Kieran McGeeney’s one man crusade to save the All-Ireland round robin format is beginning to gather support. The much-maligned system is due to be binned at the end of this season after a GAA Special Congress voted in a new format last February, with an overwhelming majority of 92.8 percent. Ironically, it comes at a team when the format is being widely showered with love by pundits and fans alike. McGeeney’s comments came after another thrilling weekend of football where Derry and Galway played out a pulsating draw, Armagh trumped Dublin at Croke Park and Mayo bounced back to shock Tyrone in Omagh. On top of that, Down pipped Louth in a thriller at Newry, while Meath and Roscommon fought out a draw at the Hyde. The main factors for getting rid of the old format were the belief that there were too many games for a tight window and that only four teams were eliminated out of 16 after three rounds of games (24 matches). Another solution would have been to have just two teams qualify out of the four-team groups rather than four, although this may have meant more dead rubbers. In the current system, the carrot of topping the table to claim the one of the four automatic All-Ireland quarter-final places on offer has proved worthwhile with teams seeing the value in it and going after it hard. Having one game less and clear two week breaks between big games appears to have advantaged sides, rather than having a hectic schedule of playing three huge championship matches in 13-15 days. The other criticism of the format was that teams could lose three championship games and still make the last 12, as happened with Derry and Roscommon last year. However, this fails to take into account how competitive Ulster in particular is. The new format still has 16 teams, who qualify in the same fashion - the eight provincial finalists, the highest ranked league finishers, and the Tailteann Cup winners from the year before. Those 16 teams play off against each other in Round 1, with the winners going to Round 2A and the losers going to Round 2B, where those eight losing teams play off against each other. The four Round 2A winners qualify for the quarter-final stage with the Round 2A losers meeting the Round 2B winners in Round 3 (preliminary quarter-final). Once again the lopsided provincial championships determining the top eight seeds corrupts the system, but this seems unlikely to change in the near future. The new system is already used in the Sigerson Cup. McGeeney, though, reckons the current format is the best the GAA has ever had with big games week on week in May and June. And he says you can’t look beyond your next fixture: “That's why I love this system," he says. "You're looking at the next point. “As you can see there (the Armagh/Dublin game), the way this game is played, the minute we put that ball short, Dublin were hungry to get a score because they know how much it means. We were the same against Derry. “Again, I think it's why it's the best system that the GAA has ever produced.” McGeeney doesn’t believe the system is too hectic and demanding on players and managers and that the preseason builds a robustness in players if it is done properly. “I think the whole system is better,” he continued. “I genuinely do. Those week to week (games). It is hard. Again, that was probably the argument for the pre-season. Teams do their own pre-season. “Those days of flogging players and the stuff that I used to do is long gone, thank God. Your pre-seasons are mapped out to the last degree. “To have somebody who doesn't even know your players, their medical history or anything else, to tell them what to do, I think plays a big part. “If you get the pre-season right, that robustness in your players can last. It doesn't guarantee it, but it's no different in any sport, professional or amateur. “I don't think it’s too much. Sometimes when you get extra time in a game and you can be out the following week, that's a lot because you're basically playing two games in that one weekend. “In general, sometimes you fall foul of it, sometimes you don't. “The cadence we have is pretty good. I do think the system we have works well. We can’t expect every game to be a clinker. “We can't expect everything to be brilliant. It's no different than when there's Champions League or World Cup rugby. There's going to be rounds and there's going to be games that are poor. “But I think what we've got is good. In our sport, we have to respect the club level as well. “At the minute, we seem to have that, although most of the leagues are going on at the minute without a lot of the county players. They're normally back in for the tail end of the league. “It's an important part of it and into the Championship. I don't know if we need to mess with it that much. I think we've done enough of that. I know it changes again next year, but the cadence is pretty good.