Páidí Ó Sé said last year Waterford shouldn't be playing in the premier football competition. This week if that logic follows through neither should Clare and I suspect neither should quite a few more teams.

The championship badly needs to be tidied up. Is there another code anywhere where you would play six or seven games in the space of five months? Mayo have seven weeks till their next game. Galway have five. What are they supposed to do in the meantime? Go on the beer for a couple of days, go back to the clubs and play a couple of rounds of local championship? Then the players come back to the manager and all the momentum has gone.

There is far too much of a gap between games. Imagine this. There is a six-week wait for the Munster champions this year before they play a quarter-final. With a lay-off like that is it becoming a poisoned chalice to win in Munster? In Kerry last year we saw the benefit of extra games. A replay with Cork and a qualifier before we faced Armagh. Those games made our season. This is an anomaly that has to be addressed and quickly. Players spend too much time training for too few matches.

The solution is probably staring us in the face. Lessen the number of teams in the race for Sam (the authorities are doing it by stealth with eight teams effectively getting no back door, this year. Why not go the whole way ). Introduce graded championships, as hurling has done. A more compact season would give time for club matches to be played in good weather and allow a genuine close season for players.

The Tommy Murphy Cup hasn't worked as a concept. When you get bumped out of the race for Sam the consolation prize holds no appeal. Paidí will be thinking that this week. For a man with eight Celtic crosses won on the field and another two All-Irelands as a manager, a man who won Sam so often he refers to it as the Canister, imagine how excited he is about taking Clare into football's valley of oblivion, the Tommy Murphy Cup.