It says plenty about the health of the provincial football championships that almost one week on from the draws for the 2023 editions the most compelling plotline remains where the ripples from one side of the Connacht SFC will roll ashore.
On the back of the draw the season ahead has opened up for Sligo, London, Leitrim and New York – with one of the quartet guaranteed a place in the newly-formatted All-Ireland senior football championship in 2023. The fallout means the big losers will be one of the teams in a higher division who had pinned their hopes on a solid league position being enough for them to qualify for the Sam Maguire competition.
Sligo boss Tony McEntee has been a strong proponent for the Tailteann Cup, and remains so, but he sees the draw as a massive opportunity for all of the teams on their side in Connacht to make progress.
“This is entirely a win-win situation,” he said. “There is no bad side to this draw for any of those four teams; there are positives no matter which way you go. And in a year when we as a group are looking to try and progress in the league and progress in the championship, I think the draw allows that.
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“I’m absolutely delighted with it, and I would love to believe that the players in Sligo are equally as enthusiastic about it, and not just the players we had in the panel already but maybe some others who are considering joining and would now look at this and say, ‘it’s potentially a really exciting year ahead for Sligo football.’ So it is hugely positive.”
Sligo will face London in one Connacht quarter-final next year, while New York host Leitrim in the other, with the respective winners meeting in a provincial semi-final.
The map ahead is straightforward for Sligo, who are in Division Four, should they advance to the Connacht final they will play in the All-Ireland series but should they fall short of that they will enter the Tailteann Cup.
“The big thing about the Tailteann Cup is it allows you to play games when normally you wouldn’t have any games to play,” added McEntee. “For instance, in the past you might have got beaten by Mayo in your first game in Connacht and then lose to the likes of Armagh in the back door, and then your season was done.
“The Tailteann Cup this year offered us the opportunity to get consecutive games in summer against teams that were close to our own level. So I was and still remain a very favourable advocate of the Tailteann Cup. What the draw has thrown up is that the four teams on our side have the opportunity of getting to a Connacht final and therefore ruling themselves out of the Tailteann Cup. It is not a reflection of the Tailteann Cup, but that is a positive as that team that succeeds will play three games in Connacht and then progress to play in the All-Ireland.”
The long-term future of the Tailteann Cup remains to be seen, but in its short existence it has so far shown to have more staying power than two British prime ministers and counting.
McEntee feels the second-tier competition still has an important role to play for counties like Sligo, though that doesn’t necessarily mean they should put limits on their aspirations.
“Either way it’s more games, and that’s brilliant. The problem for the lower-ranked teams is simply that they don’t get the games, they don’t get the exposure, and they don’t get the length of time in a season as the higher-ranked teams. So this is a great opportunity. Should Sligo not get to a Connacht final, we’d still have the Tailteann Cup, we still get the opportunity, not only to compete and win something, but, importantly, to get more games.”
Before all of that McEntee will be at the Athletic Grounds this Sunday watching Crossmaglen Rangers face Granemore in the Armagh SFC final. McEntee, a former Crossmaglen player and joint manager, hopes his club can climb back to the top of the mountain in Armagh. Cross, with 45 titles, are the dominant force in Armagh football but they lost the last two finals, so are aiming for a first triumph since 2019.
This is Granemore’s first final appearance, so it is very much your stock David versus Goliath battle, only one in which David is blindfolded, hands bound, plonked in quicksand and Liz Truss is his strategist.
“I think we’re fine in that space of being comfortable in relation to the tag of favourites,” said McEntee of Crossmaglen’s chances. “The issue here is turning up on the day and performing. If we do that and build on our semi-final performance, then it’s a game we hopefully should win.”
