After the weekend’s penultimate programme of regulation matches in this year’s Allianz Football League, Dublin are poised to become the first county to record a 100 per cent record in Division One since the competition was restructured eight years ago.
The feat hasn’t been achieved since 1992 when eventual winners Derry won all their divisional matches although the format at that stage was an 18-team Division One divided into three sections, which meant that there were only five rounds of matches.
The holders must travel to Roscommon next Sunday for the seventh match of the campaign and were they to win it would leave them on 14 points. Curiously the counties haven’t met in a league season for eight years. Back then both were in Division Two and Dublin won 3-20 to 0-7.
That year was the first in which the GAA reinstated a strictly hierarchical format for the league, with four divisions, one to four, replacing the previous structure, which had all counties divided into two divisions and subdivided into eight-team groups, A and B.
On two occasions, the county topping the table has gone through the season unbeaten: five years ago when Dublin, under previous manager Pat Gilroy, spoiled a flawless record by drawing their last match of the campaign against Galway.
One point
Two years previously Kerry finished the divisional programme also dropping just one point – a draw with Dublin in the second-last match of the schedule.
In the past 10 seasons only four counties in the entire league have managed to clock up maximum points during a season: Cavan two years ago in Division Three, Tyrone in the 2012 Division Two campaign and in 2006 both Offaly and Laois in Divisions Two A and Two B, respectively.
Of the remaining counties only Antrim, top of Division Four, are in a position to emulate the achievement in this year’s league. They finish on a challenging note, taking on a Louth side that have secured promotion with them to Division Three.
Mayo’s long-standing record as a top-flight county inched towards survival after the weekend’s win in Roscommon. The county has the longest unbroken stay in Division One of all counties at present.
You have to go back to 19 years to find the last time Mayo were in Division Two, having been promoted the previous year from Division Three and reaching the 1996 league semi-finals, as a precursor to going within a kick of the ball of winning that year’s All-Ireland under the management of John Maughan.
Top division
The record would be a shorter one had the GAA not decided to revamp the league for the 1998 season, as Mayo finished up in the relegation zone at the end of the 1997 campaign.
Instead the GAA decided to institute a mixed-ability format for 1998, at the end of which the top four teams in each of the four divisions would be placed in two-group Division One for the 1999 season and the bottom four in Division Two. Mayo qualified for the former.
If they defeat bottom county Down next weekend, the odds favour their survival in Division One, as under the current format no team has been relegated from the top flight on six points.
