAA has lots of problems, but too often the thinking is that any alternative must be better than what we have at the moment. This isn't necessarily so. In this instance a proposal has been worked out (and I accept there are people who have put alot of work into formulating a solution and I do thank them) and the herd have generally gone with the alternative.

Moreso in football there seems to be a 'heirarchy' of top teams, being - Rhode, Clara, Tullamore, Edenderry in that order. But, surely it's not up to the Board to attempt to break such heirarchys by changing the championship system. At what stage do they change the hurling system in order to put a stop to Kilcormac-KIlloughey's gallop?

5/10 - SF's SFC
12/10 - SF's SHC
19/10 - F SFC
26/10 - F SHC

Now there are a lot of problems there from what I can tell - you have the hurlers one game in early May and their second in late July, you have dual players bouncing between codes without any rest, and if you get so much as one postponement, either for a club bereavement, a draw, freak weather (we are going right into late October here) then you have a situation where either or SFC football or hurling winners would have to play two games in a weekend, as happened in Clare this year - unless they get a first round bye.

Now imagine our hurlers beat Kilkenny in the championship, or the U21 hurlers win a game, or either senior team reaches either a provincial final or an All Ireland quarter final - not likely admittedly, but hardly impossible either. This system only barely works if none of our county teams achieve anything meaningful.


And after all this, I can't for the life of me see what the positive aspects are - can anyone enlighten me?

[Heshs Umpire]

Just saw this, it's the system in Laois hurling i.e. 8 senior, 8 senior B, 8 intermediate and 8 junior.

However, it's a knockout system with a losers qualification group that's used to play the championships.

That means 4 rounds to complete the championship.

Could Offaly CB possibly be thinking of using this system?

[Plain of the Herbs]

No, Umpire. Offaly board have voted for a single group round-robin where all teams play each of the seven other teams in their grade. Takes seven weeks to complete the group stage.

[Heshs Umpire]

No, Umpire. Offaly board have voted for a single group round-robin where all teams play each of the seven other teams in their grade. Takes seven weeks to complete the group stage.

I'd say Emmett McDonnell's delighted.

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

Hesh, would it be fair to say that under the Laois system , (which I think the Offaly system might replicate eventually) , the Championship does not start until August?
And that the league starts in late Spring, running thorugh the Summer?
If so, do the clubs have any access to their club players throughout the league? I know in Offaly that there is an agreement that the club players will play a number of games with their clubs. I would imagine under the Laois system that the county players would not be available to the clubs until Championship begins?

I cant understand the scepticism about the Senior B championship here? It gives clubs a chance to aspire to winning a competition and to build some momentum. Under this years results KK, Cappincur, Shamrocks and Ballinamere would have made the step up, with Croghan, Walsh Island, Ferbane and Pollagh making the fall from grace. Out of this you would fancy that Ferbane would be best equipped to win, along with Croghan and rejuvenated Shamrocks (assuming KK apathy towards the football!!). Might be the making of the Ferbane younger players as I hear they are not stepping up to the mark as well as might have been expected. IMO Ferbane are missing the leaders to give the guidance necessary to make the step up, and a successful run in the Senior B with a few wins would build a bit of momentum. Likewise Shamrocks who have some decent young players who may not be ready for Senior , but are too strong for Intermediate. Plenty of people clamouring for a Senior team in Daingean parish,(mainly from that corner of it, Cappincur) let county board return the parish rule and a few lads from Daingean, Kilclonfert, Ballycommon (IMO no more that 2 per club up to it anyway) join with Cappincur to see how competitive this parish could be, similarly with Walsh Island and the Clonbullogue/Bracknagh.
All of a sudden this offers the platform for progression in standards for teams aspiring to Senior football, and prepares them for the stepup?

[Heshs Umpire]

Hesh, would it be fair to say that under the Laois system , (which I think the Offaly system might replicate eventually) , the Championship does not start until August?

Yes

And that the league starts in late Spring, running thorugh the Summer?

Yes

If so, do the clubs have any access to their club players throughout the league? I know in Offaly that there is an agreement that the club players will play a number of games with their clubs. I would imagine under the Laois system that the county players would not be available to the clubs until Championship begins?

The league is played mostly without county players but there are some rounds that they're released to play in. Seems to be similiar to Offaly.