Dublin Ladies Football manager calls for LGFA to scrap provincial championships

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Back-to-back All-Ireland winning boss with Dublin Mick Bohan thinks the Ladies Football Association should scrap the provincial championships.

It comes after Croke Park announced it is to host the All-Ireland Ladies Football semi-finals for the very first time this year.

The games will be played as a double-header at GAA HQ on Sunday, August 25.

Dublin secured an eighth consecutive TG4 Leinster Senior Football title on June 30 with a 4-11 to 1-7 win over Westmeath. That was Dublin’s first game this summer, and Bohan feels a one-game provincial championship is far from ideal.

He said: “It takes from the provincial system. I said last year, and I’ll say it again this year – I don’t think that it’s fit for purpose anymore.

“Particularly in Connacht and Leinster it doesn’t make any sense. That’s something the organisation needs to look at, but there has to be a better system.”

Dublin will begin their quest to win a third consecutive TG4 All Ireland Championship with a Group 2 encounter against Waterford (3.30pm venue tbc) this Saturday (July 12), and with a meeting with Monaghan at Parnell Park to follow.

Despite their paucity of games, Bohan has been pleased with his side’s attitude, “It was lovely to hear them talking – even the day of the [Westmeath] game – about how nervous they were, in spite of the fact that some of them have probably played in 7 or 8 All Ireland finals.

“But still there was that tentative feeling when you go into the first rounds of Championship all over the game. I suppose that’s an indication of the humility in the group that none of them have lost the run of themselves.”

Bohan’s certain his side will take the form of that Westmeath victory into this weekend’s game with Waterford, “When you’re being hunted…you’ve to train like you’re no.2 and play like you’re no.1, and that’s the way we’re going about it.”

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