Pete McGrath not convinced by proposed championship format

“Well, that’s a relief – nobody wants to play in a ‘B’ championship. Nobody.”

That was the initial reaction from Fermanagh manager Pete McGrath to the newly proposed All-Ireland football championship structures.

Though there was a broad welcome from the majority of sources following Croke Park’s surprise announcement yesterday, McGrath among others did add a note of caution.

Basically, the new round-robin system in place of the All-Ireland quarter-finals will make it harder for counties like Tipperary or even Fermanagh, way back in 2004, to streak from the qualifiers and into an All-Ireland semi-final.

“A group stage maybe takes away the possibility of seeing what Tipperary did to Galway last Saturday,” said McGrath.

“On a one-off day a team can play wonderfully well, like Tipperary did, but then they will have to play two big teams who will have watched that.

“I still think the more they dilute the sudden-death nature of championship the less exciting it becomes.”

Provincial champions

That remains to be seen.

One of GAA director general Páraic Duffy’s main points was that pairing off provincial champions on the first weekend of the round-robin series would mean at least one major All-Ireland contender would lose.

That means they cannot afford a second defeat if they are to make the semi-final. So the stakes would remain perilously high in every subsequent game.

"We broadly welcome the progressive nature of the proposal," said the Gaelic Players Association spokesman Seán Potts.

“We put forward a system of group stages last year, just with a lot more matches.

“We also welcome the interesting debate that will be stimulated around structures where it seems to be accepted that change is needed. In that sense it is a progressive step by Páraic Duffy.

“The GPA totally supports the idea that this is to support the club and county players. Our members want to be able to commit to their club teams so we welcome attempts to rectify that situation.

“Players also want to maintain their provincial championships.

Protracted nature

“The difficulties and concern is the protracted nature of the provincial championships.

“It still takes two-and-a-half months from early May before the final in July. Ulster has nine teams.

“One fixture a week brings continued problems.”

Duffy was adamant that the stand-alone provincial fixture each weekend would be replaced by a condensed run of matches.

“The gaps between games is always an issue,” said Kerry manager Éamonn Fitzmaurice after their recent emphatic All-Ireland quarter-final victory over Clare – the Kingdom face another month now before they play in the last four .

“Four weeks between games is always a long time. We have always found that. We found it leading into the All-Ireland last year, we found it in the lead in to this game.

It is a long time, particularly in the middle of the summer.

“We have been having this discussion for I don’t know how many years.”

The Duffy plan at least seeks to address this constant source of dissatisfaction.