Deja vu all over again for poor old Fermanagh

The widespread dismay at Fermanagh's disintegration on Sunday distracted attention from a disappointing set of All-Ireland quarter-finals.

Only one (with respect to Laois's battling performance), Donegal-Galway, had the sort of ebb and flow that keeps a match genuinely up for grabs until the final whistle.

But Tyrone's blitz of their hapless neighbours should refocus minds on one relevant issue: how to cater for inequities within the inter-county system. Given the way the senior championship works it's fairly pointless to talk about addressing inequity because it can't be done.

The whole county system is based on inequality - of resources, population and tradition. So it's a matter of making the best you can of it. Fermanagh are a perfect case in point. An already small population is effectively halved by the religious head count, leaving less than 30,000 in the GAA catchment.

Neither is the county one of those fortunate units that created a little bit of a name for itself at some stage in history. Fermanagh is one of three counties never to have won even a provincial title. In that context reaching an All-Ireland quarter-final has been a major achievement.

It won't console manager Dominic Corrigan, who has twice in 13 months had to try and put words together in response to signing off with a major rout - and more significantly had to cope with the sudden illness and premature passing of his brother but at the heart of what happened at the weekend was a major misfortune.

Not that Tyrone were lucky to win, just that Fermanagh were unlucky to draw the Ulster champions, who must have been the last side that they wanted to meet. They mightn't have met that recently in the championship but the history is long and oppressive (over 20 years since they beat their neighbours).

More pertinently the teams met last April in the league semi-finals, a disappointing draw for Fermanagh making a first competitive appearance at Croke Park - a bit like a child going on holidays to Disneyland only to find the schoolyard bully already there. That spring meeting ended in a fearful hammering so there was a strong sense of déjà vu about last weekend's match.

Over the years until the qualifiers, teams with talent struggled in the rigid caste systems of the championship. For a start, there was the psychological difficulty of facing teams of higher caste. Secondly, there was the structural inhibition on a team developing naturally through a series of competitive matches at the time of the year when conditions were optimal. One defeat and off you went home to start again.

The qualifiers helped Fermanagh get around the second problem with encouraging wins over Meath and Mayo, but there was no avoiding the first.

Sometimes the qualifier system is unfairly criticised for not "doing anything for the weaker counties". Its main purpose was to try and loosen the binds of provincial relationships and provide a higher quality All-Ireland series. It has achieved both.

Some sides learn a lot from a defeat but not all.

Teams in decline and teams with no interest don't benefit, as one or two extra matches isn't going to address their problems. Improvement is the only thing that will assist weaker counties.

As All-Ireland quarter-finalists Fermanagh don't exactly rank as a "weaker county" but as an emerging team they are reaping the accumulated injustices of over a century of the unmitigated knockout format and its one-match seasons.

The search for solutions hasn't been intensive over the years. There is an acceptance of the obvious need for coaching and games development but that only gets a county so far. The need for an at least occasionally competitive county side is equally pressing because of its promotional and inspirational value.

Short of handicapping there's only so much that the GAA can do to ensure such an outcome. Last year's Strategic Review Committee Report didn't look very hard at the area but recommended the GAA concentrate resources on 10 counties with a view to bringing them up to the standard of at least provincial finalists within 10 years.

The SRC's historical predecessor, the McNamee Commission, was very radical for 1971 in its recommendation of an Open Draw and the abolition of provincial football championships. Among the reasons cited were: new pairings "would create more interest"; "it would reduce tensions, which inevitably arise as a result of frequent encounters between the same teams"; "the same number of rounds would have to be played by both finalists".

The idea of playing an equal number of matches is important at all levels of the game. This doesn't just apply to provincial champions running the risk of being caught cold by hardened qualifier campaigners. It's also relevant to counties for whom the new system has simply meant two trimmings instead of one every year.

How do you improve with only two matches a season during the summer? Equally how do you improve by often having to play only teams that are out of your league, literally and figuratively? Another important reform was touched on by the 2000 Football Development Committee proposals but proved not at all popular even in those counties that need institutional change more than most. This was the idea that there shouldn't be automatic entry to the senior All-Ireland championship; that teams should have to earn the right to compete.

Virtually no other sport allows its elite competition to be entered as of right and the reluctance of counties to compete on a realistic level has been mystifying. A sensible, hierarchical structure is needed as a foundation if weaker counties are to plan a way out of their plight.

smoran@irish-times.ie