Seeding introduced in Westmeath senior championship

Last year's finalists and semi-finalists in the Westmeath Senior Football Championship are to be seeded for the upcoming campaign. At a meeting of Westmeath Football Board in Cusack Park last Wednesday, delegates acceded to proposals from the Planning Committee for slight alterations in the championship formats. The senior competition will comprise two divisions of six teams with last year's semi-finalists to be in separate groups. Thereafter there will be an open draw. This means that the 2011 semi-finalists - Garrycastle (champions), Mullingar Shamrocks, Tyrrellspass and St Loman's - can't all be drawn in the same group in 2012; in previous years, no such restriction applied. In the intermediate championship, three of last year's semi-finalists and Tubberclair, who were relegated in 2010, are to be seeded. There will be two groups of six teams, with the group winners advancing to the semi-finals. When the report was put to the floor on Wednesday, Des Briody (Killucan) said he could not see the reason for seeding last year's semi-finalists and finalists. "It will not create any more competitive games. I propose that the championship be left as is," adding that the senior hurling championship requires some freshening up. Football Board Secretary, Gerry Coyne said if there was an open draw all four semi-finalists could be in the one half of the draw, while Fixtures Secretary, James Savage said the rationale could be to reward teams which reached the knock-out stages last year. Former Football Board Secretary, Tommy Glennon, proposing that the Planning Committee proposal be adopted, said that this was something he had promoted in the past. The Planning Committee's proposal was passed on a show of hands. There was some division in relation to the Intermediate Championship with a number of proposals being put forward, not all of which won support. Ballymore's Vinny McCormack failed to find a backer for his call for an open draw and Shandonagh's Stephen Lyons fared little better when he proposed that just the beaten finalist and the side relegated from the senior championship be seeded. On the proposal of Albert Fallon (Tubberclair), the Planning Committee's proposal was carried.