Meath Forum

Club Championship 2025

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Replying To Head4TheBlackSpot:  "The Meath Championship is in the gutter. Teams are finished playing by September, and the format is all wrong.
The team that finishes top of the group should go straight through to a quarter-final.
2nd and 3rd place should play in a preliminary quarter-final.
The bottom seed should go into relegation.
Groups should be seeded the following year based on this format.
Right now, you have situations like Ballinabrackey reaching a quarter-final while clubs like Dunboyne and Gaeil Colmcille are either relegation or finished for the year. How can you justify having the last four winners of the intermediate championship stuck in the same group? And teams are going through on just two points - it's no wonder Meath clubs never compete properly in Leinster or beyond."
Rubbish post, the only thing that needs to be added is seeding of groups.

having 3 out of 4 teams qualify from a group is nonsense, in that scenario a team can qualify on 1 point.

Dunboyne and Gaeil Colmcille are in relegation or finished because they haven't been good enough all year, its as simple as that.

ratlag (Meath) - Posts: 587 - 04/09/2025 08:26:15    2634834

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Replying To Head4TheBlackSpot:  "The Meath Championship is in the gutter. Teams are finished playing by September, and the format is all wrong.
The team that finishes top of the group should go straight through to a quarter-final.
2nd and 3rd place should play in a preliminary quarter-final.
The bottom seed should go into relegation.
Groups should be seeded the following year based on this format.
Right now, you have situations like Ballinabrackey reaching a quarter-final while clubs like Dunboyne and Gaeil Colmcille are either relegation or finished for the year. How can you justify having the last four winners of the intermediate championship stuck in the same group? And teams are going through on just two points - it's no wonder Meath clubs never compete properly in Leinster or beyond."
Completely disagree with this post, teams are done in September because they haven't won enough games simple as, they have no one but themselves to blame. Re- the last four intermediate teams includes the defending champions , who were full money for their championship last year and two other intermediate teams who bet the champions.


I agree Meath teams haven't done well in Leinster is a worrying sign but that's nothing to do with the championship structure just more indicative to the lack of quality which was evident to see with poor Meath
Sennior teams in the past. Hopefully this will change in the years to come

Faithfulmeath (Meath) - Posts: 29 - 04/09/2025 10:55:28    2634853

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Replying To ratlag:  "Rubbish post, the only thing that needs to be added is seeding of groups.

having 3 out of 4 teams qualify from a group is nonsense, in that scenario a team can qualify on 1 point.

Dunboyne and Gaeil Colmcille are in relegation or finished because they haven't been good enough all year, its as simple as that."
You clearly don't have a clue what you're talking about, respectfully. They didn't fail to get out of the group because of their ability, but because of terrible non-seeding. In reality, both would have comfortably qualified from any of the other three groups.

The current format is ridiculous. At least with a preliminary quarter-final, every team would be guaranteed one more game. Having teams like St Colmcilles, Ballinabrackey, and Seneschalstown in the same group is a waste of time, while putting Rathkenny, Meath Hill, and Trim together makes no sense either.

This set-up is doing our county no good when it comes to club football, and that's being shown in Leinster. You can argue all you want, but the proof is there: some of the weakest senior teams are reaching quarter-finals every year because of the flawed format. What we need is a more competitive and balanced group stage.

DefenceWinsChampionships (Meath) - Posts: 49 - 04/09/2025 11:24:09    2634857

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Replying To Head4TheBlackSpot:  "The Meath Championship is in the gutter. Teams are finished playing by September, and the format is all wrong.
The team that finishes top of the group should go straight through to a quarter-final.
2nd and 3rd place should play in a preliminary quarter-final.
The bottom seed should go into relegation.
Groups should be seeded the following year based on this format.
Right now, you have situations like Ballinabrackey reaching a quarter-final while clubs like Dunboyne and Gaeil Colmcille are either relegation or finished for the year. How can you justify having the last four winners of the intermediate championship stuck in the same group? And teams are going through on just two points - it's no wonder Meath clubs never compete properly in Leinster or beyond."
What exactly is wrong with Ballinabrackey reaching a quarter final? In previous years, the Bracks have sometimes had rotten group draws meaning they were involved in a relegation battle when they probably didn't deserve to be. This year, they didn't exactly have an easy draw either yet got two wins from three. But you seem to think that Dunboyne and Kells, who could only manage two wins between them, somehow deserve to be in a quarter final ahead of them? Kells have been in the relegation playoffs for each of the last three seasons (in one of those seasons, finishing behind Ballinabrackey in the groups) while Dunboyne were in the relegation playoffs in 2022 (again, finishing behind Ballinabrackey) and 2023.

And you complain about teams being able to qualify on two points yet in the same paragraph, want third place to qualify for the knockouts. This would mean that a team could conceivably qualify by drawing one game and losing two.

In my view, the Meath championship is one of the most competitive senior championships in the country. I'd wager that, since the turn of the century, Meath have likely the highest number of different SFC winners in the province. This means that there's never only a handful of clubs dominating but it also dilutes the overall strength of the eventual winners, meaning that our SFC winners very rarely compete. Even when Meath were at our peak from the late 80s to late 90s, no Meath club won the senior provincial title and only Seneschalstown (1994) made a Leinster final in that time.

Ratoath Royal (Meath) - Posts: 1407 - 04/09/2025 12:03:08    2634864

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I would disagree, I think the format of the championship is brilliant.

Group of deaths are my favourite.

Relegation is more cut throat now with only two games to save your bacon.

There are two ways to look at it, the last 4 intermediate teams all in the one group means a weak format.
The four groups each had a one winner from the last 4 senior championships it's very balanced.

Only change I would suggest is changing the championship to 12 teams and really make a bear pit.

UsernameInvalid (Meath) - Posts: 447 - 04/09/2025 12:42:23    2634874

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Seeded draw is the only change needed. Semi finallist from the prior year as top 4 seeds. Intermediate champions and the 3 teams that survived the relegation playoffs from the previous year as bottom seeds. Open draw for the remaining 8 spots over 4 groups.
3rd place team into preliminary quarter final has to be a joke.

Amarach (Meath) - Posts: 65 - 04/09/2025 15:37:50    2634904

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Is a intermediate quarter final in Dunganny Pitch 6 the height of disrespect to the 2 teams (Dunsany/Moynalvey) involved? Nice surface and all but surely there were more appropriate venues for a game of this calibre.

GoalsWinGames (Meath) - Posts: 309 - 04/09/2025 15:39:07    2634905

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Replying To GoalsWinGames:  "Is a intermediate quarter final in Dunganny Pitch 6 the height of disrespect to the 2 teams (Dunsany/Moynalvey) involved? Nice surface and all but surely there were more appropriate venues for a game of this calibre."
Completely agree , dunganny's new pitch is lovely and one of the better surfaces in Meath but it's a terrible Venue, no real atmosphere whats so ever

Faithfulmeath (Meath) - Posts: 29 - 04/09/2025 23:11:44    2634945

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Replying To DefenceWinsChampionships:  "You clearly don't have a clue what you're talking about, respectfully. They didn't fail to get out of the group because of their ability, but because of terrible non-seeding. In reality, both would have comfortably qualified from any of the other three groups.

The current format is ridiculous. At least with a preliminary quarter-final, every team would be guaranteed one more game. Having teams like St Colmcilles, Ballinabrackey, and Seneschalstown in the same group is a waste of time, while putting Rathkenny, Meath Hill, and Trim together makes no sense either.

This set-up is doing our county no good when it comes to club football, and that's being shown in Leinster. You can argue all you want, but the proof is there: some of the weakest senior teams are reaching quarter-finals every year because of the flawed format. What we need is a more competitive and balanced group stage."
Maybe not, but my opinion is definitely the more common one here and seems to apply the most logic to it.

Your opinion contradicts itself, giving out about teams qualifying on 2 points but proposing a system where the they can qualify on 1 point without even winning a game.

The only thing that could help improve things slightly (and I mean slightly is seeding of groups), although Defending champions Dunshaughlin this year were beaten by what would have been a 3rd and 4th seed team so there is still no guarantee of improvements for all teams.

And on you comment of Dunboyne and Gaeil Colmcille not being in Quarterfinals but Balinabracky getting there, based on a seeding process that group would have looked as follows:

Skryne - Seed 1 (Semi Finalist)
Dunboyne - Seed 1 (Semi Finalist)
Summerhill - Seed 2 (Quarter Finalist)
Kells - Seed 3 (Finished 3rd)

So you could swap Rathkenny in for Skyrne if you wanted, but as mentioned above they managed to beat Dunshaughlin and narrowly lose to Trim in their first 2 games so I'd say both could easily have missed out in Trim's group and in Would Tones group of NA Fianna and Ashbourne Simonstown

ratlag (Meath) - Posts: 587 - 05/09/2025 09:00:30    2634952

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Replying To ratlag:  "Maybe not, but my opinion is definitely the more common one here and seems to apply the most logic to it.

Your opinion contradicts itself, giving out about teams qualifying on 2 points but proposing a system where the they can qualify on 1 point without even winning a game.

The only thing that could help improve things slightly (and I mean slightly is seeding of groups), although Defending champions Dunshaughlin this year were beaten by what would have been a 3rd and 4th seed team so there is still no guarantee of improvements for all teams.

And on you comment of Dunboyne and Gaeil Colmcille not being in Quarterfinals but Balinabracky getting there, based on a seeding process that group would have looked as follows:

Skryne - Seed 1 (Semi Finalist)
Dunboyne - Seed 1 (Semi Finalist)
Summerhill - Seed 2 (Quarter Finalist)
Kells - Seed 3 (Finished 3rd)

So you could swap Rathkenny in for Skyrne if you wanted, but as mentioned above they managed to beat Dunshaughlin and narrowly lose to Trim in their first 2 games so I'd say both could easily have missed out in Trim's group and in Would Tones group of NA Fianna and Ashbourne Simonstown"
Just not tire but whatever you want to believe

DefenceWinsChampionships (Meath) - Posts: 49 - 05/09/2025 14:03:24    2635000

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