Shedding a tier – one way or another
08:29, 05 Nov 2009
Shane Stapleton
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When it comes to a championship structure: we don’t quite know what we want, but we want it now. The back door system has taken the ‘out’ from the knockout system, and chamfered off the hard edge from the provincial championships. It’s no longer do-or-die affairs, it’s do-or-live-to-fight-another-day stuff.
We all want to excitement of an at-all-costs clash, but also with an opportunity for the weaker counties to progress. Without the backdoor, would Wicklow footballers have been able to subsist merely on the coaxings of Mick O’Dwyer? The Kerryman would likely have made progress in any case, but he has been able to maximise that through the back door and the opportunities for betterment that it offers.
Would Laois’ hurlers have come so close to an All Ireland quarter-final in 2009 – after a 20-point hammering by Galway a year earlier – without the back door? Of course they got a favourable draw against Antrim in the qualifiers, but at least a draw gives them hope of doing something every couple of years. Better than being knocked out entirely after one game by Kilkenny, Offaly and Wexford in years gone by. The winners of Dublin v Carlow/Laois have The Cats in the Leinster semi-final of 2010. Without a back door, it would be akin to your hurling year having a death clock. You might survive the first few attacks, but you’ll be flatlining soon in any case.
People might say the league is there to prepare your team for the championship, but how can you gear up to a clash with Kilkenny if you have not been hardening yourself against NHL Division One teams? Laois certainly can’t. Wexford shocked Kilkenny in the 2004 Leinster championship, but had played against several of the Liam McCarthy contenders in the league that same year.
In the past two years, Tipperary’s footballers have made great strides with successive promotions all the way up to Division Two. First up for the Premier County in 2010? Kerry. Death clock against springs to mind. The first attack would be fatal but for the back door.
No matter what system is in place, the cream will rise to the top. It in inevitable, and is the reasons why the structure should be there to suit the teams who will usually sink. In order to buoy their chances of some day getting up to where the bigger teams are. And it can happen, Tyrone and Armagh both won their first Sam Maguire titles since the back door came in. Tyrone also received 26 of their 39 All Stars in that time, too.
So leave it as is, or bring is the format that most people label as ‘Champions League-style’? Programmes for GAA games often have player profiles and it’s not an uncommon thing to see a county star offering his backing to this system in a Q&A section. While it certainly has its merits, there is also the issue of essentially being a second, more competitive, league. Does it get stratified like the NHL and NFL? And, if so, would the GAA would want, in the same way Fifa seeded the play-offs to ensure the best amount of marquee teams at the World Cup, ensuring that the cream would rise? Just as they ordinarily do in the Champions League.
If that approach appealed to the masses, and to the county boards, you could conceivably have a Europa League-style – seeing as that’s the lexicon being used here – for the teams that were eliminated. Occasionally, you would have your Bayern Munich- and Juventus-type teams, but invariably it would be housed with Getafes, Tottenham Hotspurs and Sevillas. Now many teams, as with the European competition, may decide not to take the competition seriously but a proper reward for winning this Europa-esque tournament would fix that: re-entry to the top tier later in the same year.
Uefa allows third-placed teams from the Champions League group phases into the Europa League, but doesn’t allow the subsequent winner back into the big one, or reward them with entry the following year. It is the eternal failing of the Europa League. The money is pittance by comparison and it offers no substantial end gain. It is merely a strain on resources, both in terms of capital and their players’ energy.
Of course the logistics of leaving a spot open later in the championship draws further problems. How to get this Europa Cup played out in time for re-entry before the top tier hits the latter stages. It would be tough, indeed. It would have to be structured in such a way that this tournament is played off quickly, and possibly while the top-tier counties have breaks for the club championship. The logistical problems might then lie at the door of the lower-tier winner, who will struggle to keep its club championship progressing through its stages with the county side so active.
Here’s a prototype: Thirty-five teams competed in 2009’s hurling league. Now seven groups of five would be a nice even split. The top two from each group, meaning 14 championship qualifiers teams in total, progress to the All Ireland series while the other 21 enter a knockout tournament. Those 14 championship teams play off, leaving seven quarter-finalists, with that vacant eighth spot being filled by the lower-tier winner. It might work for football. Of course, in hurling you then have to take into account Division Four teams being in a seeded group against some teams will can beat them by cricket scores, so again there is no shortage of issues.
Another way would be to have the weaker counties have a qualifying stage, which would lead them into a group phase with the seeded teams. Drop the Europa Cup-style tournament altogether and just let it run into the All Ireland after the groups. This is possibly more realistic.
But let’s try again: there will be 13 teams in the 2010 All Ireland championship, but is there a better way to decide who they should be? Why should teams have to win the Christy Ring Cup to get there? Should they not be allowed a shot each year? There is room enough. The Christy Ring Cup ended on 11 July in 2009, so could a place not be kept in the qualifiers for the winner in that same year.
After all, the first phase of qualifiers in 2009 began just a week earlier. Surely dates can be jockeyed around to accommodate the winner of the Christy Ring tournament. That would give a weaker county a steadily tougher quality of opposition all the way to the qualifiers, which would then represent the next tier. The gradual nature of their championship opponents would be just that. They would be facing the worst of what that year’s provincial campaigns had to offer.
It would mean no hammerings at the hands of Kilkenny, Cork and Tipperary, but the chance of an upset against the chasing pack, or the pack who chases them. The GAA is looking for a solution that suits everybody – it won’t be an easy task.
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