DurrowBoy17 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 28, 2026 8:11 am
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??
Obviously we can do whatever we like, but the reason it works in Tyrone is because they play the league at pretty close to full intensity, so they don't have that feeling of "your season could be over after one game". This is what I mean about how you can't just pick the good aspects of something and say that you don't want to do the hard bit, when the hard bit is a big part of why it works.
If you go to a knockout championship, players have to have a really good league competition, and that means putting carrots and sticks in place that will motivate clubs to take it seriously.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.
The only thing I'm suggesting changing from the Tyrone is to have 2 chances of staying up instead of one because of the dual. Everything else the same.
Where you finish in the league matters to your first round knockout championship game/avoiding relegation. Thats a huge carrot.
As they say, Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions Kevin
I promise you, if I had the solution to this, it would have gone in to the county board and been all across the back pages of the Offaly Indo time and again!
You can't change a county's culture easily, and when it comes to the dual thing, I absolutely wouldn't want to either - but to be quite honest, for me that's just a reason why the Tyrone scenario, while working brilliantly up there, just isn't applicable here. I would be a big fan of trying to inject importance into our leagues and I certainly don't like the way that in general across our championships, we play a lot of round robin football and hurling to eliminate very few teams - but trying to go too radical straight away will just lead to nothing happening at all.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.
Lone Shark wrote: ↑Wed Oct 28, 2026 11:40 am
I promise you, if I had the solution to this, it would have gone in to the county board and been all across the back pages of the Offaly Indo time and again!
You can't change a county's culture easily, and when it comes to the dual thing, I absolutely wouldn't want to either - but to be quite honest, for me that's just a reason why the Tyrone scenario, while working brilliantly up there, just isn't applicable here. I would be a big fan of trying to inject importance into our leagues and I certainly don't like the way that in general across our championships, we play a lot of round robin football and hurling to eliminate very few teams - but trying to go too radical straight away will just lead to nothing happening at all.
Senior B Hurling is my personal pet peeve for this. 18 group games to eliminate 2 teams. It grates me so much.
Such an easy fix. Top team to final, 2nd plays 3rd (in 2nd’s home venue) in the only semi final.
There’s no jeopardy in the group stage of Senior B at the moment. Literally matches for the sake of matches.
Plenty of jeopardy in Senior B hurling. Very competitive championship with little margin between 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th. One slip up csn leave you staring relegation.
Item: Clodiagh Gaels in 2025. And Lusmagh won't have it easy next year either
frankthetank wrote: ↑Wed Oct 28, 2026 1:58 pm
Senior B Hurling is my personal pet peeve for this. 18 group games to eliminate 2 teams. It grates me so much.
Such an easy fix. Top team to final, 2nd plays 3rd (in 2nd’s home venue) in the only semi final.
There’s no jeopardy in the group stage of Senior B at the moment. Literally matches for the sake of matches.
Pat Donegan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.
"Offaly's hurling is exact and abrasive: full of assurance on the ball, devoid of fumbling and slicing and sod-busting". Kevin Cashman RIP (September 1994).
There's no doubt it's one of the better championships in Offaly, and has been for some time.
Now you could probably argue that it's a very good championship despite the structure, or you could argue that it's because of it. My own gut feeling is that the relative even-ness of most of the teams papers over the cracks a little.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.
Plain of the Herbs wrote: ↑Wed Oct 28, 2026 10:31 pm
Plenty of jeopardy in Senior B hurling. Very competitive championship with little margin between 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th. One slip up csn leave you staring relegation.
And 3 slip ups can still leave you in the semi final!
Plain of the Herbs wrote: ↑Wed Oct 28, 2026 10:31 pm
Plenty of jeopardy in Senior B hurling. Very competitive championship with little margin between 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th. One slip up csn leave you staring relegation.
And 3 slip ups can still leave you in the semi final!
Exactly this.
I would say there is no other club championship in Ireland where you can lose 3 games (or 60%) of your championship matches and reach a county semi final. That’s the perfect illustration of a lack of jeopardy.
Championship games should mean something. They shouldn’t just be fixtures to fulfilled. And ultimately if you lose 60% of them you should be eliminated.
Kilcormac/Killoughey were a hair’s breath (or a Brian Guinan if you will!) from reaching the counter Senior B final this year. They would have lost as many games as they won to get there. That shouldn’t be rewarded.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. 4 teams qualifying from a 6 team group after 18 games is not proper championship. That’s the hill I’m willing to die on!!!
Senior b is good because every team is participating is of equal standard pretty much.
Changes I'd make would be top 3 Into final and semi finals.
If you fail to win a game your automatically relegated. There no way there should have been a relegation final if one team fails to win a single game.
