Lesser lights takes small steps forward

It's been a hectic few weeks for First Division clubs with all 10 having played a couple of rounds of midweek games over the past few weeks as they try to make a dent in their new, 36-match schedule.

Travelling to games on weekdays has already proven to be a strain for the majority of clubs, with arrangements to get players off work causing some concern, but generally the feeling has been that the new format is a step forward.

On the face of it, extending a league that few people have shown much interest in didn't look to be a particularly attractive option. True the Shield had become increasingly marginalised. And the fact that teams play each other home and away twice, rather than three times a season, is to be welcomed. Yet the league hasn't addressed that problem in the Premier Division. Most people would have supported a far more radical reappraisal of the current two-tier league system. It is only the inability of the clubs to agree on an alternative structure (although given the bizarre alternative they were offered at last season's league a.g.m. that's hardly surprising) that has kept the current structure in place, more or less unaltered, for the past 13 years.

The only clubs who consistently support the present system tend to be those who suspect that its passing might result in the demise of their league status. Most of the other arguments - most notably the one centred on the need for promotion and relegation battles in order to stir up interest in the game - have bitten the dust over the years.

While the First Division clubs are desperate to play the country's biggest clubs on a regular basis, however, the Premier Division's leading members are equally desperate to avoid entertaining their poorer relations.

Given that situation, it is more crucial for our worst-off clubs to make progress on and off the field if new overall structures are to be agreed. The new First Division structures seem to be aiding and abetting that process of self-improvement.

For one thing we appear in store for one of the most competitive promotion battle for many years. For the moment, Athlone are struggling but given their unexpected change of manager, that is hardly surprising. They seem unlikely to take the sort of whipping at the bottom of the table that Longford Town suffered last season.

Meanwhile, Longford, in addition to reaching the quarter-finals of the League Cup for the first time, underlined their ability to take on the best sides in the division over the weekend by drawing 1-1 in Galway. United, who briefly looked like being this season's runaway successes have, despite remaining unbeaten, now been hauled back after three draws in four outings.

Just about every team has produced starkly contrasting results in the opening weeks of the campaign and there is little doubt that the standard, most notably of last season's lower-placed clubs, has improved.

Some of the clubs still have a long way to go off the pitch, with facilities at grounds like Rathbane and Strokestown Road still a long way short of what is being talked about in some circles as the minimum requirements for membership of a revamped league.

Should crowds increase at the majority of First Division games over the coming months and if the division's sides can continue to show - as Galway and Longford did in their recent League Cup quarter-finals - that they can perform solidly against Premier Division clubs, all 10 clubs will enter any future negotiations for a reorganisation of the league in a far stronger position.

Perhaps even more important is the continued success of Bray and Waterford in the top flight this season. Few would have expected last year's promotion winners to be third and fifth at this stage of the season.

Fewer still would have expected that Bohemians would be last in the table, with Dundalk, Shelbourne and Shamrock Rovers languishing close by.

If - okay it's a big if - Pat Devlin and Tommy Lynch's sides were both to stay up and two (even three of the other four) were to go down, next season's league a.g.m. might well be a lot less sleepy than the one that took place in Dublin at the start of the summer.