Lets start playing the club championships again

[bracknaghboy]

The next round of club football championship games is not on til 8 weeks time as far as I know. What is the purpose of this? Surely there is no benefit in holding up the championship any longer after what we endured on saturday. With the intercounty team now a complete lost cause why should the club players be deprived of championship ball in the summer months. Also surely a few rounds of championship would assist the county chumps get over their post Wexford distressed states. Don't all agree with me at once

[puzzled]

Couldnt agree more with you its pointless stopping the club games for so long and the same applies for the hurling championship as well!!

[TheManFromFerbane]

The whole idea of the master fixture list was that the club players were compensated for the fact that they were being held up by the inter-county with the fact that they knew exactly when they were going to play. This allowed them gear their training correctly, play out the league and book holidays.

While it's very tempting now to say let's play the Championship now, you'd be pretty sickened if you had a holiday booked because you were told you had that time off and then they fix a Championship game... and you'd be even sicker after the woman kicked you in the nuts!

All those first two rounds did was set the table, dinner will be served in 8 weeks so just try and enjoy the appetizer of the league until then.

(That said, you are building a stronger and stronger case to say they should be running the club Championship a week before the County are out, like they do in Tyrone.)

[Fargo Boyle]

The whole idea of the master fixture list was that the club players were compensated for the fact that they were being held up by the inter-county with the fact that they knew exactly when they were going to play. This allowed them gear their training correctly, play out the league and book holidays.

While it's very tempting now to say let's play the Championship now, you'd be pretty sickened if you had a holiday booked because you were told you had that time off and then they fix a Championship game... and you'd be even sicker after the woman kicked you in the nuts!

All those first two rounds did was set the table, dinner will be served in 8 weeks so just try and enjoy the appetizer of the league until then.

(That said, you are building a stronger and stronger case to say they should be running the club Championship a week before the County are out, like they do in Tyrone.)

And also Kilkenny. They have played 3 rounds of the club championship already and will continue to play during the county c'ship. It seems to be doing them no harm at all. Also the very competitive football championship is near it's quarter final stage.

[Lone Shark]

Can't expect players to down tools and suddenly play club championships. MFF sums it up perfectly -this is the way it had to be, and if you wouldn't expect a county team to suddenly play championship at the drop of a hat, you can't expect club players to do it either.

Regarding Kilkenny, there is a slight difference there in that they don't have a county football team to worry about, while their club football championship is generally brushed out of the way to make sure it doesn't interfere. I'm surprised it's not over already actually, or that they need quarter finals - I thought only three or four teams played?

[Fargo Boyle]

The KK football championship is on quite late this year compared to normal. Most clubs in KK also have a football team. They have a senior, intermediate and junior championship. Last year St Martins won it beating the reigning champions The Village in the final. The KK footballers won the first round of the Leinster junior championship last week.

[High School Musical]

The KK football championship is on quite late this year compared to normal. Most clubs in KK also have a football team. They have a senior, intermediate and junior championship. Last year St Martins won it beating the reigning champions The Village in the final. The KK footballers won the first round of the Leinster junior championship last week.

Ooooh Fargo, is Kilkenny football your boyfriend or something?
Get a room!

[bracknaghboy]

The KK football championship is on quite late this year compared to normal. Most clubs in KK also have a football team. They have a senior, intermediate and junior championship. Last year St Martins won it beating the reigning champions The Village in the final. The KK footballers won the first round of the Leinster junior championship last week.

Ooooh Fargo, is Kilkenny football your boyfriend or something?
Get a room!

[Fargo Boyle]

The KK football championship is on quite late this year compared to normal. Most clubs in KK also have a football team. They have a senior, intermediate and junior championship. Last year St Martins won it beating the reigning champions The Village in the final. The KK footballers won the first round of the Leinster junior championship last week.

Ooooh Fargo, is Kilkenny football your boyfriend or something?
Get a room!

You cut me deep, real deep HSM or should i call you Alfonso Ribeiro.

/shuffles back to hoganstand/

[puzzled]

Great point by the MFF the master fixture list has to be kept to for this year but perhaps next year it should be changed to allow club games in both codes to be played closer to inter county matches,I think it couldnt do any harm to have players playing top level club games close to inter county games,I know you run the risk of injuries but as the hurlers proved on sunday when our backs are to the wall Offaly teams do better than having the favourites tag,nobody gave the hurlers a chance yet with a bit more luck we could have pulled it off and with people talking about reaching the Leinster football final we flop to our worst performance in years!

For me club games might show the players that are on form going in to county games and pick the team on their form and not from what they may have done weeks or even months ago in league or half arsed practice games!

[Lone Shark]

That's fine but you have to be willing to stick to it. You can't put in a round of club fixtures and then pull them because the county result didn't go the way you planned, or the county manager throws a strop.

[Phoenix]

I agree with Puzzled. Next year the Master Fixture List should have club games all through the summer and if, as seems likely, we have new football and hurling senior managers they should be told straight up that they can't interfere with the club games.

Actually I'm more interested in the county teams than the club scene. I think that continuing club games throughout the county summer season would greatly benefit the Offaly football and hurling teams.

It seems to work for Kilkenny in the hurling and Kerry/Tyrone in the football. Not bad role models for us to follow.

[High School Musical]

The KK football championship is on quite late this year compared to normal. Most clubs in KK also have a football team. They have a senior, intermediate and junior championship. Last year St Martins won it beating the reigning champions The Village in the final. The KK footballers won the first round of the Leinster junior championship last week.

Ooooh Fargo, is Kilkenny football your boyfriend or something?
Get a room!

You cut me deep, real deep HSM or should i call you Alfonso Ribeiro.

/shuffles back to hoganstand/

If you'll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you Betty
And Betty when you call me
You can call me Al (fonso)
Call me Al (fonso Ribeiro)....

[Plain of the Herbs]

Yea, Phoenix, but let’s look at this practically.

This time last week there was a fair chance the footballers would beat Wexford (I know, I know). Had they won they were playing Westmeath a fortnight later, and if they won that, they would be playing again a fortnight later. Leave hindsight out of this, now. You couldn’t possibly fit a round of fixtures in the ‘free week in between.

Had the hurlers beaten Dublin (and some here were confident they would), they would be out on the 18th, the weekend between the footballers’ match v Westmeath and the semi-final. There’s a 2-in-3 chance they will face a qualifier on the 18th anyway, and will be out on the 25th if a) they win on the 18th, or b) they are one of the two teams not drawn to play on the 18th. Remember how the football qualifiers came thick-and-fast last year?

Given that there are county hurlers playing club football (Shane Dooley for example) and County footballers playing club hurling (Seán Ryan for example), progress by either county team impinges on the progress of the county championship in the other code. It simply isn’t a like-for-like comparison to compare Offaly to counties like Tyrone, Kerry, Tipperary or Galway who don’t have this cross-over. Really only Dublin (and probably Laois) have this criss-cross club player issue.

I’m all for listening to the views of people like The Man From Ferbane on issues such as this, and if he prefers the break and the possibility of making family arrangements, then I’m swayed by that. Yea, us supporters/observers would like to have a match to go to see, but, heel of the hunt, we need to put the players first in all of this.

There was a recent article on this on the back page of the Free Offaly which I thought would generate some debate here but didn’t. http://www.offalyindependent.ie/sport/r ... ttle-help/
It concentrates on the issue of the two early rounds, played in April and May, which clash with the Offaly Minors and college exams. In fairness, we can’t be asking Minors to line out with the County Minors on a Saturday and with their clubs on a Sunday. Surely there should have been more thought given to this and fix the club hurling on the weekends the Minor footballers were playing and vice versa?

I wonder is it time to defer the commencement of the County championships altogether until the County team are finished? There wouldn’t be sufficient time to run two groups of six with quarter-finals as they currently do, so it might be necessary to cut the championships down to eight Senior clubs, with the top two teams going into the semi-finals, hurling and football to be played on alternate weeks. That would mean 4 clubs regarding to Intermediate, with eight teams regarding to Junior, but they could run the Junior with 16 teams divided into 4 groups of four.

That wouldn’t go down well but the carrot is that it would mean stronger teams qualifying for the Intermediate and Junior club championships with a greater chance of provincial success.

I agree with Puzzled. Next year the Master Fixture List should have club games all through the summer and if, as seems likely, we have new football and hurling senior managers they should be told straight up that they can't interfere with the club games.

Actually I'm more interested in the county teams than the club scene. I think that continuing club games throughout the county summer season would greatly benefit the Offaly football and hurling teams.

It seems to work for Kilkenny in the hurling and Kerry/Tyrone in the football. Not bad role models for us to follow.

[SearingDrive]

I agree with the sentiment that we play off the Club championships, while we await the qualifier draws. We will be out of both hurling and football in July, yet we won't play our county finals until October!!!.
The counties who reach the All Ireland finals will be playing their finals at the same time, ie Cork SF final in 2009,a week after the All Ireland Final, and they are a dual county.
The Junior Footbal championship won't start for 2 more weeks.
I agree with Phoenix's comment that the County Board have to stand up to our new team managers in 2012, and play off games all duringnthe summer.