Football group winners hold strong quarter-final record

Having last week examined the frequency with which group winners are victorious at the quarter-final stage in the Cork hurling championships, this time will analyse the footballing equivalents.

In the hurling, the overall figure for success by the group winners having to contest the quarters – two at premier senior and one in each of the other grades – was 70 percent, but that was composed of perfect records in senior A and intermediate A in contrast with just one in five at premier intermediate.

The total rate of advancement in the football competitions is higher – 79.16 percent – and broadly similar across the five levels from premier senior to premier junior, albeit with the caveat that the latter only came into being in 2023, with the grade above it, intermediate A, reducing to 12 teams at the same time.

The fourth tier had 16 clubs split in four groups of four from 2020-22 inclusive, with the top two in each section going forward to the quarter-finals, but there were instances of two group winners playing each other and so we are discounting those years from our calculations.

With the winners of the divisions and colleges section of the premier senior championship entering the competition proper at the quarter-final stage, there are three fixtures in that round and so just one automatic semi-finalist, meaning two of the three group winners must play for a place in the last four.

So far, that hasn’t proven to be a huge impediment – 2022, when Nemo Rangers and Castlehaven were in the same group, is the only time that the group winners have not been two of the big three.

On that occasion, Mallow topped their group but lost to the Haven in the quarter-finals and otherwise the formbook has been followed. Mallow did at least manage to exorcise any demons as they reached the quarter-finals again last year, beating Muskerry.

Interestingly, in the first four years of the new system, the champions were group winners that had played a quarter-final, with Castlehaven last year becoming the first club to lift the Andy Scannell Cup after earning the automatic semi-final spot.

The senior A and premier intermediate championships tell a very similar story, to the extent that the breaks from the norm even have a major factor in common. In both grades, there is a four-from-five success rate for the group winners in the quarter-finals each year – and the one-from-five minority verdict can bother be attributed to the same club.

Knocknagree won the Premier IFC title for 2020 – the delayed final was played against Kanturk in the summer of 2021 – and they did so having finished as runners-up to Cill na Martra in their pool before seeing off group winners Nemo Rangers in the quarter-finals.

Two years later, the Duhallow side again qualified for the knockouts as runners-up and had to face a team that had topped their section, Béal Átha’n Ghaorthaidh this time – but again they upset the odds and made it to the county final, losing out to St Michael’s.

Across the second and third tiers, only Carrigaline in last year’s SAFC went all the way to glory as group winners that had to contest a quarter-final.

Equally, the IAFC and Premier JFC tend not to be won by clubs that finished in first place in their groups but missed out on the quarter-final byes. The 50 percent strike-rate for those clubs in the IAFC is more accurately one from two: Dromtariffe won theirs in 2023 while Mitchelstown were defeat a year ago.

Similarly, the 100 percent for such teams in the premier junior is based on the victories for Urhan two years ago and then Canovee last year, coincidentally against an Urhan side that had finished runners-up in their group.