Round Found

Call off the search. It appears that the CCC have recovered the Round of championship football that was missing when they first informed us of the new Derry club championship format for 2009. Along with a few others, I expressed my concerns about this at the time; but after an announcement last week, it now appears that the CCC have rectified the issue.

From Friday's Irish News:

DERRY CCC have tweaked the championship format to iron out an anomaly where a team that wins a game and then loses at the second stage is out of the competition, whereas a team that loses a game and then wins a game at the second stage is through to the quarter-final. There will now be a final qualifier after round two, with these teams meeting to determine who will meet the four teams that qualified with two victories.

There was some debate about the original format throughout the county, especially on the Derry thread of GAABoard. Perhaps the CCC have updated the format based on their recommendations! There will now be an extra "back-door" game after the second round, allowing first round winners to get a second chance.

Despite all this, I still think we should go back to a straight knock-out system. The group format was binned as it contained too many games, but the back-door system doesn't eliminate this problem. There is now the possibility of a club winning the title after having played in six different rounds. Once again, it looks like the 'real' Championship will begin at the quarter-final stage.