Wicklow Senior Football manager Oisín McConville has said that introducing one more tier to Inter-County football is 'definitely worth a conversation'. Speaking on Morning Ireland, the former Armagh county player stated his argument for the extension of inter-county football to a third tier, joining the All-Ireland series and the Tailteann Cup.
The seven-time Ulster Champion has been manager of the Wicklow county football team since 2022, his side reaping the benefits of the Tailteann Cup style this season despite a 1-18 to 0-12 Quarter Final loss to Down on the weekend.
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Oisín McConville Wants 'Conversation' Around New Third-Tier Football Competition
Speaking with Morning Ireland, Oisín McConville believes that there is merit in introducing a third tier to inter-county football in order to boost competition and allow lower teams to experience more knockout style football matches. He insists that there is nothing wrong with the current system, but believes it can be expanded.
McConville made the argument that the current system works well, as teams play their league games either in division three or four with the possibility of playing knockout football if they get our of their group. He argues that the possibility of teams from division three of four reaching All-Ireland knockout fixtures is a positive for the game, and should be explored further.
"For teams like Wicklow, I think that works well. Wicklow got six Tailteann Cup games this year, you’d go a long way to try and find or gain that experience through some other routes. So you're talking about 13 or 14 really competitive games every year."
"It's tough. It is tough because there's always an outlier. There's always one or two teams that, are probably of Division 2 standard or yo-yoing between Division 2 and Division 3."
Oisín McConville pointed at Hurling's multiple tiers of leagues as an example to work towards, and highlighted the positive psychological impact playing a game in Croke Park could have on players if the same approach was adopted in Football:
"You see the different tiers in hurling. Some people would argue that they're not working that well, but I would say for all the teams that won the Nicky Rackard, the Lory Meagher, and Christy Ring that was a very special occasion that they had this year in Croke Park.
Oisín McConville convincingly argued that a conversation, at least, should be started and would be a positive introduction to the game. "I think one more tier is definitely worth a conversation or certainly it's something that we should be looking at", he said before using London and New York as examples of teams who were competitive this season but ultimately reap no rewards due to the current system:
"If you look at some of the results this year, you look at London's results, you look at how competitive New York were, and you're talking teams like Wicklow and Carlow you're thinking ‘would that be a competition that would be really competitive and really worth getting your teeth in there? You would have to say yes."
"So I definitely think there's a conversation to be had around a senior intermediate and junior."
Would you be in favour of a third inter-county football tier?
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