A week may be a long time in politics, according to the old saying, but in football it sometimes is not enough...

After two rounds of the so-called “losers’ group” section of the All-Ireland senior football championship, some patterns are becoming discernible. The most obvious is that some counties are finding a six-day break after initial defeat in their own provincial championship insufficient in order to get mentally prepared for participation in the losers’ group. This applies particularly to those counties which have made a major psychological investment in the game which they ended up losing (examples: Offaly, Westmeath, Fermanagh). It is inherently unfair to give some counties two weeks in which to prepare for their losers’ group games and others less than one week. It should be possible, given the current dragged-out nature of the championship schedule, to rearrange things so that all teams get at least two weeks break between games. This would probably require some streamlining of the provincial championships and perhaps shortening the length of time between rounds in the later stages of the championship, but these would be no bad thing.

If the current losers’ group format is retained for next year, it is likely that at least some counties will not put their all into winning their provincial championship games, with a view to keeping something in reserve should they have to play in the losers’ group the following week. Already there have been suggestions that Kildare took this option against Meath last Sunday: instead of launching an exhausting do-or-die assault on their opponents in the closing minutes, they may have opted instead for the prospect of a home game the following week against Donegal. This raises further questions about whether counties should know in advance who they will be playing next (and where) if they are knocked out of their provincial championship.

If a trend to 'keeping something in reserve' becomes widespread in the championship, then the most attractive aspect of the knockout system (its “do-or-die” nature) will be lost. If this stage is reached, then the whole rationale of the new format will come into question, and the case for dividing counties into round-robin groups will become even stronger. As far as An Moltóir is concerned, the sooner we get to this stage, the better.

At the moment, the main beneficiaries of the losers’ group would appear to be some counties which are just below the top echelon of contenders in the pecking order, but which can achieve significant progress in raising their standards via the losers’ group. Obvious examples are Louth and Westmeath, who can now be expected to pose a real challenge to the big guns in later rounds. However, for the weaker counties, the new format simply means two beatings rather than one (unless they get to play each other in the first round of the losers’ group). As An Moltóir has suggested in this column before, the only way these counties can make real progress is to give them their own separate championship, with the winners graduating to play with the big boys the following year.

This problem of vastly different standards between the top and bottom teams will become even more apparent when the new format is extended to hurling next year (incidentally, why was the new system introduced only in football this year?). God knows what will happen to the likes of Down or Carlow if they are drawn against souped-up first round losers from the Munster championship, but it is unlikely to do much for the cause of hurling in these counties.

Related Topics:
New Football Championship – Nothing for Weaker Counties!