Connacht GAA CEO John Prenty predicts ‘one of the best Connacht championships’ in years

THE sun had rarely shone so brightly on the main building in the Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence as it did last Friday.

That’s because it had been partially blocked by the Connacht GAA Air Dome, which shone like a beacon across East Mayo for almost five years before being totalled by Storm Éowyn on January 24.

It once sat proudly outside the window of the meeting room where Connacht GAA CEO John Prenty sat down with The Mayo News. Prenty is adamant that it will be rebuilt by the autumn - but cannot say for what price.

Even had that not happened, there’s never been as much fat to chew regarding the state of football in Connacht.

ENHANCEMENTS

NEW rules have brought new excitement and have ‘improved the game no end’, in Prenty’s eyes.

Another thing which slipped under the radar amidst all the talk of new rules league finals was the passage of another new championship structure.

In 2026, the provincial championships will remain as straight knockouts. The provincial finalists will then be seeded on one side of the first round of the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship. The top eight provincial also-rans, as determined by their league position, and the 2025 Tailteann Cup winners will be on the other side of the draw. Provincial champions will be afforded home advantage in the first round of this round-robin-less structure.

The winners of that round play the first-round losers in the next round to eliminate eight teams and determine the All-Ireland quarter-finalists.

“Every game is going to have jeopardy in the Connacht championship. So to me, that makes the Connacht championship even more important because it’s probably a bit more of a difficult championship to win than Munster has been for the last few years and Leinster,” Prenty tells The Mayo News.

“I think the new game, the enhancements of Gaelic football, has improved the game no end. I think the Connacht championship is heading towards one of the best championships we’ve had for years.”

Prenty, the top administrator in the province for the past 30 years, is a staunch defender of the provincial championships. We ask if he feels the fifth championship structure in seven seasons represents the ideal scenario for Connacht.

He gives the following reply: “The GAA is about local rivalry, that’s where it was built on. If you look at the Mayo championship. Aghamore play Ballyhaunis, Castlebar Mitchels play Ballintubber, or Breaffy play Castlebar. It’s really what the GAA was about, the locals playing the locals. What benefit is it to play Cork in Páirc Uí Chaoimh in the first round of the All-Ireland championship? It’s a different kind of rivalry. There isn’t the tradition. If Cork were good enough to get through later on in the year we can meet them then. There is nothing to beat the rivalry in the Connacht championship, in the Ulster championship.

“A lot of them things will come down to local rivalry where the Ballyhaunis lads will be arguing with the Ballinlough lads and the Milltown lads will be arguing with the Davitts lads and stuff like that.”

LOOKING FORWARD

WE speak to Prenty the day before 27,500 spectators packed into Hastings Insurance MacHale Park for the historic rugby meeting of Connacht and Munster. The Castlebar venue has not drawn that big of a crowd since 2019, when Donegal came to town for a do-or-die Super 8 showdown. You’ll have to go back even further to find the last time that many attended a Connacht final.

While acknowledging that Mayo supporters, having gone to the well ‘too many times’ are now ‘not as enthusiastic’ about going to games, Prenty maintains that we will see the Hastings heave for the Connacht championship once more.

“From a Mayo perspective, if they beat Sligo in MacHale Park, if they get to the Connacht final, that will be in MacHale Park. That will be against Galway or Roscommon, so I would see 20,000-plus back at the Connacht final again in MacHale Park on the May Bank Holiday weekend. I’d be confident that’s going to happen.”

He suggests that the new championship structure without a round of ‘dead rubber’ games will make the fixture calendar a small bit less congested.

Does that calendar have room for the FBD League, whose shelving set Connacht GAA back to the tune of €100,000?

Prenty does not say explicitly if he’d like to see the FBD return but maintains that the GAA ‘missed a trick’ by getting rid of it ‘especially with the new rules’.

“From a Mayo perspective, it took them a couple of games to get into the rhythm of what the new rules are,” said the Ballyhaunis man. “If some of those players had been playing in the FBD they’d probably have got into the middle of that situation in the first and second rounds.”