National Forum

Tailteann Cup: Right To Scrap Group Stage?

(Oldest Posts First) - Go To The Latest Post


Replying To Sligoman1234:  "If getting to the QF in a competition of 17 is considered a good run well then you set the bar quite low."
Would have to agree with you. And a couple of other things about the "good" runs of Wexford and Laois in the 2023 Tailteann Cup:

Wexford's "good" run to the quarter-final: won just two games out of five, and lost that quarter-final by 17 points
Laois's "good" run to the semi-final: also won just two games out of five, and lost the semi-final by 22 points

Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 3310 - 12/12/2025 09:46:14    2648059

Link

Replying To alalalalalum:  "I think we are all in agreement by the comments that the competition should be scrapped"
You must be reading different comments to the rest of us :D

Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 3310 - 12/12/2025 10:54:55    2648064

Link

Replying To Sligoman1234:  "If getting to the QF in a competition of 17 is considered a good run well then you set the bar quite low."
3 of the quarter finalists were counties who didnt get promoted from div4 that year. Two of the others were in div2, while the other 3 were all in div3, none were relegated to div4, and 1 was the div3 champions, so going up to div2. So it was a fair achievement for 3 counties that didnt get promoted from div4. Alot of teams higher up the League pyramid didnt get that far.

Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 17793 - 12/12/2025 10:55:00    2648065

Link

Replying To Sligoman1234:  "Would you expect a junior club to beat a senior one in knockout on a regular basis? These counties all get a crack at the Division 1 and 2 sides in the provincial championships and victories are seldom and when they do happen they rarely are backed up with a subsequent one showing they are outliers.

Limerick are a team this year that took the correct approach, promotion from D4 followed by a good run to the final and decent performance in it. They'll give D3 a right go and go into playing Cork in reasonable form. Based on the old system they'd have been promoted last year and never heard about in qualifiers unless they played D4/D3 opponents.

County players hardly slog through the year to get a hammering to a D1/D2 team. Your theory is that they need to play them more often to raise their standards. The motivation of some sort of achievement is much more paramount I would imagine.

I have also already said that the standards in Div1 and 2 are not uniform either. Cavan who put ye to the sword earlier this year hardly became favourites to lift Sam afterwards? In any championship be it club or county you can single out 4/5 teams who are in the mix, there's a one in every 20/30 year event when an outlier might break the mould. That's nearly two cycles of an inter county playing career, surely they deserve the chance to be competitive and have a chance of winning something at an appropriate level."
That's the real question, what do the players and coaches want? We don't get to decide it for them or people on committees. Happy for them if they don't mind playing a weaker standard of football getting progressively weaker in comparison to stronger counties. But hopefully some can breakthrough to Division 2 and stay there and beyond on a more consistent basis.

GreenandRed (Mayo) - Posts: 8397 - 12/12/2025 11:11:49    2648069

Link

Replying To Pikeman96:  "Would have to agree with you. And a couple of other things about the "good" runs of Wexford and Laois in the 2023 Tailteann Cup:

Wexford's "good" run to the quarter-final: won just two games out of five, and lost that quarter-final by 17 points
Laois's "good" run to the semi-final: also won just two games out of five, and lost the semi-final by 22 points"
Laois drew with a div3 team, then beat the div3 champions, then beat a div2 team. What would you define as a good run for a team that fails to get promoted from div4 then?

Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 17793 - 12/12/2025 11:14:42    2648070

Link

Replying To Viking66:  "Laois drew with a div3 team, then beat the div3 champions, then beat a div2 team. What would you define as a good run for a team that fails to get promoted from div4 then?"
The original point was just about what would constitute a good run in the Tailteann Cup. Not what would constitute a good run for a team that hadn't been promoted from Division 4. You're moving the goalposts.

But either way, what would constitute a good run? -
1. Win more games than you lose.
2. Put up a good show when you do go out of the competition, instead of crashing out by 22 points.

Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 3310 - 12/12/2025 13:37:00    2648103

Link

Replying To Freethinker:  "I'm not too sure what you term a "good run" ? My county went on a pretty good run in thes years competition, unlucky to not make the final."
I'd consider reaching a semi final as a good run and at least winning more games than losing, as well as not being annihilated in your last game. That is the one problem I had with Tailteann and Sam where effectively ya only needed 1 win to get to Prelim QF so ya could win 2 lose 2 and be in QF. Or potentially in Sam never win a game at all and just draw 1 and be in Prelim QF.

Sligoman1234 (Sligo) - Posts: 625 - 12/12/2025 14:42:06    2648121

Link

Replying To Pikeman96:  "The original point was just about what would constitute a good run in the Tailteann Cup. Not what would constitute a good run for a team that hadn't been promoted from Division 4. You're moving the goalposts.

But either way, what would constitute a good run? -
1. Win more games than you lose.
2. Put up a good show when you do go out of the competition, instead of crashing out by 22 points."
Winning the Tailteann Cup.

GreenandRed (Mayo) - Posts: 8397 - 12/12/2025 14:51:53    2648127

Link

Replying To Pikeman96:  "The original point was just about what would constitute a good run in the Tailteann Cup. Not what would constitute a good run for a team that hadn't been promoted from Division 4. You're moving the goalposts.

But either way, what would constitute a good run? -
1. Win more games than you lose.
2. Put up a good show when you do go out of the competition, instead of crashing out by 22 points."
The original post I replied to finished up with a line that was about exactly that- about counties who weren't promoted from division 4 giving the TC a good run.

-Replying To Sligoman1234: "Down and Westmeath are both Division 3 for 2026. Down can say last years league was a bit unlucky on them as 1 more point and they were safe but Meath former winners and Cavan former finalists were also 1 result away from being in the mix for relegation, so clearly shows that the bottom end of Division 2 is and Division teams 1-4/5 in Div 3 are in or around the same level. It's extremely unlikely you'll ever see a non promoted Division 4 team giving the TC a good run."

Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 17793 - 12/12/2025 15:32:15    2648135

Link

Replying To Viking66:  "The original post I replied to finished up with a line that was about exactly that- about counties who weren't promoted from division 4 giving the TC a good run.

-Replying To Sligoman1234: "Down and Westmeath are both Division 3 for 2026. Down can say last years league was a bit unlucky on them as 1 more point and they were safe but Meath former winners and Cavan former finalists were also 1 result away from being in the mix for relegation, so clearly shows that the bottom end of Division 2 is and Division teams 1-4/5 in Div 3 are in or around the same level. It's extremely unlikely you'll ever see a non promoted Division 4 team giving the TC a good run.""
Yes but to be fair to Wicklow they should have been promoted they lost out by 1 point due to a cock up against London and drew with the eventual TC runners up and league champions Limerick before being beaten by them in TC SF. They were also lucky that Laois beat Offaly to knock Wicklow into first place instead of what looked like a 3rd place for them and they'd have come up against Kildare in QF. Their result against all odds with Westmeath was the standout surprise of the competition but overall it was a good run given how it went.

My point being in the QFs of TC this year you had teams 1-5 from Div 3 (except Clare who were in Sam) and teams 1-3 from Div 4, which is not exactly a huge shock. No matter what way you configure the competition it'd end up with a fairly similar result, which is why the TC is a better opportunity for teams to at least be competitive at some level, but there is still too big of a gulf from your top 1-4 teams and your bottom 4, What would Kildare have put passed London, Waterford or Longford this year???

Which is why I think there needs to be a mid tier of Mid Div 2 to Mid Div 3 and cut out this nonsense of reaching a provincials sends ya straight into Sam, Clare can't buy a break in Sam but would give TC a fair rattle. If ya have 3 tiers it should send you into the next highest one, so for example if Sligo were to be tier 3 and got to Connacht final they go to tier 2.

Sligoman1234 (Sligo) - Posts: 625 - 12/12/2025 17:51:50    2648156

Link

Replying To Viking66:  "The original post I replied to finished up with a line that was about exactly that- about counties who weren't promoted from division 4 giving the TC a good run.

-Replying To Sligoman1234: "Down and Westmeath are both Division 3 for 2026. Down can say last years league was a bit unlucky on them as 1 more point and they were safe but Meath former winners and Cavan former finalists were also 1 result away from being in the mix for relegation, so clearly shows that the bottom end of Division 2 is and Division teams 1-4/5 in Div 3 are in or around the same level. It's extremely unlikely you'll ever see a non promoted Division 4 team giving the TC a good run.""
Ah, Viking. The original post your replied to said exactly this:
"It's extremely unlikely you'll ever see a non promoted Division 4 team giving the TC a good run."

Your attempt to find "good" runs for non-promoted Division 4 teams was two teams who between them won only four games out of ten, and suffered combined defeats of 40 points when they were knocked out.

Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 3310 - 12/12/2025 21:04:15    2648167

Link

Replying To Pikeman96:  "Ah, Viking. The original post your replied to said exactly this:
"It's extremely unlikely you'll ever see a non promoted Division 4 team giving the TC a good run."

Your attempt to find "good" runs for non-promoted Division 4 teams was two teams who between them won only four games out of ten, and suffered combined defeats of 40 points when they were knocked out."
Do you think thats not decent? We beat teams further up the League pyramid after not even getting out of the basement division? And drew away from home with a team who were playing div2 the following year. I was at our game against Meath, we ran out of road, and lost to a team who were in an AISF only 2 years later!!!!
Im glad I'm not trying to keep you happy if you were my manager and I was playing under you ;-)

Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 17793 - 13/12/2025 09:44:02    2648189

Link

Replying To Sligoman1234:  "Yes but to be fair to Wicklow they should have been promoted they lost out by 1 point due to a cock up against London and drew with the eventual TC runners up and league champions Limerick before being beaten by them in TC SF. They were also lucky that Laois beat Offaly to knock Wicklow into first place instead of what looked like a 3rd place for them and they'd have come up against Kildare in QF. Their result against all odds with Westmeath was the standout surprise of the competition but overall it was a good run given how it went.

My point being in the QFs of TC this year you had teams 1-5 from Div 3 (except Clare who were in Sam) and teams 1-3 from Div 4, which is not exactly a huge shock. No matter what way you configure the competition it'd end up with a fairly similar result, which is why the TC is a better opportunity for teams to at least be competitive at some level, but there is still too big of a gulf from your top 1-4 teams and your bottom 4, What would Kildare have put passed London, Waterford or Longford this year???

Which is why I think there needs to be a mid tier of Mid Div 2 to Mid Div 3 and cut out this nonsense of reaching a provincials sends ya straight into Sam, Clare can't buy a break in Sam but would give TC a fair rattle. If ya have 3 tiers it should send you into the next highest one, so for example if Sligo were to be tier 3 and got to Connacht final they go to tier 2."
I agree a 3 tier championship would be better, I suggested it a few times myself.

Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 17793 - 13/12/2025 09:45:38    2648190

Link

There has been talk about a third tier. Division 4 counties are not interested in it. They see it as a glorified Division 4 cup and want nothing to do with it. Sin é.

legendzxix (Kerry) - Posts: 9313 - 13/12/2025 13:07:42    2648203

Link

Replying To legendzxix:  "There has been talk about a third tier. Division 4 counties are not interested in it. They see it as a glorified Division 4 cup and want nothing to do with it. Sin é."
Which div4 counties said they weren't interested? Most would surely prefer not to have to beat div2 tesms to win a Cup.
A 3 tier AI would have 2 div3 teams in it too as well as New York. And thats just for the 1st year, teams would be promoted and relegated thereafter.

Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 17793 - 13/12/2025 14:18:19    2648211

Link