Inside Track: Provincials and penalties likely to come under pressure

Voices that have been heard over the past number of years calling for the football provincial championships to be scratched from the calendar are sure to be louder than ever over the coming weeks.

‘Take a look at this year’s results’, they’ll say, ‘three of the four finals resulting in runaway wins, in Munster, Leinster and Connacht.’

And that’s what there has been, Kerry routing Clare, Galway easily accounting for Sligo, and – is there any need to say it? – the Leinster final having the biggest winning margin of the lot.

The Ulster final was tight. But, then, it nearly always is, the last game the climax of a title-race that is never less than competitive. And until this year, with Derry scraping past Armagh in a penalty shoot-out (we’ll come to that later), there hadn’t been a back-to-back winner for 24 years.

Since the turn into this century, Dublin have won 19 provincial titles, 13 of them in a row, Kerry 18 and Galway 9. In Ulster, Tyrone have won eight, but there have been five other winners. That’s more than in any other province, with Antrim, Fermanagh and the once-imperious Down the only counties to miss out.

If it ever comes to a debate on the future of the provincials, Ulster is most likely to argue for their retention.

The introduction of the All-Ireland qualifiers was designed to give counties more than one chance. The next step after that was the appearance on the calendar of the Tailteann Cup, a secondary championship won in its inaugural year by Westmeath. This, too, meant that first-time losers in the provincials would get more than one game.

There’s a new format for the All-Ireland championship, introduced this year. It’s open to the eight provincial finalists, the Tailteann Cup holders and seven other sides chosen on their league performances.

The 16 have been divided into groups of four to be played on a league basis, the winners to go into the quarter-finals and then joined by the four winners of the matches between the second- and third-placed teams. Louth play Cork this Saturday in the first of their three matches, and after that have dates with Kerry and Mayo.

There’ll be penalty shoot-outs to decide matches if the sides are still locked together after a bout of extra-time come the knock out rounds. This was the case at Clones for this year’s Ulster final. Armagh missed out, just as they did in last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final with Galway.

This is the cruellest way for the losers to exit a competition, and should be removed from the rule book, post haste. It was introduced a couple of years ago along with the split season, one half to be devoted to inter-county fare, the other to club football.

Let’s go back to last year’s All-Ireland Quarter-final. The first 70 minutes, with all its fine football and comebacks, ended in a draw. Extra-time followed.

Ask anyone what stood out for them in the additional 20 minutes and they’ll say it was the late point from Rian O’Neill’s long-distance free levelling the match once again.

And then what? A penalty shoot-out. This was about as exciting as a wet day in Salthill, or camping on the top of Slieve Gullion, the wind coming in from the north and finding a way under the canvass. It was anti-climatic, as well.

It’s all designed to have a winner on the day, but as an alternative, why not ‘punish’ the teams for their failure to win the first day by sending them out for the replay the following week.

And, if after that there’s still no winner – as happened twice in that famous 1991 Meath/Dublin saga – go for 45s rather than penalties. This is suggested not to eliminate the ‘soccer’ element, but to have a test that’s more familiar to Gaelic players.