Divisions of labour: How Kerry's unusual championship structure helps them along

SEPTEMBER ROAD: EVERY county has their own club competition structure - for both senior hurling and senior football.

And the format varies wildly – from counties that feature straight knock-out games from the off, to a county which, after 60 senior championship games over a summer, had managed to exclude no more than four teams.

Each county believes they have the right domestic formula to maximise the performances of their respective intercounty squads. There's no doubt that there's a transfer between club and county, with much of the argument concerning the balance between quality and quantity.

For example, there are 32 senior hurling clubs in Tipperary.

There are 12 in Kilkenny.

In Tipperary, at least 20 clubs enter the competition each year knowing that they have no chance of reaching the latter stages of the competition. In Kilkenny there are few, if any, mismatches.

In Dublin, the hurling championship is now being played on a knockout basis in order to have a representative from the county in the 2011 Leinster championship. The senior football championship in the county gives second chances to the early round losers, though, naturally enough perhaps, everything is on hold until after next Sunday – at which stage panic will set in.

However, perhaps Kerry has the most unusual senior football championship of all. And it's one that surely significantly contributes to the success of the county.

Kerry has two club football championships.

The principal one is reserved for the major clubs in the county – Laune Rangers, Kerins O'Rahillys, Austin Stacks, Dr Crokes etc. And those teams are joined in the competition by several divisional sides – Mid Kerry, South Kerry, West Kerry and East Kerry.

The big advantage from the county team's point of view is that players compete in far higher quality fare than would be otherwise the case.

For example, while they play for their three respective individual clubs in other competitions, when it comes to the Kerry senior football championship, Bryan Sheehan (pictured) of St Mary's, Killian Young of Renard and Declan O'Sullivan of Dromid Pearses are part of the same team – South Kerry, winners of the county title in four of the past seven seasons.

That's quality.

And in Croke Park next Sunday, when Young knocks the ball over to Sheehan and he picks out O'Sullivan for a vital score – that'll be partly due to the senior football championship structure in Kerry.

A BIG SPREAD

WE should always be proud of the fact that the GAA’s football and hurling heroes come from parishes and towns in the counties theY represent.

Without trying to sound smug (though it probably still does), if we wanted to show, say, where the Chelsea or Manchester City squads came from, we’d need a map of the world.

It is one of our sport’s greatest strengths and one of the strongest arguments against the GAA going down the path of professionalism.

Not all the players we’ve listed in the Dublin and Kerry panels will be named in the match-day squad for the All-Ireland football final.

Despite all the training sessions, a few will fall just outside the bench and will have to be content with a watching brief – though they’ve certainly done enough to be included in our lists.

By our count, 17 clubs are represented in the Dublin squad, with 22 different clubs sending at least one player to the Kerry set-up.

We just hope we haven’t forgotten anyone.