U21 FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

[townman]

Ssshhhh! Or they'll be out from Burrr looking to see if there's e'er a lad in Shannonbridge who has potential as a hurler.

the last one was John Ryan he went to Rynaghs, i think you could do with a few at your own club
i hear their are more girls than boys in school now in Lusmagh, to many she mickeys out that part of the county.

[townman]

Populations taken from the 2011 Census -

North Portarlington: 2,372, versus

Shannonbridge : 299, and
Clonmacnois : 336.

Someone with more local knowledge of the Portarlington area might know if Hammerlane (565) and Ballyshear (377) are in Gracefield or Raheen territory.

Hammerlane just outside of mountmellick part in laois part in offaly, Martin Gorman who played for Gracefield and offaly who also played underage with the Rock in laois, as you come over the bridge in cloneygowan the portarlington side thats the gracefield side.

[Plain of the Herbs]

Numbers in Lusmagh school may be at an all-time low but I'm sure each and every one of them is smarter than you.
(With apologies to those of you who expect more from me and from this site)

Ssshhhh! Or they'll be out from Burrr looking to see if there's e'er a lad in Shannonbridge who has potential as a hurler.

the last one was John Ryan he went to Rynaghs, i think you could do with a few at your own club
i hear their are more girls than boys in school now in Lusmagh, to many she mickeys out that part of the county.

[townman]

Numbers in Lusmagh school may be at an all-time low but I'm sure each and every one of them is smarter than you.
(With apologies to those of you who expect more from me and from this site)

Ssshhhh! Or they'll be out from Burrr looking to see if there's e'er a lad in Shannonbridge who has potential as a hurler.

the last one was John Ryan he went to Rynaghs, i think you could do with a few at your own club
i hear their are more girls than boys in school now in Lusmagh, to many she mickeys out that part of the county.

your well able to slag but it seems you can't take it back

[Plain of the Herbs]

Look, you made a sweeping, unresearched statement regarding the relative populations of Shannonbridge and Portarlington. You were wrong, as you very often are (indeed, sweeping statements such as that seem to be your sole contribution to this board) and I disproved your statement with the facts.

Those populations are readily available on the internet, something all schoolchildren can use to varying degrees. You can evidently use a computer and it wouldn't have taken you too long to check your facts but you chose not to. If you can’t deal with that then forget it.

You are incorrect too regarding John Ryan being the last hurler to come from Shannonbridge. 'Harry' Kearns was a Belmont regular for a couple of years and Darragh Corbett has also played Senior with Belmont, both as permission players.

your well able to slag but it seems you can't take it back

Incidentally, what is the correct spelling of DC's first name? I have seen Daire and Darragh used?

[Lone Shark]

Look, you made a sweeping, unresearched statement regarding the relative populations of Shannonbridge and Portarlington. You were wrong, as you very often are (indeed, sweeping statements such as that seem to be your sole contribution to this board) and I disproved your statement with the facts.

Those populations are readily available on the internet, something all schoolchildren can use to varying degrees. You can evidently use a computer and it wouldn't have taken you too long to check your facts but you chose not to. If you can’t deal with that then forget it.

You are incorrect too regarding John Ryan being the last hurler to come from Shannonbridge. 'Harry' Kearns was a Belmont regular for a couple of years and Darragh Corbett has also played Senior with Belmont, both as permission players.

your well able to slag but it seems you can't take it back

Incidentally, what is the correct spelling of DC's first name? I have seen Daire and Darragh used?

As far as I'm aware Darragh is what he uses himself.

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

Your attention to detail know no bounds POTH.

[Lean Times]

Best of luck to players and management tonight down in the deep south east! U21 always throws up surprises and is never easy to predict (EG. Longford beating Dublin last year in football and Carlow beating Dublin in hurling) Nice team on paper but I would be wary that they have not had the full attention as McDonnell has being juggling both teams. Nothing to write hoem about in the Hastings bar a win over Longford. Defeats to Cavan and Mayo.

I really hope a win can be achieved here and a good performance to abck it up. Winners face Kildare next week in Athy.

Special mention to our clubmen Eoin Carroll and Jason Gethings. Definetly the first time we have two players involved. First time we have a captain at U21 age group as well. Noel Andrew Graham previously captained the minors a few years ago (He recently won player of the year for Connemara Gaels in Boston so he is still going strong!)

Best of luck lads!

[Heshs Umpire]

Populations taken from the 2011 Census -

North Portarlington: 2,372, versus

Shannonbridge : 299, and
Clonmacnois : 336.

Someone with more local knowledge of the Portarlington area might know if Hammerlane (565) and Ballyshear (377) are in Gracefield or Raheen territory.

Hammerlane just outside of mountmellick part in laois part in offaly, Martin Gorman who played for Gracefield and offaly who also played underage with the Rock in laois, as you come over the bridge in cloneygowan the portarlington side thats the gracefield side.

There's none of the Hammerlane DED in Laois.

The "Hammer Lane" itself is just after you cross into Offaly on the Mountmellick to Portarlington road at a bridge called Cottoner's Bridge, it's the first road up to the left.

It's just inside the Offaly border in a townland called Barranaghs but generally corrupted to "The Borness" locally.

I'd say some people living there would have Laois postal addresses.

[Johnno81]

Populations taken from the 2011 Census -

North Portarlington: 2,372, versus

Shannonbridge : 299, and
Clonmacnois : 336.

Someone with more local knowledge of the Portarlington area might know if Hammerlane (565) and Ballyshear (377) are in Gracefield or Raheen territory.

Hammerlane just outside of mountmellick part in laois part in offaly, Martin Gorman who played for Gracefield and offaly who also played underage with the Rock in laois, as you come over the bridge in cloneygowan the portarlington side thats the gracefield side.

There's none of the Hammerlane DED in Laois.

The "Hammer Lane" itself is just after you cross into Offaly on the Mountmellick to Portarlington road at a bridge called Cottoner's Bridge, it's the first road up to the left.

It's just inside the Offaly border in a townland called Barranaghs but generally corrupted to "The Borness" locally.

I'd say some people living there would have Laois postal addresses.

Spot on Hesh. All of that area from Hammerlane until you hit Garryhinch Cross is in the Mountmellick Parish but is in Offaly. Thank God!!!!

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

Very good win for St Vincents over Ferbane at at the weekend.
1-10 to 0-10 was the score I heard. Twill throw the cat among the pidgeons for the remainder of the championship now.

[blinkers]

Not too much of a suprise with vincents besting ferbane. Vincents had alot of training and matches played so I would have made them favurites.

It must be worrying for ferbane tho. I would have taught at this stage they should be winning an under 21. With the talent at there dsposal and all those good underage teams.

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

Might be the case that some of the lads are having difficulty in making the step up to adult grade football in Ferbane and are not coming thorugh with the atitude for hard work? The perennial debate here would be that there should be a senior team in Daingean parish. But one of the main reasons that these lads were well prepared is that they are all training with one of the 4 adult clubs, whilst many of the Ferbane lads are not training at all yet. Those St Vincents players would be key players in Div 2 & 3 league teams.
Most of the Vincents lads had hard matches on Fri/Saturday with their clubs and 2 players with the Offaly minors, which made it a bigger achievement.

[Lone Shark]

I suspect there's a little of both factors involved. I would certainly agree that some of the Ferbane minors from three years ago haven't trained on as well as they should have, and in a lot of cases, they need to look at themselves for that because they certainly had plenty of decent instruction in the club last year anyway, but neither can it be disputed that the minor championship is played throughout the summer, with time to get your team settled and into a good pattern of play. The under-21 championship doesn't allow for that and while St Vincents deserve credit for the way they got themselves organised early on, the benefit of getting a handy run out against Na Fianna to sharpen themselves up was huge.

This genuinely isn't the case of a Ferbane man trying to take away from St Vincents victory - they put more work in, and got the just rewards for that. I expect that if they keep this up, they will win it out, or at least go very close with only Edenderry really looking like a match for them. There also are plenty of fine footballers in that group, arguably many of which have pushed on more than the Ferbane lads of the same age have. However the nature of the competition, with one strike and you're out at a time of year when getting players of this age together is notoriously difficult, did play a part too.

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

Its true that St Vincents had the benefit of a run out albeit against what on the day was a poor Na Fianna outfit. It is fair to say that St Vincents appear to have been more organised than both teams they have faced so far. So fair play to them for that.
You also make the point LS that its a little unfair to ask players to play championship football this early in the year. Unfortunately all that I can take from this is why bother with the U21 championship at all if teams are not going to do some training for it. point taken that would be difficult to train given the crazy weather. But its disappointing to hear that a Ferbane outfit who have dominated all the way up along would not put in an effort when they saw this draw, knowing that they would be facing St Vincents early in the championship.

I think its really time that the GAA did away with this championship, or change minor to u17, and introduce an u19 championship. Any player worth his salt is playing adult junior or senior football at 19 or 20, so its not really serving any purpose.
It will mean something to the Vincents lads if they can win a medal, but for many of the teams this championship is an inconvenience.