Play the four championships then throughout the season, like the FA Cup in England, sprinkled into the fixture list every couple of weeks
Ciarán Murphy: Intense Galway-Mayo battle shows there’s another way for provincial championships to prosper
Making the draw for the All-Ireland championship group stages before the four finals were played ensured the actual scheduling benefits of winning or losing the Connacht final were negligible when taken at face value. Similarly this weekend, Donegal and Armagh are intimately acquainted with each other. Donegal’s wins over Derry and Tyrone already this year are important not just because of progression in the championship, but because of the years of personal enmities and rivalries that only provincial competition can create.
I believe there’s another way. The opening weekend of the football championship should also be the opening round of the All-Ireland group stages. Ensure that Kerry and Dublin aren’t allowed to build slowly through the first couple of months of championship due to the weakness of their local rivals.If Derry or Mayo have to be ready to go straight away after the end of the league, then so too should Dublin and Kerry. .
Are midweek games out of the question? Those of us who spend an uncomfortable amount of time watching U-20 action on TG4, or on TG4′s YouTube channel, or on other streaming services, see opportunities there if counties can be convinced. If the big counties want to rotate team selections in their province to rest players for the All-Ireland championship, let them do it .
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