Injustice is served
By Eugene McGee

To get to a provincial final, Westmeath will have to win three games but Mayo just have to win one thanks to outdated, unfair system

Debating the pros and cons of the provincial championship format is a favourite winter pastime for GAA folk, with strongly divided opinion as to whether the current system, an open draw or Champions League-style competition would be better for the GAA, the players and the supporters.

But common sense tends to bite when these debates actually come to the nitty gritty, because the harsh reality is that the four provincial bodies -- and the GAA politicians who serve on them -- will fight to the death to even consider discussing any change in the present format.

Many GAA people with open minds must surely have wondered to themselves: 'Is there not a better way,' when they watched the 2012 championship draws on television recently.

For example, did it strike anybody as almost freakish that Westmeath will have to play Louth, Dublin and probably either Kildare or Meath if they want to even reach a provincial final -- a very tall order.

Yet, if we move over to Connacht, we can see that all Mayo have to do to reach the same stage -- a provincial final -- is to play either London or Leitrim and, with due respect to this pair, that is far less of a challenge than that which faces Westmeath in Leinster.

There is an added imbalance to this situation that is often overlooked. Even if Mayo lose the Connacht final, they will still enter the qualifiers at Round 4 and, should they win, they would go straight into the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

However, if Westmeath lose their first game in Leinster, they would have to win three rounds of the qualifiers to match the reward gained by a losing provincial finalist.

Does anybody believe that this is equitable or fair in a national competition involving 33 teams?

And there is a further very significant matter brought about by this imbalance between the provinces -- the starting date for each team.

In recent years, we have watched the starting date vary by as much as eight weeks or more for certain counties. What this means is that those counties who face no serious test until a provincial final, can time their training schedule more accurately and, generally, will not have to start their championship preparations for five or six weeks after many other teams.

In the precarious financial times we live in, the money saved by teams who start training later than others is considerable, given that the average cost of a county team training session varies between €2,000 and €3,000.

Thus, a team starting five weeks later than another county could see its county board spending between €30,000 to €50,000 less than another county, should they both progress to a provincial final.

These sort of imbalances are especially regular in Gaelic football and so long as we have the four provincial championships based on teams of 11, 9, 6 and 7 (including New York and London), such inequalities cannot be changed.

CHANGE
As in most debates, there is always 'a happy medium' option if enough people are willing to change without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The provincial championships have actually served the GAA well, apart from these injustices caused by the odd numbers, but a fairly small alteration would eliminate the worst discrepancies, such as those I have outlined, without altering the integrity of the provincial competitions.

All that is required is that the GAA provinces be changed into three groups of eight and one group of nine to include New York, who would rotate from group to group on a yearly basis.

Along with London, one county each would move from Ulster and Leinster into Connacht, while two would move from Leinster into Munster.

And before GAA people or officials start going crazy about this suggestion just consider the present position in hurling, where we have teams from THREE different provinces, Ulster and Connacht playing in Leinster. We also had Cavan from Ulster playing in the Leinster JFC this year where they reached the final and a couple of years ago, Fermanagh played in the Connacht Junior championship.

Many years ago, Galway hurlers played in the Munster championship, while London and New York play in the Connacht championship, which is equally incongruous. These readjustments, and I am sure others would go for different options, would be no more than a one-day wonder, just as the arrival of Galway and Antrim has been in Leinster.

The benefits would be enormous from a logistical point of view in relation to making fixtures, because the inter-county championship could be shortened by as much as four or five weeks, thereby largely solving the greatest problem the GAA now faces -- the diabolical way in which club fixtures are abused every year by county boards in favour of inter-county games.

Indeed, most of the imbalances and inequalities bred into the present provincial system could be solved in this manner and Connacht and Munster would certainly be much more competitive with the arrival of new teams.

If people want to get uptight about such changes, they could simply call the competition the Leinster Open championship, for example, which, in reality, is what the Leinster hurling championship is at present.

I am sure lots of people have strong views on the contents of this article and possibly have better ideas than mentioned here, but the bottom line is that, at the moment, there is grave inequality, and sometimes injustice, because of the unequal number of teams in the four provinces. The changes outlined -- or something similar -- would actually improve the provincial championships.

The GAA has often agreed to far greater changes than altering the numbers in the four provinces and rather than talking about open draws and the like for the All-Ireland championship, we should be looking at some compromise that would enhance the long-standing status quo.

Irish Independent
Monday October 17 2011