Two clubs shafted by Offaly's ludicrous football championship format

Ballycommon and Tullamore had cause to feel hard done by at the weekend as they were eliminated from the Offaly Intermediate and Senior A championships respectively. 

Ballycommon, in particular, were rightfully vexed as they fell into the Intermediate relegation final despite winning three of their five round robin championship games. 

IFC @BallycommonGAA 1-12 Daingean 0-12. We won 3 out of 5 games yet are in a relegation final???? Fair? @Offaly_GAA

— Ballycommon GAA (@BallycommonGAA) August 29, 2019

Similarly, Tullamore will play a relegation playoff game against Gracefield despite Tullamore finishing with four points thanks to two wins earlier in the championship. Cappincur, with a record of four straight losses, will contest an Offaly SFC quarter-final at their expense. 

The quirks are thanks to Offaly's new criss-cross championship format, put forward by the executive and adopted by club delegates back in February.

The format comprised of two partially seeded groups of four at Senior A level with one county finalist, one beaten semi-finalist, one beaten quarter-finalist and one of the relegation play-off winners or promoted teams in each of the groups. 

The groups were then formed through a draw which saw Ferbane, Edenderry, Tullamore and Shamrocks placed in Group A and Rhode, Clara, Cappincur and Gracefield placed in Group B. The unusual format sees teams playing a guaranteed four games against all four teams in the opposite group. A similar system operated at Senior B and Intermediate levels.

At the end of this phase, the top teams in each group contest opposite semi-finals while their opponents are decided by two quarter-finals. Those quarter-finals will be contested by the runners-up and third-placed teams in each group with the runners-up in Group A playing the third-placed team in Group A. Repeat fixtures are ruled out by virtue of the criss-cross system which will ensure those two teams did not meet in the round-robin phase. The second quarter-final will be formed in the same way from Group B.

The group winners already in a semi-final will also play the winning quarter-finalists from their own groups, also ensuring no repeat fixtures at that stage. 

Keeping up so far? 

It all sounds fair enough until you break down the results in this year's round robin phase. 

One group utterly dominated the other meaning the winning teams were stacked in Group A where Edenderry won all four games, Shamrocks and Ferbane won three each and Tullamore won two. In the other group, Rhode topped the table with two wins, following through by Clara with two wins and Cappincur with none.

This happened because the system measures teams against opponents in their own group rather than those they have played. For example, Rhode played Edenderry, Ferbane, Shamrock and Tullamore but were measured up against Clara, Cappincur and Gracefield when it came to counting up the points. 

It all meant three teams would advance from each group. To really put the nail in the coffin for the current system, it would have been possible for one group to utterly dominate the other and if the four teams in Group A were to win all of their individual matches against the four teams in Group B in a given year under this format, all four teams in Group A would be on eight points while all the teams in Group B would be on zero. 

Nevertheless, one of those teams on zero would go straight into a semi-final as group winners, while the runners-up and third-placed teams, also on the grand total of zero points, would contest quarter-finals. An unbeaten team in the opposing group would be in a relegation play-off in that scenario.

The format was carried down to the other levels in the football championship where Ballycommon were shafted in the intermediate grade. They picked up three wins from five games but will miss out on a quarter-final thanks to the bizarre format.

Riddle us that one, Offaly GAA?

SEE BELOW - Offaly GAA's approved structure for the 2019 Senior A and Senior B football championships: