If you don’t have a clue how this year’s All-Ireland works, don’t be embarrassed. You are not alone.
There is a county committee self-help group out there for you. A degree in nuclear physics may be required though to work it all out, and a lot of patience, as the picture starts to become clearer in the coming weeks.
The eight provincial finalists this year will be the top eight seeds in the All-Ireland, with two in each group. After that it gets a lot messier.
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This is guesswork, but if any more than 5percent of GAA fans fully understood what happens next, that might be about the height of it.
Convoluted doesn’t come close to it.
We’d be pretty sure there are county secretaries and managers across the country who don’t fully understand it either.
There’s bound to be at least one story in the coming weeks of someone misunderstanding the system and it having major implications for their season.
Let’s give it a go.
The four provincial winners will be top seeds in separate groups. The beaten provincial finalists will be the second seeds.
Then the top four sides in the final Division 1 rankings, taking out any that make provincial finals will be the third seeds.
The next two highest finishing league sides, again taking out provincial finalists, will be fourth seeds along with Westmeath.
Westmeath, by virtue of being Tailteann Cup winners, are guaranteed a place in the 16 team All-Ireland.
The All-Ireland groups will be determined by a draw.
A quirk of the Connacht Championship draw means that one of Division 4 Leitrim, Sligo and London - or New York - will make a provincial final.
This, and Westmeath’s automatic entry, means two less places are available in the All-Ireland via the fourth seed league standings route.
You might already need a breather after that, but there’s plenty more to come. Here’s where it gets fun.
Final league standings coming into play, meaning that the top two promoted sides in Division 3 - currently Cavan and Fermanagh - will be ranked 15th and 16th in the race for All-Ireland spots.
(The Division 3 final winners will be ranked 15 and the losers 16, as opposed to final league placings).
This all means that due to the quirk of the Connacht draw and Division 3 Westmeath missing out on promotion to Division 2, the top two in Division 3 most likely won’t make the All-Ireland this summer.
That is, unless Cavan or Fermanagh themselves, or Westmeath, were to make a provincial final.
This would see them become a first or second seed, and free up another All-Ireland spot via league placings for the likes of a Kildare (6th in Division 2) and maybe even the Division 3 champions.
For the sides relegated from Division 2 - Limerick and Clare - it’s simple enough. You won’t hear that too often in this particular conversation.
They will be in the Tailteann Cup unless they reach a provincial final.
Clare face Cork in the Munster quarter-final with Limerick awaiting the winners in the semi-final, so there are possibilities for both.
The fifth and sixth placed sides in Division 2 are at risk of missing out on the All-Ireland. Hence the significance of this weekend’s Kildare/Meath encounter.
And if another Division 3 or 4 side - Down in Ulster perhaps, or Offaly in Leinster - make a provincial final, it would see another league spot in the All-Ireland go by the wayside.
Offaly are on the other side of the Leinster draw to Dublin and will fancy their chances of jumping out of the Tailteann Cup this summer.
This would put Kildare and Meath in severe danger of dropping into the Tailteann Cup.
We won’t know the full picture until April 30, the date the provincial final pairings are all decided, with a draw to determine groups to follow that.
There are other implications at play.
For example, with Ulster and Leinster paired up this year the Ulster champions will go into an All-Ireland group with the beaten Leinster finalists - and vica versa.
So the Ulster champions would probably avoid Dublin, but the beaten finalists would probably be in the same group as Dessie Farrell’s side.
The Connacht winners would avoid probable Munster champions Kerry in the round robin, with the two provinces matched up this year.
The provincial match-ups will continue to alternate every year.
Provincial finalists will have their first All-Ireland group game at home, with the second away, and the final round at a neutral venue.
That’s handy enough to understand, but as for the rest - a lot of patience is required.
We don’t know how this inaugural round robin championship will play out.
It could be a big letdown.
Or, it could be a major success, whether fans can get their heads around how it works or not.
But it really shouldn’t be this complicated a system for the ordinary fan to understand.
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