www.uibhfhaili.com

At a later date I'll probably post some sort of a prediction for the year ahead but for now I had a thought when out walking:

Each club has 7 games in the group. I'd love to see the following for each team to drum up some interest:

2 home games, 2 away games , 1 game in OCP, 1 game in SBP and 1 game in the traditional neutral venue.

It might inject a bit of spark in what at times can be a pretty non exciting format.

It might be different in Senior A football where there most clubs have a sizable population, but hosting a home Senior match would put a massive strain on resources. Go to a match at any rural venue and the same fellas (and ladies) you see on the gate, parking cars and generally helping out are the same ones you see when their club's Senior team in in action, whether carrying hurls or water, part of team managements or actually lining out on the field.

The host club is required to provide linesmen, which would be a problem at a home/away venue. And if the referee landed with no umpires (or less than four umpires) that's more bodies called up to fill in.

I'm not aware of any clubs that have a problem hurling in Banagher, Birr, Rath, Kinnitty, Moystown, Clareen Lusmagh or any other neutral venue.

I don't know if anyone has paid too much attention, but there are new regrading by-laws (which might have been introduced last year). Instead of regrading up to seven players who played Senior last year, clubs must now list 18 players who were previously graded Senior who can only play Senior in 2020.

Now, I don't doubt that this is what clubs want and voted on. But did anyone stop to think of small rural clubs in this, they type who would try and get through the pre-summer rounds using just 15 or 16 players in order to give Junior game time to as many men as they can? Forcing clubs to ring-fence 18 players as Senior only is placing a considerable handicap on small clubs.

Dont want to dampen your hopes here lads but there is a reasonable chance that all GAA activity could be gone for this year...... If the Brits dont get their house in order, this CV is going to be around for longer than we hope and if that happens, then the year could be called off altogether. Cant see any GAA action of any sort happening before August if the patterns of health issues that have occurred in other regions also occur here......

An early and not well thought out prediction is that we will have a very truncated county championships towards the end of the year (possibly even straight knock out) and all provincial club championships will be scrapped to make time for these championships to be held.

I know sport isnt at the forefront of peoples minds, i reckon a straight knock out later in the year is apossibility at this stage

Or the hurling will go 2 groups of 4 and it wont be criss cross. You will play the teams in your group. Top 2 in each team to semi-finals.

As an aside the football probably wont be criss-cross either this year. Just traditional groups of 4.

we will do well to see any championship this year, straight knock out possibility, at a push two groups of 4 and play it off, as for the idea of games in OCP, SBP and neutral etc, would add very little spark I honestly think, particulary the way things are panning out, if games become meaningless due to previous results you wont get attendance to warrant it, It will be KK/Birr/Rynaghs, and then Belmont/Shinrone/Clareen..Coolderry probably will slip a bit more this year..it will be the same faces at the table again come the fall if we get over this current crisis...alot of former strong clubs in Senior B now not coming back up which is worrying for the development of hurling in them areas...

Any word on when Dan Kelly is getting back from Australia lads? Former offaly U21 star, he will be a huge loss for Tullamore.

According to Michael Duignan it's looking like the Senior Championships will be straight knock-out if/when they get played.

Will be interesting to see how the County Board organise the draw. Will there be seeding or will they just go straight open draw.

Straight open draw would be add even more excitement to it really with say the possibility of Birr and St Rynaghs meeting in a county quarter final or Ballinamere drawing Coolderry and fancying their chances of getting to a county semi-final.

Draw should be seeded. Top 4 from 2019 kept separate.

Why?

The situation could best be summed up with the words of Paul Brady’s song: “there’s no use in askin’ / the answer is nobody knows”.

And in fairness, I wouldn’t be criticising anyone for not knowing. But anyway.

We really won’t know how to schedule the club season until they see how the intercounty year will pan out. And while many may see the intercounty scene as the greedy side of the ‘grab all association’, the reality is that quite a number of people are dependent on Central Council’s income, particularly coaches and GDAs and the like. There could very well be a huge scaling down of coaching nationwide if the intercounty championships don’t proceed or are considerably scaled back.

And sports fixtures will be one of the last activities to be restored when normality returns, as it eventually will. And even at that, you couldn’t see a hurling or football fixture with 5,000 or 10,000 of 20,000 or 40,000 going ahead for a very long time – if at all this year.

As for knockout county championships here, how they are scaled back will depend on when they return. A straight knockout championship involving eight teams can be run off in three weeks. In that case, football and hurling combined could be done and dusted in six weekends – something that would really only be required if the resumption didn’t come until September 1st. (That’s assuming mid October county finals to be ready for Leinster club championships in early November – and that’s if there are going to be provincial club championships at all, which is something @frankthetank speculated on in March, above.)

In another scenario, a round robin with two groups of four followed by semi-finals and a final (where you play the teams in your group, not criss-cross) would take five weekends. Times two (hurling and football) would need to be started in early August. While a knockout involving a back door for first and second round losers (ideal for an 8 team championship, and similar to the way the Christy Ring cup used to operate) would also require five weekends.

As for the hurling, well, there already are draws in place for first round pairings, if they were to go either of the 3 weekend (knockout) or 5 weekend (back door) options.

Anyway, no point speculating as to start dates until we see where the whole lockdown thing is going. There won’t be time pressure until August.

frankthetank wrote: ↑Fri Apr 10, 2020 11:23 pmWhy?

As a reward for doing well in 2019.

I have never really heard of 4 seeds I think 2 would sufice