Keith Duggan talks to the managers of three losing provincial finalists, Limerick, Down, and Mayo, about the difficulties encountered preparing for and playing in the qualifiers.
Saturday night's televised fourth-round qualifier between Kildare and Roscommon illustrated precisely why the new second-chance system has become so popular.
Two teams without any championship history vying for the last place in the All-Ireland series. Dusk falling, last-gasp scores and extra time. As an occasion, it had everything. And when it ended, Kildare, the last of the beaten provincial finalists, had been eliminated.
Along with Down, Limerick and Mayo, they experienced the highs of preparing for an up-scale final to the brutal lows of the qualifying series in a tight time-frame. The fact not one of four teams which had been consistently winning managed to recover from their provincial final defeats suggests the system is stacked against those who stumble at that point.
"I would feel very strongly that that is the case," says Limerick manager Liam Kearns. "Certainly, Kildare gave it the best shot of all the beaten finalists on Saturday night and I'm sure there is a lot of sympathy around the country for them.
"But in general, I feel the set-up should be looked at. We had a situation where we played two teams that had contested last year's All-Ireland final in the space of six days. I was proud of the fact that our guys lived with both teams, particularly Armagh. But I would think that it was a little unfair that Armagh, in this case, were able to prepare nicely for that match against us whereas we were just thrown in there."
All season long, Kearns had identified winning the Munster championship as Limerick's primary goal. He likens his team's standing to that of Fermanagh, a county that has also contested relatively few provincial finals.
"But the crucial difference is that there is a tradition of football in Fermanagh. It is a developing culture here."
With the All-Ireland itself "away off in the distance", Limerick confined their realistic targets to Munster. They came close but, having failed, they found themselves in a no-win situation.
Mayo manager John Maughan highlighted the Connacht championship as the principal aim for his young Mayo team: "And we had two weeks to prepare for our qualifying game against Fermanagh. After the Connacht final loss to Galway, the mood was pretty low and in retrospect, against Fermanagh it was not very good either.
"I'm not sure it was a case of physical tiredness of anything, it was just a fact that the players did not have the stomach for that game. Because all year long, everything was geared towards winning Connacht. It was something we felt was attainable. And when you work as hard as we did to achieve that, you feel very empty and flat when you suddenly realise that you have fallen short on those aspirations."
In horrible conditions, they met a Fermanagh team fired up by their famous win over Meath. Mayo lost only by a point but the lesson was not lost on Maughan.
"We tried, definitely. But the dash that marked our play against Sligo and even Galway was not there. We just could not recover it in time. And I do not know what it would have been like if we had to turn around and face into another game just six days after the Connacht final. I definitely think it is a problem.
"Kildare really gave it everything on Saturday night but it was clear once the game went into extra time there could only be one winner because they pushed themselves to the point of exhaustion."
It was also the case with Down in Ulster. It must have been hard for them to reconcile the half-empty stadium in Clones, in which they ended their championship against Donegal on Saturday, with the big crowds and sense of occasion surrounding their two Ulster final encounters with Tyrone.
"Well, overall, we had four games in Clones and we probably would have settled for that at the beginning of the year," reasoned Down manager Paddy O'Rourke. "We are not the finished article but we are improving. But definitely, the three games running probably caught up with us and we were a bit fatigued in the last 10 minutes."
O'Rourke intends cruising the Down club championship circuit in the hope of picking up another handful of players who will give his young team enough edge to deliver on this year's potential. But come next weekend, when the show moves to Croke Park, he, like all the managers who came second in the provinces, will have to wonder what could have been.
"It is just a pity that beaten finalists cannot be given adequate time to prepare," sums up Kearns. "If every team beaten in the championship had one week to prepare for their qualifying game, then there would be a degree of fairness. But that is not the case and it just seems that there is no reward or consideration to teams who have worked to get to a provincial final."
Kildare
July 20th: Leinster final: Laois 2-13, Kildare 1-13
July 26th: Qualifier: Roscommon 1-18, Kildare 0-19 (after extra time)
Down
July 20th: Ulster final replay: Tyrone 0-23, Down 1-5
July 26th: Qualifier: Donegal 3-15, Down 2-10
Mayo
July 6th: Connacht final: Galway 1-14, Mayo 0-13
July 19th: Qualifier: Fermanagh 0-12, Mayo 1-8
Limerick
July 13th: Munster final: Kerry 1-11, Limerick 0-9
July 20th: Qualifier: Armagh 4-10, Limerick 1-11
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