Cork GAA: Change in club format would allow for longer inter-county summer

When I was in sixth class, the cigire visited us and posed a brain-teaser.

It involved a frog embarking on a journey and, on the first day, he made good headway – he covered half the distance. The second day he didn’t do much, but he managed knock off half of what was remaining.

So, three-quarters of the way there after two days and the question was this: how long would it take the frog to get to his final destination? There were many suggestions from the floor, but none of us twigged that the answer was that, unfortunately, the frog would never manage it.

What has this got to do with GAA? Well, that was in 1997, the first year in which there was any notable change to the inter-county championship format as the beaten Leinster and Munster finalists were afforded a second chance.

In 2001, a universal back door was offered to all counties in football and the same move was made in hurling in 2002. The hurling continued to be tinkered with throughout the 2000s while football briefly had the Tommy Murphy Cup – the Tailteann Cup before the Tailteann Cup – but it took until the not-so-Super 8s in 2018 and then the effective decoupling of the provinces and the All-Ireland series from last year.

That latter move has not been a huge success and discussions have taken place this year with regard to what moves might be made. 

On the other hand, the advent of the round-robin system in the hurling has somehow made a good thing even better.

There have been some misgivings about two Munster counties and three Leinster teams being jettisoned before the end of May but these teams have played four and five games respectively. A lack of a fair shake is hardly a valid argument.

Rather, the bigger gripe is that so many counties are gone at a time when we are genetically programmed to think the championship is just finding its stride.

September All-Ireland finals carried a strong emotional attachment but, when it came to providing clarity for the large bulk of club players around the country, such scheduling made for too much uncertainty.

BREATHLESS

In clinical terms, the split-season, with July All-Ireland finals, has solved the problem but the law of unintended consequences is never too far away when it comes to Gaelic games and so there are more than a few kinks that are now felt to need ironing out.

The main one is what Dónal Óg Cusack has referred to as the ‘microwaved’ nature of the championship – no sooner is one game over than the next one is upon us and the competitions aren’t given enough room to breathe.

While September is a bridge too far without collapsing the club structures that have given some element of certainty, new GAA President Jarlath Burns has expressed the wish to push the finals back from their current siting.

In an Irish Examiner column earlier this week, John Fogarty outlined how August could be the compromise that, while not suiting anybody perfectly, would satisfy the greatest number to an acceptable degree.

That column did note that Burns had acknowledged the need that Cork and other counties had for 14 weeks to complete county championships. That is with the current system of three groups of four teams each in each 12-team grade, but would four groups of three work?

Such a method would still need three weekends in each code but the break weeks would be built in – but then, it’s possible that a team’s ‘break’ would come after playing and losing twice, when they were already out, while a side not involved in the first weekend could end up with long run of fixtures if they go far.

With two teams from three to qualify, the chances of a third match would be high and this system with four quarter-finals would also avoid group winners bypassing that stage – a potential advantage that does not always play out that way.

It would be possible to complete a championship in six weeks under such a system, but with the usual health warning that dual clubs could find themselves with the thin end of the wedge, as usual.

Would such a hectic calendar be worth it for later All-Ireland finals? Your mileage may vary.

It could well be that a tweak or two would be needed in the years that followed – like the poor frog, the end of that particular quest may be out of reach.