We have set up a working group to examen what changes we might make to the competition structure in Ireland. We have invited input from various interested parties i.e. the Branches , Umpires Assoc, Schools committee etc etc but we really want to reach out to the members and find out what you want. So now is your chance.

Some questions just to get started.
- Do you play in tournaments . If yes how could we improve them , what would it take to encourage you to play more. If no then why not. What format of tournament would you be interested in.
I have noticed that there are some very successful summer leagues that are run by clubs - maybe we could extend that type of thing?
- The ITTA recently introduced a “Junior Challenger series” type of event - Sponsored by Stiga - that excludeds elite players and then gives kids loads of games and eventually ends up divisionalising them. We had 100 kids turn up last weekend in Lucan for that and the minimum amount of games that everyone got was 8. Could we do something like that for seniors? By the way we just put everyone into the same draw so you could classify it as an ability event.- What do people think of the national teams competition? Could we expand that?
All comments / ideas about we can improve things are welcome.

I play in a few competitions each year and I think they have improved a lot in recent years in how they are run.

In terms of how they can improved, having the groups draws online a few days before the start of an event is a big help. I think this happened for the Leinster Open this year.

I think the team competition worked well, and is a good way of encouraging new players and clubs.

I think it would be good to have an Irish Open event, which should be the highlight of the yearly calendar. This could replace the National Championships which is a closed event, or be a new event entirely.

Also, having events which excludes elite players and aims to get more club players interested is good. For example, there could be an event that only consists of doubles matches, with players being paired with different players for each match, and an emphasis on people playing lots of matches.

I play in the odd Ulster tournament, and am of the opinion that the cost of entries into each class are exorbitant in this current
climate. To encourage more players that are not ‘elite’ orientated perhaps fees could be 50% less. As for the way they are run, it works well until you are good enough to reach the quarters in just about everything and you end up with no rest whatsoever, ok if you are young, but us over 40’s are blowin’ like whales!

I play in all the Tournaments.

1) The Leinster Grand Prix format, should be adopted for all Tournaments.

2) The Munster Open should just be a Senior Tournament, instead of being combined with a Junior Tournament. Making the Seniors play on the Friday Night means you have to take a day off work and also pay for Accommodation, which in this time of economic hardship, isn’t the best way of gaining a godd entry to the Event.

3) Why have Veterans Events, within the Senior Tournaments, if you don’t get Veterans Ranking Points for them ? Doesn’t make sense to me, and the whole way the ITTA deals with Veterans, should be examined, as it seems to be a separate organisation, where it should in fact come under the one umbrella.

4) Seems to be a vast difference in pricing between tournaments. For example to enter 2 events at the Ulster Open cost me £35, whereby 2 Events at the Munster Open cost €20 !

While the participation tournament was a great success before Christmas, my fear is now that we are moving to a two standard tournament, where we have the elite tournaments and beginners/improvers tournaments.  This will work if we continue to feed players from the participation tournaments into the Leinster tournaments.  However, when this happens, we have to be prepared to have divisions in the Leinster tournaments.  In December 2008, there was an entry of about 70-75 players in the under 12 boys.  However, we never saw the vast majority of these players again as, because they weren’t ranked they ended up meeting top seeds in their first round and were not strong enough to compete in the plate competition.  If entries rise above 30 players in a tournament, divisions should be introduced, with approximately 15 players in each division.  This is very important if we are to retain players playing tournaments.  Players can then progress up the divisions, as was done very successfully in the old days.

The other thing that I would like to see is more transparency at the tournaments.  Draws should be put up on the wall (electronically if possible) and updated all along the way so that players can clearly see who they will come up against in the next rounds.  This also means that any errors that are made can be quickly corrected before the competition has gone too far and the mistake then cannot be reversed.  This will eliminate the problems that happened in the Irish Junior Classification, where some players were entered into the plate competition in error, and by the time the mistake was discovered, it was too late.