Joe Molloy was joined by Cliona Foley and Mick O’Keefe on the Sunday Paper Review to discuss the positives of the incoming Super 8s in Gaelic football.
This season’s All-Ireland football quarter-finals will be replaced by the Super 8s – where the last eight teams in the championship will be placed into two groups of four teams.
The change means the best teams will play against each other more often with spectators expecting to see more competitive encounters. But the teams who fail to reach the last eight are likely to fall behind the leading pack.
Mick O’Keefe, however, believes the changes to the competition are something to get fully behind.
“We don’t live in a communist society and unfortunately there are teams with bigger populations and bigger resources who are going to compete at a higher level,” O’Keefe said.
“The Super 8s is a stepping stone to a new structure and the GAA being the GAA have to move slowly. I think there’s an acceptance now that we need a tiered championship.
“We have it in club football with junior and intermediate championships. Whatever way you want to look at it, there aren’t 32 or 34 senior championship teams in football. And I think that’s a massive problem.
“In hurling, we’ve stumbled upon a structure that is sort of a north-south divisions that are kind of the same. And in hurling there’s an acceptance that all teams are not equal.
“I think Super 8s is fantastic. The changes in hurling have been welcomed in general in the hurling championship.”
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Written by James Hopper
