Club Football 2026

[Anon444]

Just after catching up on Tyrone club football final and only bringing this up as a matter of discussion, I actually think the structure brought in this year will benefit the weaker clubs and close the gap to the top. I don’t particularly feel that strong either way but I’m interested in trialing.

But would some structure with greater jeopardy be more beneficial or weaker to the overall state of football in the county? AFAIK, the Tyrone championship is straight knock out.

I don’t know how you’d structure it, could you do 4 groups of 3, which lead into straight knock out? Top teams get a home quarter final, second teams play them and those who come 3rd are in a relegation series?

[DurrowBoy17]

Would you believe Anon444 I came on to this forum to raise the point of the Tyrone championship.
The scenes around Edendork online the last few days and the magic of that championship.
Never a back to back winner and 10 different winners the last 20 years. Wow is all I can say.

I was also informed from a Tyrone friend of mine who’s deeply connected to the Coalisland Club that the league in Tyrone is deeply competitive and very important to the players and says it’s a result of the knockout structure. Players realise they could be gone after one round of championship so value the multiple league games much much more.
Now what a contrast to our league that is.

Genuine question… why can’t Offaly Gaa have a straight knockout championship ??
Would the dual thing be thrown back at us or “the need for county players at club leagues” then.
I can only see a huge plus to making a straight knockout championship. Imagine the jeopardy and huge tension in each game.

We certainly wouldn’t have 4 in a row in both codes…

[frankthetank]

Would you believe Anon444 I came on to this forum to raise the point of the Tyrone championship.
The scenes around Edendork online the last few days and the magic of that championship.
Never a back to back winner and 10 different winners the last 20 years. Wow is all I can say.

I was also informed from a Tyrone friend of mine who’s deeply connected to the Coalisland Club that the league in Tyrone is deeply competitive and very important to the players and says it’s a result of the knockout structure. Players realise they could be gone after one round of championship so value the multiple league games much much more.
Now what a contrast to our league that is.

Genuine question… why can’t Offaly Gaa have a straight knockout championship ??
Would the dual thing be thrown back at us or “the need for county players at club leagues” then.
I can only see a huge plus to making a straight knockout championship. Imagine the jeopardy and huge tension in each game.

We certainly wouldn’t have 4 in a row in both codes…

Well straight off the bat is an Offaly GAA regulation or bye law that states players must be provided with a minimum of 4 senior championship games per season.

[DurrowBoy17]

I wasn’t aware of this.

That surely can be changed. Sounds like a ridiculous rule.

How many dead rubber games happen every year that draw small attendances

[Anon444]

I do think the current structure is a good fit for the weaker senior clubs and will help them close the gap to the top teams. The top 4 clubs can time their runs easier though.

I think LS brought it up on this topic or another, but it’s very hard for there to be outsider championship wins when the structure now generally leads to the strongest panels in terms of depth winning.

And if it was to be changed, Tullamore would still win probably. But is there a greater chance of catching them on an off day, like Rhode did in the group? Anyways, the structure is better than last year and will probably be in place for another few years but interesting to see what other counties do.

[DurrowBoy17]

Tullamore were beaten twice in the group. By Rhode & Ferbane.

I use not to be in favour of the knockout, but seeing how stale our championship has gone in both codes, not to mention the irrelevancy or importance of our leagues. I think something like Tyrone's championship has to be replicated to have some chance of these dynasties in both codes dominating

[Lone Shark]

The discussion about Divisional teams has been done to death on this board before, and there are a lot of parallels with the conversation that would need to take place if we were to adapt the Tyrone system. It's easy to look in from the outside and see the good bits (ferociously competitive do-or-die games, no back-to-back winners since 2005, nine different clubs have won it since 2016) and not to look at the price that the players, the clubs and the county pays to make that happen.

(1) First, and top of the list for a county like Offaly, it's not suited to a dual culture. Depending on the approach from the county senior hurling manager on a given year, either he accepts that his intercounty hurlers will play a lot of football during the Spring, or he insists on players committing to hurling, in which case a lot of his best hurlers will not go into the county panel because they know how important the club football league is to their team.

(2) The Tyrone club league is a very good competition and it directly impacts your championship status (more on that shortly) and while intercounty players do play some league matches - more than any other county I know, other than they're probably on a par with Monaghan - it's not like they play most of them. And clubs accept this. So you could be plunged into a championship relegation playoff, based on your league form, which was from games without your county men. Tyrone clubs accept this - would Offaly clubs accept it? Past history tells me no.

(3) Because relegation is based on league form, my understanding (I'm open to correction) is that if Edendork either lost the final, or if they lost the semi-final, they were in a relegation playoff against Moortown. But because they won the championship, they can't be relegated, so Dungannon are now in the relegation final, which is scheduled to be played two months after they were knocked out of the championship, on the first weekend in September. Have Dungannon been training away for eight or nine weeks in case of this fixture? I've no idea. But either way, it's a shite of a situation for them - they either have to regroup for a crucial fixture after thinking their year was probably done, or else they had to train, with no matches, for a game that might never happen.

(4) This system leads to other anomalies. It was a huge shock in 2025 when Clonoe didn't win the Ulster (and possibly the All-Ireland) intermediate, because they were deemed far too good to go down. They had a load of lads missing for the league on county duty and other things, but were considered strong contenders for the championship, eventually losing after a replayed quarter-final to Errigal, who went on to win Ulster. But based on the league (I don't know if there was a relegation final or if it was introduced afterwards as a response to this) they went down to IFC ball. They were back at senior this year and hammered Coalisland in the first game, before losing a shootout quarter-final to Edendork.

(5) Above all, there is the psychological piece. I don't know why, but here in Offaly, the disregard we have for league competitions is unparalleled anywhere I've seen. I remember being involved in one fixtures review group where we presented a radical overhaul of the leagues (the geography based effort) in an attempt to, as one delegate put it, "put the life back into the burger". We knew it was wild, but we also knew that something mad had to be done because the leagues in Offaly are a joke, particularly in football. I've seen league ball in Kildare, Westmeath, Roscommon, it's all played at a much higher level than league ball here. Maybe the solution to that is to make it more consequential, I don't know - what I do know is that it's not going to be a simple fix, at all.


Now I'm not saying for a second that stuff like this isn't a price worth paying - in fact I'd be open minded to it. But I will say that you can't just talk about these things in terms of "look at the upsides, aren't they great!" without also being cognisant of the fact that every choice you make has ramifications, and ignoring those ramifications because they're inconvenient is absolutely NOT the way to go.

[DurrowBoy17]

Of course there are downsides like anything Kevin.

But I definitely do think there are more upsides. Especially the current state of championship with loads of shadow boxing, no jeoprady, 4 in a row winners in both codes, and as you said the poorest league to go with it.

So surely, there has to be more upside. Could the excitement or attraction of our championships and leagues get much worse?? I would say no. So why not try...

[DurrowBoy17]

Basically, can fans and players in Offaly get any less bored of what they're seeing ??

[Lone Shark]

I want to put this bit in a separate post, because to me it's a different issue to the structural/fixtures thing.

We do have a huge issue with our club football, and for the likes of myself who takes in a serious amount of Roscommon club football and Offaly club football every summer, it's particularly depressing to see the gulf. The Roscommon SFC is an excellent championship, with very high standards across the board, to the point that I would say that if Tullamore were placed in Roscommon, they would be joint third alongside Boyle, Ferbane would be in the middle of the pack, Shamrocks and Rhode might just about avoid relegation, and on 2026 form, every other Offaly team would be weaker than each of the 12 sides that played in the 2026 Roscommon SFC.

Éire Óg won the IFC here in Roscommon, they will go very close to winning a Connacht intermediate, I'd make them very slight outsiders against Davitts of Mayo, who were excellent on Sunday in Castlebar (I was there). Meanwhile Ballinagar, who are our 11th best club, are probably not at the level needed to win a game in Leinster, never mind a championship - and Leinster is famously weak at intermediate level, compared to the other three provinces, they have a spectacularly bad record of three wins and 20 losses, or something in that ballpark.

St. Brigid's mightn't be too bad at Leinster Junior, I'd make them one of Offaly's best prospects to at least reach a provincial final. They are, in theory, the 16th best club in Offaly, out of around 31 or 32 that play ball. My own club here (St. Aidan's) won the Roscommon JFC and will be outsiders away to Ardagh (Mayo) on Sunday week, are mathematically the 23rd best team out of 28 football clubs in Ros, and if I was pricing it tomorrow for the bookies, I would make St. Aidan's four-point favourites over St. Brigid's.

So where am I going with all this negativity, you might well ask?

Watching the games across the two counties, the key differences I think go back to a mindset and cultural thing. Roscommon's best footballers are no better than Offaly's best footballers, but they have more of them because there is a culture of being the best that you can be here, even if playing for the county is nowhere on the horizon. In fact I think the reason Ferbane consistently outperform the chasing pack, and the reason Rhode continue to hold their own in the top four despite having a dearth of stars, is that the same culture exists in those two clubs - the ordinary club footballers rock up for the summer fit, strong, physically prepared to be at their best, and committed to the cause.

I genuinely don't get the same sense across the board in Offaly. Every time I watch any game involving clubs outside the top four, I'm invariably looking at at least three or four players on each team who either are physically not where they should be, or who maybe are no further on at 24 than they were at 19 or 20. I watch teams and players make strange decisions in terms of how they play the game, or sometimes, no in-depth preparation at all. Just a simple Plan A, and we'll stick with it until the end.

I stress, I'm not saying that there are no footballers in Offaly who push themselves to the limit for their clubs - but for too many of the clubs in that weak senior, Senior B or intermediate level, they don't have 15 of them, and they are dragged down by the others that fall short. Neither am I saying that there are lads rocking up to their club's first team with 25% body fat or anything like that, but I get the sense that lads are doing what they have to do in Offaly, but in Roscommon they'll do everything they can do.

The same applies when it comes to stoppers, all-out defenders. Roscommon football is full of lads who maybe aren't the most naturally talented footballers in the world, but they use the deep reserves of bile within them to become absolutely hateful, spiteful hoors that make life miserable for opposition attackers, and they become incredibly valuable for that reason. You can easily visualise them waking up in the morning of a game, planting a picture of the man they're going to mark in front of them as they have their breakfast, and literally speaking to the picture, saying "I'm going to f*** you up today", over and over. I'd struggle to name one defender who falls into that category here. In fact it was noticeable that when Rhode started the county semi-final, very clearly instructed to try and rough Tullamore up a bit, they committed three clumsy late tackles, picked up cheap yellows and had to back away from the tactic with their tails between their legs. It just looked so un-natural because it wasn't in them.

Does it cross the line here in Ros? Absolutely. One defender, not a million miles away from a county panel, was caught spitting on an opponent in a Sigerson game. The opponent - his CLUB COLLEAGUE. I hope it doesn't need to be said that I find that stuff abhorrent, and I've no idea how you heal the club dressing room after that, but when the average player plays hs game on the edge, then of course some will stray over it. Here in Offaly, the average player just plays his game, there's no interest in pushing boundaries.

In general, my overall point is that there is a blind zeal about club football in Roscommon that does not exist here in Offaly.

Ironically, I would say Offaly club hurling is nowhere near as passive, and most Offaly hurling clubs and players max out, in a way that the footballers don't.

This, in my opinion, is the elephant in the room when it comes to our stagnant club championship.

[Lone Shark]

Of course there are downsides like anything Kevin.

But I definitely do think there are more upsides. Especially the current state of championship with loads of shadow boxing, no jeoprady, 4 in a row winners in both codes, and as you said the poorest league to go with it.

So surely, there has to be more upside. Could the excitement or attraction of our championships and leagues get much worse?? I would say no. So why not try...

Again, I'm not saying no, at all. I very much fall into the camp of how we need to do something, because it's all gone very stale. And I'll say this, if you could get Durrow to sign on for it, then we're definitely on to something, because they should be the hardest sell of all!

[DurrowBoy17]

Good point.

I would still like to think it would help dual clubs. They could play both, but if one got knocked out early, the other would have a greater chance of going far/winning technically speaking. Maybe there would be more fallouts, but that's just my own personal opinion on it.

[Lone Shark]

Good point.

I would still like to think it would help dual clubs. They could play both, but if one got knocked out early, the other would have a greater chance of going far/winning technically speaking. Maybe there would be more fallouts, but that's just my own personal opinion on it.

I can't see how it would help dual clubs. You're telling the Durrow club that their relegation out of senior could hinge on a league campaign where for either most or all of their games, they're without six players who featured in their relegation final against Bracknagh, and that includes a centre back, midfielder, top scorer, and those players contributed 2-14 out of their tally of 3-17??

It also means that all of those lads get very little football played before they face into a do-or-die knockout game.

That's not to say that this wouldn't serve the greater good, but there is no way it suits dual clubs.

[del]

St Manchans have given Tullamore a walkover in the U 20 championship tonight that’s not a good sign for the 4 clubs involved in that amalgamation but to be fair to the lads on that team probably half are away in college and mite find it difficult to get back midweek particularly after the long weekend most only went back yesterday . These matches should be played at the weekend if been played this time of the year I know the minor championships etc were on the last few weeks.
Mid summer is the time for this championships if you ask me like they were a few yrs back in 2020-2023
St Manchans would have been strong enough at this grade with plenty playing adult football for the respective clubs.
The amalgamations are harder sell to players when they move into the adult teams.
It’s really only box ticking exercise for the county board and to try and make sense of the draw is actually hard work .

[DurrowBoy17]

Good point.

I would still like to think it would help dual clubs. They could play both, but if one got knocked out early, the other would have a greater chance of going far/winning technically speaking. Maybe there would be more fallouts, but that's just my own personal opinion on it.

I can't see how it would help dual clubs. You're telling the Durrow club that their relegation out of senior could hinge on a league campaign where for either most or all of their games, they're without six players who featured in their relegation final against Bracknagh, and that includes a centre back, midfielder, top scorer, and those players contributed 2-14 out of their tally of 3-17??

It also means that all of those lads get very little football played before they face into a do-or-die knockout game.

That's not to say that this wouldn't serve the greater good, but there is no way it suits dual clubs.

I don't think we've to copy the relegation format of the Tyrone club championship from the league, but probably more for 1st round championship pairings I'd be thinking. Instead put relegation for bottom 4 teams maybe??, So atleast they've x2 chances to stay up with their full squad. If they lose both as well as their first round championship loss then they definitely deserve to go down.
So seen as we're a dual county... modify it to suit that??