Sorting the Split Season and keeping Everyone Happy.
by Anthony Shelly writing in the Tipp Echo
In a wide-ranging interview on GAA Go last month, GAA President, Jarlath Burns, floated the idea of moving the All-Ireland Finals back to September. Burns is no daw and he doesn’t utter words lightly, so the fact that he even mentioned this would suggest that the GAA hierarchy are looking at changing the terms of the current “split season”.
Even the most casual observer of GAA sports news over the past few weeks will have noticed media commentators and ex-players sharpening their pens and their tongues to look for “slight alterations” to the current split season. They speak of All Ireland Finals in July as if a plague has been released on all our houses. The common consensus is that pushing the All- Ireland Finals back two weeks won’t make too much difference to club players.
I look at things differently. If two weeks won’t make much difference to club players then I would suggest two weeks won’t make any difference to inter-county players and the split season as it currently stands should remain in place. All that is required for this to happen is for GAA HQ to manage their inter-county championships and in particular the inter-county football championship and calendar smarter.
The inter-county season currently runs from 1st January to 31st of July. If a football team were to reach the final of their provincial championship, the league final and the All-Ireland Final, it would be mean playing 17 games in 30 weeks. To do the same in hurling would mean playing 15 games in 30 weeks. Ask any current player if they would accept that and they would bite your hand off to take it.
More matches mean less heavy training sessions and that’s what every player wants.
The opening line of Charles Dickens famous ghost story, “A Christmas Carol” tells us that “Marley was dead, to begin with.” If Dickens was to write about the horror story that is the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, he would probably begin with “The Provincial Championships are dead to begin with”.
Inter-county hurling is in fine fettle at the moment but changes to the football structures and more-so the football calendar need to be made if Gaelic Football is to remain the most popular sport in the country.
The provincial football championships are currently played at the end of the league campaigns but with the exception of the Ulster Championship, the results in the other provinces are utterly predictable and you’d get bigger attendances at the ringing of a bonabh.
There is a decent argument to be made for scrapping the provincial system in favour of an open draw but the problem anyone seeking radical reform in the GAA always runs into is that the organisation is cursed with men who are terrified of change and the traditionalists always seem to be able to coerce the radicals.
Therefore, the provincial championships will remain. But if the GAA is to survive long term change must happen and the provincial championships in football should be moved to January with the finals played mid-February. The Ulster and Leinster Championships take four weekends to play, with Munster and Connaught taking 3 weekends to play.
This would of course mean saying goodbye to pre-season tournaments such as the McGrath Cup, but I suspect even the most ardent GAA fan wouldn’t be too upset with this. As the old joke goes, even the McGrath’s don’t go to the McGrath Cup games.
These tournaments are nothing more than organised challenge matches.
With the provincial championships completed you move on the National Football League in March and April before finishing with the All-Ireland Football Series and Tailteann Cups in May, June & July.
A slight tweak is also badly needed in the All-Ireland Football Series and Tailteann Cups. Currently you have 4 groups of 4 with three teams qualifying. Nobody should be drinking in the third chance saloon so just the top two teams in each group should qualify in the All-Ireland series with the best placed third team in the Tailteann Cup qualifying to play New York in an All-Ireland preliminary Q/F.
Your master fixture for 2025 Football Championship would look something like this:
Date Provincial Championships
W/E 11/1/25 Round 1 Ulster & Leinster Provincial Football Championship
W/E 18/1/25 “Round 1 Munster Connaught Provincial Football Championship
Round 2 Ulster & Leinster Provincial Football Championship
W/E 1/2/25 Provincial Football Championship Semi Finals
W/E 14/2/25 “Provincial Football Championship Finals”
Date National Football Leagues
W/E 1/3/25 Round 1 NFL
W/E 8/3/25 Round 2 NFL
W/E 15/3/25 Round 3 NFL
W/E 22/3/25 Round 4 NFL
W/E 29/3/25 *Break*
W/E 5/4/25 Round 5 NFL
W/E 12/4/25 Round 6 NFL
W/E 19/4/25 Round 7 NFL
W/E 26/4/25 NFL Final
Date All-Ireland Football Series & Tailteann Cup
W/E 11/5/25 Round 1 of All Ireland Series & Tailteann Cup
W/E 25/5/25 Round 2 of All Ireland Series & Tailteann Cup (winners v winners from Round 1)
W/E 31/5/25 Round 3 of All Ireland Series & Tailteann Cup
W/E 12/6/25 Tailteann Cup Preliminary Q/F
W/E 26/6/25 All Ireland Senior Football & Tailteann Cup Q/F’s
W/E 6/7/25 “All Ireland Senior Football Semi-Finals & Tailteann Cup Semi-Finals”
Sunday 20/7/25 All Ireland Senior Football Final & Tailteann Cup Final
The above format might just keep everyone happy. The split season (which is important to 98% of players who play GAA) is retained. The Provincial Championships are retained and provide a nice lead in-to the National Football Leagues which currently is probably the best and most important competition for approximately 22 of the 32 counties playing Gaelic Football.
Once the leagues are completed you are straight into the business end of the championships and by playing winners v winners in Round 2 of the All-Ireland Series and Tailteann Cup group stages you are almost guaranteeing that all rounds in the group stages have some form of jeopardy attached.
Over the last few years egotistical coaches and poorly organised championship structures are turning people away from playing and watching inter-county football. I know of men volunteering to go to supermarkets and do the weekly shop just to avoid watching a football match on TV. Thankfully club football and especially juvenile football is still very enjoyable.
The national hurling league started on the 4th February this year and the Provincial Hurling Championships, currently the jewel in the crown of the GAA calendar, started on 21st April. Date-wise, both hurling league and championship should remain as is and played on alternative weekends to the football championships.
The only tweak required here is Tipperary need to improve. But that’s a story for another day.