Counter Attack
Mossy Lally
WE are nearly at the halfway point in this year’s Super League and while the top appears to be fairly close I still fancy Westport to finish as the top dogs. Erris may gatecrash the party with the old reliables battling it out and it looks like it’s the same old story as regards relegation.
If you were to analyse the teams that were relegated over the last number of years there is a clear trend. Teams that were promoted flirt with the bigger boys in the Super League before they eventually get dropped back down to the Premier Division.
You will have to go back a long way before you found Ballina Town, Ballyheane, Castlebar Celtic, Erris Utd, Manulla, and Westport United being relegated (I think S & F should be included here also, last year’s relegation was out of character).
Apart from Glenhest Rovers, who have had more great escapes than Jack Bauer, unfortunately the same can’t be said of Achill Rovers, Ballinrobe Town, Ballyvary Blue Bombers, Conn Rangers, Charlestown Athletic and Killala.
It now appears that Crossmolina and Snugboro will be added to the list of clubs that dabbled with the Super League for the odd season or so only to find out that when the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Sometimes the scars of relegation can take time to heal; just look at what happened to Ballyvary Blue Bombers, they just went into free-fall.
On the positive side of this topic, I think that it is good that the Super League sets a standard that promoted teams should aspire to.
From my experience of the Super League with Manulla, as far as I was concerned there were/are only three important positions in the league: top, second bottom and bottom.
I could never figure out why finishing second or third from the top was better than finishing third or fourth from the bottom. Runners-up medals are losers’ medals regardless of what way to talk it up.
However, there is one thing that is lacking in the Super League and that is its competitiveness from the first round of matches to the last round of matches.
Often teams find themselves with nothing to play for towards the end of the season as they are safe from relegation and can’t win the league so the set their compass on the FAI Junior Cup which normally starts late September/early October.
Players will be rested etc with the FAI and Connacht Cups in mind and generally you just get the last few games out of the way.
The league have a few options available to them. The one I like is to reduce the Super League by two teams. This would make the league far more competitive and I believe that the top and bottom would go right down to the wire.
Also there would be less games so the season can start later which would help teams hopefully coming off a successful FAI and Connacht Cup run, plus the league could amalgamate the Super League programme with the upcoming FAI and Connaught Cup competitions.
Another potential option is to relegate a third team and implement a play-off similar to the English League. We need to make sure that the third, fourth, fifth and sixth from the bottom have something to play for.
Semi-finals and finals a la the Championship would suffice. While there will be no £60 million play-off final, securing Super League status will do as an incentive.
Some how I can’t see any of these options been taken up. Why? Because they just might work!
