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I wouldn't say Cork are consistently in top 10 in country in recent years. They are usually in division 2, in 2020 they were in division 3 and its 2016 since they were in division 1. I think the 16/16 split if teams is correct way to go. It's not guaranteed Cork would win the Tailteann cup if they get into it. If they end up being relegated that will mean that there form will not be great so may not be able to beat the best division 3 teams and secondly it's hard to know what their attitude would be if they get into it, would the players buy into taking the competition seriously. The biggest problem for me with the structure of the Tailteann cup is provincial finalists are guaranteed entry to the main competition. Last year Meath were in division 2, stayed in division 2 yet couldn't play in the main competition because Sligo got to a provincial final by beating London and New York. (Funny thing is as annoyed as I was that we had to play in it I got more enjoyment winning the secondary competition than I would have had if we ended up playing in the main competition). Cork as a county are very like ourselves in that they have a big population and tradition but aren't fulfilling their potential. Cork (like ourselves) shouldn't get special treatment just because we have a big tradation. bdbuddah (Meath) - Posts: 1363 - 19/02/2024 10:59:15 2526898 Link 1 |
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Tradition counts for nothing. Interest in Gaelic football in Cork is at all time low, and only 3500 turned up at Pairc Ui Chaoimh last weekend. If they go to division 3 and Tailteann Cup, won't make much difference, as the people don't care!
Ryanteam (Cork) - Posts: 217 - 19/02/2024 11:26:32 2526904 Link 0 |
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I'd disagree on a few points here. Actually don't think 16/16 works. Probably should be 20/12 maybe (ahead of a split in future to 3 grades of 10/10/12 or some such breakdown). The simple facts are that the top teams who are likely to win the Tailteann are teams who ordinarily would be in Sam but drop down for a year due to a set of circumstances. The Tailteann then becomes a cup that those teams really don't care so much about (wanting to be in Sam and all that), while the teams who actually would benefit from winning a Cup (Division 4 and mid to bottom of Division 3) will never actually have a hope of ever winning it. So the layout and numbers are all wrong. I'd also disagree your provincial finalists comment. We still must reward championship results. We can't have a situation where a team might go on a great run and win Championship matches to get through to a final, but we then say nah, sorry, league results from 3 months before say you don't make it. Some other team who scraped by in Division 2 makes it instead of you. However I do agree there is an issue. I just don't think that suggestion is the solution. Simply, I think we need to seed the provincials. Like Connacht last year and now Munster last year and this year, we can't have a situation where a team can waltz to a final without playing a top team. If the reward of a final is so big, then you need to earn it. So seed them. Minimum of one Div1/Div2 team on each side of the draw. Yes, I know Connacht have things in place to rotate London and NY matches, and Munster have a bye to the semi if you get to the final previous year (which is an odd double reward now) but we need a rethink as we now reward finalists. If we seed the draws, it means you either must be a Div1/Div 2 team, or beat at least one to get through. And if you do beat one to get to a final, then you absolutely deserve your place in Sam as you've done well in championship. We still have to reward Championship, and not have League driving it too much than is necessary Loughduff Lad (Cavan) - Posts: 2409 - 19/02/2024 11:35:28 2526907 Link 0 |
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I agree wholeheartedly with you - bring back the knock out competition and introduce some jeopardy; a lot of meaningless practice matches in the calendar presently. I'm from a county that will struggle to make an impact on the championship regardless of the format but it is laughable for the GAA to pretend that there are 16 teams capable of competing for the Sam Maguire; there is about four realistically. Also, it is interesting to listen to pundits and commentators lamenting the fact that Kildare, Meath and Cork might suffer by being in the Tailteann cup based upon tradition. When did Kildare or Meath put it up to Dublin in Leinster or Cork be competitive with Kerry in Munster? Leinster and Munster are the two weakest provincial championship in football and these teams still can't make a meaningful impact. wicklowsupport (Wicklow) - Posts: 1916 - 19/02/2024 12:10:36 2526921 Link 0 |
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Ok am I right in what I'm thinking? Kildare are on opposite side of Dublin in Leinster draw so they have a distinct possibility of still reaching Leinster final. As I believe louth are on dubs side too. (Really should have looked it up before posting). So the 8 finalists reach the round robin. Are cork opposite to Kerry and or Clare ? If they are they also will reach it by right. Should Meath get another win we may not need the bye from tc last year and get there on merit. (If we get passed Longford dubs will hammer us). So no chance there . I am again speculating but I suspect that the provincials will be dub Kildare Kerry cork 2 of Roscommon/Galway mayo . And say for argument sake Derry and Donegal. (Could be anyone in ulster just picking those two as an example) that is the top 8. Then it goes to league. Plus Meath. Majority of div 1, will be in it so next 7. One thing I don't know is the two who get relegated from div 2 ranked lower than two going up ?? royaldunne (Meath) - Posts: 19449 - 19/02/2024 13:05:15 2526942 Link 1 |
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Cork play Limerick in preliminary round, and the winners play Kerry in semifinal.
Ryanteam (Cork) - Posts: 217 - 19/02/2024 13:12:27 2526949 Link 0 |
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The problem Cork have is that they are on the same side of the draw as Kerry so they have to remain in Division 2 to be sure of being in the Sam Maguire competition. Personally, I think Division 2 is a lower standard this year than last. Derry and Dublin were two top teams in Division 2 last season. If Cork can't stay in Division 2 this year then do they deserve to be in the later stages of the Sam Maguire competition; I would say 'no'. If Kildare are relegated, they may get through on the basis of reaching the Leinster final but to reach the Leinster final, they'd want to play better than they have to date.
wicklowsupport (Wicklow) - Posts: 1916 - 19/02/2024 14:14:24 2526976 Link 1 |
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Louth on same side of draw as Kildare. Meath on same side as Dublin
thestrapper49 (Louth) - Posts: 316 - 19/02/2024 14:56:22 2526997 Link 1 |
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Kildare, Louth & Westmeath all on the same side of the draw. One of these should reach the Leinster Final to book a place in the All Ireland Championship. Cork will meet Kerry in the Semis assuming they win their game, so their path to the All Ireland Championship would need to be through Division 2. Based on league standings after 3 games, the All Ireland championship would be as follows: All of Div 1 so: Derry, Kerry, Mayo, Galway, Dublin, Tyrone, Monaghan & Roscommon From Div 2: Armagh, Donegal, Cavan, Fermanagh, Meath (Status guaranteed TC winners) & Louth Div 3: Down & Westmeath. Of the teams not guaranteed in at present: One of Clare, Waterford & Tipperary will be in the Munster final and will take a place. You would assume it will be Clare, but they are still in the promotion race. If they do get promoted, it will likely be at the expense of Westmeath who have a shot of making the Leinster final so they could get in that way. In Connacht, Sligo/Leitrim will have to go through Galway so unlikely one of them get in and take a spot. Seedings works in the sense that the two teams promoted from Div 3 are the 15 & 16th ranked teams, and the two relegated teams from Div 2 are 17 & 18. So there's definitely scope for a bit of movement. hyperache (Meath) - Posts: 208 - 19/02/2024 15:05:14 2527002 Link 2 |
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I think you need to be careful about having too many tiers, you could get to a situation where some county players lose interest due to lack of prestige for the county teamdue to the competition they are playing in. For me 20 teams at the present moment would also just have too much of a difference in standards between teams. I agree that seeding the draws in the provincials would make giving provincial finalists an automatic entrance into Sam far more fair. But I still think league position, which is based over 7 games, is a better means of entrance for Sam than bringing in beaten provincial finalists. Seeing as your from Cavan I kind of get why you believe in rewarding beaten provincial finalists as the Ulster championship has for many years has a lot of competitive teams in it and any team making the final have had a good championship run. But the other provincials don't have the same number of competitive teams (Leinster had for a time in the 1990s/ early 2000s but not for a long time now) so teams can get lucky and get to the final. If I had my way I would revamp the inter county competition structure. First I would basically merge the league and championship into one competition which would be regarded as the All Ireland. I would run this competition along the lines of the league format that was in place a good few years ago (ie. a 16 team division 1 (with division 1 divided into 1A and 1B groups) and a similar 16 team division 2, with relegation/ promotion between both) and with semi finals/ finals in both divisions. Division 1 would be Sam and division 2 would be Tailteann. I would then play the provincials as stand alone competitions, they could be played in parallel with the All Ireland in the way the FA Cup is run in England along side the league, with certain weekends set aside for the provincials. This type of structure would probably also free up time for the club game. bdbuddah (Meath) - Posts: 1363 - 19/02/2024 20:29:53 2527086 Link 1 |
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Yeah I do get that. it just does seem to me that there is 3 tiers of teams. You've got your top teams, and your bottom teams, then the lot in the middle who are neither. 2 tiers is too arbitrary is all I'm saying as there's not 2 tiers of teams. The Tailteann was proposed as a competition for the lower teams to win. The point is the lower teams will likely never win it as is. It'll always be a team who should be playing Sam, but for reasons drop down for a year. Like this year the winner could be likes of Cork, Kildare, or Down. These on any metric are not lower teams, but bigger teams on a momentary downturn. Your Leitrims, Wicklows, Carlows will never have a chance. But how is it? It's 7 games in Spring, 3 months before the Sam draw? And in that we have teams that play 4 away games, and some that may be split on head-to-head which could be an away game they lost by a point. I don't think we can use League more than they already do. If we take away provincial finalists, we only qualify 5 teams through Championship (4 provincial winners and 1 Tailteann winner), and 11 by League. We'd be in a position where we downgrade the Championship that much that Championship results the week before would mean less than League results from sometimes 4 months before in winter conditions. That's madness. At least this way 9 qualify on Championship and we only go back to League to find the last 7 teams I actually agree with the old 1a and 1b model you propose. I said as much here before. I do think it's a better system and allows more mixing of teams and more jeopardy year on year. You can do this and still have your provincials. You will kill the provincials if you go standalone like you suggest. I don't see why we'd want to do this. Ulster and Connacht are good competitions. And Leinster has the potential when/if Dublin come back into the pack and others get their act together. I can't see why we want to kill competitions because 1 (Munster) is historically bad, 2 are good, and 1 (Leinster) which is poor now but has the potential to get back to decent. It's be mad to kill them because of one overall poor provincial. Merging league and Championship would do what exactly? League works well as it is (albeit it needing a few tweaks) as a Spring competition. I'm not sure what merging 2 distinct competition types would achieve Loughduff Lad (Cavan) - Posts: 2409 - 20/02/2024 09:53:33 2527147 Link 0 |
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Fair play to Cavan, in the second half they really chased the game down & showed coolness in taking their opportunities. St.Mologga (Cork) - Posts: 109 - 20/02/2024 12:25:03 2527173 Link 0 |
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D2 related but off topic from previous posts. Cbar (Mayo) - Posts: 308 - 20/02/2024 12:34:06 2527175 Link 0 |
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I think you will be ok. Was fair tight losses last 2 games. 3 wins from last 4 will be an ask, but seeing who you've got, not unreasonable. Kildare should be a win, and if you get something from Fermanagh and Meath then you'd be ahead of those on head to head. You seem to have a good team, if you only get the right team going and likes of Powter back starting.
Loughduff Lad (Cavan) - Posts: 2409 - 20/02/2024 13:54:22 2527194 Link 0 |
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Good assessment, your are a glass half full man I'd say. I'd be a little less optimistic, as our remaining opponents will be eyeing the Cork fixture with reasonable confidence I'd imagine, as up to this point we have been blunt in attack when it matters most. Again was impressed by Cavan coming down the stretch, closed the game out well. St.Mologga (Cork) - Posts: 109 - 20/02/2024 19:09:23 2527261 Link 0 |
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you would have to think if meath beat kildare and fermanagh beat cork then both kildare and cork are 99% gone by the end of this weekend. kildare would need to win their last 3 matches to survive as would cork. dickie10 (UK) - Posts: 696 - 20/02/2024 23:39:02 2527296 Link 0 |
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I do tend to be a little optimistic alright. I just think you'll be fine once it clicks with a win. If you beat Fermanagh, you'll certainly beat Kildare. Things look up from there. Might be tight to avoid Tailteann but still might if other results go that way Aye we did indeed. ye should ahve been long out of sight by half time with the goal chances, but did like how we adjusted at half time, and turned the game around. We were poor in a lot of places so know that we can improve further and all that Loughduff Lad (Cavan) - Posts: 2409 - 21/02/2024 15:12:41 2527397 Link 0 |
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Moving weekend this one I think we can say. Results after this will tell us a lot. The promotion and relegation picture will be very much clearer I reckon. Loughduff Lad (Cavan) - Posts: 2409 - 23/02/2024 14:04:32 2527721 Link 0 |
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Nostradamus?
bdbuddah (Meath) - Posts: 1363 - 25/02/2024 22:39:49 2528148 Link 2 |
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Some man, fair play to him.
Crinigan (Meath) - Posts: 1319 - 25/02/2024 22:53:16 2528149 Link 0 |