Why Mayo versus Galway is a bigger match than ever before
WITH Mayo handed a difficult Connacht SFC opener against Galway next summer, the importance of it cannot be overstated in terms of qualifying for the Super 8 series later in the season.
The team that loses faces a long journey to reach the Super 8.
The draws for the Super 8 - the two four-team round-robin groups which will now replace the quarter-finals - will be made as the competition progresses next summer.
There are slight alterations to the football qualifier format this year. The draw is no longer divided into A and B sections, which had been in place for the last five years in order to both avoid long waits for teams and allow others enough time to recover following provincial elimination.
All teams that don’t make their provincial semi-finals will go into Round 1 and in Round 2 the winners will meet the beaten provincial semi-finalists. The Round 2 winners play off in Round 3 and Round 4 features the beaten provincial finalists.
All qualifier games will be played to a finish in 2018. If teams are level after 70 minutes they will play two extra periods of ten minutes, followed by two more periods of five minutes if required.
If they finish level after 100 minutes of football a free-taking competition from the 45-metre line will decide the winner.
Each team must nominate a list of five players who featured in the game to take their free kicks in the contest. It doesn’t matter if they didn’t finish the game as long as they played at some stage, though anyone red carded or given a black card cannot take part.
Initially, the free-kick contest will be decided on a best-of-five basis, but if counties are deadlocked after five kicks apiece it will move to sudden death, with the same five players taking kicks in the same order as before.
SUPER 8
The new round robin system (Super 8) will replace the old quarterfinals with the two top teams in each of the two groups making the semi-finals. These two top places from each group willbe filled after each county has played three games against eachother.
Group 1 of the Super 8 will comprise the Munster and Connacht champions plus the beaten Leinster and Ulster finalists, or the team that beats them in the last round of qualifiers.
Group 2 will be made up of Leinster and Ulster champions along with Munster and Connacht runners-up or the qualifiers that beat them.
In the All-Ireland semi-finals the winners of group 1 will meet the runners-up in group 2, and the winners of group 2 will play the runners up from group 1.