arock (Dublin) - Posts: 4896 - 08/08/2017 22:37:07    2031354

Get their meals provided, listen I am in Abbottstown quite a bit - a lot actually and you would be surprised how many counties train there and how many of these have their catering provided and I am not talking the so-called top four. But meals now not seven days a week, maybe once a week and the food - well if your into that sort of thing (who'd be an Inter-county player!). They all get it top to bottom end of, I see it week in week out. The amount of money needlessly wasted is staggering at Inter-county level. It won't make a blind bit of difference as long as the current playing structures exist it will now churn up the same four year in year out.

arock (Dublin) - Posts: 4896 - 08/08/2017 22:47:22    2031361

The weaker counties at this point would want to be spending the €1M on development and not blowing all on their current county teams. Academies for developing youth players, schools coaches, coaching development at club level. When the well dried up for Dublin in the 90's they pulled it together by investing from the bottom up. A lot of work went in behind the scenes by people like Dessie Farrell and they are reaping the rewards now. Some smaller counties may have to work together to achieve this. The likes of Longford and Westmeath could combine in terms of developmental basis by getting larger numbers together it makes the investment more worth while rather than throwing money at counties on an individual basis. The have nots will always like a cut at the haves though and by having an elitist competition like the super 8 you marginalise those teams that relish the underdog status. If you asked any of the Tipp footballers who got to a semi last year would they prefer to be in tier 2 what do you think they would say?

Chops (Westmeath) - Posts: 775 - 08/08/2017 23:18:33    2031376

It costs 750k to 1M per year to prepare a senior team where they have a chance of being competitive to the level of the current Top 4 and that has to be recurring over a sustained period.

The GAA desperately needs a substantial number of counties to be delusional enough to chase this as they will not get away too many more times with the combined audience of 187,000 that attended this years 5 Q-finals ( and i know, i know there wont be q finals next year ).

It is going to be harder and harder sell the dream to the people who have to turn around and try to raise the money to put the required funding in place. A good number of counties have already given up , the rest of us are probably delusional but for how long more ?

facethepuckout (Roscommon) - Posts: 214 - 10/08/2017 22:58:45    2032180