Mickey Hartes new format

Have to say i agree with Mickey Hartes idea of a new format that the provincial champs all play after winning there province with the winners playing in the all ireland semis and the losers playing the last round of the qualifiers.

I do remember him saying this after the dublin game a couple of years ago also, however i paid little attention to it, it makes sense and is fair, if it means moving the football final back to the first weekend in october so be it, it would create another round of high intensity games with both the provincial champ play offs and the last round of the qualifiers proper, i think its the way to go in the interests of fairness.

I know weve people on here who want knock out only end of story but lets face facts thats not going to happen so we must find the fairest solution. I have always found it scandalous that the dubs made 5 in a row leinster titles and only made one semi.

Maybe its time the Provincials where put to early in the season replacing the national league with the winners and finalists being seeded in a draw for a round robin competition with everyone in it? With the top two teams going into the quarters and the bottom two going into a sheild or tommy murphy competition.

North Side Gael wrote:Have to say i agree with Mickey Hartes idea of a new format that the provincial champs all play after winning there province with the winners playing in the all ireland semis and the losers playing the last round of the qualifiers.

I do remember him saying this after the dublin game a couple of years ago also, however i paid little attention to it, it makes sense and is fair, if it means moving the football final back to the first weekend in october so be it, it would create another round of high intensity games with both the provincial champ play offs and the last round of the qualifiers proper, i think its the way to go in the interests of fairness.

I know weve people on here who want knock out only end of story but lets face facts thats not going to happen so we must find the fairest solution. I have always found it scandalous that the dubs made 5 in a row leinster titles and only made one semi.

Maybe its time the Provincials where put to early in the season replacing the national league with the winners and finalists being seeded in a draw for a round robin competition with everyone in it? With the top two teams going into the quarters and the bottom two going into a sheild or tommy murphy competition.

tl;dr

The thing I find ironic about MH's suggestion is that it's the exact same way the Aussie Rules finals are played!

Very good lol the guy has a point, whether hes copied that from the aussies are not is another thing.

I would also tend to agree with the format promoted by Harte and brought to this years congress by both Dublin and Tyrone which obviously didn't succeed but the evidence is that the value of a provincial title has become futile at this stage and ultimately the losers have become the winners.

Ironically the Back door system was initially supposed to help the weaker teams, now it would seem that after ten years of its existence that the system may need to be modified to assist the big teams.

Mickey is what the Aussie's would call "a whinging Pom"