Hurling to return to St Brendan's Park

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Bord na Mona man
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Re: Hurling to return to St Brendan's Park

Post by Bord na Mona man »

On the surface issue. Are we happy that Birr's past problems with waterlogging are resolved?
Going back a few years, Birr has sometimes been barely playable in the Winter and early Spring months.
Remember back in 2001 when Offaly played Galway there and the ball was getting plugged dead in mud.
Or 2005 where the pitch was unplayable and the game was moved at the last minute to Carrig.

It was mentioned locally that the construction of the new stand in the late 90s had negatively affect the surface as it blocked the drying winds.

The pitch was relaid around 2006 and a further relay was required soon after as the first one wasn't a success.
It was around this time Offaly moved to Tullamore.

Are there some details I'm missing as to how the Birr pitch has now become a billiard table that you can Winter a herd of elephants on? It's now use the pitch being mighty in July when it's the January Walsh Cup games it can realistically target.

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Re: Hurling to return to St Brendan's Park

Post by Buck Face »

(1) Ok so things change but that doesn’t mean they change for the better. Now that you’ve hit on it, did moving hurling to Portlaoise do anything to improve the geographical spread or standard of hurling in the county?

(2) Keeping people off a pitch doesn’t make it drier. It proves that the pitch is draining well. If it did not have good drainage and with its cohesive nature it would hold water. And again, in worst case scenario, how big an issue is it to occasionally move venue when it would be the exception rather than the rule.

(3) Agreed - Hurling in Birr or Tullamore will benefit more than the hurling in that club. It benefits hurling in the region to differing degrees. It simply has a bigger impact in areas where hurling is given more of a priority and you only have to look at Kilkenny to see the high standard achieved when hurling is given priority. It makes total geographical sense to use Birr. Yes it might be to the detriment of football in the region but there is no point in being a jack of all trades and a master of none.

(4) Fair enough.

(5) If you never said all fields are the same why have you said over a ‘thousand’ times that it is just a field of grass? So you’ve heard top hurlers praising Tullamore but you’ve only heard waffle in relation to the field in Birr? No top player ever praised Birr? So if some player says Tullamore is a great surface you take it as true but to back up the surface in Birr we have to turn it into a Geology lesson. I don’t see any point in giving me a call to be honest. The surfaces are what they are.

(6) I think when it comes to an award for excessive policing there is only one winner.

(7) So no numbers then but when someone simply states that attendances in Tullamore are brutal you claim it to be an ‘outright lie’. (how can someone’s opinion be an outright lie?) Without going too deep into this as we won’t don’t have figures if they are comparing figures yearly then of course the year we were in Div 2 is included. Also, even if numbers are the same this would indicate a loss to me as the popularity of hurling has increased recently and is beginning to hit a boom time with the emergence of the so called weaker counties. I’d hate to think we’ve missed the bus.

(and can we top talking about south Offaly people, we are all Offaly people, it’s just that hurling is played more in the south of the county and football in the north of the county....or used to be at least)

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Re: Hurling to return to St Brendan's Park

Post by Lone Shark »

(1) It's impossible to be a meaningful force in hurling without getting a worthwhile contribution from your key urban areas. Thurles Sars, Mount Sion, De la Salle, Blackrock, St Finbarrs, Castlegar, James Stephens, O'Loughlin Gaels, this is true all across Ireland - far more so than in football in fact. When Portlaoise were at their strongest in the early 1980's, Laois hurling was at its strongest as well. This may be a coincidence but it may not.

(2) It proves that the pitch is draining well in March after a dry week. Of course the games could be moved but we don't want to make a habit of that - if you announce a game for a certain venue on Monday, people plan on that basis. If you move it on Friday, the people who would have made the new venue have now made alternative plans, and you lose some of those who could only make the original venue. Of course this can be done on an occasional basis, but I don't see why it's such a bad idea to have Birr prove that it can hold games in wet weather during the winter time.

(3) I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it appears as if you're arguing for Offaly to give hurling precedence the same way they do in Kilkenny. I don't think that's realistic, or a proper way for an outlet of the GAA to behave. Despite what a lot of people think - and I've had this argument with Kilkenny people frequently - the main aim of an association within a jurisdiction should be to provide meaningful games for their members. Not to win trophies - though obviously the two goals don't have to be mutually exclusive. We shouldn't be prioritising anywhere in my view - encourage all clubs to provide all games, and facilitate the county as a whole.

(5) I'm saying there are differences in surfaces of course, but the idea that we should encourage the view that we're only able to hurl on bowling-green standard surfaces is not something I agree with. Good teams will prosper on any surface in any conditions - it's for the ground staff to make the playing surface as good as is possible. And no, I don't take anything I hear from other players as the be-all and end-all, but just that the only criticism I've heard of the OCP playing surface has come from those who have another agenda. I'm not saying they're wrong, merely that their argument wasn't convincing, and their agenda made me skeptical. As you may have noticed, even if you're not willing to help me out, I do want to investigate this and get some facts out there, instead of just relying on wishy washy comment. It should be very easy to do an analysis of the surfaces and compare both with Semple Stadium, Croke Park etc.

(6) Complete agreement. OCP have a huge issue here and they need to deal with it.

(7) We can only deal in real numbers. You can understand why I'd have gone with county board members as opposed to anonymous contributors on here, I'm sure, particularly when it tallies with the audited accounts that are submitted at the end of the year.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.

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Re: Hurling to return to St Brendan's Park

Post by the Untouchable »

I think we're going about this debate all wrong...what the county board should look at is what venue would the Offaly hurlers & footballers gain the biggest advantage from playing at...

Unquestionably the footballers should stop playing our games in OCP & instead start playing all our games in Bracknagh...purely because it's the hardest pitch in Offaly to find...so you know what that means...yep, walk over awarded, Offaly come soring out of division 4...then riding a crest of a wave as we climb through the divisions based on this incredible home form!! If by some freak of nature a opposing team does happen to find the ground then we'll just have to take our chances...but it's probably a slim chance we'll have to worry about that!!

Now for the hurlers...sure St Brendan's is the spiritual home of hurling in Offaly...everyone knows that...But I think the new ground for our senior hurlers should be the pitch in Rahan...oppositions would struggle adjusting to playing up the hill, while our lads would be well used to it after a few training sessions there...when the opposition plays down the hill it's pure backs to the wall stuff...with the only tactic...to drive the ball as high & as far back up the field as possible!!

Of course I doubt this will happen...and to be honest even I am not all that convinced that we'd really gain that big of a competitive advantage from playing there!!
Surely if Birr is the home of Offaly hurling then Walsh Island would have a pretty strong case for all Offaly games to be moved out to the real home of hurling!!
The funny thing is, people genuinely do think that if Offaly played in Birr we'd beat a lot more teams around us...that's like saying Sid should be Offaly senior hurling manager because he was a brilliant player so naturally the players are going to love him & we're going to be amazing...oh wait, that has just happened...

I wonder which will happen 1st, Offaly senior hurling played in Birr or Sid fired...I know which I think would dramatically help to improve Offaly's chances of improving but something tells me someone will see playing in Birr as the solution to all our problems on the field...trust me...it's not!!

Slan!!
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Re: Hurling to return to St Brendan's Park

Post by Buck Face »

(1) Offaly itself has already proven your point wrong by showing it is possible. But to go one further on your theory here are the number of players from the clubs you listed that were on their respective county teams last year Thurles Sars 2, Mount Sion 0, De la Salle 2, Blackrock 0, St Finbarrs 0, Castlegar 0, James Stephens 2, O'Loughlin Gaels 1. Hardly earth shattering evidence?

I can safely say that we’d always at least average between 0 and 2 quality hurlers from Tullamore on the Offaly team regardless of where we play our main games. As for Laois, yes they were strong in the eighties when Portlaoise were strong but what happened then? You still didn’t answer my question under 1 the last time….because the answer is no.

(2) As I said it wouldn’t be a ‘habit’ but an exception. And okay if we can’t play winter hurling in Birr (which we can by the evidence from this year alone) what about it. It’s a simple fix, play it in Tullamore…….unless people need season’s notice to get themselves ready for a match?

(3) If we are happy to just participate in games then by all means move hurling to Tullamore or wherever. Personally I’m all for achieving the most possible from our few resources. To do this, and I think it starts in the national schools as much as the clubs, there is nothing wrong with giving hurling priority in hurling areas and vice versa when at the same time giving children (and adults) the opportunity to participate in all codes. It’s what has worked for us in the past. And why? Because it makes sense.

As such an advocate of GAA games it must irk you to see so little focus on handball then?

(4) No one should say that we can only hurl on bowling green surfaces (which isn’t Birr either by the way) but it I couldn’t agree that different team’s styles are not better suited to different conditions. By the way, I’ve never claimed that the better surface in Birr would increase our chances of winning against any of the stronger counties. I’ve just said that it’s better.

(7) As I said if we are standing still then we are probably behind on where we should be.

Untouchable – I agree that we may not gain that big of an advantage by playing games in Birr at the present but over time I think we would gain our rewards by redeveloping and strengthening the game in the hurling area of our county.

And LS – why is the Senior county final not up for debate? What is the present capacity in Birr and what capacity do you think we need? Instead of ‘fixing’ the pitch in Tullamore as you suggested why not just get a financial agreement between Birr and the County Board, help Birr GAA across the line in achieving the attendance figures and don’t play the final in January. Sorted.

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Re: Hurling to return to St Brendan's Park

Post by townman »

some great points on here, never mind where the games are to be played, if we don't do anything in our schools or underage hurling you could played the games in Geashill if you like as they will be well able to hold who goes to watch them these days sunday gate would fit in Geashill.

the games are in tullamore so lets leave it at that, and get behind the side there seems to be more debate on where the games are played than the team and the way we are playing or whos playing well or poor at the moment. the way i would look at it if you want to support your county team you will go to watch them either in Birr or tullamore, and lets cut out this bullshit out about why and where they should be played. the support for the team was brutal sunday and its hard for players to run out to and empty stand like most games this year, but i also wouldn't say there would be more if it was in Birr
as lads that won't drive to Birr will stay at home, and the lads that won't drive to tullamore will be at ST.Brendans bar the few diehards that go everywhere to watch them. we are a county of sunshine supporters always were and always will be matter where we hurl.

sat beside a lovely old gent form patrickswell limerick on sunday and he to was saying how poor our support was! he said with all ye won since 1980 club also, he said if we in limerick won as much he die a happy man, and no we didn't talk 94 as he says still a sore subject :lol: so get the fuck out and support the hurlers they gave us some great days out down the years .

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Re: Hurling to return to St Brendan's Park

Post by Lone Shark »

I agree with everything Townman has posted above, yet in saying that, I think we've learned by now that this issue isn't going to just go away until a resolution is reached, and all sides agree to just bury their differences, reach a compromise and move on.

I think we've covered most aspects at this stage however just to come back one more time:

(1) That wasn't meant to be an exhaustive list, but my point is that in almost every leading hurling county, urban clubs tend to lead the way. There might have been no Mount Sion players on the Waterford team last, but there were five between De la Salle and Ballygunner. Seven of the Cork starters in the All Ireland final were from city clubs too, I juts picked the Rockies and the Barrs because they are historically more well known.

(2) What evidence is there that Birr can host winter hurling? Again I say that last Saturday's game is simply not proof of that - we had a good dry week in the lead up to the game, and it is mid March. I've cut my grass twice already, so it's not winter any more.

(3) I'm all for maximising resources, but that doesn't necessarily equate to splitting the county according to historical predisposition for me. And yes, I'd prefer to see a lot more focus on handball, absolutely.

As for the senior final, Birr's capacity is way short of what's needed - that's why it's not up for debate. Whatever about the games that they are capable of holding, we're hardly going to start fighting over games that it can't hold.

As for the idea that county board resources would be well spent "helping Birr across the line", well that's just laughable. We don't need a second ground capable of hosting finals and we certainly don't need it as much as we need an all weather field, up to date training facilities and floodlights for either SBP or OCP.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.

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Re: Hurling to return to St Brendan's Park

Post by timber »

the Untouchable wrote:I think we're going about this debate all wrong...what the county board should look at is what venue would the Offaly hurlers & footballers gain the biggest advantage from playing at...

Unquestionably the footballers should stop playing our games in OCP & instead start playing all our games in Bracknagh...purely because it's the hardest pitch in Offaly to find...so you know what that means...yep, walk over awarded, Offaly come soring out of division 4...then riding a crest of a wave as we climb through the divisions based on this incredible home form!! If by some freak of nature a opposing team does happen to find the ground then we'll just have to take our chances...but it's probably a slim chance we'll have to worry about that!!

Now for the hurlers...sure St Brendan's is the spiritual home of hurling in Offaly...everyone knows that...But I think the new ground for our senior hurlers should be the pitch in Rahan...oppositions would struggle adjusting to playing up the hill, while our lads would be well used to it after a few training sessions there...when the opposition plays down the hill it's pure backs to the wall stuff...with the only tactic...to drive the ball as high & as far back up the field as possible!!

Of course I doubt this will happen...and to be honest even I am not all that convinced that we'd really gain that big of a competitive advantage from playing there!!
Surely if Birr is the home of Offaly hurling then Walsh Island would have a pretty strong case for all Offaly games to be moved out to the real home of hurling!!
The funny thing is, people genuinely do think that if Offaly played in Birr we'd beat a lot more teams around us...that's like saying Sid should be Offaly senior hurling manager because he was a brilliant player so naturally the players are going to love him & we're going to be amazing...oh wait, that has just happened...

I wonder which will happen 1st, Offaly senior hurling played in Birr or Sid fired...I know which I think would dramatically help to improve Offaly's chances of improving but something tells me someone will see playing in Birr as the solution to all our problems on the field...trust me...it's not!!

Slan!!
Some good points here. We need a bit of humour with the performances that we have witnessed on the field.

Lads I think the bigger issue is not where Offaly play their games, but why are our teams so poor. We should be beating teams no matter where we play them and the performances to date have been dreadful.

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Re: Hurling to return to St Brendan's Park

Post by Bord na Mona man »

timber wrote: Lads I think the bigger issue is not where Offaly play their games, but why are our teams so poor. We should be beating teams no matter where we play them and the performances to date have been dreadful.
Unfortunately some people think the venue is the bigger issue. Unfortunately some of those people are actually at the coalface contributing to our problems in other ways.

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Re: Hurling to return to St Brendan's Park

Post by Buck Face »

(1) Your initial point about it being ‘impossible to be a meaningful force without getting a worthwhile contribution from your key urban areas’ has at least now been revised to in ‘almost every leading hurling county, urban clubs lead the way’. Unfortunately, this revision is also greatly flawed.

First of all you can’t surely be putting forward a case for the potential in an urban area like Tullamore by comparing it to situations in a city the size of Cork? (and Ballygunner and Sarsfields are not city teams by the way)

And secondly your claim is incorrect regardless of who you compare it to. Look at Clare last year with one player from Ennis. Or the Munster champions Limerick with one player from the city. And don’t try to tell me again that Kilkenny are strong because of city players, it’s because it’s what they do in every green field from Kilmacow to Castlecomer (Or has Ballyhale grown since I was in it last?). In Tipperary a town team has won only 4 of the last 20 county finals. And the list goes on.

If you are seriously putting forward the urban v rural debate to back up your reasoning behind moving hurling to Tullamore then I think it’s time to concede.

(2) I’ll go halves on this and agree to only arrange fixtures for Birr when we know the pitch is playable (with plenty notice of course).

(3) I’m not splitting anything here. It is the way it already is. And there is nothing ‘historical’ about the predisposition for people in the hurling areas wanting to play hurling more than any other game. I know ‘tradition’ may be such a dirty word to you that you want it banned but it is inherent in people and no matter how much you wish it to go away it simply won’t. And apologies for never seeing myself getting as excited about a game of rounders as I do about hurling. That is just the way I am (I'd like to think I'm not alone on this at least). The sooner the proponents of moving hurling to Tullamore realise that this is the way things are the better.


I’m glad you got a laugh out of ‘county board resources being well spent helping Birr across the line’ but I can’t take credit for it as I never said it. Simply producing the required attendance figure would be a great help. So, as you are so sure that Birr are ‘way’ short on what’s needed, can you give me the current figures so we know exactly where we are on this?

The crux of this comes down to you willfully dismissing the need for a second pitch when at the same time putting it forward that where the games are played does have an impact in the standards in that area. And as this works both ways it’s time to realise the harm that it will continue to do to the hurling area of our county by permanently moving the game away from that area.

And of course I realise there are numerous other important issues to be resolved but you can’t grow a tree from the top down.

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Re: Hurling to return to St Brendan's Park

Post by Lone Shark »

I think we're talking about smaller details at this stage here, and while I'm not and never was saying that urban areas should be prioritised, my point was simply that county town teams tend to be a lot stronger in hurling counties than football counties, taking a bigger picture view. However I think that particular avenue has reached a dead end I feel.


And you did say
Buck Face wrote: Instead of ‘fixing’ the pitch in Tullamore as you suggested why not just get a financial agreement between Birr and the County Board, help Birr GAA across the line in achieving the attendance figures.
If you meant help Birr in terms of planning and logistics, but not cash, then please correct and I'll agree with you. However the idea that we need a second county ground more than we need (1) An all weather pitch (2) A dedicated county training facility and (3) the ability to host floodlit games is one that I'm pretty confident is held by a very small minority of people. If Offaly suddenly came into €150k in ready cash to be spent on one of those four things, I'd be stunned if any more than two or three clubs voted for a big subsidy for Birr to develop a second ground. Of course that's only my opinion.

And yes, if the field in Tullamore is flawed, I'd like to think effort and energy would be put into fixing it, again within the realms of what's financially possible. If we didn't have another field at all, that would be the right thing to do.


Incidentally, it was since brought to my attention that the Birr CS junior camogie semi-final against Loughrea had to be moved out of Birr to Carrig on the Saturday before last (8th) because SBP was unable to hold the game - so while the field looked splendid on the 15th, it clearly needed a full dry week with plenty of sunshine to get to that. You can't presume that you'll get that weather when you need it in January and February.

I've also been told that in Roscommon, when games get moved from the Hyde to Kiltoom all too frequently, they allow for a hit of around 20-30% on the gate as opposed to if the game had been fixed for Kiltoom originally, due to people not hearing about the switch until very late on. That's not something you could afford to do on a regular basis.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.

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Re: Hurling to return to St Brendan's Park

Post by Buck Face »

At this stage I have no idea what the latest point you are trying to make under (1) is, so I guess it can’t be very important at this stage.

I don’t have to correct anything but apologies as I can see how it could be easily misread. If you remove the full stop that you’ve added to my quote and read the full sentence you can see I was making 3 different points. I did mean logistics and planning (and a little bit of pull, in the right direction this time, can go a long way) and, to be clear, not hard up cash.

Energy and effort alone will not fix any surface. It will take hard up cash so it is not simply a case of ‘just fix it’.

So, even taking your source’s facts on this to be correct, Birr went from being unplayable on the 8th, (the weather only turned dry on the 10th) and it was ‘splendid’ by the 15th. Nothing too wrong with the drainage there then regardless of what kind of weather we had for 5 days.

The statisticians in Roscommon are well up to speed in their fine detail by the looks of it, whereas I’m struggling to get the figures that back up your claim that the attendance capacity for St Brendan’s Park is ‘way short’ of what it needs to be to facilitate the county hurling final. We really have a long way to go in our great little county on a number of fronts.

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Re: Hurling to return to St Brendan's Park

Post by Bord na Mona man »

Buck Face wrote:Birr went from being unplayable on the 8th, (the weather only turned dry on the 10th) and it was ‘splendid’ by the 15th. Nothing too wrong with the drainage there then regardless of what kind of weather we had for 5 days.
Birr was less playable than other venues though, so the suspicion still remains that Birr still suffers more than other places in poor weather. As time goes by the 'Fortress Birr' theory has grown legs and now the poor durability of the pitch is starting to get airbrushed from history.

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Re: Hurling to return to St Brendan's Park

Post by Lone Shark »

I didn't want to derail the SHC thread so hence my use of this one again, but did anyone else think that the Birr surface was in very poor order on Sunday evening?

There were dodgy bounces all over the place (I thought Darren O'Meara was particularly unlucky at the end of the first half when he was clean through on goal and the sliothar kicked forward and to the left instead of bouncing as you'd expect), the grass was up to four inches long in spots (I went down for a look at half time since I didn't want to judge based on sitting up in the stand) and it looked to me as if there were old, dried in divots all over the place. There has been very little traffic on it this spring and normally my only criticism of the field itself would be in the case of adverse weather, usually it's excellent in summer conditions. I'd be interested to hear what others thought of it.

I was sitting at the Town end so I wouldn't make too many judgements about the far side of the field, where it still looked excessively lush, but that was from a distance.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.

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Re: Hurling to return to St Brendan's Park

Post by Buck Face »

Dried in divots? That's the drainage issue resolved then (sounds like it dried a little bit too quickly if anything).

At most I guess a little bit better groundsmanship and it's sorted?

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