Tomás Ó Sé suggested on The Sunday Game that Carlow had no place in the All-Ireland Football Championship.
Assuming that his argument extended to other weaker counties, is he right that the Championship should be split in two?
We put it to a debate.
Conán Doherty of SportsJOE.ie says NO: “I would take a semi final in the All-Ireland series ahead of an intermediate medal any day.”
Do you know who said that? A Fermanagh man.
A Fermanagh man who has been traipsing the country playing inter-county football for over a decade now. A Fermanagh man with nothing to show for it. Nothing. Not a McKenna Cup medal, not even a league medal of some sort. Nothing.
Ryan McCluskey sets out at the start of every year chasing the same dream that he grew up obsessed with. A diluted version of the Holy Grail isn’t going to satisfy him.
Ryan McCluskey: “I would take a semi final in the All-Ireland series ahead of an intermediate medal any day.”
And do you know what? He’s never going to win the All-Ireland. He isn’t. But it won’t stop him trying.
Speak to Brian Darby of Offaly and he’ll tell you the exact same thing. He’s training like a professional, he’s putting in the same hours as anyone else, he’s thinking about football morning, noon and night and he’s killing himself with a diet you wouldn’t even look twice at.
He doesn’t do that to be denied his shot at the big day. He doesn’t do it to be banished to apathy with every chance that they might never get out of it. He deserves to be tested against the best.
Splitting the football championship is an interesting concept.
No man has ever turned his nose up at a junior or intermediate club medal and, too often, the same county teams are out on their ears after two quick, uneventful games in June.
But, then, a Fermanagh comes along and, okay, they might not win anything but they shake the country. They rise from the ashes and go on a journey that will be told and retold on Lough Erne for years.
Down goes the whole way. They beat Kerry, they miss out on Sam by a point.
Donegal.
Donegal win their first Ulster in 17 years from the realms of obscurity and they rock Dublin in the semis in a year where a tiered system probably would’ve had them out of that season’s senior championship.
Donegal came from relative obscurity to nearly shock Dublin in 2011
Carlow are probably ticked off by now. In reality, they’re pissing into the wind trying to make dents in this current format. But if you throw a team like Carlow into a lesser championship, into one they’d probably not get out of anyway, you’d only serve to undermine them further.
You’d take away the drive, you’d take away the crowds and you’d take away that dream that every kid on the island has dreamt – every kid who’s ever held an O’Neill’s ball in his hands and thought ‘what if’.
A second tier would only start a band of yo-yo counties too strong for intermediate.
And it would only cut the legs from beneath the very nature of the championship, that anything could happen, that it’s all on the day. Any given Sunday.
Eight teams have won the championship in the last 20 years. 25 haven’t. 25.
Those 25 counties might not have a medal to showcase on their mantelpiece for all their work but I bet they all have a story to tell. I bet every one of them does.
Conor Heneghan says YES: Carlow people might not have liked it, but Tomás Ó Sé was 100% correct to say what he did on Sunday night.
Let’s face facts. Carlow have won one game in the Leinster Championship since 2006. One game in nine years.
It’s hardly their fault. They’re playing against teams with bigger population bases, a greater reach of players and far greater resources than what they have available to them.
And yes, every now and again they might defeat Wicklow or Louth in a Championship game or be hailed for giving one of the more established counties a fright at Dr. Cullen Park.
For the most part, however, they are locked into a cycle of failure year on year which must be incredibly hard to take for players and management who give as much as any to the cause and whose Championship campaigns last no longer than two games nearly every season.
Leitrim’s Fergal Clancy reacts to a missed chance in their defeat to Galway
With all due respect to the counties involved, the same goes for the likes of Leitrim in Connacht or Waterford in Munster.
Why keep subjecting them to the same treatment every year?
Why not give them something that they can realistically aim for in a system that is likely to give them more games against teams of a similar level with a huge incentive at the end of it all?
The All-Ireland Football Championship, as it currently stands, needs to be torn down and completely revolutionised. It needs to be tiered to ensure that teams are competing on an equal footing.
It also needs to be subject to constant flux, through promotion and relegation, to reward the teams pushing for a place at the top table and to punish those not fit to dine there anymore. Like practically every other competition in the GAA.
But didn’t they try that with the Tommy Murphy Cup, I hear the doubters cry.
Yes, but the Tommy Murphy Cup was deeply flawed.
Wicklow celebrate their Tommy Murphy Cup victory in 2007
Teams only entered it after they were knocked out of the traditional Championship. There was no incentive for the winners apart from playing in Croke Park.
And with all due respect to the great Tommy Murphy, the competition should be just called the All-Ireland Intermediate Championship and left at that. The two finalists earn promotion to the senior championship and are replaced by the two counties relegated from above.
Elaborating on the exact structures of the new Championship would take too long but a suggestion made by former GAA President Sean Kelly, recalled by Irish Examiner journalist John Fogarty this week, remains a very sensible and attainable solution if minds were open to change.
I can’t put myself in the shoes of people in the weaker counties who would be directly subject to what would be a massive change in the Championship structure.
Roscommon having won back to back promotions, are an example to counties aspiring to reach the top table
I’m from Mayo; we’ve won the last four Connacht titles and haven’t been out of the final four since 2011. It’s easy for me to say and feel free to aim those arrows at me on my high horse if you must.
I understand players from those counties who feel they’d be demeaned if removed from the Senior Championship. Who grows up wanting to play in the All-Ireland Intermediate final after all?
But is that scenario worse than repeated humiliations year after year?
Is it worse than two-minute highlight packages on The Sunday Game and hard luck pats on the back from pundits who patronisingly use the term ‘so-called’ before weaker counties and have no real interest in your plight?
Not in my book.
