ACFL shambles a by-product of disastrous split season

For an organisation so often accused of being slow to change, the GAA has flipped between so many competition formats in the last 25 years that it is hard to keep up.

There was the Old Testament knock-out provincial and All-Ireland championship which was shelved in the year 2000 following a wildly successful 10 years in which eight different counties won the Sam Maguire and teams like Cavan, Leitrim, Clare and Kildare won long-awaited provincial titles.

Then came the qualifier system, then the short-lived Super 8s, with the Tommy Murphy Cup somewhere in between. Pandemic-related restrictions necessitated a return to knock-out for two seasons (during which Cavan and Tipperary won provincial titles and Dublin’s unhealthy dominance nationally was twice halted) and then came the Tailteann Cup, which was at first a knock-out based on geographical boundaries and, since then, had a group format.

The Sam Maguire itself also has a group format in which 24 matches are played to get rid of four teams. The newest incarnation has been nigh-on disastrous when key metrics are taking into account; attendances have plummeted and the net result has been that the competition simultaneously feels condensed and drawn out, the worst of both worlds.

What I found most interesting about the dawn of the so-called split season a couple of years back was the fanfare which accompanied it. It was billed as a panacea for the club player and lo betide those who pointed out the obvious flaws.

In his annual report in 2022, the Cork county board’s CEO commented: “While the split season will require another full year before making a final judgement, it may yet represent the GAA’s finest moment in catering for all her sons and restoring our greatest players back to their communities while there is still life and light in the summer evenings.

“For those who decry the lack of national interest in any particular game being played in some far-off corner of the country, that’s the whole point. It’s a local delicacy. And all the more important to cherish for that.”

That was typical of the commentary which surrounded it, heavy on the local angle – and what sort of monster would go against something designed to help the salt-of-the-earth clubman?! – and light on critical observation.

I wonder what the feeling is in Cork now. Their hurlers, after a tremendous effort, lost the All-Ireland final in extra-time. Ordinarily, All-Ireland finals which end in a draw would go to a replay but in this enlightened new world, that is no longer the case. Everything must be rushed.

And to what end? ‘Certainty’ we are told is king. But we already had it – the club championships this year will start in early August in Cavan, just as they have usually done for decades, give or take a week or two.

For that, we have sacrificed so much. Ulster Championship finals decided on penalties, big matches played off without sufficient lead-in time. More pertinently given the week that’s in it, the All-County Football League was reduced to a shambles this year and that was a by-product of the GAA’s “finest moment” too. For those not au fait with the recent carry-on, since the split season was introduced, teams are required to play most of their league matches without county senior and U20 players.

Apart from the obvious issue of lowering the standard for the second biggest adult club competition we have by removing the best players for most of it, Cavan made a misstep in how they set things up.

It was decided by the board and the clubs that it would be unfair to see a team punished for supplying players to the county by being relegated or missing out on promotion so a gerrymandered structure was put in place whereby promotion or relegation could only be decided in a play-off game, when teams would presumably have access to these players.

The law of unintended consequences kicked in then; it became clear that a team could lose every match or not even fulfil all their fixtures and still stay in the division by winning one game. And, on the flip side of that, a side could win every game in their regular league campaign and not gain promotion were they to lose a one-off clash. The unintended consequence of this is that it rendered a large amount of matches effectively meaningless. That was clear from early on this year when teams began to concede matches (nine walkovers were given this year), a rare occurrence back in the pre split-season days when matches mattered.

In the Division 1 league, Lacken – down a lot of players through emigration and injuries – lost their first 11 matches and did not field for their 12th. They then turned in their best performance of the year last Wednesday to beat Ballyhaise and retain their status while the Annalee Park men went down.

Let me make it clear that Lacken, one of the clubs who have contributed most to successful schools and county teams and promote camogie and ladies football strongly too, did nothing wrong. The rules were clear from the start and they stayed up fair and square, coming from eight points down in the play-off to do so.

In Division 2, Killygarry went unbeaten through the league with 11 wins and two draws – but in this system, that’s not enough to get promoted and they were caught by a gutsy effort from Ballinagh.

What this effectively means is that the regular matches – the largest part of the season – are mostly meaningless. If you’re looking upwards, well, you might as well finish fourth as first. And if, after a few matches, you find yourself looking down, you can write off the remainder of your games and focus on just one. How this – a safety net, a harness and a trampoline just to be sure – is good for the development of football in the county, who knows.

In the championship then, a team can lose three of their four matches and advance to the knock-out stages. Jeopardy is barely a rumour now.

There is some revisionism at play when it comes to the ACFL, too. Some have tried to spin the line that the league was never a great competition, that clubs always played without county men a fair proportion of the time, which is not true.

A quick glance through the archives confirms as much. In 2014, there were three players from Cavan on the Ulster Railway Cup team, before that competition was shelved. Their clubs did not play All-County League matches on that particular weekend as they would be without one county man. The league mattered, the games mattered. Now, it doesn’t and they don’t.

What exacerbated this situation was that with matches being conceded, score difference could not be employed so we were left with a series of play-off matches. Knockbride were the fall guys there; they beat Castlerahan in a play-off – no mean feat for a junior team against a senior one - and a fortnight later, were tasked with beating them again to stay in the division. Again, it wasn’t Castlerahan’s fault but how is it fair, or good for the game?

I had this debate with someone recently and the response was as follows: “What are we going to do then? There are no easy solutions.”

And it’s true, there are no easy solutions – but there are solutions. For next year, at the very minimum, the top team must go up and the bottom go down and some competitiveness must be restored to a competition which has been diluted beyond recognition.

That would be a start, at least.