Offaly U20 footballers 2023

[del]

Well if you don’t think these things are cyclical then is there any point in showing u but I will There always won’t be good coaches around to drive things there won’t always be good administrators at the top to drive things complacency could set in any number of factors could change and the standards drop and then the club doesn’t be as successful and other clubs take over as they raise their standards Just because there is a big population in Tullamore dosent mean they will always be successful. As is evidenced by the number of under 21 titles we have won up to 2020 we had won only 5 in our history.

[jimbob17]

To be fair I think both posters have relevant points here. The timing of the competition is a huge factor and does benefit Tullamore significantly or standalone clubs. The only teams that are likely to compete with Tullamore in U20 are amalgamations - ie St Broughans, St Manchans, Na Fianna, St Vincents and Wheery.

The very nature of these teams and timing of competitions means that the amalgamations will get it hard to prepare properly if at all in comparison to the way they could years ago. The inter county U20 calendar is mainly the issue here.

Previously, the U20 competition was played in Spring time. When it did, there were championship wins for amalgamations in St Michaels - (St Brigids, Rhode, Clonmore), Wheery (Ferbane, Birr Shannonbridge), and St Vincents (Daingean parish clubs), while Na Fianna, St Broughans and St Manchans were always very competitive.

However, with the inter-county U20 competition now starting in March and Sigerson Cup still holding in February, it is impossible for the county board to run it when they used to. The solution selected was to run U20 midweek and concurrently with adult championships as they are now with finals being played along similar time frame.

A large factor in Tullamore's dominance at U20 that you cant really deny is that the smaller individual clubs that formulate these amalgamations are often competing against each other for their own championships through this time and as such, the amalgamated teams get it very hard to prepare properly, and understandably so.

For example, this year you had St Vincents teams competing against each other in Senior B semi final in Cappincur and Ballycommon. St Broughans had Clonbullogue and Walsh Island for competition in Senior B, and had the 3 teams (add in Bracknagh) in other years while St Manchans had Tubber and Ballycumber in Senior B and Erin Rovers in last few years also, all competing against each other at same time as the running of the U20 competition.

Daingean will join Cappincur in Senior B next year as Ballycommon step up a grade while Na Fianna will have both Ballinagar and Raheen competing against each other in Intermediate and had Clodiagh Gaels in other years. While these standalone clubs are still in competition, the U20 is very much a secondary competition in the smaller clubs and some amalgamations do little or no collective preparation at all for earlier stages. There are probably similar issues in hurling i'd imagine if not to the same degree.

I'd love to see the U20 delayed somewhat to start in early October to give the teams and players a chance to finish out with their clubs. It means that young lads on a J1 or traveling dont miss out and amalgamation teams can get more time together to prepare properly as adult championships come to close. They could be played on knockout or group basis under lights on a Friday night - and could be great entertainment.

The alternative is advantage Tullamore in football and KK in hurling - the two big standalone clubs at U20 level. People might say the weather etc isnt conducive to playing later in the year but there are plenty of football pitches with lights now and the standards of pitches are way better than what they used to be so that may not be as big an issue. Faithful Fields is also there and there is opportunity to have even 2 or 3 matches on there on a given evening under lights.

The last poster mentions Tullamore's coaching etc and proper structures and its great to hear they are doing things so well. They appear to have some solid characters involved and over all of their teams and the results are there to see and well done to them, but you must also acknowledge the significant timing disadvantage for amalgamations. Tullamore are still getting all of their players together through this period and this is a most definite advantage with a small few at senior level and most at Intermediate level - probably all training together. The same is probably true for KK in the hurling while the amalgamations struggle to meet up until the senior adult team is out of own championship.

I just feel that if the amalgamations had the time together (which they dont, given competition timing), then the likes of Tullamore wouldnt be getting it so easy at U20 level.

[frankthetank]

Great post Jimbob

[Lone Shark]

There's a lot of good stuff in that post from Jimbob, much of it inarguable. There's no doubt that an U-20 competition run through the summer is an advantage to standalone clubs, for all the reasons mentioned there.

However the nature of U-20 competitions in hurling and football are such that there is no good time of year for them, and that includes October. The fundamental problem is that these are (in theory) development competitions, designed as a stepping stone for those players who are too old for minor, but not yet able to make a significant impact at adult level. Witness all the caterwauling from those clubs across the country who want minor to go to U-18, since they feel that U-20 doesn't give players a full programme of games. And to be honest, they're right.

Of course the problem is that since it's the GAA, we call it a development competition, but it's not, which is why you have the likes of Adam Screeney and Charlie Mitchell shooting the lights out for KK against Na Fianna. By no rational measure do these lads need this competition for their own development as players, but they are eligible, and so KK will want them to play, for understandable reasons.

So you now have this competition which is wedged into a very crowded schedule for the likes of those lads, but also needs to provide games for other players who don't get many. Not so much in KK, where there are four adult teams and every lad above minor is likely to have got a full season with one of the four, but certainly to a greater degree in some other clubs where maybe there's only two adult teams, and the option is one level that they can't quite get to, and another team that is a very "casual" setup.

Okay - so October, what do we think about that?

Well the first problem is that while this year, every Offaly football club in Leinster crashed out at the first hurdle, we'd like to believe that's not the norm. Even if you don't have any team getting to a Leinster final, it wouldn't have taken a lot to go differently for Daingean and Tullamore to have won their games, which would mean that right now, Offaly would have players committed to five different teams in Leinster, affecting a host of different U-20 sides in both football and hurling.

So you either have to bite the bullet and get clubs to accept that we're going to play games on Friday nights and if that means that a player from Daingean has to play U-20 with St. Vincent's on Friday night and then play Leinster JFC with Daingean at 2pm on Saturday, Offaly GAA are going to make him do that.

Or, the alternative, is that you have U-20 competitions that are riddled with postponements.

Problem number two is that in the summer, lads are around. They might be up on tractors, or working other jobs, but as a general rule, they're around home. In October and November, they're not, and clubs aren't going to be able to work it so that guys in college in Dublin and Limerick can come home for club U-20 training on a Wednesday night. So to your point that playing in Summer means that Tullamore and KK can prepare much better than St. Vincent's or SBK, you are correct - but all putting games in October and November means, is that nobody can prepare properly, even if they want to.

Problem three is that while schools and colleges accept that up until mid October, players will have a fair amount of club commitments, they'll start getting cranky if those players are still only dipping in and out by mid-November. And in some cases - again, the Screeneys and the Mitchells of this world - they're so good that they'll still be integral to their teams, whether that's Sigerson/Fitz/Freshers etc., for the majority of players, that's not the case. You tell someone back in Offaly that a player can't come back to train with his club U-20 team because he's fighting for his place with the UL intermediates, and they'll think you're joking. But a game between the UL and NUIG intermediate hurlers is a bloody good standard, and certainly a lot better than you'll see in the vast majority of Offaly U-20 club games.

There's one lad here in Roscommon that I get on well with, he's a regular with the Roscommon senior hurlers, who are generally a Nickey Rackard Team. He said to me before that the best training he ever did was with UL intermediates. Seánie Geraghty, who is Meath captain (a McDonagh Cup team in 2024) said something similar about hurling with DCU's second team, that it brought him on in a way that hurling with Meath just couldn't.

We want Offaly players playing on these teams, just the same as we want to see St. Brendan's/SME/Coláiste Choilm/Gallen/CNC/Killina etc. going well in their respective competitions, and presumably we want to see the Offaly Combined Schools teams (hurling and football) going well too. That cannot happen if we're expecting the majority of our 17, 18 and 19 year-old lads to only give those teams their full focus from December onwards.


Just to be clear, I'm not actually advocating for Summer, any more than I'm saying that late Autumn and early Winter is wrong - not at all. Like I said, it's an excellent post from Jimbob that makes a lot of sense, with cogent arguments behind everything laid out therein. I'm just saying that these are competitions that exist for legacy reasons, but if they weren't already around and with some amount of tradition attached, we'd never invent them, because they are deeply impractical. And whenever you play them, there will be positive and negative aspects.

It's entirely natural that when we play these games in the Summer, we'll look at the green faraway hills and say that maybe we should consider October/November, and just the same, if we were playing at that time of year, we'd naturally look at the summer and say that we wouldn't have to deal with schools/colleges/travel costs/wet pitches and all the rest of it if we switched back.

[jimbob17]

There's a lot of good stuff in that post from Jimbob, much of it inarguable. There's no doubt that an U-20 competition run through the summer is an advantage to standalone clubs, for all the reasons mentioned there.

However the nature of U-20 competitions in hurling and football are such that there is no good time of year for them, and that includes October. The fundamental problem is that these are (in theory) development competitions, designed as a stepping stone for those players who are too old for minor, but not yet able to make a significant impact at adult level. Witness all the caterwauling from those clubs across the country who want minor to go to U-18, since they feel that U-20 doesn't give players a full programme of games. And to be honest, they're right.

Of course the problem is that since it's the GAA, we call it a development competition, but it's not, which is why you have the likes of Adam Screeney and Charlie Mitchell shooting the lights out for KK against Na Fianna. By no rational measure do these lads need this competition for their own development as players, but they are eligible, and so KK will want them to play, for understandable reasons.

So you now have this competition which is wedged into a very crowded schedule for the likes of those lads, but also needs to provide games for other players who don't get many. Not so much in KK, where there are four adult teams and every lad above minor is likely to have got a full season with one of the four, but certainly to a greater degree in some other clubs where maybe there's only two adult teams, and the option is one level that they can't quite get to, and another team that is a very "casual" setup.

Okay - so October, what do we think about that?

Well the first problem is that while this year, every Offaly football club in Leinster crashed out at the first hurdle, we'd like to believe that's not the norm. Even if you don't have any team getting to a Leinster final, it wouldn't have taken a lot to go differently for Daingean and Tullamore to have won their games, which would mean that right now, Offaly would have players committed to five different teams in Leinster, affecting a host of different U-20 sides in both football and hurling.

So you either have to bite the bullet and get clubs to accept that we're going to play games on Friday nights and if that means that a player from Daingean has to play U-20 with St. Vincent's on Friday night and then play Leinster JFC with Daingean at 2pm on Saturday, Offaly GAA are going to make him do that.

Or, the alternative, is that you have U-20 competitions that are riddled with postponements.

Problem number two is that in the summer, lads are around. They might be up on tractors, or working other jobs, but as a general rule, they're around home. In October and November, they're not, and clubs aren't going to be able to work it so that guys in college in Dublin and Limerick can come home for club U-20 training on a Wednesday night. So to your point that playing in Summer means that Tullamore and KK can prepare much better than St. Vincent's or SBK, you are correct - but all putting games in October and November means, is that nobody can prepare properly, even if they want to.

Problem three is that while schools and colleges accept that up until mid October, players will have a fair amount of club commitments, they'll start getting cranky if those players are still only dipping in and out by mid-November. And in some cases - again, the Screeneys and the Mitchells of this world - they're so good that they'll still be integral to their teams, whether that's Sigerson/Fitz/Freshers etc., for the majority of players, that's not the case. You tell someone back in Offaly that a player can't come back to train with his club U-20 team because he's fighting for his place with the UL intermediates, and they'll think you're joking. But a game between the UL and NUIG intermediate hurlers is a bloody good standard, and certainly a lot better than you'll see in the vast majority of Offaly U-20 club games.

There's one lad here in Roscommon that I get on well with, he's a regular with the Roscommon senior hurlers, who are generally a Nickey Rackard Team. He said to me before that the best training he ever did was with UL intermediates. Seánie Geraghty, who is Meath captain (a McDonagh Cup team in 2024) said something similar about hurling with DCU's second team, that it brought him on in a way that hurling with Meath just couldn't.

We want Offaly players playing on these teams, just the same as we want to see St. Brendan's/SME/Coláiste Choilm/Gallen/CNC/Killina etc. going well in their respective competitions, and presumably we want to see the Offaly Combined Schools teams (hurling and football) going well too. That cannot happen if we're expecting the majority of our 17, 18 and 19 year-old lads to only give those teams their full focus from December onwards.


Just to be clear, I'm not actually advocating for Summer, any more than I'm saying that late Autumn and early Winter is wrong - not at all. Like I said, it's an excellent post from Jimbob that makes a lot of sense, with cogent arguments behind everything laid out therein. I'm just saying that these are competitions that exist for legacy reasons, but if they weren't already around and with some amount of tradition attached, we'd never invent them, because they are deeply impractical. And whenever you play them, there will be positive and negative aspects.

It's entirely natural that when we play these games in the Summer, we'll look at the green faraway hills and say that maybe we should consider October/November, and just the same, if we were playing at that time of year, we'd naturally look at the summer and say that we wouldn't have to deal with schools/colleges/travel costs/wet pitches and all the rest of it if we switched back.

Great post Lone Shark and lots of valid points. It sure is a bit of a puzzle that no matter when you play it, will have undesirable consequences.

One implication for October I didnt mention is that it also interferes with school teams returning to action also and for the teams competing in the higher grades particularly, they certainly need lots of access to their players which an Oct club U20 competition would not support.

One solution that could apply (albeit could also drive a revolt), is that if a player plays senior club championship, then it makes them ineligible. Now I know that there will be naysayers here but we cant have it every way that will suit everybody.

A way around it may be to restrict this rule to Senior A club players only as they would be big enough and strong enough to absorb. It has happened at inter county level for where if you play U20 senior in Liam McCarthy, you are then ineligible to play county U20 until such time as your senior team is beaten and out of competition - before the 7/10 day rule came in this year. Again there are consequences here. It may mean for example that the Ballycommon U20 players cant play with St Vincents until the club team are out of championship - ditto for Bracknagh players playing senior A - but gets lots of games for Tullamore - albeit without senior starting players who are U20. It'd really drive it a a proper development competition.

There is a rule in Rugby in some competitions that is a generous and very clever rule - that basically promotes game time at whatever level you are able without totally excluding you if you step up for 10 or 15 minutes in one game - like it does in GAA. Basically, you become ineligible to play the lower grade until you have featured in 3 upper grade games. It would take some policing but with streaming of games and social media / media coverage etc, there is little hiding any more. So if a player played in 3 Senior A competition championship games, they would then be ineligible for U20. A rule like this can circumvent the ineligibility of players who are on the fringes of senior teams - which is likely at U20 level and allows them to play both - to a certain degree and then play out their season at a level that is most fitting their ability. Once either team is beaten, they then become eligible for other team if still in competition.

So if an U20 competition started a month after the start of adult club competitions (lets say early August), then they could easily run in parallel and if they get 'used upwards', then the U20 competition can carry on without being affected. Obviously U20 teams could conceivably get weaker as competition progressed but it would be club issue to manage that so that as many as possible get to play at their own level.

As an example, in professional soccer, if Evan Ferguson is playing for Brighton 1st team, then he isnt going back down playing with the U19s just so they can win a few more games. I think this could really work if running in parallel with adult teams. Obviously the likes of the smaller clubs would struggle if this rule is implemented at Senior B and Inter / Junior levels so like they have done differently between Liam Mac and Joe MacDonagh Cup teams, we could do similar at club level, where the rule does not apply to Inter / junior club competitions.

The alternative is the status quo remains, where likes of Screeney and Mitchell and co get over-worked, suffer burnout and pick up injuries in the same way some of the U20 footballers did a couple of years ago. Worse, over exposure can end up in players just getting tired with all the going and be disengaged by the time they are in their early 20s. We have seen it happen before with lots of young talented lads.

No matter what way you go, there will be naysayers and people with serious misgivings. I think the best thing we can do is to try and do it right by the players and clubs and where we can find a balance where player playing hours is optimised for the majority rather than the minority.

[ah lethimoutwithit]

Very good posts and suggestions.

Senior A players would be an interesting caveat and would help manage the workloads of lads like john Furlong, Cormac Egan, Screeney and Mitchell at the top end and in the end allow more players in these clubs to get exposure in the U20 competition. But might be a bigger issue in a club like Bracknagh, or Rhode, Ferbane and Belmontas you point out. But would allow the lads that need games to get games.

I can't believe that the vote to move back to u18 looks likely to pass at next weeks meeting.

[llkj]

The fundamental problem is that these are (in theory) development competitions, designed as a stepping stone for those players who are too old for minor, but not yet able to make a significant impact at adult level.

Interesting that you say these competitions are meant to be developmental competitions. In all honesty, I have never heard of them referred to as that or that a development competition is the primary goal of u20/21 to give players game time that don’t get it at adult level.
I have always seen them a continuation of the underage system for the best players in each club to play against the best players from other clubs in their age bracket. Not debating the merits of treating them as such, just saying that I don’t believe anyone looks on them as about game time for the non-elite.

[TownieInOz]

Players want to win u20/21 championships. For people to tell them they cant play because they're playing senior is not the way to go about it. This is an amateur organisation for god's sake, let young lads play what they want to play.