By Rory Gallagher

IT'S interesting to see that the age-old debate about whether or not to keep the provincial championships has reared its' head again this week. It seems that the topic always comes up either when Kerry win what is perceived to be an 'easy' All-Ireland, or Kerry don't win the All-Ireland.

It's hard to know where exactly I stand on the subject. I suppose I'd like to combine a bit of both worlds.

You're coming from a county like Fermanagh, who have never won a provincial title. Every year, no matter what, since I've started following county football, Fermanagh people would have felt that they have had a chance of getting to or winning an Ulster final. It's hard to take that prize away from them.

There's no doubting that Munster teams, especially Kerry, have won easy All-Irelands. I remember reading Pat Spillane's book a long time ago whenever it came out, and he said that in one of their All-Ireland wins, the most they conceded in any of their games was 1-9, against Clare, when Kerry had scored something like 7-21.

There's no doubt that the current format does lend itself to an easy route to an All-Ireland for Munster teams. It makes it easier for Kerry and Cork to get to, and to win, All-Irelands. In saying that, the system is also pretty easy for Galway and Mayo yet they're not managing to win them at all. On the flipside, it's not helping Dublin that they're not getting tested in Leinster, so they're not making progress on the All-Ireland stage either.

There's no point talking about scrapping the provincial championships altogether, because I don't think that's ever going to happen. There's too much power lies with the provincial councils for them to ever do away with them.

For us in Ulster, what I would propose is a round robin championship. Draw the nine counties into two groups, a five and a four, and play a round robin series of games. At the end of it, put the top two out of each group into Ulster semi-finals.

That could then be used to seed the teams for an All-Ireland championship. So your four provincial winners would be the first seeds, the provincial finalists the second seeds and so on. That's my own view, rather than an open draw. You still have your provincial championships, they still carry meaning, so it's the best of both worlds as far as I can see.

I think the championship calendar could also be tightened up. Having one game per Sunday for four weeks of the Ulster quarter-finals I think is totally outdated. You could have two games a weekend no problem, one on a Saturday evening and one on a Sunday afternoon. I think it'll still give people the chance to get to the games, and will also open up the possibility for more TV coverage and better exposure of championship matches.

It's an amateur game, so I can't ever see a situation where GAA matches are played on midweek nights the way soccer and rugby are. But there are definitely options there, and I think we have to move with the times and think boldly.

As I said, these conversations and debates always seems to come at the end of what is seen as being a 'weak' championship. But it's also the time of the year. Newspapers also have a part to play, it's quiet this time of year and there's pages to be filled.

But for all the debate and talk about it, I can't see there being much change.

Spillane

I had to laugh at some of Pat Spillane's proposed changes that he came out with last weekend in order to improve football. I've come to the conclusion that he's either mad... or else he's trying to stir it up and keep his newspaper column in the spotlight over the quiet winter months. There's a strong possibility it's both.

I thought there was no substance to his suggestions whatsoever, and they were nothing short of ludicrous. I mean, how do you possibly implement a rule that you can only have a maximum of two consecutive hand passes? Or that once a team has committed 20 fouls that every subsequent foul is punished by a 13 metre free to the opposition? Or that you have to have five forwards in your attacking half of the field at any one time?

You'd need about ten referees on the pitch to even try to police the thing, never mind the players trying to get their heads around it.

If he's not enjoying the sport in the way he says, then why does he continue to watch it and to commentate on it? I think he's overly critical. I think there's not a whole lot wrong with the game, and I think that a whole lot of what Spillane says has come since Kerry have failed to dominate the scene the way they used to before Tyrone and Armagh arrived on the scene.

It's not the game he was used to, but that doesn't mean it's any worse than it was before. Football has just moved on and will continue to evolve, people need to start to recognise and appreciate that.

A lot of pundits are retired players, now aged 44 plus, and they are from a different era of the game. You see it in everyday life, where people all think that things aren't as good as they used to be. You hear John Giles and boys like that say it about soccer for example.

But it's simply not the case. Sometimes when I watch underage football or schools football now, I find myself thinking that it was better in our day. But the fact is that it wasn't... it was just different, and we have to accept that.

There's an old saying that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, and it's very true. Mindsets are very hard things to change, but maybe it's time to open minds a little more and to accept that things are different now... but not of less quality.