Donegal’s Patrick McBrearty ignoring the ‘distraction’ of early draw for All-Ireland race

There’s no denying that having football games every week is exciting for fans, and it gives us plenty of action to sink our teeth into, but the fact that the draw for the group stages of the All-Ireland series was done on Tuesday, before the provincial finals have even been contested, feels a bit rushed.

We now know in advance that the winners of Ulster will avoid being in the group of death with Derry and the Connacht champions (Galway or Mayo). Instead, the runners-up on Sunday, May 12 will go into Group 1 while the Anglo-Celt champions will face Kerry or Clare, Tyrone and Cork.

Donegal captain Patrick McBrearty, who will face off against Armagh on Sunday week in Clones, admits the draw being made ahead of the Ulster final isn’t an ideal situation.

“It probably is a distraction,” he said. “It’s not been mentioned in our dressing room, but people in general are on about: Would you [Galway or Mayo] be better off to lose the Connacht final than win it?’

“But, I don’t know. Knowing the Galway lads, I’m sure they’ll be going full steam ahead to win a Connacht title.

“I don’t think losing those games can set you up well for the rest of the year – I’ve lost provincial finals before and it takes a long time to recover from them, if you do [ever] recover from them. It’s really, really hard to get back on the horse.

“In terms of if we win or lose, I’ve not put much heed on it – it’s all about Armagh now.”

On the other side of the fence, Armagh’s Paddy Burns doesn’t see it as much of an issue.

“I think regardless of the draw, you just want to go out and try to do your best, and try to win Ulster,” said the Orchard County corner-back.

“It’s a bit of an irrelevance in a way, because you’re not going to base how you perform in an Ulster final on what’s happening next.

“To me anyway, it’s probably a bit of an irrelevance. Is it a distraction? No.”

Although the Armagh defender doesn’t believe that it is an overt obstruction for his team, he admits that he would be in favour of changing the current arrangement.

“Would it make sense [to have the draw after the final]? Logically, yes,” says Burns.

“But logistically, they have to sort things out I’m sure, so that they have an idea of who’s doing what and who’s going where.

“I see the merit in it, but I do think it would make more sense to put it after the provincial finals.

“There has been very little talk about it [in our dressing room], although we haven’t trained too much since Saturday.

“We only had a bit of a get-together on Tuesday, but legs are sore and fellas are tired, so tonight [Thursday] we will get going again.

“There hasn’t been much of a chat, but if you come back to me after tonight, maybe it will be the big focus point.

“I think when you’re in a final, those sorts of things aren’t really important; you just focus on the next game.

“Maybe that sounds naive, or you don’t believe that’s the case, but I can tell you that it’s not a conversation that’s had amongst the players.”