A 25-year trend has increasingly marginalised the provinces. Time to recognise reality

Well, that didn’t take long. Almost exactly a year ago, the provincial football championships looked like they were in remission. The Leinster final attracted its biggest attendance, 65,786, in nine years and Louth beat Meath to land the trophy for the first time since 1957.

It was appreciated at the time that Dublin hadn’t gone away but in their absence a great sense of opportunity prevailed. It was also possible to glimpse the worth of the provincial championships as stepping stones to greater achievement. Galway won a fourth in succession and both Donegal and Kerry would win their provinces and go on to contest the All-Ireland final.

Viewed through the lens of where the championship has gone this century, it was probably always an overvaluation. But for the counties involved, the long standing appeal of the provincial titles as mezzanine landmarks – Clare (1992), Leitrim (1994), Sligo (2007), Tipperary (2020) among others – remained intact.

What has happened this year has sent tremors through that apparently stable structure.

Louth, the county at the heart of the resurgence, lost to Dublin by 10 points last Saturday, delivering a most disappointing title defence. To make bad worse, within 48 hours they were re-paired with their tormentors for the first round of the All-Ireland series.

The county has seen this film before. Following the trauma of being defeated in the 2010 Leinster final by a refereeing error, they were drawn next match up against the Dubs in the qualifiers.

There has been a great deal of valid comment about how Monday’s draw has further undermined the provincial finals to the point of near-actual irrelevance.

The counties – and all other provincial finalists – were drawn separately and without reference to whether they win the title or not.

This view has hardened around the Kerry-Cork Munster final in Killarney – traditionally one of the jewels in the provincial crown – because for the first time since the football championship began to evolve 24 years ago, counties now have a definite fixture on the other side of the provincial final that is entirely uninfluenced by the latter’s outcome.

So, Kerry have Donegal on the way down to them, regardless, two weeks after playing a Munster final this weekend. Cork will be similarly preparing to revisit a league divisional final they lost to a team, Meath, that was later surprisingly evicted from the provincial championship.

Not alone is there certainty of fixture but there is no benefit whatsoever to be gained from winning the province. That is distinct from there being at least questionable benefit in the past.

There was a time in the early iterations of the qualifiers format when although provincial winners went straight to the All-Ireland quarter-finals, there were complaints at annual congress from among others Dublin and Tyrone that provincial champions were the only counties not allowed a second chance – a justifiable objection but not one that ignited flames of widespread grievance.

Even the home advantage that Kerry, Cork and all of their peers will enjoy is not specific to their being champions. They will get a second chance under this format, as had been the case with the now defunct All-Ireland round-robin series.

It could be argued that the round-robin system had a similar impact but provincial champions were accorded top-seed status in those draws, even if the composition of the groups was known in advance and created a type of moral jeopardy around whether it would be better to lose a provincial final and slot into an easier group.

Despite opportunities arising, there was no indication that any team had taken this route. As soon as the qualifiers debuted 25 years ago, it was obvious that provincial championships would be affected. As if to demonstrate the point, Galway won the All-Ireland despite losing a provincial semi-final to Roscommon, their opponents in next weekend’s Connacht final.

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In the first 10 years of the format, All-Ireland winners were as likely to have lost in their province as to have carried off the title. That changed after 2010 – a year when every All-Ireland semi-finalist had beaten a provincial champion in the quarter-finals.

Mostly it changed because the predominant teams, Dublin and Kerry, found it all but impossible to lose in their provinces.

If the provincial championships have effectively become obsolete, is there any point in maintaining their central presence in the football All-Ireland?

It strengthens the case for revisiting the 2021 proposal to switch the league and provincial championships, with the latter moving to the spring and the former being run during the summer and feeding into the All-Ireland championship. Option B, as it was called, failed narrowly.

As a format it solves a couple of problems. There wouldn’t be the confusion of priorities created this week around the clash of All-Ireland fixtures and provincial finals. Teams wouldn’t have handy runs, based on geography, through the first phase of the championship.

There would also be clarity for promoted teams from Division Three. Down beat All-Ireland finalists Donegal but knew as soon as they took the field in Clones they would have to also beat Armagh were they to escape the Tier 2 Tailteann Cup. They didn’t.

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Replacing the provincials with the league would obviate the anti-meritocratic possibility of lower division teams getting to provincial finals and gazumping the hard-earned status of the top 16 counties – with due respect for Westmeath’s impressive defeats of two Sam Maguire opponents.

It would also mean there was no further need to bend the All-Ireland pathway around an increasingly irrelevant landmark.

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