Super 8 or… just no?
It’s the weekend of truth. Paraic Duffy’s proposal to split the All-Ireland football quarter-finals into two groups of four will be put before Congress and deliberated on.
It’s a movement that could completely change the structure of the championship and one that could bring with it some serious ramifications.
No longer will a one-off quarter-final match decide your fate of making the last four. No longer can you really call this championship ‘Any Given Sunday’ because, basically, you could lose three times and still win the All-Ireland.
But what games those group stages would provide. The public would have 12 games at the Super 8 stage between the eight best teams in the country.
Teams like Kerry won’t get to a semi-final having played three games against two teams. You will earn your place in the semi-final and the best team will win the All-Ireland at the end of it all.
On a special GAA Hour football show, brought to you by AIB, Colm Parkinson discussed the proposal with Armagh legend Steven McDonnell and CPA Treasurer, Anthony Moyles.
Colm Parkinson
“It’s incredible how many weak counties are going for this when the weak counties get absolutely nothing out of this. The only people who benefit from this at county level – and that’s even forgetting club for a second – are the top counties.
“Even counties like Tipperary who broke into the top eight, they’ll never make a semi-final again like they did the last time because they’ll have to beat the better teams two or three times. So, outside of being promised a few quid, why would weaker counties vote for this?
“What does it fix?
“There’s one thing it fixes and that’s that we don’t see the big teams playing each other enough.”
Steven McDonnell
“You look at the last 10 or 15 years, we’ve had Fermanagh in a semi-final, Wexford in 2008, Tipperary last year… will those counties ever reach a semi-final again? For me, the cream always rises to the top – the best team always wins the All-Ireland – but giving the lesser counties a chance to reach the semi-final, in the current structure, is realistic.
“I don’t believe that the current structure is the way forward but it’s realistic. I don’t believe the Super 8 proposal will work.
“For one, you’re piling on fixtures. The county teams that have reached the quarter-final stage, they’re expected to play three games in three weeks. Why are they expected to do that at such a crucial stage of the championship season yet teams who are playing in the first rounds, have four or five weeks to wait for their next game.
“They’re piling on games at the most important time of the season for club and county players.
“If you’re playing in the Ulster championship and you’re expected to play in the preliminaries, you’ve got nine games to go to win an All-Ireland. Is any team realistically going to win an All-Ireland playing nine games nowadays the way football has gone? Absolutely no chance.”
Anthony Moyles
“There has to be an overarching master fixture list on this, there just has to be. And you have to bring everyone in.
“I think the club player is just sick of being kicked up and down, he’s eventually just gone, ‘I’ve had enough of this’. And, by the way, the only other way he’s voicing his opinion is that he’s just stopping playing, which we’re seeing all over the country.
“He’s just saying, ‘Here, listen, I don’t need this. Sure I’ll go play a bit of soccer – I play every Saturday morning, it’s a bit of craic, 20 odd weeks in the year – or I’ll go play a bit of rugby or I won’t do it at all.”
Listen to the full show below.
