Jim McGuinness joined Kieran Donaghy on Friday's OTB AM to discuss his recent proposals to transform the All-Ireland Football Championship.
The plan would split the championship into two brackets, the traditional Sam Maguire competition featuring the top 16 ranked teams and a distinct competition featuring county teams ranked 17 to 32. These rankings would be determined based on league placing along with the four provincial championship winners. In each bracket, team one would play team 16, team two play 15 and so on in a knockout format.
Watch below as the two GAA legends tease out the proposal on OTB AM.
McGuinness explained why he feels that the plan would lift standards across the whole country.
"I think it’s going to raise standards because there’s going to be no taking it easy during the national league. Everybody is fighting for something from day one of the league," McGuinness said.
"For the whole season, people are engaged and for me crucially there is hope, there’s hope for everybody within the organisation."
Donaghy was also enthused by McGuinness' proposal and feels it will help Division Three and Four teams massively.
"We see constantly Division Three and Division Four teams getting dumped out in a damp squib of a qualifier and for an awful lot of players this makes them wonder if they'll continue playing," he said.
"With this proposal, there's hope. That rejuvenates you, it puts you back in the gym earlier and as you say all the standards are being raised.
"I think it’s something that’s exciting and it’s something that we have to look at pushing through."
McGuinness also pointed to the amount of top players at smaller counties who struggle to get the exposure that their talents warrant.
"There are a lot of brilliant players in this country that are never exposed, we never see them," McGuinness said.
"I think that’s very, very unfair."
Donaghy agreed that there are a lot of players in smaller counties that deserve a greater platform.
"I often look at these players and think if you could just transport an Emlyn Mulligan into a team or if you could pick out Brendan Murphy from Carlow, he’d possibly start in the middle of the field for Kerry," he said.
"I always thought myself that I would’ve been a very average footballer on a weaker team because my skill set was to get the ball and bring the really good footballers I had around me into the game."
This year’s GAA All Ireland Championship semi-finals and finals will be Live on Sky Sport Mix. Sky Sports Mix is available in approximately 900,000 homes in Ireland on Sky Channel 416 and Virgin channel 409.
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