KEVIN CASSIDY: Tyrone have the right idea with knock-out format

LAST weekend, the first round of the Donegal Senior Football Championship took place. Most of the results went as people would have predicted with my own club Gaoth Dobhair suffering the biggest shock of the round.

Four Masters easily disposed of our lads, and they were full value for a win which should set them up nicely heading into the next group game. For quite some time now you would have heard me on about the way the championship is structured here in Donegal.

We play a league-based system which means that it’s virtually impossible for the top teams to get knocked out early on.

Last week, I noted that for the best part of the last 15 years, the championship has been dominated by four teams – St Eunans, Gaoth Dobhair, Kilcar and Glenties. I believe that the structure helps the bigger teams because there’s a lesser chance of an upset. The ‘top four’ are nearly guaranteed to be playing at the semi-final stages year in, year out.

Let’s return to that wonderful result by Four Masters, when they upset the odds to beat Gaoth Dobhair.

Unfortunately when all is said and done, that result really won’t matter much because all Gaoth Dobhair need to do is pick up one win in the remaining three games to progress to the next stage. I believe that victories like that, especially in the championship, should be rewarded but what we have now is a system where the bigger teams will get a chance to lick their wounds and recover.

What happens more often than not Is that these two teams will meet again later on down the line in the real knock-out stages.

We used to have a system here in Donegal way back when I started to play where it was an open draw and you played that team home and away.

If it was the case that a third game was needed to separate the teams then a neutral venue would be picked for the deciding game.

From the very first game, there was a real championship feel to it and I think it was great for player development because championship was championship, and there was no other way to dress it up.

These new systems were brought in to countries to create more games for the smaller teams, but the way the leagues are going now in most counties all of the teams are getting good competitive football along with the cut and thrust of knockout championship football.

I’m lucky enough that with my work with TG4 I get to cover some of the Tyrone Senior Football Championship ties. For anyone who hasn’t been at any of those games, I suggest you take a road trip and get yourself to one. This is raw championship football at its finest and it doesn’t matter if you are the reigning champions from last year or not. If you get beat in the first round you are out and that’s the end of the road.

You cannot replicate that sort of trap-door mentality, so I think the rest of the counties should take a leaf from the Tyrone system and go back to what championship was supposed to be all about.

This week we will have round two of the championship here in Donegal and our lads should pick up a win at home which will see them right back on the horse again. Now I’ll be happy to see that but I’ll let you decide if that is real championship football or not!