SENIOR FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP:THE OLD end-of-season chestnut of how the football championship would be best structured was the inevitable talking point yesterday with Cork captain Graham Canty, given his team, like many others, discovered winning the provincial title is not necessarily to best way to win an All-Ireland title.

Canty suggested the provincial champions should be rewarded with a bye into the All-Ireland semi-final – same as in hurling – although that may well create some problems of its own.

“I don’t think there’s a huge advantage either way, in winning the provincial or losing it, in the quest for All-Ireland glory. In saying that, you’ll be starting out next year, everyone inside in Munster, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, will want to win Munster. Cork and Kerry are the favourites, and speaking for ourselves anyway, we want to win Munster, and go forward for the All-Ireland that way.

“The way it is at the moment you have two championships; your provincial championship, and your All-Ireland series. I don’t think you should have an open draw. My own view would be to keep the provincial final. That has served the GAA well over the last number of years, and I wouldn’t be in favour of getting rid of it.

“But a bye into All-Ireland semi-final is something they could look it. How you’d get around the gap then from the provincial final to the All-Ireland semi-final is another thing, but you could look at it. It would be one way or rewarding someone for winning the provincial title. I know the hurling has gone that way and it seemed to work alright there.”

Losing this year’s All-Ireland final to Kerry was a bitter pill to swallow, for lots of reasons, but over a month on, Canty is still not sure what went wrong, beyond Cork not playing up to scratch.

“I suppose, we didn’t probably perform to our potential on the day, but a lot of that was probably to do with the day Kerry played on the day as well. That’s our own fault, as players. We’ll have to take that on board, and learn from it.

“Overall, throughout the year we performed fairly consistently. Even throughout the league. But we didn’t perform on the last day, in the All-Ireland final, and that’s something we need to look at; try to find out why.”

The notion they peaked too soon, or at least against Tyrone in the semi-final, is something Canty dismisses: “I think more than peaking, we got some consistency. We did alright against Kerry in a couple of games, the All-Ireland quarter-final against Donegal, and against Tyrone. I think overall our performances throughout the year were consistently good enough.

“We had a dip against Kerry in the last game, but I don’t think it was down to peaking or anything like that, to be honest.

“It’s like anything – fine lines change games. We got a good start but we didn’t maintain it, didn’t keep going. The last 15 or 20 minutes of the first half we were non-existent in the game, we came out in the second half and did pretty well.

“After 55 minutes we were a point down but missed a couple of chances we could have got but they were probably hard enough scores to get. Overall, tactics-wise we created chances, didn’t take them and probably let Kerry get a couple of easy scores. On the day, small things could have changed the game, and it could have ended up a small bit differently.”

The challenge for Cork now is to raise their game again in 2010 and Canty remains confident.

“We’ve a good young, team, bar myself and another couple of hangers-on. I believe we are good enough to win an All-Ireland. But then I believed that the last two or three years, especially. We haven’t won it. Just because you think you are good enough and you think you might deserve it doesn’t mean you are actually going to get there.

“You just have to keep doing the right things and if it is going to happen it is going to happen.”