Cork footballers must make most of home advantage across the league

For all the careful consideration that goes into plotting the National Football League fixtures, some outliers exist. Cavan, visitors to SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Sunday, are the prime example.

As noted by Anglo-Celt sports editor Paul Fitzpatrick, the Breffni men’s trip to Cork will be their 22nd time heading away from home to start their League campaign across the 26 editions played this century.

Between 2005 and 2022, they only achieved one opening-day win from 13 attempts on the road.

As Cavan worked their way up from Division 4 to Division 2 in recent years, there has been an uptick in those results, beating Leitrim in 2022, Westmeath in 2023, and Kildare in 2024.

Nonetheless, there’s been a sense of starting on the backfoot with so few opportunities to build momentum with an initial home victory to prompt a promotion push.

Last year, 13 games were completed on the opening weekend of the League campaign, while three were postponed due to Storm Éowyn. 

With the new rules coming into effect, strong attendances were recorded across the grounds. 

Of that baker’s dozen, nine were won by the home side, two were drawn, and two resulted in away victories.

Examining recent League schedules, some counties have fared worse than others for those day-one outings. 

Down have the longest stretch without an opening game at home, which dates back seven years to 2019. That streak will come to an end as they host Clare at Páirc Esler on Saturday.

BENEFIT

On the other end of the scale, Dublin have been granted a home fixture first up in each of the past five seasons.

Cork have fared well with five home games fixed for day one in the last seven years. They haven’t always maximised that advantage, winning as many as they’ve lost down 'de Páirc'. 

In recent years, they’ve beaten Meath and Offaly, while losing to the Royals and Tipperary in those January encounters.

Galway, Tyrone, and Clare have the best home fortresses going by the opening-day results across the past decade. Each team has recorded five wins, one draw, and one defeat from seven fixtures.

Armagh haven’t lost an opening-day game at the Athletic Grounds since 2011, although they’ve only had five in that timeframe.

Many factors come into play when scheduling the League calendar. Competition integrity is the primary concern, insofar as the 4-3/3-4 split of home versus away games is flipped across a two-year cycle.

“We always try and make sure that in the first two rounds a team will always have a home and away game to keep it fair that way,” Central Competitions Control Committee chairperson Brian Carroll told the GAA website last month.

“We aim that no team will have more than two home or away games in a row as well.

“And then for the cycle change, some counties think that they'll automatically have the opposite of what they had the previous year, and for the ones at the end of the cycle, that doesn't always work out because we start a new cycle every two years.

“Venues are a huge thing because when you're playing these games in late January and February and March, weather is obviously going to be an issue and there's not too many venues at that time of the year that can take double-headers.

“Croke Park and Páirc Uí Chaoimh are nearly the only two that can take them at that time of the year.

“Then you'll have issues with floodlights. There are some Division 1 teams in both hurling and football that don't have lights. 

"So that straightaway has an impact on what games you can put on a Saturday evening. Then there are some counties that don't want a direct clash between the football and hurling.

“We also send teams to London and London can only host one game per weekend. That has to be done that way to provide flexibility for the travelling counties for the cost of flights.

“When it comes to promoting the game, you want to try to start and end the League with big games and tie all that in together to our work with the TV companies and our contract obligations with them.

Our aim is to have six games for TV each weekend and that's not easy because the broadcasters want high-profile games and you need venues of light to be able to do the games on Saturdays. 

"So that's a challenge as well."

In the Hurling League, Cork have enjoyed their opening-day home games in the last decade, beating Limerick (2023), Clare (2022), Waterford (2021), Kilkenny (2018), and Clare (2017).