Kevin McStay: I fear county boards could kill the Tailteann Cup

It may not feel like it but this is an historic week for the GAA. Monday morning came around and on the RTE sports bulletin the nation listened - with, perhaps, a less-than riveted ear - to the first ever draw for the Tailteann Cup.

As often is the case with the GAA, the draw felt convoluted and needlessly complicated. We will have another one next week when the qualifiers roll into town. It’s funny. Some people have no interest in this stuff: they just want to see a football game and couldn’t care about the mechanics behind it. But I think the structures are a national pastime for many GAA people.

I once presented a template for Paraic Duffy and his staff during the years when the GAA was fretting over what 'to do' about the imperfections of the All-Ireland championship structures. They were telling me they were probably getting one a day from the public. Everyone had an idea of how to 'fix' the championship.

There was one building block if you wanted your idea to be considered. If there wasn't a provincial championship built into your proposal, then it went to the Croke Park dustbin. Despite the overwhelming evidence that the provincial championships oppress the oppressed, they are an indelible part of the football super-structure.

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Dublin v Meath and Croke Park both vastly different to 20 years ago

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The provincial landscape remains the badlands for these early season trimmings. Yet everyone wants to preserve them

Every year for 20 years on the Sunday Game we have had these-hammerings-must-stop discussion nights after watching a particularly grim series of sporting massacres. They usually occurred around the provincial quarter-final time. I remember one summer when Tipperary got an awful trimming and I asked why they were continually taking these trouncings and doing nothing about it.

I was admonished publicly by the Tipperary officials the next day. But I was arguing that a lot of counties exhibit a Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to the provincial championships. It was like they were in denial of the absolute proof that these annual hammerings were keeping them captive. It is hard to have any sympathy for a county that fails to help itself.

And in 2022, the same stuff is still happening. The provincial landscape remains the badlands for these early season trimmings. Yet everyone wants to preserve them. What should a well-prepared championship opposition be able to do? Surely you should be able to keep within seven or eight points of the stronger team?

Winning

Hands up: I have managed teams who were well trimmed when I was with Roscommon. But we were a team capable of actually winning provincial silverware. I was at the Wexford-Dublin game recently and had a good read of the programme and was fascinated by one article. It was an analysis of the last 10 years of respective quarter finalists and it just confirmed what we sensed.

Wicklow had one win over Meath in a decade. Wexford had no win against Dublin in that period. Longford have made the Leinster semi-final twice since 1970. Yet many good, sensible football people in Longford would argue that this is the best competition for their county to be in. Why? What use has it served them?

At least half the football counties in Ireland are signed up to an annual culling. This year’s Leinster championship has been a shocker. Nine games, including Sunday’s semi-finals, have taken place. Five of those have featured defeats ranging from plus 10 to plus 23 - and all scores in between. Meath, playing Dublin in a semi-final after years of building to reclaim something of their old status, could only keep it to plus 13.

If 10 points constitutes a drubbing, the national championship has had 11 drubbings (Tyrone's defeat to Derry the outlier here). Leitrim last year and this year were reminded in a harsh manner that the gap is vast and severe. I read a piece with Leitrim secretary Declan Bohan arguing strongly that their county was now stuck at 'stop' and they needed something new. He referenced a stat that of the 123 championships they contested, they had won two.

Since 1994, Leitrim have won four Connacht championship games in total. By any measure, the old system has not served Leitrim at all. You could argue that it has destroyed the morale of generations of fine footballers who were born into a county with (currently) 32,000 people. It has given them no chance to shine.

I don’t think anyone believes a second-tier contest will magically bridge this gap. But it may help teams take baby steps forward. There’s a kind of limited viewpoint within the GAA that needs to be smashed. It’s the vague sense that what is seldom is wonderful: that the provincial championships are littered with giant-killing stories.

As it happened, we had two in 2020. Look Tipp won Munster and Cavan won Ulster - and wasn't it magical? Well, yes, it was. But the probability is that they will continue to get scutched for the next decade if history is anything to go by. Cavan - the blue blood county of Ulster, with 40 titles - has won just two of those since 1969. Where's the magic in that?

The realisation that something had to give has taken years. And we heard the solution on a rainy Monday morning. And so, the Tailteann Cup was born. It should be emphasised that this year’s version is a waiting room for the real Tailteann Cup. Next year is the proper one.

This year is no different to the qualifiers in that you only get two games minimum. There isn’t a great deal of difference. This is a bastardised version. There are a lot of creases and cracks remaining. The hope is that the Tailteann Cup will take off like a meteorite, as GAA president Larry McCarthy said on Monday morning.

I hope so too.

Much depends on the attitude towards it. I like the name. I would have preferred the ‘All-Ireland intermediate championship’. But the Tailteann Cup has resonance. Firstly, however, it has to shake off negative connotations. From its conception, this was a competition that dare not speak its name. I felt it was being spoken of in the pejorative.

No team wanted to think about the Tailteann Cup because it meant they were out of the A competition. They were in this new, invented and unproven second tier world- and the GAA had tried to get those parties going before. And failed.

Is this one any different?

Well, what is it setting out to do? It will not produce a future All-Ireland winner any time soon. But it will give teams more games in that from next year on, the Tailteann Cup is composed of four groups of four, with round robin games and a guaranteed three games for every team - at the right time of year. The big prize this year is that winning the Tailteann Cup is the golden ticket to the Sam Maguire 2023. Cavan will embrace that challenge. Here is a clear pathway.

Of course, there are problems with it.

The geographical divide - with the competition split into north and south - was announced out of nowhere recently. And it made nobody happy. Maybe it was in the fine print but it caught everyone unaware. New York getting a bye seemed to come out of nowhere as well.

Larry McCarthy mentioned expense and mileage as the reasons but that just doesn’t wash because the qualifiers don’t have that caveat. And local teams are fed up of playing each other. They want to see new lands, different teams.

I find this worrying: it immediately sends out a signal that this is truly second tier - that cost is a prevailing factor in determining how it will be run. One of the suspicions I have is that county boards could kill the Tailteann Cup by reducing the finances and make it a blitz, a nuisance - something to get out of the way.

There was a launch on Monday. But it feels hurried, a bit like the paint drying on the wall of the new hotel even as the minister and proud owner cut the ribbon and smile for the photographer.

Bravery

The big disappointment was the GAA’s lack of bravery in not scheduling the final to take place before the All-Ireland senior final. The one decision that would have guaranteed the competition buoyancy was putting it on the same day as the All Ireland. What player would not want to play in Croke Park on the sacred day? None.

I believe that this must be amended next year. The Tailteann Cup counties should insist on it. I come from a generation where we didn’t get to Croke Park very often and it was amazing to get in there.

What are the counties saying? The message coming from Sligo manager Tony McEntee and Cavan's Mickey Graham were very positive. They both shook off the disappointment of provincial defeat and vowed to go after this new prize. Why not? Cavan gave Tyrone a rough ride in the Ulster Under-20 championship. This is a perfect theatre for them to bring young players through.

But Carlow's Niall Carew, for instance, wondered aloud how many he would have at training and who would go to America. The attitude of the Down footballers is barely explicable, given their recent woes. The sooner counties accept that this is the future, the better for them.

Recall, for a moment, the old All-Ireland B championship. Leitrim won it in 1990 - and won the Connacht championship four years later. Clare won it in 1991 - and then claimed a Munster title in 1992. Wicklow, under Mick O'Dwyer, won the Tommy Murphy and had a few good seasons.

There is a correlation between winning competitions and getting better. It is easy to chart: training and staying together and momentum- all the stuff that the big counties routinely get and thus improve season on season.

The Tailteann Cup will be live on TV. That matters. It won’t sell out but local support would help. There are some smashing teams involved and it is wide open - an attraction that the senior All-Ireland cannot offer until the quarter final stage.

Cavan are favourites. Sligo and Leitrim need to do something. I think that ambitious managers with a long term plan will embrace this new world. We now need to see county boards back their teams with financial support and by clearing the midweek club fixtures.

In 2018, when I was managing Roscommon, we lost the Connacht final to Galway. It was one that got away - we felt. It was a heartbreaker for us because two in a row would have felt like something. We came together quickly and owned up and decided to try and get to the Super 8s - to compete. And we did, after a smashing win over Armagh. And then we were hockeyed. By Tyrone, by Donegal and by Dublin.

So what was the lesson? We were exposed to the very best out there. And it was crushing and tough and while it was hard to see it, we learned a lot. And in 2019, Roscommon won Connacht again because the players were becoming hardened and learning how to survive. So this is what these Tailteann Cup teams need- a rhythm and momentum and an opportunity to change what has for too many of them been a very sorry history.

This week is a clarion call. Get up off your knees. Crack on. Beat the teams you can beat. Get out of the lower divisions. Build structures. Go places. Leave the past behind. Believe in a football championship that offers your players a fighting chance.