THEY SAY THAT just like the measles, love is at its most dangerous when it comes late in life.
If the Allianz Football League could find a voice for its broken heart, it most likely would concur.
It has gone through all the phases of courtship, but commitment remains elusive.
There was a time a couple of decades back that the league was dated on the cheap, taken out for a couple of boozy evenings pre-Christmas just to kill time, with a few shapes thrown closer to the summer, but never any pretence that something serious was at play.
In his Kerry managerial pomp, Mick O’Dwyer was adamant about two things: Cork were the second best team in the country and the National League was very much a secondary competition. He was deadly serious about one of those.
Along the way the mood music changed, not least when the GAA imposed a curfew on stepping out in the autumn, and offered clear lines of a merit-based hierarchy by streamlining it into four divisions in 2008.
It cast it in a new light, in the process teasing endearments of affection which no longer made inter-county managers blush.
The league was the one relationship that worked, they admitted, because it pitched teams of equal ability against each other. It shone a light of democracy into the darkness of the lower tiers, giving the summer wallflowers something to dance for, and at the top, the best teams in the land got the chance to hop off each other in high-end games, a bit like an Ulster Championship Open played in spring.
In the process, it also shone an unforgiving spotlight on the championship, revealing it to be an arranged marriage within ill-fitting provincial boundaries, where one in four couplings work on average and the others are regularly marked by public displays of humiliation.
It led to a potential tipping point a few years back when there was talk and a vote that offered the spring mistress a chance to be upgraded to a summer spouse, but the provincial traditionalists held sway.
Once more, the league was killed with kind words and a form of civil partnership, with a commitment that for the first time league and championship status would be linked. Well, kind of anyway.
But here we are now four years on and the league could be forgiven for thinking that it is back in the bawdry days of William Trevor’s Ballroom of Romance, with the commitments made to it seeming about as genuine as Bowser Egan’s beery pursuit of Bridie.
Donegal's Michael Murphy and Tyrone's Niall Morgan do battle in the penultimate round of football league fixtures. Bryan Keane / INPHO
Bryan Keane / INPHO / INPHO
Last weekend, Leitrim did not even take to the floor, citing an injury crisis and an U20 match that had been in their diary for an age, in the process throwing Division 3 into disrepute.
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Meanwhile, up in Division 1, it had all the feel of a slow bicycle race, as most teams continued to fight for the optimum position, which is somewhere above the drop zone but not too far above it, just in case you fall into the final by accident.
It is the perverse measure of league success which Ruben Amorim’s Manchester United is built for.
And now we head for the final weekend, full to the brim of permutations and possibilities, but Super Super Sunday it is not, even though it could be.
The proximity to the championship would not be an issue if the decision was taken to drop the top-tier finals that so many are desperate to avoid, yet curiously no one wants to give up.
Twice in recent seasons, the GAA was thwarted in its bid to do that by counties who speaking through one side of their mouth insist on wanting to keep every competition going, including the pre-season and Oireachtas Cup if they could, and with the other complain about how outrageously condensed the season has become. Go figure.
The argument for their retention is that it provides a rare vehicle for Division 3 and 4 counties to play in a national final in Croke Park, but if that is the strongest case to be made, why not just limit the finals to those tiers?
As for that much-hyped link between league and championship, which is centred exclusively on Division 2 and 3, it has been fatally undermined by the continued subservience to the provincial championships.
Jordan Morris and Meath are still chasing promotion to Division 1. James Lawlor / INPHO
James Lawlor / INPHO / INPHO
This weekend may be the final round of the league, but it will be weeks before those who finish just above the relegation zone in Division 2 and those who are promoted from Division 3 will know whether they are playing in the Sam Maguire or Tailteann Cup.
A stipulation that only provincial champions – excluding provincial finalists – would qualify for the Sam Maguire would go a long way to removing that uncertainty.
In 2023, Meath survived in Division 2 yet still ended up being demoted to the Tailteann Cup.
Last year, Down beat Clare by 11 points in a final round Division 3 promotion fixture, but were still demoted to the Tailteann Cup simply because Clare beat a bottom of Division 4 team in Waterford in the Munster championship.
What does that do for the integrity of the championship or the league?
At the very least, league status should be deployed to seed teams in the provincial championships.
But it is that neglect of detail which makes the love showered on the league feel like sweet whispered nothings.
The danger was in believing them to be something of substance.
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This weekend should be GAA Super Sunday - but the league remains an unloved mistress
THEY SAY THAT just like the measles, love is at its most dangerous when it comes late in life.
If the Allianz Football League could find a voice for its broken heart, it most likely would concur.
It has gone through all the phases of courtship, but commitment remains elusive.
There was a time a couple of decades back that the league was dated on the cheap, taken out for a couple of boozy evenings pre-Christmas just to kill time, with a few shapes thrown closer to the summer, but never any pretence that something serious was at play.
In his Kerry managerial pomp, Mick O’Dwyer was adamant about two things: Cork were the second best team in the country and the National League was very much a secondary competition. He was deadly serious about one of those.
Along the way the mood music changed, not least when the GAA imposed a curfew on stepping out in the autumn, and offered clear lines of a merit-based hierarchy by streamlining it into four divisions in 2008.
It cast it in a new light, in the process teasing endearments of affection which no longer made inter-county managers blush.
The league was the one relationship that worked, they admitted, because it pitched teams of equal ability against each other. It shone a light of democracy into the darkness of the lower tiers, giving the summer wallflowers something to dance for, and at the top, the best teams in the land got the chance to hop off each other in high-end games, a bit like an Ulster Championship Open played in spring.
In the process, it also shone an unforgiving spotlight on the championship, revealing it to be an arranged marriage within ill-fitting provincial boundaries, where one in four couplings work on average and the others are regularly marked by public displays of humiliation.
It led to a potential tipping point a few years back when there was talk and a vote that offered the spring mistress a chance to be upgraded to a summer spouse, but the provincial traditionalists held sway.
Once more, the league was killed with kind words and a form of civil partnership, with a commitment that for the first time league and championship status would be linked. Well, kind of anyway.
But here we are now four years on and the league could be forgiven for thinking that it is back in the bawdry days of William Trevor’s Ballroom of Romance, with the commitments made to it seeming about as genuine as Bowser Egan’s beery pursuit of Bridie.
Last weekend, Leitrim did not even take to the floor, citing an injury crisis and an U20 match that had been in their diary for an age, in the process throwing Division 3 into disrepute.
Meanwhile, up in Division 1, it had all the feel of a slow bicycle race, as most teams continued to fight for the optimum position, which is somewhere above the drop zone but not too far above it, just in case you fall into the final by accident.
It is the perverse measure of league success which Ruben Amorim’s Manchester United is built for.
And now we head for the final weekend, full to the brim of permutations and possibilities, but Super Super Sunday it is not, even though it could be.
The proximity to the championship would not be an issue if the decision was taken to drop the top-tier finals that so many are desperate to avoid, yet curiously no one wants to give up.
Twice in recent seasons, the GAA was thwarted in its bid to do that by counties who speaking through one side of their mouth insist on wanting to keep every competition going, including the pre-season and Oireachtas Cup if they could, and with the other complain about how outrageously condensed the season has become. Go figure.
The argument for their retention is that it provides a rare vehicle for Division 3 and 4 counties to play in a national final in Croke Park, but if that is the strongest case to be made, why not just limit the finals to those tiers?
As for that much-hyped link between league and championship, which is centred exclusively on Division 2 and 3, it has been fatally undermined by the continued subservience to the provincial championships.
This weekend may be the final round of the league, but it will be weeks before those who finish just above the relegation zone in Division 2 and those who are promoted from Division 3 will know whether they are playing in the Sam Maguire or Tailteann Cup.
A stipulation that only provincial champions – excluding provincial finalists – would qualify for the Sam Maguire would go a long way to removing that uncertainty.
In 2023, Meath survived in Division 2 yet still ended up being demoted to the Tailteann Cup.
Last year, Down beat Clare by 11 points in a final round Division 3 promotion fixture, but were still demoted to the Tailteann Cup simply because Clare beat a bottom of Division 4 team in Waterford in the Munster championship.
What does that do for the integrity of the championship or the league?
At the very least, league status should be deployed to seed teams in the provincial championships.
But it is that neglect of detail which makes the love showered on the league feel like sweet whispered nothings.
The danger was in believing them to be something of substance.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
A league on its own GAA Gaelic Football