Pat Spillane Suggests Obvious Change To The Way GAA Conduct Championship Draws

As we approach the business end of the GAA season, there is quite a bit of excitement about the knockout games that are to come in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship.

While the provincial and round robin stages do provide plenty of entertainment, there is not quite the same jeopardy involved as the latter stages of the competition. Teams can lose as many as two or three games and still remain in the championship.

That will not be the case over the coming weeks, with one county set to be eliminated after each fixture.

Pat Spillane Suggests Obvious Change To GAA Championship Draws

The draw for the All-Ireland quarter-finals was held this morning, throwing up some fascinating ties ahead of this weekend. It is the second consecutive week that the GAA opted to hold a high profile draw live on radio on a Monday morning, something some feel is a rather odd decision.

Writing in the Sunday World, Pat Spillane made the very reasonable suggestion that the GAA would be better served holding the draws in front of a television audience during the live coverage of Sunday's games.

The draw for the All-Ireland football preliminary quarter-finals was another missed opportunity. In the hat we had four of the genuine championship favourites – Donegal, Dublin, Galway and Kerry.

We had some riveting pairings in prospect, so surely the perfect time for the draw was after the Donegal v Mayo clash on television on Sunday evening?

It offered maximum publicity and a big captive TV audience. Instead, yet again, some genius in the marketing/PR department – I jest, of course – reckoned a draw at 8.40am on radio’s Morning Ireland on Monday was a better opportunity.

Are they serious?

This makes a lot of sense.

There is always quite a bit of interest around these draws, something that would increase if they were shown live on television in the direct aftermath of whatever fixture is shown on Sunday afternoon.

This is surely something that the GAA need to look at moving forward.

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