Junior A Football

[gunnerman]

Well Lads

The Junior A football is kicking off next wednesday 29th. I have seen a few league games this year and Cappincur have looked impressive. Daingean played there league games in Division 2 and more than held there own. These two seem the favourites but as I said, I only saw a few games. Has anyone any insight or reports on how teams are going?

[Fargo Boyle]

Finally the long wait is over and the real championship is about to start. The phony war and mind games of the league are over and championship football reckons.

Perennial bridesmaids Daingean will be looking to get over the line this year but will face stiff competition from Clara, K/K, Tullamore and last years finalist Shamrocks. Clara will be strong having just been relegated from intermediate and won this championship beating Daingean in the final in 2007. Last years finalists Shamrocks wont figure this time.
Tullamore and K/K would be favourites but depends on a number of factors, can Tullamore keep their players and will K/K show any interest as they have some fine footballers. Cappincur wont figure in the final shake up as they have little strenght throughout the field but might make a quarter or semi.

Erin Rovers or Ferbane for the Junior B me thinks. Maybe Kinnity might bother showing up for the semi final this year and could win out

[High School Musical]

Maybe Kinnity might bother showing up for the semi final this year and could win out

Ooooh, them is fightin' words me thinks, those of a bitter man.

But I wholeheartedly agree.

How about Ferbane at Junior A? Any chance of them featuring here? I'm just asking, because I dont really know.

That aside, I see it being a dogfight between Tullamore, Daingean & possibly Clara this year. I'll give Daingean the nod, by a whisker!

[In the long grass]

Tullamore and Ballycumber performed very well in Division 3, both surely will be in the shake up along with the usual suspects Daingean and K/K. Clara will also be very strong, after being relegated last year from intermediate.

[gunnerman]

I am suprised to hear you say that Cappincur have no strength as the night I saw them they looked strong. It has the capability of been a great championship as there are a lot of teams who will be fancying themselves. We will know more after the first round or 2 I suppose. I cant see K/K been in the shake up. Ferbane probably have the players to mount a challenge as well

[Fargo Boyle]

K/K have some fine footballers and if they had any interest in it could be a serious intermediate team or even play senior. Very big and strong physically. They have available to them Currams, Mahon and Healion all big strong fit lads who could play for any senior football club. But it all depends on their interest in the thing.

Cappincur have some nice young footballers but do lack depth. As for Ferbane they should make a quarter final. Not sure if Mel is togging with the Junior A or B this year.

[DAF]

Daingean 2-19 Ballcommon 1-5

Complete mismatch.Hard to know how good Daingean are as Ballycommon were very poor and I believe they were missing a few players aswell.Daingeans second goal was hilarious

[Lone Shark]

Similar mismatch in Ferbane - Ferbane 6-17 Shamrocks 0-4.

Shamrocks didn't look anything like the team from last year, what was out there tonight would struggle to win a game at Junior B. I hope they have some players to come back in, there's no way lads will keep going taking hammerings like that.

[Lone Shark]

I see Ballinagar beat Ballyfore quite well, and Tullamore beat Edenderry easily. Usually Edenderry are a very solid junior team, but my initial reaction was that maybe a lot of their juniors from the last couple of years are part of the group that left for Ballyfore. Still, they did well in the league this year - maybe True Red or someone like that could fill us in on the story over there?

I see Clara beat Capincur too, which would suggest that the Hawks could be the early favourites. No result up for Gracefield vs Ballycumber.

[Long John]

Similar mismatch in Ferbane - Ferbane 6-17 Shamrocks 0-4.

Shamrocks didn't look anything like the team from last year, what was out there tonight would struggle to win a game at Junior B. I hope they have some players to come back in, there's no way lads will keep going taking hammerings like that.

Yes LS is spot on. Shamrocks club is in a terrible place at the moment. They pulled the Junior team from the league and had looked at doing the same for the championship but hoped to fulfill the fixtures out of respect for the other teams in the group.
Literally they have just got anybody with a pair of football boots to turn up. They had one sub. Most of the team have never played much football. Very very sad to see where the club is headed. The current senior team is alot of last years juniors.

They are averaging 8 or 9 at training which is suppose to be for both Junior and Seniors. It appears they have not only lost good players in the last year at Senior level but also great leaders. There appears to be no leadership there now and its more a case of fulfilling fixtures than anything else.

As for the Junior championship, Tullamore should be watched carefully. Some good footballers playing for their 2nd team. Gary Heffernan and Niall Stack just some of them with great experience and would still be good enough for senior football.

[Fargo Boyle]

Tullamore and Clara are deinitely 2 to watch. Not sure about Clara as they were poor enough in the div 2 league but depends on who they have got back since. I still think if K/K get all their players together they would be in with a great shout of winning.

LS what are the Ferbane lads chances?

[Lone Shark]

Division two league is not a bad league - there's clubs who'd be hoping to make a good run in the junior that struggled in division three so I certainly wouldn't be hanging Clara on that measure. They've plenty of good footballers available to them and right now they could very easily be the favourites. Certainly unless I knew that all the K/K lads were going to play, I'd be thinking they're entitled to it.


Ferbane will be competitive with a good smattering of the minors from this year's county team. Joe Maher was man of the match by a country mile last night scoring 2-4 from wing forward, and obviously having lads like David Lowry, Eddie Lowry, Noel Buckley and Diarmuid Carroll playing junior is a bonus because all of those guys would have been in or around senior football at various stages and still have plenty of ability.

That said, it's a big jump from getting back to where we were for most of the last decade, which is reaching knockout stages and occasionally winning a quarter final - to actually pushing on and getting over the first team of a club like Daingean or Kilcormac/Killoughey. I'd be confident we'll achieve the former, we'd have a lot of improving to do to achieve the latter. After all it is a very different team with lads coming in from all directions - most of those that started last night wouldn't have played junior last year, so it'll take some time to get used to each other as well.

Overall, probably sixth or seventh in the betting right now, somewhere between 10/1 and 14/1, with scope for improvement.

[True Red]

Tullamore are a strong outfit and are well organised with Cathal Daly at the helm.Good nippy forwards and they got a bit of a run on Edenderry last night and were ruthless when they had to be. Fair play to them and it will take a good team to beat them.

As regards the lads gone to Ballyfore,about 5/6 of the 17 that transferred would probably have featured for the junior team over the years,while another 4/5 would have featured for the senior team at various stages. The rest of the 17 are lads that were either always going to play for Ballyfore or lads that havent played football in a really long time and just wanted an outlet to keep up their fitness during the summer months.

As regards the league position in Div 3 a good few of those results would have been augmented by 3/4 senior players playing extra league games to improve fitness,get game time etc.

[llkj]

What are people's opinions on how the Junior is being organised this year? In my opinion it is very well done. Plenty of league matches in the Spring and early Summer to give everyone time to prepare for Championship and then games organised in good succession over the Summer months - as a player it is perfect. good structure to the season, you can plan your work/holidays to suit, etc. I hope that it keeps running smoothly and can be the template for the future.

As for the teams, LS description of the Ferbane team seems exactly like what is needed at Junior level with a great blend. I wouldn't have any fears about the minor lads that were mentinoed-great young lads. I would definitely put them there as a top contender along with Daingean, Tullamore and Clara. Not sure that PadJoe will be tolerate too many football distractions from the KK boys. I would have my doubts about Tullamore too. With lots of their senior football team gone abroad (Brazil, Moloney, Brian hogan, Shane Kelly, Shane Dooley, probably some others from their club that i wouldn't know about) they are definitely going to lose players. Daingean Clara final again for me.

[gunnerman]

I see Ferbane and Tullamore are going at it on Thursday night. This will probably be the game of the group. Whoever comes out on top will fancy their chances of finishing top of the group.

Why were Mickey Hoey and Mickey Flynn only brought on as subs in Tullamore's opening match in the championship?