Carlow manager Turlough O’Brien believes that last summer’s Championship clash with Dublin helped his side gain promotion to Division 3 and he dismissed the prospect of a two-tier Championship.
O’Brien’s side secured promotion with a match to spare as last week’s victory over Wicklow guaranteed their Division 3 status for next season.
Defeat to Laois on Sunday ended their 100% record in the league for this season but O’Brien’s men have made significant progress already this season and he credits part of that success to lessons learned in last year’s Championship.
O’Brien believes that last year’s Leinster quarter-final defeat against Dublin in O’Moore Park was a significant learning experience for his side and he wants to continue testing his side against some of the country’s best sides, as he rejected the idea that a two-tier Championship would benefit Carlow.
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Speaking on the RTÉ GAA Podcast, the Carlow boss said: "I was talking to James Horan before we played Dublin in O’Moore Park last year and we were actually talking about that.
"With a two tier system you’d take away the days we have in O’Moore Park, you’d take that away from us. We relish that day and look what came from that day.
"We built on it and we grew as a county, we grew as a team and we’ve got promotion and we’ve continued to grow.
"There are so many suggestions being made about altering the Championship and creating new structures and we seem to in the GAA always think about creating the exception to the rule and doing things in a convoluted way.
"It’s quite simple to me, you either have a league or you have a knock-out competition and back doors or front doors, tiers and all the rest of it, I think you’d end up in tears to be honest with you!"
If there is to be change to competition structures, O’Brien believes that those changes will have to take clubs into account and he believes that moving the league to the summer to run alongside simplified Championship could benefit both clubs and counties.
"Keep it simple," he suggested. "With all the lip service that has been given by Uachtaráns and Director Generals that the club is so important, we cannot keep adding in fixtures to the inter-county programme and say we’re going to look after clubs as well.
"In my mind it’s going to take a radical rethink and perhaps looking at bringing theLleague into the summer, where you would double attendances at League games, because the League has been a fantastic competition and run it concurrently with a knock-out championship.
"I think you’d get the best of both worlds, you’d have a condensed season and you’d have time in the calendar for clubs."
