It's disappointing that half the teams in Europe are having bad seasons. Rovers and Dundalk probably performed roughly as expected and to be fair pats probably did too and could probably count themselves unlucky not to at least get a penalty but the inconsistency of our league, driven by the one season contracts, means that the teams that have qualified can be completely different beasts by the time Europe actually comes. If you look at the tables now I'd put money on Derry and Bohs doing better than Cork and Pats did if they were in Europe but last season neither of them were great and if they do qualify this season who knows what they'll be like next season?
The league needs to move away from season long deals to get some consistency in it. The lack of continuity gives us great story lines with teams flying up or dropping down in no time at all but in terms of actually improving the league it'd be far better to have consistency. It's no surprise that the two best teams in the league are the ones with very little turn over of players and that have players with security in their contracts.