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I was not at the game but from what I hear Clonmore were immense at the weekend and blew Daingean away. Fair play to them. Its a strange final between themselves and Shamrocks but its great to see two teams that were given absolutely no chance at start of the year, to have pushed on and made the final.

Id expect Clonmore to win the final easily enough now. Daingean were everybodies favourites by a long way and the manner in which they were beaten shows just how good this Clonmore team are. Well done.

I said last week i couldnt understand how people were writing off clonmore harps against daingean..im delighted for the harps to have proven me right and im not one bit surprised..i watched them win the junior B two years ago and ill be watching u boys in the final..Its fantastic for your neighbouring clubs..ie ballyfore,edenderry,rhode,croghan etc to see yis represent north offaly in the final..best wishes clonmore harps.

its a credit to a small club like clonmore harps to have reached the junior final,im not one bit surprised either them lads were training 3 nights a week since early jan, the final is going to be tricky shamrock are a solid side and will take a serious effort from the harps but i think they can do it if they keep there heads down and stick to that massive work ethic and never say atitude that has got them this far.best of luck lads

Clonmore Harps, Well done, I think that win or lose the County final you will represent Offaly in the Leinster Junior as Shamrocks area a amalgamated team? and if so they will play the winners of the Meath Championship in which Ballinabrackey (Pascal Kellaghan trained) are in the final. Now are most people know the Harps and the Bracks are next door neighbours and it would be a match well wort paying the entrance fee for. Roll on. Hope ye beat the Shamrocks first and then?

When I read about things like this, I just shake my head and wonder about what might have been for all the years since the Daingean Parish senior team broke up. I'm too far removed from there now to understand any recent events or sentiment. However since so many around this DB expected more from the Daingean Juniors last weekend (well done Clonmore - obviously well deserved for your own efforts), the time to bang some heads together must be overdue.

Where I am now in Kildare, there are two clubs in the one parish, and an Amalgamated Hurling team plays at some levels but not all. The problem is that one club feels they can field a team just from their own area, so an amalgamated team is going to deprive some players of the chance to play. I completely respect this concept, as playing matches should be the object of the any and every part of the organisation.

Taking that to the Daingean situation, LS pints out that there are 6 Adult teams playing among the 4 clubs at the moment. It's unfair to impose any "Amalgamation solution" that would lead to dropping one or two teams automatically. If Rugby and Soccer clubs can have teams named Seconds/Thirds/Fourths/etc then why cant we?

The success of St.Vincents shows there is the Talent, Capability and WIllingness to put together a good parish team. I wonder have the particular obstacles to doing this at Adult level ever been properly identified. Maybe the target is being set a bit too high. Certainly any joint team cannot go straight into Senior; that level would have to earned in the proper way. Maybe some join-up of just two or three of the clubs to start with.

Personally speaking, I'd love to see an official Divisional Format available, as this would allow those district die-hards to retain their own little fiefdoms, but the good of the parish could also flourish at a separate level. There are too many examples where this works to just discard it too easily.

naasmanxrhode wrote:Clonmore Harps, Well done, I think that win or lose the County final you will represent Offaly in the Leinster Junior as Shamrocks area a amalgamated team? and if so they will play the winners of the Meath Championship in which Ballinabrackey (Pascal Kellaghan trained) are in the final. Now are most people know the Harps and the Bracks are next door neighbours and it would be a match well wort paying the entrance fee for. Roll on. Hope ye beat the Shamrocks first and then?

would be great to play 'the brackes',if it does happen it would be in the boyne park so at least neither team would'nt have far to go! but as far as i know it would only happen if we made it to the semi final,anyway most important is the county final after that everthing is a bonus

No lads, I dont think Clonmore Harps automatically get into Leinster championship. Shamrocks are a parish club not an amalgamation of clubs. They are exactly the same as Ballyhale Shamrocks in Kilkenny where Ballyhale, Knocktopher and Knockmoylan are the one parish and only came together as Ballyhale Shamrocks after previously playing as separate clubs. As we all know Ballyhale have had a big history in playing provincial and All Ireland club championships. Shamrocks are the same, Rahan (which palyed as St Carthages) and Mucklagh previously played separately up until the start of the 90's. So I think they are entitled to play Leinster in the same way as for example Ferbane if they won a Football or Belmont if they won the hurling. The name Shamrocks throws people a bit alright but they just decided on it instead of calling themselves St Carthages/Mucklagh.

Back to the football, I think Clonmore should win this final easily if the truth be known and it would be very interesting to see them meet their neighbours in a leinster club championship.

Am i right in saying because it is Shamrocks second team they can't enter Leinster? Didn't Durrow represent Offaly when Rhode beat them in the junior 2 years ago? Same with Ballianmere when Birr beat them in the intermediate hurling

Shamrocks can't play in the Leinster championship because they aren't the first team in their club, it's nothing to do with amalgamations or anything like that. Only clubs that are junior clubs can go on to play in the Leinster Junior championship. Clonmore will be playing in the Leinster Junior no matter what happens in the final.

Ditch hurler and Lone Shark are spot on. I completely forgot that rule and was just thinking about what Naasman had said about amalgamated clubs.

A.I.B. Leinster G.A.A. Club Junior Football Championship 2010 Junior Football
1. Carlow v Louth 24.10.2010
2. 1 v Kildare 7.11.2010
3. Dublin v Wexford 24.10.2010
4. 3 v Wicklow 7.11.2010
5. Meath v Longford 24.10.2010
6. 5 v Kilkenny 7.11.2010
7. Westmeath v Laois 24.10.2010
8. 7 v Offaly 7.11.2010
9. 2 v 4 21.11.2010
10.6 v 8 21.11.2010
FINAL: 9 v 10 5.12.2010

I took this from the Leinster GAA website and from my reading of it the Offaly representatives(which will be Clonmore Harps regardless of the County Final result) have a bye into the quarter final where they will face the winners of Westmeath & Laois. If they negotiate this hurdle they then face the winners of rounds 5 and 6 which potentially could be Ballinabrackey if they beat Ballivor,the Longford champs and then the Kilkenny champs.

A lot of football to be played for this to occur and to be fair to both Ballinabrackey and Clonmore Harps I would imagine the only thing they are concentrating on is their respective county finals.

One thing i noticed is that the report in this weeks Leinster Express on Clonmore's win over Daingean referred to the Harps as the "third" team in Rhode parish. While all Clonmore underage players ply their trade with Rhode Og and St Michaels at under 21 this refelcts the clubs position within the county boundary rather than any religious boundary.

Clonmore is actually in the Diocese of Meath and in the parish of Ballinabrackey. Another historical nugget is that Clonmore actually have one Senior championship to their credit when both sides joined up under the banner of Clonmore Harps in 1919 and annexed the county title with a mixture of Meath/Offaly men. The above incidence makes the potential meeting all the more interesting as there would be great grandsons on both sides whose forefathers would have played together in the green and white hooped jersey in that county championship win.

However best wishes to both clubs in their quest for silverware.

The harps are proud to be from ballinabracky parish and fierce proud offaly men i wish them and ballinabracky all the best in there county finals and in there leinster championship campaigns.

any word on the junior final yet will it be in ocp

best of luck to clonmore harps in the final sunday in GEASHILL some disgrace typical of a county board that just dont care about small clubs piss on them time and time again.do they not relise that not all players are senior footballers.best ot luck lads.

I wonder why Geashill gets so many games as it is a poor pitch? But because of the amount of games now played in OCP with the unavailability of Birr, County board are under pressure, and many of the pitches in the clubs around Tullamore are poor. Gracefield should get the final as has a good stand and a decent pitch imo.
Oh yeh, Martin Boland, that why!!