DESSIE FARRELL HAS again called for a review of the provincial championships after his Dublin side’s demolition of Louth in today’s Leinster senior football final.
Both during his time as GPA chief and as Dublin manager, Farrell has urged the GAA to scrap, or rather rethink, the competitions.
The Dubs powered to their 13th consecutive Leinster crown via a 5-21 to 0-15 drubbing of the Wee county at Croke Park, and Farrell addressed the need for change afterwards.
“The GAA won’t need me to tell them this, of course,” he told reporters, with one-sided deciders also taking place in Munster and Connacht this season. “For years, I’ve been banging that particular drum.
“I get it, it’s quite political. Provincial councils have been established a long time and feel they have a role and responsibility, and that their contribution is important to the GAA. While that is definitely the case, I think it’s probably time to have a proper review of the competition and see who does this benefit, these big wins, big discrepancies between teams? Is there a better mixture?
“My tune hasn’t changed on that in a number of years but this year is slightly different in terms of we’re now going to step into the real competition I think. That’s going to be very interesting and very exciting. It’s hard to accommodate everybody, I get that, and I’m sure it’s very much on the GAA, Central Council and Congress’ own radar in terms of what to do with the provincial competitions. It’s something I’m sure they’re going to look at.”
Asked a follow-up question about what’s best for Dublin and how their stranglehold on Leinster doesn’t exactly help them, Farrell continued:
“It didn’t help Dublin playing in Division 2 this year, never mind the provincial title. Obviously with our Dublin hat on, we’re very conscious of how our season has gone thus far and while today was very pleasing, we still have only played Division 2 or Division 4 teams so far this season. There’s a big step up in class coming at us very quickly.
“We’ve Roscommon in two weeks now, they’ve been highly impressive all season and have some really good games under the belts against stiff competition, that we have maybe yet to face bar two weeks ago against Kildare. That’s going to be a challenge for us and we need to be ready for that.”
The Lilywhites also join them in Group 3 of the All-Ireland series, along with Sligo.
Meanwhile, Farrell confirmed that Jack McCaffrey’s first-half withdrawal was an injury precaution. “He had an awareness of something going on. It’s not too bad, thankfully, I think he’s going to be okay.”
He added that Mick Fitzsimons (exams), Eoin Murchan and Evan Comerford (both injury) should be available soon.
And his assessment of today, Dublin’s 39th win on the spin in Leinster? “Overall, happy with the performance. You probably couldn’t not be,” Farrell concluded.
“The first 10 minutes, I don’t know what it was but we weren’t at ourselves. Once we settled into the game, we got a fairly sustained period of dominance in that first half that we capitalised on. That set us up, that was the making of it. Louth got the last three scores before half time, a timely reminder to us of what they’re capable of doing if we took the foot off the gas. We had to guard against complacency and, by and large, I think we kept the intensity quite high throughout that second half. That was pleasing.”