One of the fears that swept the more traditionally minded this season was the prospect of a county winning an All-Ireland having lost a slew of matches along the way. This anxiety became incarnate in the Derry footballers, who threatened — all going badly — to become the first champions to have lost three times en route.
This never happened of course, as the flaws, which caused them to lose their first three championship engagements were also evident in their ultimate defeat by Kerry in the quarter-finals.
Were, or are, the reservations valid? Aesthetically, maybe but otherwise, no. Rules are rules and everyone sets out on the same road, knowing what needs to be done to advance to the All-Ireland final.
The abundant forgiveness built into the current formats is simply a way of providing additional matches for teams, and also, in football, avoiding the dread of dead rubbers.
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Naturally, this has turned out to be subject to another of the GAA’s great traditions, the pendulum effect. For every initiative taken, a superseding initiative — often diametrically opposed to the first — will be implemented within three years.
Already, after two iterations, the mood has shifted from concern at dead rubbers to outcry over “lack of jeopardy”. This will probably be addressed for next year — and presumably, off we go again.
It’s possibly a surprising statistic but since championship reform began in earnest 27 years ago with the readmission of defeated provincial hurling finalists, there have been only four years when neither the football nor hurling All-Ireland has featured a previously defeated team.
This year will be the third, after 2008 and 2010, in which three of the four All-Ireland teams have lost matches along the way: Armagh, on penalties, in the Ulster final plus both hurling counties, Clare and Cork. The latter two create another piece of history by becoming the first two finalists to have lost two matches earlier in the campaign. In all, 12 counties have won All-Irelands, having lost along the way.
I well remember the reactions to the first reform, in 1997, and the criticism that it placed unfair pressure on provincial winners, potentially having to beat the same opponents twice.
Some regarded any departure from pure knock-out as heresy. Ulster hurling people who made annual pilgrimages to the Munster final swore that they wouldn’t be bothered ever again now that the losing team would survive into the championship.
Maybe for such sensitivities, it was a bit soon, but we ended up with a Clare v Tipperary All-Ireland final in the very first year, a rematch of the Munster decider earlier in the summer. Clare won by a point — the first time in 37 years that a hurling final ended with the minimum separating the teams — and survived a late scare when John Leahy’s point-blank shot was saved by David Fitzgerald.
A year later it happened again and this time the tables were turned in dramatic fashion. Offaly’s defeat by Kilkenny in the Leinster final was followed by a change of manager after Michael Keating stepped down and was replaced by Michael Bond, who directed the comeback, which included three matches against Clare and revenge on Kilkenny in the All-Ireland final.
An unusual postscript saw Offaly unavailingly oppose the new format, which had made their victory possible, at October’s special congress in Rosslare.
Change came to football two years later when another special congress gave the go-ahead for the introduction of the All-Ireland qualifier series, allowing all competing teams a second chance — apart from the four provincial champions.
Again, this displeased more traditional delegates. Jack Mahon, public relations officer of the Galway football board and 1956 All-Ireland winner, acknowledged that his cause was futile and said that he felt he was “standing in the dyke against a torrent”.
He, however, reiterated his belief in the knock-out format. “When you win, you win and when you lose, you lose.”
As in hurling, football’s first year of innovation ended with All-Ireland champions, who had been defeated in their province — Galway, whose modern successors take on beaten Ulster finalists Armagh in 11 days’ time in this year’s final.
Football would have its first intra-provincial All-Ireland in 2003 when champions Armagh, who had lost their first match in Ulster to Monaghan faced eventual winners, Tyrone. The counties had not played earlier in the season.
Cork and Kerry contested two All-Ireland finals, both won by Kerry, but only the first — in 2007 — was a rerun of the Munster final.
Twenty years ago, Cork and Kilkenny became the first hurling finalists to have each lost in the provincial championship, just as nine years later Cork and Clare became the first two hurling finalists not even to have reached a provincial final.
In 2013, Limerick had won the Munster title only to see two fellow provincials pass them out — Clare, literally by beating them in the All-Ireland semi-final — to get to the championship finale.
That year’s final drew admiring glances from an unusual source, the Guardian, when the English newspaper devoted an editorial to the replay, won by Clare, which having drawn approving contrasts with the antics of professional soccer players, concluded: “ ... the hand-eye co-ordination and the courage and commitment of Cork and Clare were a shining example of sportsmanship.”
Twenty-eight years on from the original decision to broaden the championship by diluting the finality of the sudden-death format, it is testament to its success that nobody questions All-Irelands any more because the champions have been beaten along the way.
Finalists have all been tempered in the fires of often epic semi-finals and deserve their place on the big stage, as well as the chance to join the most storied rolls of honour in national sport.
