This discussion has been had many times, and the problem is that people keep seeing the upside, but putting their fingers in their ears and doing some version of "la la la I'm not listening" when someone tries to explain the downside. But this has become my specialist subject in GAA admin terms down the years (you'll see why below) so here we go again.
Scrap Q/Finals, and just play semi finals in hurling and football. That would reduce the number of games.
Leading off with this: why on earth would Rhode, Tullamore, Shamrocks, Edenderry, Bracknagh, or any other senior club vote for less games? If you're getting rid of a meaningless round robin fixture that's one thing, but not getting rid of knockout rounds. No-one will want that.
Next, and more importantly, the only counties where these amalgamations work are where they are drawn from at least seven or eight clubs on average. Let's assume for a minute that we get rid of the senior B grade and call it what it is - intermediate - and you create a parish team from Doon, Erin Rovers and Ballycumber, and we'll even throw Tubber in there too, though they aren't technically in the same parish. Given that clubs like Ballycommon and Clonbullogue are senior in their own right, the Leamonaghan amalgamation would be as good as you'd get.
Fielding a combined team would absolutely cripple these clubs' first teams. Let's be honest about it, no serious player is going to play for Leamonaghan just to cobble together a team on the day and get walked on by a highly-drilled, cohesive and talented team from Tullamore or Edenderry. That's a surefire route to humiliation and playing yourself out of contention for a place on the Offaly senior panel, which is the complete opposite of what we're trying to achieve.
So this only works if Leamonaghan meet and train every bit as much as Tullamore do. This project only works if Leamonaghan are resourced and supported every bit as well as Tullamore are. I'm not saying that the four clubs have to fund a Stephen Rochford style appointment, but they have to be able to look over at what Ger Rafferty has assembled in Ferbane or what Paschal Kelleghan has put together in Rhode in terms of specialist coaches and they have to believe that they're being given every bit as much help to be as good as they can be, just like those teams.
And for all that to happen, the four composite clubs have to fund it, thus stripping them of the chance to be as good as they can be themselves, and they have to accept that two or three times a week, their players will be training with Leamonaghan, and so they'll (at best) be able to do one session with Doon, Ballycumber etc. Now I'm not privy to how training is going for those clubs in 2025, but my gut feeling is that if you took ten lads (for example) out of Ballycumber on any given night, what would be left would be a small group of honest but limited players that simply wouldn't be able to train at any sort of decent level. It would be a Junior B training session, effectively.
These four clubs (and their potential opponents in the IFC/JFC) will have to accept that every single championship weekend, their games will be played on a Sunday or Monday evening, and half a dozen of their players will already have had a hard hour of championship football played on Friday or Saturday. Add all this together, and the toll on the individual clubs is massive. The money alone is usually enough to make clubs baulk - I was on a fixtures committee here in Roscommon, where a group of North Roscommon clubs wanted something similar. The expressions on their faces when I said that this work in Kerry because clubs put up to €10,000 each into the Divisional team every year was pretty memorable, and needless to say they ran from that aspect.
So they made a half-hearted effort that wouldn't impede on the clubs too much, and they got this, which killed their enthusiasm stone dead:
https://www.shannonside.ie/sport/st-bri ... al-229994
That's why Kerry Divisional teams are (on average) pulled from around seven or eight clubs, Cork Divisional teams are often pulled from as many as 25 clubs, which is designed to share the load around. And the fixtures can be set to allow those Divisional teams to play at different times, which works because you have multiple divisions in each county - not realistic here in Offaly. And needless to say it's understood that if you play for East Kerry, or Muskerry, or St. Brendan's, you can't feasibly hurl as well - which is no issue if you want to put together a team from Walsh Island/Gracefield/Raheen/Ballinagar for example, but it instantly kills the idea of doing something similar anywhere west of the line from Cappincur to Killeigh (i.e., roughly two thirds of the county).
One final killer - to make this work, this project has to have continuity. So let's just say that a few years ago, there's a Walsh Island parish team, with Gracefield also in the mix. But if - like now - Bracknagh and Clonbullogue go Senior in their own right, then there isn't enough left for an amalgamation. That's a big reason why the Kenmare district team in Kerry struggles, they don't have lots of clubs.
The remedy for this is that every club in Offaly is part of a Division, and the Divisions are big enough that they can handle it if one or two clubs gain promotion. Sure, East Kerry won't be as good if Fossa get promoted and the Cliffords are no longer available for selection, but there are 13 clubs in the Division, so they'll always have a team.
And here's the kicker - one of those clubs is Dr. Crokes, who have won nine Munster club titles and two All-Irelands since they were last intermediate, all the way back in 1985. And every year, Dr. Crokes pay into the East Kerry Division, helping to fund the management and training of a team that in 2019 beat them in a county final.
That happens because Kerry people believe in the Divisional system and what it does for them, and it is firmly established in the county's GAA tradition and culture. But to go from scratch right now and try to sell to Rhode GAA and Edenderry GAA the idea that we're going to create a North Offaly Division comprising the clubs from those parishes along with maybe Daingean parish as well, and that Rhode and Edenderry would have to pay to fund a divisional team that in all likelihood they will never have players play for and that might be the one to knock them out of the Offaly SFC some year soon, that strikes me as ambitious.
I'll push it further. If you could make the executive and membership of those clubs believe in that concept, then I hope you work in sales for a living, because you could sell anything to anyone.