Éamonn Fitzmaurice: Provincial championships should move to start of season

Éamonn Fitzmaurice would like to see the provincial football championships moved to the start of the year in the wake of a campaign in which Ulster proved to be the only truly competitive competition once again.

The Leinster, Connacht and Munster finals were one-sided affairs, with Sunday's Ulster showpiece the sole outlier to go to the as Derry versus Armagh was decided on penalties.

What to do with increasingly uncompetitive provincial stages has been an age old debate and speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, former Kerry manager Fitzmaurice felt there was an element of Groundhog day to the debate.

"We've had the conversation and keep having the conversation. It keeps coming back to the same place. They are sacred cows and they're protected and they're not touched," he said.

"Last season we did have a competitive Connacht final and the Ulster final again last season was competitive. It is the annual conversation. It comes up this weekend nearly every year and then the championship just moves on and it's kind of left off again.

"But I think the other thing with this season is it's clear that the big guns are timing their runs and they're really starting to come to the fore. Galway, Kerry and Dublin, certainly have gone up a level as they move towards the All-Ireland series and that was clear in the way they performed in those provincial finals.

"But I think the provincial championships should move to the start of the season to lead into the league and then into the All-Ireland series. But that has been debated ad infinitum and we don't seem to have got to the solution just yet."

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