Tonights Setanta cup scores

[Dassa]

what better solution do you have. two from each,1 from each or back to the original three. If you start the idea that the EL deserve more teams than the IL I could see this competition cease quite quickly.

[Mark Breen]

I have to agree with Dassa here, you can't put in 6 EL and 2 IL or 5 & 3 just not gonna work, I think this format is the best , if you want to make it slightly more competitive maybe the groups for next season should be decided now, like

Group 1:
1st IL
2nd EL
3rd IL
4th EL

And Group 2:
1st EL
2nd IL
3rd EL
4th IL

that way its mean's the best 4 sides stand a chance of getting to the semi's

Cause in fairness does anybody really think Drogheda,Ports or swifts are better teams than Shels, Derry and Linfield, cause one of them WILL be in the semi's ahead of one of the teams mentioned above, having played in an easier group, By all means if they get there by playin in a group as i stated above then yes they deserve to be there.

look at group one it has 1 team who finished in the top 2 of there league
Group 2 has 3 teams who finished in the top 2 of there league,

Me personaly i see a final with either cork -v- a group 2 team or else two group 2 teams in the final,

i don't think anyone other than Cork has a chance.

End of rant

[Risteard]

That Breen Lad talks sense.
Very uneven groups alright. I can understand that the weaker teams might be opposed to the idea, but that hasn't stopped seeding in virtually all the other fifa & uefa competitions.

[Poor Student]

It depends on your philosophy. Seeding kills a lot of the romance of competitions. Over on the IL forum there's moaning about a possible fixed draw to keep NI's two best teams apart. Seeding is a fixed draw in a sense. Personally I am not fond of it.

[Dassa]

me either all the fun of the european cup has gone with seeding. good for big clubs bad for small clubs.

[BohDiddley]

I have to hold up my hands and admit I'm worse than useless at designing/discussing schemes like this. My brain just refuses to do it, mostly, I think, out of boredom. So I'm filled with admiration for those who can persist with it.
If seeding isn't wanted, how about an extra prelim round, with a wider intake (say to sixth in the EL )to knock out the pub teams? If another Dungannon Swifts makes it through, well and good. As it is, I think a LSL team would have beaten them.
I'm not really interested in whether teams from 'the south' or 'the north' do better, and I don't think the tournament is marketed in this way. While there are certainly good NI teams, it looks to me like the depth isn't there.

[Risteard]

Jayz, good scheme design there Boh Diddley.
That would be a fair way of shedding the crap teams on merit either way.
I reckon they should keep it as 8 teams though next year so maybe 6 automatic straight through(3 from each association of course). Then an extra 2 from each association play cross-border rivals to determine the final two places.
Well done.

[BohDiddley]

J
Well done.

Why, thank you!

[iceman]

I have to agree with Dassa here, you can't put in 6 EL and 2 IL or 5 & 3 just not gonna work, I think this format is the best , if you want to make it slightly more competitive maybe the groups for next season should be decided now, like

Group 1:
1st IL
2nd EL
3rd IL
4th EL

And Group 2:
1st EL
2nd IL
3rd EL
4th IL

that way its mean's the best 4 sides stand a chance of getting to the semi's

Have to agree this lad talks sense. Excellent proposal.

[pineapple stu]

If seeding isn't wanted, how about an extra prelim round, with a wider intake (say to sixth in the EL )to knock out the pub teams?

Problem with that is when do you have the preliminary round? If it's before the main phase (as it'd have to be), you're asking one or two eL clubs to start pre-season training to possibly play just the one match, get knocked out and then go back into off-season before re-starting pre-season training...

The match last night was the strongest team from (what most people agree is) the stronger league (who'd played in the tournament last year) at home against the weakest team from the weaker league (who hadn't played last year). It only ended 2-0. The match most likely to end in a hammering shouldn't affect the rest of the tournament.

[CharlesThompson]

Personally speaking, as there are only 8 teams in the tournament I don't think that it needs to be tampered with. The chances of more than one or two teams being considerably below the quality of the rest is minimal. Also I think that as we (Ireland) have lost realistic opportunity of playing against big European clubs in either the CL or Uefa Cup, we should really learn from that.

To my mind the fact that one group has predominantly unfancied teams against another group which has predominantly fancied teams will mean nothing by the time the semi finals come around.

If it turns out that the teams from one jurisdiction end up not being part of the knockout, then that's hardly the fault of anything else except that they're just not good enough.

Not only this, but I also like the idea of an open draw. Adds to the excitement in the build up.