MAYBE the time has come for the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) to rethink the groupings for the daCosta Cup schoolboys’ football competition to give schools more first-round games.

With the explosion of new and upgraded schools, the competition has grown over the past 15-20 years to be the biggest of its kind in the country, with an average of nearly 80 schools per year taking part.

ISSA has done its best to deliver a quality product, and has delivered most of the times, but there is one area where some flexibility could be shown — ensuring that all the teams in the first round play the same number of games or as close to it as possible.

Currently, there are 75 schools playing in 15 zones, but only three zones have the maximum number of six schools participating, while four zones have only four schools.

The inequity that this will cause is that some schools will play 10 games in the first round, while others will play only six, a big disparity when not all schools can afford the extended pre-seasons and dozens of practice matches.

Going into yesterday’s round of 28 games, some schools had already played four games, while a number played only once; some schools will have long breaks in between games, while others will play up to three games in a week.

Come next year, ISSA may have to combine some zones if teams are to benefit from a first round where they play at least eight games.

The challenge this would cause, however, would be the constant tinkering with the format, as well as some traditional rivalries could either be lost or put on hold for a season or two.

Traditional rivalries, such as St Elizabeth Technical against Munro College, Titchfield against Happy Grove, Glenmuir vs Garvey Maceo and more recent ones such as Cornwall College versus St James High, have become big draws each season. Regardless of where they end up at the end of the season, bragging rights are important in schoolboys’ football, to not just fans, but players as well.

ISSA will have to decide, in their quest to deliver a quality product, which facet would have to be sacrificed and which one is more important.

Granted, this season, with the introduction of the quarter-final round, the more successful schools will play more games; however, if one of these schools happens to be in one of the zones with four schools and have a bad game or two, they might not get the chance to gel as a team and might not reach the top eight.

It can also be argued that ISSA has already looked beyond obvious rivalries; as close as Frome Technical are to Mannings School, they have not played against each other in the first round in years.

Frome Technical and Rusea’s High have developed a solid rivalry over the past few years, irrespective of the fact that they are not in the same parish.

Also, with Cornwall College and Herbert Morrison, the two oldest high schools in Montego Bay playing daCosta Cup, they have not played each other in Zone A since 2009.

Black River High and BB Coke, formerly Junction Secondary, have been moved from the St Elizabeth zone several times; Black River actually played in Zone A in the late-1980s.

Having at least five teams in a zone will also benefit the schools financially, as they will have two more home gates from which to help recover some of the money spent from meagre budgets.