Later this week, the GAA annual congress will rubber stamp a new football championship structure for 2023 – one which gives the national league a significant role as gatekeeper of the All-Ireland series.
Lest we forget, however, that role gets off to an early start this year with teams in the twilight zone between Divisions Two and Three already subject to nagging anxieties as to whether they’ll be contesting the Sam Maguire or the newly introduced Tier Two Tailteann Cup.
For all that the more radical relocation of the league to the summer was ultimately rejected, the competition has grown and grown in importance from an activity for counties between championships to a central part of how those same championships are organised.
The modern evolution of the league started more than 20 years ago with the introduction of the calendar-year season.
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Instead of a meandering schedule that started just after the All-Irelands had concluded and wended its way through to May – its potentially idle weekends invariably filled by a never-ending need for playoffs – came a shorter, sharper timetable, which conditioned the competing counties for what lay ahead.
Now, it will determine – or limit – the horizons of many.
This year is already a test case in relation to the split season. We may have seen it in action during the straitened circumstances of the past two years but this is the first full run of a schedule that ends before July.
In order to compress the intercounty season, there is little room for reflection. Already, weather has forced postponements and although there is a gap weekend coming, this was a reminder that there isn’t an abundance of options in the face of further disruption.
Páirc Tailteann in Navan played host to a bizarre match, as play gusted around the pitch to complicate the already worrisome task of getting clear of the Division Two relegation zone for Meath and Down. Big issues will come down to less than ideal environments.
The third-level competitions have come and gone, run off for the most part like a blitz and for some players, like a distraction from their intercounty commitments. Colleges are reluctant to crack the whip on scholarships despite the requirement for such students to prioritise Fitzgibbon, Sigerson or the other competitions.
They could do with help from the GAA in ring-fencing students for college competitions and so remove any element of choice. Yet for all the scholarships, facilities and clubs developed by the third-level sector, Croke Park has become less and less interested in accommodating, let alone protecting the elite college competitions.
The new problem is that league matches can no longer be boxed as essentially preparation for championship. The consequences reach all the way into counties’ long-term fortunes so it becomes harder to hive off players in order to allow priority for Sigerson.
Then there’s the league as a general determinant and not just a frontier between Tier One and Tier Two.
Since the divisions went hierarchical in 2008, no county from outside Division One has actually won the All-Ireland and just two, including Mayo last year, have even got to the final.
In fact since the calendar year was inaugurated 20 years ago, only in its first iteration did the eventual All-Ireland champions, Armagh, come from outside the top flight.
Even that was freakish. All-Ireland finalists Armagh and Kerry were in Division Two and although both were promoted, Kerry lost to Limerick and Louth in their divisional campaign but from that year on, there was no deviation from Division One teams winning Sam Maguire.
It’s why Dublin are well advised not to disregard their league status. They may have won the All-Ireland in 1995 after being relegated but the more recent precedents, as spelled out above, are clear in their message.
The county is in historically dire straits. Only five times previously has Dublin lost the first three matches of a league campaign. Just once, in 1972-73 did they go on to lose a fourth. The fifth match saw them beat Kildare but both counties were relegated.
The most recent examples in 2000-01 and 1986-87 offer some hope in that the first year they recovered and escaped relegation and 35 years ago the recovery was so complete that they ended up beating Kerry in the 1987 league final.
In two previous years Dublin managed to go without a win in their first five matches. In the second year of the competition, 1927-28, they drew with Cavan and lost to Kildare, Meath, Down and Louth.
In 1983-84, as All-Ireland champions, Dublin drew with Meath and Kerry but lost to Offaly, Down and Cork. The next match, they beat Kildare but again both were relegated.
Next Sunday they once more head for Kildare trying to halt a bad run. The problem is that any encouraging precedents are outdated. It’s no longer ‘just’ the league.
