16 down to 12 in football championship grades

By Liam Hogan

By 37 votes to 19, the Tipperary Football Committee motion to have teams involved in the County Senior & Intermediate Football Championships reduced from 16 to 12 by 2025 was carried at the November Meeting of the County Board at the Dome, FBD Semple Stadium last Tuesday week.

Currently there are sixteen teams each in senior and intermediate but over the next two years, the numbers will be reduced whereby 2025 there will be twelve teams in senior, twelve in intermediate and eight at the new premier junior level with junior ‘A’ and junior ‘B’ football championships played via normal divisional system.

Football Board chairperson Conor O’Dwyer, said he discussed the motion delegates at organised meetings in each of the four divisions last month. The plan to reduce the numbers will begin in 2023 where the championship would be played as normal (four groups of four) and relegation would involve the teams finishing fourth in each group thereby playing two semi-finals and a final with the winner staying up and joined by the intermediate champions to make it fourteen for the 2024 campaign.

The 2023 intermediate championship would comprise of fifteen teams to include three groups of four and a group of three. Five teams to be relegated to form the Premier Junior championship in 2024 to include the bottom team in each of the four team to be joined by the two losers of the semi-finals involving the four third placed teams in the respective four groups. “Under current structures at adult level the early rounds has provided a lot of mis-matches,” Conor O’Dwyer said about the reasoning for the change.

“There were three things that are driving change in our minds at least and one is that in this year’s campaign where nine or ten incidents where clubs have given walkovers or played weakened teams and that is not a situation we can stand over.

“If that were to happen even once in hurling, there would be an outcry. We think at senior and intermediate levels there is a big gap between the strongest and the weakest. In the senior hurling championship, all teams are reasonably level and evidenced by the fact that a number of clubs that come to the fore in the latter stages of the championship.

Willie Nagle, Ardfinnan spoke against the motion and wondered about its timing.

“We have only concluded the first year of the split season,” he said.

“The existing championship including the Tom Cusack Cup, really has had only two years to run. While it is fair to say that football in Tipperary has been dominated by three big clubs (Loughmore, Commercials and Moyle Rovers) it has to be pointed out every year a different club is coming from the chasing pack. We had Upperchurch/Drombane this year. We had Brackens, Kilsheelan, Arravale Rovers and Cahir come close in recent years.

“We also feel that reducing the number of senior clubs in such dramatic fashion like six teams to relegated in two years will affect football in clubs where it is not the number one code. “Senior football has lost some traditional clubs such as Fethard, Galtee Rovers and we cannot afford to lose any more clubs to Intermediate and Junior grades.

“It was stated at a South Board meeting that there is a big gap between the top and bottom. In 22 football games played the average score difference was 6.3 points. Only four games had nine-point difference or more.

“In the hurling the average difference was 5.9 but there was more games with a nine-point difference or greater but there is nobody suggesting a reduction in the amount of hurling teams,” said Willie.

In response, Conor O’Dwyer said there was nobody hitting at football and the football committee are not into change for change sake. He continued that comparing hurling scores with football scores is not comparing apples with apples.

“Hurling by its nature will be higher scoring. In football the average score is not that high but what is really happening is that some clubs haven’t got a real chance of success,” he said. The discussion concluded with a show of hands declaring the motion passed comfortably.

Other motions

2-up 2-down: Killenaule had a motion looking for promotion and relegation across all grades in county championship to be increased from one to two teams was defeated by a huge show of hands and Vice Chairman Jimmy Minogue decided the motion needed no more debate.

Under 21: There were five motions seeking the re-introduction of a County under 21 hurling and football championships and was passed without a vote. Sean Treacys, Cappawhite, Boherlahan-Dualla, Upperchurch/Drombane and Burgess were behind the motions.

Grading amendment: Other motions down for consideration but deferred until the Convention in December, included one from Kiladangan who proposed that a player who only makes one substitute appearance in a divisional championship game is still eligible to play for the team at the next lower grade in the club in divisional and county championship.