Work group unlikely to change football qualifiers

The All-Ireland football qualifiers are set to follow a similar format for at least the next two years.

The football competitions work group responsible for the first major review of the qualifiers since their introduction six seasons ago will finalise a draft proposal next week, with any suggested changes going before the GAA's Special Congress in October.

Early indications are those changes will be minimal. Attendances across the four rounds have now levelled out at a satisfactory level, and attendances at all four fourth round games this past weekend in fact surpassed last year's figures.

Despite some calls for sweeping changes, the feeling is there's no need to fix what isn't broken. "I wouldn't anticipate a major shake up," says Pauric Duffy, the chairman of the work group, and who also chaired the committee that came up with the original qualifier formula in late 2000.

"We've been looking at the entire picture. Not just this summer, but the past five summers as well. We still have one more meeting before we finalise any of our decisions."

Along with Duffy, the work group consists of former Dublin manager Tommy Lyons; the Tipperary manager Séamus McCarthy; two recently retired players, Dara Ó Cinnéide of Kerry and Kevin O'Brien of Wicklow; the Mayo secretary, Seán Feeney; and the Down chairman, Jerry Quinn.

Their fourth and final meeting is scheduled for next Wednesday, with their draft proposal to be published soon afterwards for the consideration of all participating counties. Their proposals may also include changes to the football league format.

"I think it's been a very good committee," adds Duffy. "The input from the two former players has been excellent. Tommy Lyons has brought in a good club and county perspective and Séamus McCarthy has brought in something as manager of a weaker county. Plus the two county officials as well. So that has made it very balanced, and that has been reflected in the discussions.

"We've covered every angle - strong counties and weaker counties, clubs and so on. We've also taken on board some of the concerns that are out there, say with the first round matches, but I can't get more specific than that at this stage.

"The one thing I would say is that I'm very supportive of playing matches at home venues. In fairness that was always the plan, to play as many games at home venues as possible, although in the previous few years that didn't happen too often. So I think the policy this year of using home venues definitely worked.

"While some of the football we saw at the games at the weekend wasn't hectic, the atmosphere in all matches seemed to be very good. And I suspect the atmosphere of all four games was lifted enormously by the fact that they were at home venues for one of the teams involved."

There was some surprise last month when Roscommon manager John Maughan called for the qualifiers to be done away with, and the championship returned to its strict knock-out format.

That obviously won't be happening given the wider acceptance of the qualifiers, although Duffy also hinted that the work group's hands were largely tied as long as the provincial system remains - and looks set to remain for a long time to come.

The Hurling Development Committee (HDC) - under chairman Ned Quinn of Kilkenny - is responsible for the review of the hurling championship, which has come in for wider criticism this year. Their task of redesigning both league and championship is seen as more difficult, again with the existing provincial championships limiting the room for manoeuvre.

With those provincial competitions set to remain sacred into the foreseeable future, the HDC's main task has been to come up with an improved qualifier system, which currently sees eight teams play off in a round-robin series for a place in the All-Ireland quarter-finals.