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I agree Muck Savage. I know that there is an air of optimism in Longford this year and a few of the older fold are returning such as David Hanniffy (ex UCD midfielder). Others such as the Barden brothers are re-energised for this year. Longford don't expect an All Ireland but a semi final or final appearence in Leinster would be a highlight for the county.

Does anybody remember how they celebrated when the won the O'Byrne cup a few years ago? An open top bus through Longford town!

All this new found confidence is built on the run they had last year coupled with younger players who have tasted underage success combining with more experienced heads. Reminds me of Offaly in 1997.

For that reason alone I think the proposal is a terrible idea. At least give everybody a shot at an All Ireland and then play off your plates/shields.

Hyper wrote:LS, have you got your "blueprint" which you posted a long time back? This to me was something that could be implemented. Why can the All Ireland finals not be played in August? I suppose it is an

That wasn't necessarily advocating less teams in the qualifiers, merely a shorter season, but yeah, you'll find it here .... http://www.uibhfhaili.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=413

Running through the different points one by one.....

Muck Savage wrote:Remember in '97 we won a Leinster from Div 4, and left an AI behind us as we didn't perform against Mayo in the Semi.
That year didn't have the backdoor but say we had been beat by Westmeath in the first round (Claffey scored a point in injury time to level it), I think we'd still be in the dark ages now. That team built a lot of that drawing game. If the backdoor was in play then I'd hate to think we didn't get a shot at it.

Back then we'd still have got a shot at the provincial title, and done exactly what we did now. okay, it would have been terrible if we missed out, but would it have been that undeserved? We weren't in division 4 for no reason at the time.

Muck Savage wrote:This year for example Wicklow could beat Louth, then beat Wexford in to get to a Semi-final which would be a great achievemnet. The get beat there but the two teams that they knocked out are still in with a shot. I don't think this is fair.

This is the example that everyone is using this year. The point about that is that even if Wicklow were to make a run in the qualifiers, the absolute limit of their potential, given the softest draw imaginable in every round, is making Round 4. However Wicklow have been in the qualifiers every year so far, and have yet to make it past round one. I'm aware that Micko might make a difference, but surely there comes a point where the club footballers of Hollywood, Glenealy and Blessington are entitled to say feck this for a game of darts, I'm sick of everything being on hold so these useless feckers can stay in training to ship another beating, with roughly a 100/1 chance of actually making it to Croke Park.

Wicklow have put in year after year of pitiful performances in the league and championship, and it's a bit rich that people say it's unfair on them that they don't keep getting second chances, now that they have a big benefactor writing cheques and buying big name managers. A good crop of young lads i could sympathise with, but this .....

Muck Savage wrote:these lads bust a gut for 8 months a year training and the really only prize they want is a shot at it all.

Two things with this - first of all maybe this is what it takes to make people realise that and eight month intercounty season for the crap teams, thus meaning a ten month one for good teams is a bit much. Secondly some players might only want a shot at it, but others don't - they want money for it. More games and longer seasons suits that agenda, and only that agenda. Real fans are happy to watch club football and hurling instead of county if that's what's on at the time, and the core of the organisation is being killed by these huge long seasons. Yet you take one step to trim it, like this, and people are not happy at all.

Does anybody remember how they celebrated when the won the O'Byrne cup a few years ago? An open top bus through Longford town!

ballymanabroad wrote:All this new found confidence is built on the run they had last year coupled with younger players who have tasted underage success combining with more experienced heads. Reminds me of Offaly in 1997.

For that reason alone I think the proposal is a terrible idea. At least give everybody a shot at an All Ireland and then play off your plates/shields.

Look, if Longford are good enough to go on a meaningful run, they are good enough to finish in the top four of division 2A. We've seen first hand how teams could not care less about these end of season plates and shields when they are not linked into an overall plan - so the only way to do it is to link them to the All Ireland championship properly. Longford already are guaranteed a shot at the All Ireland, it's called the Leinster championship.


Everyone is focussing on the hypothetical problems and teams where this would not have been a good idea. Nobody is focussing on some of the problems that would have been averted if this was in place previously.

(1) In 2006, along with the much publicised Longford, Sligo, Clare, Carlow, London, Antrim, Waterford and Wicklow also would have been exempt from the qualifiers under this new structure. Of those seven counties, they had two wins between the seven of them, and one of those two wins was Clare beating Antrim. The four teams that drew decent opposition other than Sligo got hammered - not one of them even made a game of it. So six of the eight teams had their season prolonged for up to six weeks for no good reason, and in each of those cases their domestic championship was beng held off on account of it. Now how much better would it have been for football in Clare or Waterford if guys got to play club football at the height of summer rather than waiting around, not knowing when they were training for?

(2) Not counting one year when they went straight into the Munster semis and thus into the qualifiers round two, Waterford have been knocked out of the first round of the qualifiers in the first round every year. Teams that have travelled down there include Roscommon, Armagh, Carlow and Longford, all of whom beat them with ease. What is the point in any of these fixtures? What is the point of the London football team coming over to Ireland for a second beating? These games usually have an attendance of two or three hundred, and are no good to their opponents either.

(3) Ultimately, the only way that we will have a concise, six month county season is by linking the league and the championship somehow. This is a step in that direction. [/quote]

Now, told ya!

LS

(1) In 2006, along with the much publicised Longford, Sligo, Clare, Carlow, London, Antrim, Waterford and Wicklow also would have been exempt from the qualifiers under this new structure. Of those seven counties, they had two wins between the seven of them, and one of those two wins was Clare beating Antrim. The four teams that drew decent opposition other than Sligo got hammered - not one of them even made a game of it. So six of the eight teams had their season prolonged for up to six weeks for no good reason, and in each of those cases their domestic championship was beng held off on account of it. Now how much better would it have been for football in Clare or Waterford if guys got to play club football at the height of summer rather than waiting around, not knowing when they were training for?

Looking at it this way why should Offaly have a shot in the back door? We've taken it as a joke the last few years and at least these teams have tried to put up a performance.
Looking at it as a whole, how many teams can say they have a shot at the AI, realistic shot? I'd suggest about 6 or 7, in this case all the other teams are wasting their time training after they have been knocked out of the provincial championship, looking at it from your logic point of view. Likewise, why are the eight teams above let into the provincial championship, they're hardly going to win that if they are bad enough not to be allow into the AI championship.

I think this takes out the chance of a small team taking a big scalp, right they may not win the AI but think of the boost Longford and Sligo have given their own counties the last few years when they went on a back door run (we certainly don't deserve a shot at the back door over them going on our record). I understand that you watnt to shorten the season and that does make sense, but you can go done through the years and pick out so called weak teams beating big teams in a one off game and the excitment it brought those counties. They may not win the AI, but then how many really have a shot at it, I just think we should give everyone a day in the sun.
"The sun shines on every dogs arse once in a while"

If I was to answer truthfully about whether Offaly deserved a shot at the backdoor, the honest answer was no, we probably didn't. Certainly our own club football championships is probably among the most messed up in that regard - one round in April, another in June and the final round in late July - so one could actually argue that Offaly football has been very badly served by the backdoor.

I don't doubt that the one big win a couple of counties picked up might have been a huge boost to them, but I think in the case of the overall good, weaker counties would be better served by a meaningful second tier competition with promotion to the Sam Maguire race at the end of it. After all, no county that failed to win this could legitimately argue that they might have won the All Ireland.

That big win can be overplayed too. Carlow got theirs, as we know only too well, a year and a half ago, and now look where Carlow football is - probably the worst county in Ireland bar Kilkenny.

Funny how none of us suspected Offaly would end up being the weaker county in the Tommy Murphy cup!

Bord na Mona man wrote:Funny how none of us suspected Offaly would end up being the weaker county in the Tommy Murphy cup!

It will be great - it will give the lads a chance to play in croke park!