Endless summer nights ahead in Offaly

[bracknaghboy]

The master fixture list is now available chaps. What a disgrace. 2 rounds of SFC and IFC in May and then not a championship ball to be kicked until the end of July. Thats correct no championship football from May 15th until 23rd July. 10 weeks when there is the best chance of dry weather and sunshine and nothing but a league game or two. If the county board want to continue with these groups of 6 teams then they simply cannot allow well over 2 long summer months lie idle. God help us if the Offaly footballers or hurlers get a run going. Players will be frustrated and supporters will lose all interest. It was Richard Marx that sung 20 years ago about the "Endless Summer Nights" and it looks like senior and intermediate footballers and hurlers in Offaly will have plenty of these nights ahead. By the way theres a 12 week hurling lay off as well which is worse still 8th May til July 31st!!!!!!!

http://editorial.jpress.co.uk/6696631/O ... 20Plan.pdf

[TheManFromFerbane]

Question, what would you do differently? (This is a genuine question btw and not me being smart arsed!)

As far as I can see there are 2 weeks in July with no football league, and with this setup I can now go and book my summer holiday in confidence. I prefer it 100 times more than the system we had about 3 years ago and I personally can't see them doing it any better.

[hero12]

there is 6 rounds of league plus semi final and final between the long break in championship so i think it works out perfect plus holidays can be taken in first week of july as there is a 3 week break until the next championship match after league final.
so i have to say wel done to the conty board on the master fixtures plan.
only problem is most league matches are on a sunday

[Lone Shark]

only problem is most league matches are on a sunday

Surely that's when most players would want them, no? Anyway, I would also imagine that games are "the week ending" rather than necessarily Sunday. They'll get moved around to suit the two clubs involved, as is usually the way.

[toughtackler]

Has to be a good move....Football all the way and the leagues will be finished on time for a change......League final have been known to be in late November so it's going to be out of the way.You can actuaslly plan something now instead of second guessing when matches are going to be....It's about time they changed it and from waht I can see....it's for the greater good!!!!!!!

[joe bloggs]

The master fixture list is now available chaps. What a disgrace. 2 rounds of SFC and IFC in May and then not a championship ball to be kicked until the end of July. Thats correct no championship football from May 15th until 23rd July. 10 weeks when there is the best chance of dry weather and sunshine and nothing but a league game or two. If the county board want to continue with these groups of 6 teams then they simply cannot allow well over 2 long summer months lie idle. God help us if the Offaly footballers or hurlers get a run going. Players will be frustrated and supporters will lose all interest. It was Richard Marx that sung 20 years ago about the "Endless Summer Nights" and it looks like senior and intermediate footballers and hurlers in Offaly will have plenty of these nights ahead. By the way theres a 12 week hurling lay off as well which is worse still 8th May til July 31st!!!!!!!

http://editorial.jpress.co.uk/6696631/O ... 20Plan.pdf

If you play off the groups quickly some clubs would be finished in june/july. That's the last thing a player wants.
It never will be easy to run fixtures in a dual county, and i would say that the fixture makers are doing a good job trying to balance the interests of the county teams with those of our clubs. The one thing I do fully support is the larger groups which guarantee more games to players.

[Fargo Boyle]

I think we have too much quantity and not enough quality in the group stages. As we saw last year many of the latter group stage games had no meaning whatsoever as the groups were decided after the first few rounds. 4 teams going through from each group is too much.

We should be looking at reforming the championship structure. If you look at what Laois are doing it seems to be a far superior model. Each team gets a first round match and the losers get a second chance in a qualifer match. The winners of the qualifers go on to play the first round winners and this continues as such till the semi finals. The losers of the first round qualifers then enter a relegation play off. This means every game has an edge to it as there is always something to be played for.

[kinnittyman]

I'm going to throw a radical proposal for the re-structuring of the Hurling and Football Championship. Now I know this will never ever happen but what's the harm in something from left field.

First I would scrap the leagues and have just one championship group where every team plays each other meaning 11 championship games from Mid April through to August running along with the county team. Games would be played in home and away venues-6 at home, 5 away or vice versa. This would be done by a random computer programme.

For the knocout stages lets just say this is the following top 6:
1. Coolderry
2. Birr
3. Kinnitty
4.Tullamore
5.K.K
6. Shinrone

Coolderry and Birr proceed to the Semis.

In the Quarters Kinnitty play Shinrone in Kinnitty or a venue of ther choosing and likewise with Tullamore vs K/K.
In the semis then Coolderry play the lowest seeded team remaining in Coolderry or a venue of their choosing and Birr play the highest seeded team in Birr or a venue of their choosing. The final then would be played in Tullamore.

Teams who finish level on points are seperated by the head to head meeting. Bottom four in relegation semis with same format as county semis.

Radical I know but at least its something different.

The worry would be the possibility of a few dead rubbers.

[bracknaghboy]

Question, what would you do differently? (This is a genuine question btw and not me being smart arsed!)

Thats a perfectly fair question.

For a start the season is too drawn out.....its starts on first weekend in Feb and ends in mid-October. I think there are too many league games. There are 13 rounds of league football before the semi-final stage. 4 rounds of league are being played off in February alone! I firmly believe there should be no football or hurling until March. Players train and focus on the championship and we have a situation where they play 2 games in May and then wait 10-12 weeks before playing championship again. The only reason this is been done is to protect Intercounty players during the summer months....God forbid one of the lads were to break a nail or have their hair tossed about before a Leinster Championship game. It appears logical to me that with each team playing 5 championship group games the schedule should be structured in such a way that Round 1 is played in May. Rounds 2 & 3 in June. Rounds 4 & 5 in July. Knockout stages in August. Final in early Sept. I've a question for lads that support the current structure/schedule.........Whats so good about A) a 10-12 week break in the championship & B) whats so good about not playing championship football/hurling in the driest, hotest longest months of the year (June and July)?

[GreatDayForTheParish]

I'm going to throw a radical proposal for the re-structuring of the Hurling and Football Championship. Now I know this will never ever happen but what's the harm in something from left field.

First I would scrap the leagues and have just one championship group where every team plays each other meaning 11 championship games from Mid April through to August running along with the county team. Games would be played in home and away venues-6 at home, 5 away or vice versa. This would be done by a random computer programme.

For the knocout stages lets just say this is the following top 6:
1. Coolderry
2. Birr
3. Kinnitty
4.Tullamore
5.K.K
6. Shinrone

Coolderry and Birr proceed to the Semis.

In the Quarters Kinnitty play Shinrone in Kinnitty or a venue of ther choosing and likewise with Tullamore vs K/K.
In the semis then Coolderry play the lowest seeded team remaining in Coolderry or a venue of their choosing and Birr play the highest seeded team in Birr or a venue of their choosing. The final then would be played in Tullamore.

Teams who finish level on points are seperated by the head to head meeting. Bottom four in relegation semis with same format as county semis.

Radical I know but at least its something different.

The worry would be the possibility of a few dead rubbers.

Whatever about the exact format of the Championship (although your idea is pretty good), I would agree with the scrapping of the leagues.

In their current format the leagues appear to serve no useful purpose bar perhaps providing glorified ad hoc challenge games throughout the year. Were they organised and completed in a set time before the the onset of the Club Championships in a manner similar to the Inter-County NHL/NFL then at least they would bear some relevance towards a teams Championship preparations and thus a good performance in them would be desirable.

Instead the leagues are currently 'run off' in an utterly unpredictable, irregular and frankly useless manner with rounds sometimes occurring after a club has made their exit from the Championship. The resulting importance placed upon the league by players and supporters is non-existant, the advertisement of its games is horrendous and the winners are forgotten. Honestly how useful is a competition when nobody cares who wins it and the winners themselves don't celebrate it? I'd consider myself reasonably up to date on hurling matters in Offaly but I couldn't tell you who won the league in 2010, never mind before that. Does anybody know? Anybody care? Didn't think so.

It is a genuine struggle to attach any merit to their continued retention in their current state. Thus, scrap them and free up the fixtures calendar in one easy move.

[TheManFromFerbane]

Whats so good about A) a 10-12 week break in the championship & B) whats so good about not playing championship football/hurling in the driest, hotest longest months of the year (June and July)?

So Good? Nothing, ideally you'd want the structure setup the way you outlined, but until the county board, county players and county management decide they are willing to enter a structure where there is a very real prospect of a Niall McNamee or Shane Dooley getting injured before a Leinster Championship game or winnable Qualifier then that's what you are left with. There are two sides to the argument in protecting county players during the inter-county Championship but that's a seperate debate that has to happen before you can decide the fixture list.

[Lone Shark]

The pity about this is that it's so close to being perfect in the sense that if the league was played all the summer and the championship started inearly July, that would be grand - but the problem is that there are just too many games to make that possible.

Until the county scene gets a bit less greedy, there's simply nothing to be done - when the county scene shortens and frees up another couple of weeks, as well as giving Martin Breheny loads to write about, it will make life at club level a lot easier.

[bracknaghboy]

And so the county football leagues limped into action last weekend. Huge number of games called off due to the conditions. Those that did go ahead were played in mud baths. On the intercounty front we had cancellations, changes of venue and abandonment of the Offaly/Carlow hurling match due to the rain and the Kenny injury (no doubt the weather had a part to play in his fall). I still find it incredible that we will be playing almost no championship games during June, July and much of August. Surely lads would rather be playing football as many weeks as possible during the summer rather than mucking about (if your game goes ahead that is) in February?

One last point on this. Perhaps its time to remove the intercounty summer cotton wool. Our county footballers have bowed out of the Leinster championship first round in the last 3 years to Meath, Kildare and Westmeath without a fight. The hurlers needed extra time to dispose of Antrim last year and went out without a fight V Wexford in '09. Perhaps if our county teams were playing good honest club championship games in the 2 weekends before the Leinster championship then perhaps they would be better prepared. Surely this must be worth a try? Our first round results of late couldn't get any worse really?

[the Untouchable]

To be honest any lad whose played 3 or 4 years club football in Offaly knows that he's got at least 6 weeks of a break in the summer while our county boys go do their stuff...many's a Sunday night after another early Championship exit by our footballers I'd be tuned into the Sunday game praying for a decent qualifier draw at home to London, swiftly followed with another home draw to Leitrim just so I could extend my break from training for another month or so!!!

Now of course I don't think there'll ever be a repeat of the situation we had in 2000 when the county final was a week or 2 before Christmas...Tullamore held the championship up all year for Kevin Martin who funnily enough never actually togged out for them until the county final.

Of course we could just adopt the Kilkenny hurling approach to the club championship which is abit like the Tyrone club football scene which works along the lines of...if the county team isn't playing the following Sunday...the Championship can go ahead!!! It allows county subs to impress the manager, club players to maybe earn a call in to the county...or more importantly...stops the club championship from dragging out to the middle of October!!!

I think they should restructure the entire championship....play the league from late Feb until the end of June...with the Semi-finals and final of the league in June...but ensure that teams were playing league games up until the end of May. Then start the championship first or 2nd week of July, do away with the group structure because the quantity of games doesn't help the quality of the football....have a backdoor system in place to give every team at least 2 championship games. If you need more teams in there pick 4-6 stronger intermediate teams and upgrade them in to the senior championship draw...nothing would spark a bit of interest in these smaller struggling clubs than the chance to pit themselves against a Clara or Tullamore and try cause an real championship upset.

For me this system works well for 3 reasons....1) the league is likely to be finally taken seriously because it'll be regular football for clubs leading up the championship. 2) poorer senior sides don't have to drag there way through the entire summer playing 6 league games to then end up in a round robin relegation play off which will also end in October and 3) teams would be playing knowing that losing meant their year was potentially over, which would hopefully raise the intensity of the games, so supporters would be treated to proper championship football.

Also...no need for a 12 week break in the middle of the summer either...which would probably please 1 or 2 of ye out there!!!

[Lone Shark]

Just to note here, Galway and Waterford both operate large groups as well that require five rounds of round robin action and both of those counties are getting their hurling championship underway on the weekend after next (i.e. the weekend of the 24th April).

Other counties could be doing the same - it just proves that every county has difficulties in getting their club championships to fit into the full schedule.