Junior A Hurling

[puzzled]

After two rounds of the junior A hurling it looks like Killiegh appear to be in great shape with Tullamore's Damien Fox training them they have two very convincing wins against Drumcullen and Edenderry! K/K and Shinrone also have two wins,K/K beating Edenderry and Seir Kieran with Shinrone beating Seir Kieran and Raheen! Looks like Killiegh K/K Shinrone and one from Edenderry Seir Kieran Drumcullen and Raheen joining them in the quarter finals!
The other group is harder to call Ballinamere have two wins fron two and Ronnie Byrne seems to be doing a good job with them, Tullamore have started well beating St.Rynaghs and drawing with Belmont,Birr drew with Belmont and beat Brosna Gaels and from what I hear Birr are getting great turnouts for training! Looks like Ballinamere Tullamore Birr with perhaps Belmont or Kinnitty joining them in the quarter finals!
Killiegh Ballinamere K/K and Shinrone seem to be the strongest teams so far it will be interesting to see if they can keep their early momentum going!

[townblue]

kk will walk this grade................................. you read it here first

[puzzled]

kk will walk this grade................................. you read it here first

K/K are very strong with Gleeson Gorman Murray Bracken Leahy Cummins all x senior hurlers but over the course of the year how many might they lose to their intermediate team! For me its a K/K Killiegh final!

[Long John]

Yes KK are very strong at this grade. They seem to be trying hard to win it anyway. Killeigh are doing very well at present. KK would be a very different proposition for them however. Alot of good senior hurlers playing with KK juniors. Ballinamere Durrow will possibly be the biggest challenger to KK. They are choosing alot of the oldies over the youth but they have good experience and are making a burst to win it.

In Junior B it looks like Coolderry have a ridiculously strong team for this grade. They trounced a Lusmagh team that is not a bad junior team. Really a few lads that played in this game should be playing at a higher grade. Coolderry must not be taking the Intermediate too serious this year or they would have used some of these players. They are far too strong at Junior B grade.

Dont know too much about the Junior C. Kinnitty possibly the most likely bet.

[kingscounty]

alot of the teams that have senior or inter teams try very hard to win the junior A, every year.ex senior players or current senior players that havent played senior or inter yet this year are a big advantage to junior A teams.its a hard grade to win especially if your only team is junior,but killeigh would be red hot to win it this year cant see anyone stopping them,good manager and big panel,alot of other teams have lost players to emigration.killeigh v shinrone final me thinks.

[OffalySorry]

n

[puzzled]

A full round of junior A championship takes place this weekend.
GROUP 1
Seir Kieran v Killiegh,Killiegh to continue their winning start,6pts or more!
Raheen v K/K,K/K will win this handy,10pts plus!
Edenderry v Drumcullen,harder to call this one both teams have started poorly,home advantage may see the Reds win,just about!
GROUP 2
Belmont v Rynaghs,Belmont to scrape this one in a tight affair but only just!
Brosna Gaels v Tullamore,if Brosna Gaels can stop leaking goals they should have enough to win this one in Ballycumber!
Kinnitty v Birr,Birr by 4 or 5pts but Kinnitty can never be written off this could be the game of the weekend!

Group 1 seems easier to call as Killiegh K/K and Shinrone seem a lot stronger than the rest,Shinrone have the bye this wekend!
Group 2 has a lot of teams in or around the same level and that makes it harder to call,Ballinamere have the bye this weekend!
Probably get most of the predictions wrong only time will tell

[Long John]

Still have to fancy KK to win the A. Im hearing Shinrone have a fairly decent outfit aswell. Would they be in the running?

Coolderry breezing through the B. They could afford to lose a few of the better players and still win this championship easily. thirteen goals in two games.

Carrig and riverstown appear to be making a push for the C. They had a good win against Kinnitty. In general the club appears to be having a good season with the division 2 league final also.

How does the B and C championship knockout stages work as both have one big group?

[puzzled]

Still have to fancy KK to win the A. Im hearing Shinrone have a fairly decent outfit aswell. Would they be in the running?

Coolderry breezing through the B. They could afford to lose a few of the better players and still win this championship easily. thirteen goals in two games.

Carrig and riverstown appear to be making a push for the C. They had a good win against Kinnitty. In general the club appears to be having a good season with the division 2 league final also.

How does the B and C championship knockout stages work as both have one big group?

Shinrone have a very good team they are bringing on a lot of very good young hurlers but whether they lose a few lads to their senior team remains to be seen!
Coolderry have been flying through the group stages of the junior B for a few years now but when it comes to the knockout stages they havnt been able to finish the job!
Carrig and Riverstown seem to be going well in the C it would be nice to see them winning something they are putting in serious work with their underage teams!

[Long John]

Yes it would be nice to see C & R push on and win the title. Its good to see them putting in a good effort with underage to develop hurling.

Yes regarding Coolderry they have been consistently in knockout stages alright. They have a serious strong team this year though in comparison to other years. Realistically a number of them would be hurling Intermediate if they wanted without question.

How do these championship's work for the knockout stages and why did they add the C championship this year?

[puzzled]

As far as i know for the B and C championships the top four teams qualify for the semi-finals with the top team playing the 4th team and the 2nd team playing the 3rd placed team!

The C championship was added because a number of teams that were playing in the B every year were getting bad beatings because they just wernt strong enough to compete and struggling to have the numbers thats why the C championship has allowed teams to play 13 aside if they havnt got many subs!

[Lone Shark]

When the Junior C football was revived, it as to encourage hurling clubs to field a football team - and while a lot of them have given up the ghost since, there are some people enjoying their football in places like Kinnitty and Drumcullen, and it has served its purpose. I wonder if a similar effort was made to revive hurling in places like Rhode and Daingean, would it take off?

[keenonsport]

Shinrone have a very good team they are bringing on a lot of very good young hurlers but whether they lose a few lads to their senior team remains to be seen!

Yes Shinrone have a good young team with the likes of Damien Murphy, Joe & Darragh Cleary who were all part of the Offaly minor panel this year. They also have a few of the team which won the Junior 2 years ago such as the two Keeshans, Derek McLoughlin & John Bevans. They look strong, as do KK who have John Leahy & Barry Gorman and maybe have a bit more experience than a young Shinrone side. Birr also look strong and have Michael 'DD' Dwane back hurling this year - he should be capable of roasting any back at this level. They also have a few young lads thrown in like Sean O'Connor and Paddy Mullins. These three teams would be my pick for the Championship.

[puzzled]

Yes Shinrone have a good young team with the likes of Damien Murphy, Joe & Darragh Cleary who were all part of the Offaly minor panel this year. They also have a few of the team which won the Junior 2 years ago such as the two Keeshans, Derek McLoughlin & John Bevans. They look strong, as do KK who have John Leahy & Barry Gorman and maybe have a bit more experience than a young Shinrone side. Birr also look strong and have Michael 'DD' Dwane back hurling this year - he should be capable of roasting any back at this level. They also have a few young lads thrown in like Sean O'Connor and Paddy Mullins. These three teams would be my pick for the Championship.[/quote]

I agree with most of what you say 'keenonsport' Shinrone would have to be one of the contenders as would Birr and K/K,Barry Gorman hurled the first two rounds of the Intermediate for K/K and is quite close to making their senior team so he wont be playing junior this year,Dwane for Birr would be a serious junior with his pace any junior back would struggle to hurl him!

But having seen Killiegh play Edenderry in the last round I would put them up as one of the favourites,physically a very big team but also well able to hurl,Damien Fox has them flying and they will be in the shake up for this championship!

[bracknaghboy]

I wonder if a similar effort was made to revive hurling in places like Rhode and Daingean, would it take off?

As I've said here before its not that long ago that Gracefield, Daingean and Edenderry has 2 hurling teams each. Rhode, St. Brigids, and Ballyfore had teams....even Ballinagar had a go for a couple of years. Gracefield and Edenderry now cling to 1 team each. It can be done but would need to take baby steps. Since there is virtually no championship hurling or football in the summer months the following could be tried out:

County board would ask each club that does not field a hurling team if they would be interested in taking part in a small 13 a side special championship (format dependent on number of teams) that would be played off over 3 or 4 weeks in succession during say June. Clubs might be more open to this as it would be run off quickly and not interfere with football and would be geared towards getting lads hurling again or bringing in young lads. This might then allow teams to develop over a couple of years and then enter the 'C' or 'B' championships or whatever for real.
The very same principle could be applied to football.
Perhaps the above is totally unrealistic but there needs to be some effort to spread the games into areas that are struggling. I know for a fact there are hurling clubs that have 8 or 9 lads that would play football and could get a few more to make up 13 but they don't push the matter because it might be seen as interfering with the hurling and its too much effort to play for another club just for the football. The same applies to football clubs and their hurlers. The end result of scenarios like this is that countless potential players fall by the wayside.