Tomás Ó Sé Offers Simple Solution To ‘Shocking’ All-Ireland Attendances | Balls.ie

The All-Ireland Senior Football Championship is well underway but some old problems have persisted particularly with underwhelming crowd attendances outside of Ulster.

A packed crowd watched Jim McGuinness’ resurgent Donegal put 2021 winners Tyrone to the sword last weekend but further south things have been more fleeting.

Little over 8,000 people watched Kerry claim their round one win against an underwhelming Monaghan, while an estimated crowd of just 12,000 traveled to Croke Park for Dublin’s defeat of Roscommon.

Tomás Ó Sé has solution for ‘shocking’ GAA crowd attendances

There will be a total of three rounds of fixtures from each of the four groups before the knockouts begin; but the match scheduling on top of the crowd numbers remains another concern.

Given the nature of the fixture layout, some dead rubbers could be played out in the final week of the group phase.

Kerry legend Tomás Ó Sé has simple solution towards amending both issues, which he explained on the RTE GAA Podcast.

For such a condensed Championship to have games with no edge or no big crowds wanting to attend.

“Ulster again are the only teams with big crowds.

“There was a game in Killarney there with a shocking crowd at it. There was a shocking crowd in Dublin.

“There is a fix in it. The GAA need to back off, bow the head and let whoever wins the first two games meet each other in the second round.”

Having the winners and losers meet in the second round of matches should allow for more jeopardy going into the final batch of fixtures, with one if not both of the winning sides set to drop points ahead of the third round.

‘There could be way more games where there is a need to win. There would be a Championship feel to it.

“There isn’t a Championship feel to games that are happening at the minute.”

Such a scenario would have seen Dublin take on Mayo next but instead they will face Cavan, while Mayo take on Roscommon.

O Sé’s suggestion certainly seems like a step in the right direction.

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