Schools Football

[llkj]

I see on Twitter that Gallen CS just won their Leinster semi final easily today and now Offaly schools are represented in the Colleges and Vocational Leinster finals.

First and foremost, congratulations and good luck to both teams in their respective finals.

After last years All Ireland success, I heard a few people saying that becaues Gallen had a really strong team again this year, that they should test themselves at the Colleges level instead of staying at the Vocational level, where they have already proven themselves.
I found this an interesting angle on things and am wondering what the general opionins are on this:

1. Would people agree that Colleges is generally a higher level than Vocational level?
2. Should Gallen have tried to move levels (I am led to believe that it is possible to do this)?
3. And, just to throw it out there on a Friday evening, who do we think would win between Edenderry and Gallen in a no-holds-barred, winner-takes-all, unification-of-the-belts, fight-to-the-death, cage-match, charity fundraiser?

As I say, it's a nice debate to be having - 'which one of Offaly's Leinster finalists do we think would win', rather than 'why are Offaly team's not competing at schools levels'.

[Lone Shark]

(1) Unquestionably, Colleges A is a higher level than VEC A, in Leinster at least. I don't doubt that Gallen would be competitive, but based on what I saw from Maynooth PP today, they absolutely would not be. Note that Maynooth beat Granard in the previous round, who would have given Gallen a very close game last time out. I'm not sure what lies in wait in the final, I believe Carnew, but unless they are a good bit better than last year, they too would struggle at Colleges A.

All that said, there are a lot of colleges playing colleges A who are out of their depth too. I saw Portarlington beat St Fintans HS very easily in the first round, the eight point margin was the least they deserved, and there were a few other schools took heavy beatings along the way. The likes of St Josephs in Rochfortbridge, Carlow CBS, Portmarnock and Kilcock are all out of their depth just as much.

Ulster and Munster are traditionally the stronger provinces at this level, Gallen's win last year was the first time a Connacht or Leinster school won the title since 2001 when Clara were the winners. There'll be plenty of tests at that stage.

(2) It is possible - Athlone Community College did it a few years ago. To be honest if Gallen had a steady stream of players of this calibre coming along the line it would make sense, but you're taking about a school that is working with a much smaller enrolment than is the norm at colleges A. Gallen would have about 30 male pupils in each of the six years - St Marys would have at least double that, possibly closer to treble, and some schools at Colleges A would have four or five times that. To put it another way, Gallen today comprised of players from three clubs - a goalkeeper from Erin Rovers, three Shannonbridge lads and the rest Ferbane. Edenderry's starting team draws players from four COUNTIES, and if I'm not mistaken, at least ten or twelve different clubs. For Gallen to move grade because of one good group would seem a little rash. It's not that there aren't good footballers coming up along, but there aren't a huge number of them.

(3) Very, very tough to call. I certainly wouldn't predict it with confidence. Edenderry might have the edge simply because again, for reasons of depth, they wouldn't have to field players as young as Gallen would have to - if I'm not mistaken, four of the Gallen starters today will play Under-16 club football in 2012. I very much doubt Edenderry would have to call on Juniors like that.

[llkj]

Playing numbers definitely can be a factor, but looking at the quality of the F/B underage teams at the moment, there should be enough quality coming through the school for at least a few years to come to be very competitive at any grade.
An equally important factor is the attitude and culture that is fostered in the school. If a first year comes to school and knows that they are entering a really strong football school with a recent tradition of winning it definitely helps to foster future success too - you start to expect to win games, have idols/peers to look up to and want to be a part of that success.

I suppose there are 2 ways of looking at it:

1. It is better to actually win an All Ireland and experience everything that comes with that for immediate and long-term development of players, even if it means only getting really competitive games further on in the competition.
or
2. It would be better to compete at the highest level possible and see where you stand against the other really elite teams. That way, there is no room for complacency and you see the resource/skills gaps earlier in a players development and can work to fix that.

Definitely a tricky one - if you gave me the option of a crack at defending my title from last year or changing levels to prove myself at another level, it is one that I would have to think long and hard about.
To be honest, I don't know what I would choose.

[Lone Shark]

There is quality no doubt, but the lack of depth is hard to get past. Look at the Junior competition this year, again backboned by a Ferbane side that won the county under-16 championship with plenty to spare. Darragh Keenaghan was injured and Mikey Butler suspended for the game against Granard, and the Longford school won it well since Gallen need every one of their big names to compensate for the fact that they don't have county standard players in every position. Again, to compare with Edenderry, there are three county minor panellists in that squad who aren't sure of starting. Granted one is very young, another has earned his place lately and another is up against two former county minors for his place, but Gallen doesn't have that and ends up filling gaps with players who are either struggling at A standard or else very, very young. I checked btw - five of today's starters will play under-16 this summer. I forgot Dylan Buckley in goals.

Both last year and this year the school have been blessed with a lack of injuries. Give them a year where they lose one or two of the wrong guys, and that would really tell at A level.

We've been here before. I remember St Sarans playing in Colleges A for a few years after I left the school. I think the last year they played A was 1998 - a side very much carried by the serious talent of Damien Hunt and Karol Kelly. I remember one of the teachers back then telling me that the next smallest school in the A championship had just under three times as many lads to pick from as us at the time. (Albeit there was barely 100 lads in the school at the time). You can just about cope with all that when you've got a few outstanding players - but you can't guarantee you'll always have that.

[llkj]

So you're telling me that Size matters.

on a more general level, is there any real need to have seperate competitions anymore? Surely, you could just have every school play in the same competition and make more divisions. Would take a couple of years to really sort out who should be where, but you could fairly easily get a competition going that would have 90% of teams in the correct bracket to begin with - although I wouldn't fancy writing that algorithm!

[Abercrombie Fitch]

I think school teams can only be judged year to year. That Clara team of 2001 would have been very hard to beat even at colleges level. They were a bit of a one off though. Meehan, Joe Quinn, Matt Mitchell, Marius Stones, John Reynolds and Tom Deehan to name a few. Whole 15 from Clara too.

[Lone Shark]

So you're telling me that Size matters.

on a more general level, is there any real need to have seperate competitions anymore? Surely, you could just have every school play in the same competition and make more divisions. Would take a couple of years to really sort out who should be where, but you could fairly easily get a competition going that would have 90% of teams in the correct bracket to begin with - although I wouldn't fancy writing that algorithm!

On that I'd agree with you. A school like Gallen is of course going to take advantage of the anomaly that is a slightly softer route to Croke Park, but you would imagine that you could amalgamate the lot, have up to ten grades, and then allow for more free movement up and down, within reason. Right now a lot of schools seem to like A status, even though they really don't deserve to be playing at that grade. Others try to amalgamate, like Dundalk schools.

You could also possibly allow for more regional divisions as well, to prevent teams trekking long distances. It's a long way from Gallen to Dundalk, yet both of those areas are "North Leinster".

[llkj]

Gallen hammered the shite out of Carnew today. Congrats.

Good luck to Edenderry tomorrow.

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

What was the score? Well done to the lads.
Any idea who they might play in the all ireland semi?

The very best of luck to St Marys tomorrow in the Leinster final!

[old yellar]

the good carlow influence on the team shone through no doubt! Well done to fran and his troops.

[Lone Shark]

Gallen won 2-16 to 1-4. Started well, led by 0-7 to 1-3, missed two goal chances and then struggled coming up to half time, went in winning by a point, 0-7 to 1-3. Was listening to a couple of Carnew lads in the crowd at half time commenting about how "these Offaly lads are no good" which amused me a little when I thought back to last year and how I knew our lads would pick up the pace a bit.

The most impressive part for me was at the start of the second half - started by kicking up four shots wide, and still kept their heads and their discipline. Finally got one on the board when Joe Maher kicked a great score, then soon after had a goal from Eoghan Lowry and it was one way traffic to the end. Even the one Carnew point was a deflected fly hack, not even a score of note.

Much tougher challenges to come - the Connacht Final is this Wednesday in Headford, Davitt College Mayo playing against Coláiste na Coiribe, Gallen play the winners of this.

[Lone Shark]

Semi final set for Saturday, 3pm, at Strokestown in Roscommon against Davitt College, Castlebar.

[Unrealbanter]

Best of luck to gallen cs and st.marys tommorow, Great to see 2 offaly schools in all ireland semis!

[Lone Shark]

By Cliona Foley
Tuesday March 27 2012
OFFALY football may have had a disastrous start to the season but things have taken a turn for the better recently and it got a huge boost last weekend when two local schools reached All-Ireland finals.

St Mary's Edenderry clinched a place in their second Hogan Cup final in four years by beating Connacht football nursery St Jarlath's Tuam by six points, and victory over Davitt College, Castlebar has put defending champions Gallen CS from Ferbane back into the All-Ireland Vocational Schools decider.

Their achievements indicate that there are green shoots there for football in the county, whose seniors stopped the rot by beating Cavan and only losing to Sligo by two points last weekend.

"Definitely, and it's great that Gallen came through again as well," agreed St Mary's manager Emmet McDonnell. "I'd be in touch with their manager Fran Mulhall a lot, we've played them in challenge matches the last few years and we'll definitely be supporting them in their final."

Their schools' 'Yes we can' attitude is a far cry from the pessimism surrounding Offaly's senior fortunes earlier this season, when new manager Gerry Cooney came under serious pressure to step down after his side lost their first four games in Division 3.

Niall McNamee's return has helped improve things -- his young cousins, brothers Conor and Ruari, are both starters for St Mary's. The school made its first breakthrough by winning an All-Ireland 'B' title in 2007 and have kicked on impressively since.

Their location means they benefit from players from several counties -- full-forward Daniel Flynn is a Kildare U-21 and Cian McMonagle is a Lilywhite minor. They also have two Meath minors (Michael Kearney and Jason Dowdall) and a pair of Westmeath minors in Ger Leech and Ryan Caffrey, but the bulk of their squad is from Offaly and includes six county minors.

St Mary's have four of the team -- including county senior Anton Sullivan -- who were desperately unlucky to lose to Jack O'Connor's Colaiste na Sceilge in the 2009 schools' final.

St Mary's captain Conor McNamee, Daniel Grehan and Philip Foy were all also involved in that heartbreak -- the latter at centre-back but he was a super-sub attacker in 2009 when, at just 15, he got the injury-time goal that put them into the Leinster final.

That was played in Portlaoise but this year's All-Ireland decider, against St Michael's Enniskillen, is finally taking St Mary's to Croke Park on Saturday week.

"St Michael's have huge experience and are coached by Dom Corrigan but we beat St Jarlath's, who had something like 48 provincial titles and 12 All-Irelands compared to our two Leinster titles," said McDonnell, whose management team includes his brother Gordon and Paul Costello, all of them Westmeath men teaching in the school.

"We get players from several counties and in the recent Kildare/Meath U-21 game there were nine of our former pupils," McDonnell added, pointing out that Kildare seniors Morgan and Eoin O'Flaherty are also ex-pupils.

"But we are an Offaly school and will be one of two representing the county in All-Ireland finals this year, and that is very encouraging for football in the county."

- Irish Independent

[Lone Shark]

Just on the Vocational semi on Saturday, it was a long way from Gallen's finest performance, but there was savage character to the performance all the same. Davitt College chose to play into the wind in the first half - an unusual move for underdogs - and at 1-9 to 0-3 down at half time, things were looking reasonably good.

Ten minutes and two goals later and suddenly it wasn't looking good at all. Davitt had moved Diarmuid O'Connor to the full forward line, meaning that the entire line was made up of Mayo intercounty minors - and all three of them were big tall players, and high balls were doing damage. Two interventions were crucial - Ciarán Cahill went back to full back and steadied the ship very well, and Darragh Corbett produced a great run to create Gallen's second goal. Just to say it wasn't that James Nally was doing anything wrong, he was his usual tidy self at 3, but he was just physically mismatched against O'Connor.

Up front Joe Maher and Eoghan Lowry dominated the scoring again - in the last two games that's 1-13 for Maher and 2-10 for Lowry - but I continue to be very impressed with Colin Kenny, who played in a county under-14 final only six months ago. A lad of his age shouldn't be able to hold his own in this company, but he is and it's crucial, particularly with key lads like Brian Grehan and Darragh Keenaghan injured.


And I know it's been said before, but what a farce holding the two games twenty minutes away from one another - it screamed out to be played as a double header, either in Pearse Park or in the Hyde. Strokestown is a good club ground but it is up on a height and the wind was too much of a factor on a day when there was no need for it. It was an All Ireland semi final and it deserved a better venue.

Be very interesting to see how Holy Trinity and Clonakilty goes this weekend. Last year's game between Gallen and Holy Trinity was one of the best games at that level I've ever seen - most of the team played well and both Conor Lowry and Ciarán Cahill had the best games I've ever seen them play - and it was all needed because Gallen still only won by two. If HTC are anywhere close to that level again, they should beat Clonakilty and will be very hard stopped in the final too.