Changes need to be made to help football in Waterford and elsewhere

While giving some updates on Facebook and Twitter of the Waterford and Tipperary Munster Senior Football Championship game at Thurles on Sunday afternoon, at one stage I mentioned that it might not be popular to say so, but that it was time to re-introduce the Tommy Murphy Cup.

The competition in my eyes would cater for up to a dozen teams or so. The eight teams in Division four of the National League would take part along with the bottom four teams in division three of the league, with New York and Kilkenny also given the option of talking part, although the likelihood of the latter taking part might be slim but they should be given the option.

Should New York decided to take part in a second tier competition rather than to play in the Connacht Championship, one of the twelve teams would be drawn out to travel to New York to play the exiles with the cost of travelling taken up by G.A.A. headquarters, or you could come up with a system that the winners of the Division four final for doing so would get a trip to the Big Apple, or alternatively the team that finishes bottom of Division four would be the team that crosses the Atlantic to fight it out with New York to make up 1 teams to compete in the competition.

Once the twelve teams are in place six first round games would take place with the six winners advancing to the quarter finals. The six first round losers would then play off to find the two remaining teams to play the quarter finals. Three games would be played, the winners of the three games would advance to a series of play offs with the losers going out of the competition.

The second round of play offs would see two games take place with the winner of the first game becoming the seventh team to qualify for the quarter final with the loser of the first second round of play off games playing the third first round winner and the winner of that game becoming the eight team to qualify for the quarter finals.

The semi finals of the second tier competition would be played as a curtain raiser to the quarter finals for two of the All-Ireland Senior Quarter Finals and the final of the second tier competition would be played as a curtain raiser to the All-Ireland semi finals, rotating each year between the first and the second semi finals, as their would be too much opposition (in my eyes) not playing the Minor All-Ireland as the curtain raiser to the All-Ireland Final on the third Sunday of September.

Today (Monday June 1) in the Irish Examiner it’s interesting to see that Waterford Senior Football Manager Tom McGlinchey also call for a second tier competition.

Speaking after his side twenty-two point loss to Tipperary who finished third in Division three of the National League and who recently contested the Under 21 All-Ireland Final, the Cork man said “The powers-that-be have to actually decide are we going to have a two-tier competition because realistically no team wants to go out and take a beating like that. You want to play in a competition you have a chance of winning.”

The Waterford manager went on to say “Waterford are never going to win the All-Ireland. That is the reality of it. The powers-that-be have to decide are they going to allow this happen and continue or are they going to do something about it.”

Players who play with Counties like Waterford are putting in the same effort and commitment as those with the stronger counties but need some help if they and those that are to come after them are to develop as players and as teams.

Tipperary some years back won the Tommy Murphy Cup with the likes of Declan Browne involved. That win gave young players in the county something and someone to look up to. The young footballers in the county at the time would have dreamed of playing in Croke Park just like Declan Browne etc. had done. They would have dreamed of winning competitions, and some involved in their present set up have seen some of them dreams come through having won Munster Minor and Under 21 medals as well as All-Ireland Minor medals.

Those in Tipperary at the time decided to look at their structures and began to put in place structures that they hoped would see them achieve what they hoped.

Tipperary right now are moving in the right direction when it comes to football and in five or six years time we here in Waterford could be doing the same.  

And it’s not just on the inter county scene that we have to look at things.

We have to look at the way we are doing things and ask can we improve. We have to look at situations were clubs are not just looking after their own interests.

In the last few years Ballinacourty, Stradbally and The Nire have all done well in the Munster Senior Club Championship but neither up to now haw won the competition. I know we say they done well when they reach a final and run the opposition close but in truth there is nothing to be got from moral victories.

Is our Senior Football Championship for example working? In the last ten years how many times now is it in the last ten years that the ‘Big Three’ Ballinacourty, Stradbally and The Nire have all reached the semi finals in the last ten years. Off the top of my head there was one occasion it did not happen when The Nire and Stradbally clashed in a quarter final game.

Outside the ‘Big Three’ it’s the same three or four clubs – An Rinn, Clashmore and Kilrossanty in the main that are fighting it out most for the final semi final spot in the last number of years.

Do we have twelve teams that can really contest for the Conway Cup? The same could be asked in Hurling for the Waterford News and Star Cup.

Maybe now is the time to seriously look at cutting the numbers competing, not to the ten that was purposed to clubs in a recommendation earlier this year for next year’s championships but to eight.

My first administration position in the G.A.A. was in 1996 when I accepted the position of P.R.O. of the Sliabh gCua/St Mary’s G.A.A. Club when about a dozen others had turned it down.

At the time the club were playing Senior Football having won the Intermediate Championship in 1989 and again 1991 and after a motion was submitted that the intermediate Champions could not be relegated for a said number of years after coming up even if they finished bottom of their group in the league style championship.

At the time there was sixteen clubs playing senior football in Waterford. Cutting the numbers eventually to twelve helped improve the standard of the competition and maybe another cull of the numbers now would further help improve standards.

Numbers attending the early stages of the Senior Football Championship are not good. Recently an umpire for a game at Fraher Field reported that he counted 84 heads in the stand while the ball was at the far end of the field. Why are people not turning up at games? Is it that there is no interest? I think there is interest, but other factors come into play. Sometimes the entrance fees asked into games are not a help and other times are people going to part with their money if it’s a possibility that one of the teams involved in the game is going to loose in a cricket like score.

Teams that suffer such defeats are not improving by as some claim - playing against better players. Maybe suffering such defeats is having the opposite effect on clubs, yet the same clubs often wont for what ever reason vote to change what is purposed or to come up with alternatives of their own.

Would we be better off in Waterford for example having eight teams play senior with eight more playing Senior ‘B’ or Intermediate Premier, a further eight playing intermediate and the remainder playing junior maybe on a regional basis in both football and hurling.

Are our underage structures working?

The Under 21 and Minor Championships are already over and done with when it comes to football.

This could mean that a seventeen, eighteen or nineteen year old who maybe might not be quite good enough to play for his Senior, Intermediate or Junior first string teams in his club and who may have come on as a sub for the last few minutes of a game, ruling him out of playing second string competitions is unlikely to play for the rest of the year or have his playing time severely restricted. Is this helping players?

Does a County League and a League Style Championship work?

Does having about two weeks collective training in nearly two months help when it comes to the inter county scene.

Does playing County Minor Football Finals in midweek, two or three weeks before the leaving cert properly promote football? I know that the hands of the officers are tied to a certain degree when it comes to when games can be played, but maybe ways can be found around it.

Has consideration ever being given to maybe dropping the maximum age level for minor to 17? For this to happen I know it would have to be passed at National Congress and would meet strong opposition.

But maybe there would be merit in such a move.

Is it right for example that as things stands, 18 year olds sitting their Leaving Certs in the month of June are asked to play minor for Club or County in late April and in May.

I don’t know how many of you still have a copy of Dungarvan Observer. If you don’t I am sure it will be online in the next day or two.

On page 5 of the sports section in a shorter than usual Gaelic Jottings Column, mention is made of a minor player that received a head injury in a recent game and suffered concussion.

The player in question was brought to University Hospital Waterford for treatment and was told not to sit his fifth year end of year exams by medical professionals as he needed a month to fully recover from the injury. If that player was an 18 year old sitting his leaving cert, what would he do.

Would G.A.A. chiefs in any county or at Provincial or National level care if he was to sit his state exams? There are not many 17 year olds now a-days that sit a leaving cert. Most are 18 even heading for 19.

Dropping the age for minor would also allow players to play Dr Harty Cup and Corn Ui Mhuirí both of which are under 18 and a half and not have to also try and fit in minor competitions for club and county as well as fit in time for study.

Playing minor at under 17 and maybe raising the minimum age to play Junior, Intermediate and Senior to 18 would help Waterford and the way we do things.

It would allow for a Leagues made up of eight teams to be played from the first weekend of February. We heard a lot about equality recently. We could have two weeks of football followed by two weeks of hurling and then the same cycle again until the competition is over.

Championships would not be played till after the state exams. Teams would be split into two groups of four in each division. The top, third, fifth and seventh placed teams in each group in the league would be in group one, the other four teams in group two and in both hurling and football, the ‘A’ Grade County Final would be played before the Senior County Final, the ‘B’ Grade county Final before the Intermediate finals and the ‘C’ Grade final before the Junior County Finals, giving the competitions some extra exposure.

Staying with the Minor Grade of Football but at a provincial level, some years back the round robin series was brought in to give the four so called weaker teams the chance to play three games before a Munster Semi Final. Cork and Kerry were then brought into the round robin series of the competition, meaning all sides played five games before a Munster Semi Final. Is having Cork and Kerry involved in this stage of the competition helping to promote football? When was the last time that one or both of the big two failed to reach a Munster Semi Final since the system was changed in 2002 and again a few years later to the current format?

Looking at the Jim Power Tournament and how it is run may also be worth doing. In recent years the numbers travelling to Waterford City each year for the Tony Forristal and Sony Walsh Tournaments were cut and it has not taken from the tournament.

When the numbers taking part in the Jim Power Tournament were increased over ten years ago to include two teams from Cork and Kerry I was involved in Bord na nÓg and was delighted to see it happen and all for it.

Does having very strong teams from the two football strongholds in Munster add to the tournament? Would it help football in Waterford if the numbers were cut to four once more, with the four so called ‘weaker counties’ in Munster taking part or having the tournament a south-east regional one rather than a provincial one, with Waterford and Tipperary playing maybe Wexford and Carlow.

Should we also see two teams from Waterford taking part in the Corn Ui Mhuirí competition, one a group team comprising of sides in the city and Tramore, the other from the colleges in the West of the County and Kilmacthomas.

Right now football needs help in many counties if it is to improve. As things stand, more damage in my eyes is being done than good, maybe not in the short term but it is in the long term than good.

Will young players seeing Waterford loose to Tipperary yesterday by 22 points encourage them to take up playing football at a serious level? Will Longford loosing by 27 points to Dublin encourage youngsters to play. I have my doubts.

Football right now needs help to be promoted. We can no longer sit back and see sides suffer heavy defeats. We can’t think just about the short term. It should be about the long term.

I am not saying that what I am suggesting above will help Waterford in the near future. But somebody has to make suggestions and they have to be tried as the current system is not helping.

I could say a lot more about the promotion of football here, I might do so in the future, but for now, I doubt anybody wants to read a book on here.