Survival instinct of clubs has caused too many dead rubber games

 

KEVIN EGAN contends that the format of the various Offaly club championships involves too many meaningless games where nothing tangible is at stake.

 

Regardless of where you find yourself in life, there are some fundamentally human traits that you share with more or less everyone else. None of these traits run deeper than the instinct for survival. Honed over millennia by the process of evolution, there are thousands of tiny little ways that the human body functions, each of which are designed to maximise our chances of surviving, multiplying and prospering.

Yet the thing about evolution is that it moves slowly. As a result, quite often it struggles to keep up with the changing world around us. The perfect example is in the area of nutrition; if you were to eat say, one extra potato or spoonful of rice tomorrow and not use up that energy, the body will save it up for tomorrow, or as was more often the case, the upcoming winter. Whatever calories aren’t used will be converted to fat and helpfully stored around our midriffs, or some other equally elegant location.

Many millennia ago, this was undoubtedly very useful. Indeed for some hibernating animals like badgers and squirrels, it remains useful. However globally, we’ve already gone past the point where more people die from obesity-related causes than from malnutrition. In Ireland, barely a handful of people die from a lack of carbohydrates and fats, yet thousands die every year from various chronic diseases that are either caused by or exacerbated by excessive weight.

Without question we would be better served by a digestive system that stores energy for the short term only and discharges the rest. Yet in this area we are snookered by our survival instinct, which has given us a system designed for cavemen.

No doubt by now you’re wondering how all of this relates to sport, but a quick look at the fixtures for this weekend’s senior football championship – and indeed next week’s hurling – illustrates how the survival instinct is killing us all.

Earlier this year a system was proposed to clubs in Offaly whereby instead of four teams out of six reaching the knockout stages, just three would progress. This would put more pressure on teams to perform well in group stages, it would reward the teams who finish top of their group and it would breathe life into the round robin stages of both championships.

However, guided by a sense of worry about their own prospects and a fear of finishing fourth, clubs rejected these proposals and opted for the status quo. The fruits of this decision are to be seen both this weekend and next, in the upcoming fixtures in the local football and hurling championships.

Last year, the football championship quarter-final line-up was decided before the final round of games and this year there are several dead games to be found, though at least there are plenty with a lot at stake. The situation in the senior hurling championship is even worse.

Birr's win over Drumcullen means the quarter-final teams are known before the final round – clubs will be playing for nothing other than position. As we go down through the intermediate and junior championships, these situations are repeated.

This is in no-one’s interest and clubs badly need to rethink about whether such a lifeless round robin stage is a price worth paying for giving eight clubs access to the quarter-finals.

When Offaly first moved from a four team group system to a six team group system, the idea was that it would give clubs more games and this should suit club players. To give credit where it’s due, club players in Offaly do reasonably well in terms of games relative to other counties – however that isn’t necessarily leading to an increase in quality. Fixtures for the sake of fixtures don’t help anything.

Tullamore hurlers, not for the first time, appear to be doing their best to illustrate how a team will do their best when there is a reward for doing so, then tune out when there is nothing at stake. Their place in the knockout stages was assured when they beat Drumcullen and Brosna Gaels in the first two rounds and since then they’ve been desperately poor. Yet nobody expects them to be anything short of fiercely competitive when their quarter-final throws in.

A return to straight knockout is not the right answer for anyone, but there simply must be a reward for winning games. Many counties employ a backdoor system where any club that loses two games is out and that may be a little harsh too, but there are alternatives.

Three out of six would be an improvement, while another alternative could be three open draw rounds, where any team that loses three out of three is eliminated, and any team that wins three out of three progresses to knockout action. Those left in the middle continue to play off until they either win three in total and go through, or lose three and go out. Until you’re out, you always have a chance.

As a general rule, clubs, somewhat understandably, have a tendency to look out for themselves rather than the bigger picture. Consequently it has come about that small clubs and small counties are less inclined to favour the black card rule, while those with more subs to call upon will be easily persuaded to support the change.

Clubs with lots of dual players will look for big gaps between hurling and football ties; while clubs that play one code only often suggest easing fixture congestion by playing the two sports closer together, or on the one weekend.

The survival instinct in us is hard wired and changing that instinct won’t be easy. But as we look at some of the unappealing fixtures that will be played this weekend and next, clearly it’s time to start looking beyond survival and towards actually making the whole system better. We don’t live in caves any longer.