Why not give the Tommy Murphy Cup another go?

In the last few weeks a lot has been said and reported on when it comes to the All-Ireland Football Championship each year.

There is some that are looking for change. There is some that want to leave things as they are. There is some that want the inter county scene shortened somewhat to allow greater time to the club championships in each county.

There appears to be two different proposals that seen to generate most interest.

One is where the All-Ireland Championship is played off as a Champions League Style competition. And in allowing this to happen, Provincial Councils could continue to organise their Senior Football Championship, maybe at the demise of the secondary competitions such as the McGrath Cup, or claims have been made by some that the Provincial competitions could be played off quickly between the National League’s and the All-Ireland Championship.

Another idea that has some support is to restore the Tommy Murphy Cup, a competition first played for when Sean Kelly was President of the GAA, and a competition that no doubt has played a part in helping Tipperary move in the direction they are at present when it comes to football as it got young people interested in the game when the County won it in 2005.

To get people playing and interested in football, especially in the so called weaker counties, which of the two main proposals is the best?

There is some that will argue that to improve you have to play the best on a regular basis. If these people are correct, then the Champions League Style Competition is the way to go.

For this to happen, you will have to grade or seed teams. The likelihood is that GAA Chiefs would go with eight groups of four, with the top two teams in each group advancing to the first knockout round of the competition.

Teams would possibly be graded or seeded in accordance to what division they would play in the league.

So in 2016 if we had a Champions League style All-Ireland Football Championship, the eight top seeded teams would be Down, Donegal, Dublin, Kerry, Cork, Mayo, Roscommon and Monaghan.

The Second seeded teams would be Derry, Fermanagh, Meath, Armagh, Tyrone, Cavan, Laois and Galway.

Third seeded teams would be Clare, Sligo, Limerick, Tipperary, Offaly, Longford, Westmeath and Kildare, while the fourth seeded teams would be Louth, London, Carlow, Antrim, Wexford, Leitrim, Wicklow and Waterford. And then don’t forget that both Kilkenny and New York will also have to be given the opportunity to compete, which means you could have six groups of four and two of five if all thirty four county boards decided to take part.

Looking at the different seeded teams if they were done as above you could well have a group where you Dublin, Tyrone, Kildare and Waterford in one group. OR you could have Kerry, Armagh, Tipperary, Kilkenny and New York in another group.

Would playing in such a group help football in Waterford? How many from Waterford would travel to Parnell Park or Croke Park to see Waterford play Dublin from outside of the capital.

While a visit from Dublin to Fraher Field or Walsh Park may ensure that the ‘Full House’ signs might be hanging outside the gates for a few days before the game when it comes to the sale of tickets, what would a possible twenty or thirty point defeat do for football in Waterford in the long term and how many at the full house from a game with Dublin would turn up to see a follow up home game with Tyrone if Waterford were to suffer a heavy loss to the current All-Ireland Champions.

If young boys of between say ten and fourteen were to see Waterford suffer heavy defeats to the stronger counties then surly it would put questions in their minds as to why they might want to play football for Waterford in the years ahead and give all their energy to developing their hurling skills, where Waterford are able to hold their own with the likes of Kilkenny, Tipperary and Cork.

In hurling we have different championships. Louth, Lancashire, Sligo, Warwickshire and Leitrim compete in the Lory Meagher Cup.

How many people would call for Louth, Sligo or Leitrim for example to play in a Champions League style hurling championship?

Imagine what kind of cricket score Waterford or Kilkenny would put up if they were to visit Dundalk or Carrick-on-Shannon for a game of hurling, even if the two south east county sides were to put out second string teams for the game, which in effect would make a mockery of the competition as sides should always play the strongest sides available to them in games.

If there is nobody calling for Waterford or Kilkenny to play Louth or Leitrim in hurling games, then why are there calls for Waterford to play the likes of Dublin, Kerry, Donegal or Mayo in football? Surly, the risk is there that the same damage would be done to the game in the long term as it would if Waterford or Kilkenny were to visit venues in Louth or Leitrim for a hurling game.

So maybe, if we are serious about developing football in the so called weaker counties, the restoration of a competition like the Tommy Murphy Cup is the way to go.

There is some that say that the competition should be restricted to the eight teams that take part in the fourth division of the National League.

But if you were to do that, you would have to give New York and Kilkenny both of whom do not play in the National Leagues the chance to play which would bring the numbers competing to ten.

And in recent years little separates the teams in division’s three and four. Sides that moved up from Division four in the league have shown that they are more than capable of holding their own against ‘stronger opposition’ the following spring.

If this is the case, why not then include all teams in division three of the National League with the exception of the two sides that win promotion to Division two for the following year in a new look Tommy Murphy Cup, making it a possible sixteen teams that could take part.

When the Tommy Murphy Cup was last played, whether people want to admit it loudly or not, the competition was helping to develop football in the weaker counties.

Like in all walks of life, there was some out there who worked hard to knock the competition and ensure that it did not receive the recognition it deserved.

Competitions like this need time for it to be built upon. It’s no good for anyone in Croke Park or on a County Board to say we will play it on a two or three year trial basis. It needs a lot more time. The competition needs to be played for a minimum of five years and the GAA need to pump big money into promoting the competition with the final played before the All-Ireland Final or one of the semi finals in August.

Come Congress time at the end of February, County Boards up and down the length of the country and overseas as well as those that have votes from different positions that they hold within the GAA could surly do a lot worse than to give competitions like the Tommy Murphy Cup another chance if they are fully interested in developing football in the so called weaker counties.

After all, don’t people say ‘What’s good for the Goose it good for the Gander’, and if its good for Hurling to be played at four different levels, surly it can only be good for football to go down the same route and be played at two levels.