Tyrone manager Mickey Harte has called for a change in the structure of the All-Ireland football championship as it currently stands.
Tyrone were one of the four provincial championship winners who were defeated this weekend by teams who came through the qualifier system. Provincial final losers Sligo, Monaghan, Louth and Limerick were all beaten in Round 4 of the qualifiers, meaning that none of the sides that featured in the four provincial finals have made it to the last four of the championship.
Speaking in the wake of Tyrone’s defeat to Dublin of the weekend, Harte vented his feelings on the matter and reiterated his support for a Dublin motion which proposed a second chance for provincial final winners, a motion which was defeated at Congress earlier in the year.
“I think it’s unfair that the provincial champions don’t get a second chance,” said Harte.
“(The Dublin proposal) validates becoming provincial champions. It gives some substance to that. It gives the provincial champions a second chance short of the semi-finals, where no one gets a second chance anyway. It places provincial title status on a higher plain than where it is at the moment.
“In our premier competition this year none of the four champions have made the semi-finals and that doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.”
Harte added that he has had strong feelings about this matter for some time and was quick to point out that it wasn’t simply a reaction to being knocked out of the championship by Dublin.
“This not about Tyrone,†he said.
“I said the same thing when Dublin won five Leinster titles in a row and got no second chance at all. It’s about the system; it’s about the principle of the thing.
“Everyone knows that when you get beaten in the competition, it’s great to be able to regroup in a short space of time again and have another go at it.
“If you get beaten as a provincial champion you have to wait a year to recover from that. That has to be rectified. At the moment you have many people saying, ‘Is it a good idea to win your provincial title? Are you better off getting beaten?’
“We’ve been on that road ourselves and have benefited by all means. I still think we could satisfy all criteria by allowing the other system to prevail as well. You win your provincial title; you scarcely have time to enjoy it and next thing you are gone from the big prize. That’s not fair.”
