County senior football championship

[jimbob17]

ok, co senior teams are out, so who are going to be the big players in the local club senior championships. in the football it will be hard to see past rhode given that they didnt win it last year and will have extra motivation because of this. Clara are probably the closest to them on their own. i feel tullamore and shamrocks have gone back in to the main pack and seem to be struggling. ditto ballycumber. ferbane dont seem to be improving at all, gracefield capable of a semi but that is as far as they will go. i fancy edenderry and tubber to pull a few shocks if they can get out of the group and be in the last eight.

on a totally different note, its a crying shame there isnt a st vincents senior team with all the good young players that have gone thro good co minor teams in the past few years. likes of Noel graham, ger treacey, mangans, Mattie Brazil, Manns, Liam Brennan, fergal beacon, david carroll who will never get to play senior championship football. their are some outstanding young players in vincents underage too that cant look forward to it when they are older either. their clubs are codding themselves if they think they will get there on their own. small town politics is probably the overiding factor though. narrow minded approach typifies offaly GAA admin people anyway though. even if they didnt join as one club it should be looked at like they do in kerry with the tralee junior clubs joining to play with St Brendans at senior and still play in the junior with their own clubs.

[club125]

Allied to the loss of talent the duplication of facilities development is ridiculous. All of the small clubs competing for grants and parish donations when a large complex in the centre of the Parish could serve all.

[azoffaly]

ok, co senior teams are out, so who are going to be the big players in the local club senior championships. in the football it will be hard to see past rhode given that they didnt win it last year and will have extra motivation because of this. Clara are probably the closest to them on their own. i feel tullamore and shamrocks have gone back in to the main pack and seem to be struggling. ditto ballycumber. ferbane dont seem to be improving at all, gracefield capable of a semi but that is as far as they will go. i fancy edenderry and tubber to pull a few shocks if they can get out of the group and be in the last eight.

on a totally different note, its a crying shame there isnt a st vincents senior team with all the good young players that have gone thro good co minor teams in the past few years. likes of Noel graham, ger treacey, mangans, Mattie Brazil, Manns, Liam Brennan, fergal beacon, david carroll who will never get to play senior championship football. their are some outstanding young players in vincents underage too that cant look forward to it when they are older either. their clubs are codding themselves if they think they will get there on their own. small town politics is probably the overiding factor though. narrow minded approach typifies offaly GAA admin people anyway though. even if they didnt join as one club it should be looked at like they do in kerry with the tralee junior clubs joining to play with St Brendans at senior and still play in the junior with their own clubs.

I've been preaching this for years. I've seen what it has done for people like Paul Galvin, Declan O'Sullivan, Killian Young, et al. There's a power of Kerry lads from that team playing on small clubs.

[Offaly2010]

gracefield capable of a semi

The way Gracefield are going they will be lucky to avoid relegation!

[Black Spot]

Rhode all the way for me however they were poor enough against Ballycumber .Think they will click come business end of championship ecspecially when they have a bone to pick wit Clara from last year.
As for the St.vincents club thing,Im not a regular poster but log on evry day and dont know how many times it has being debated.I got the feeling small town pride and politcs will prevent it from ever happening.It really is a shame its one place you will seldom get an win from at underagethe always had 3 of 4 top class lads at evry level Ger Treacy,Noel Ghram,Colm Killmurray,John Mcgrath,Jamie hayes to name just a handfull.
It must be hard on them lads but then if you look at other places like Clonmore Harps lads like the Foys wouldnt they like to play senior football with Rhode ?? If Vincents lead the way would that lead on to other small clubs amalgmating. I think it would be brillliant for Offaly football just cant see it .

[azoffaly]

Just back to jimbob's point there. Sorry, sorry (Old hands will be sick of reading this from me)..

This is Kerry's team for Sunday, missing Paul Galvin of Finuge. I've put the grading of their clubs for the club championship (not the county championship) beside their name.

1. Brendan Kealy Kilcummin - Senior

2. Marc Ó Sé An Ghaeltacht - Intermediate
3. Tommy Griffin Dingle - Senior
4. Tom O' Sullivan Rathmore - Senior

5. Aidan O'Mahony Rathmore - Senior
6. Mike McCarthy Kilcummin - Senior
7. Killian Young Renard - Junior

8. Seamus Scanlon Currow - Intermediate
9. Micheál Quirke Kerins O'Rahillys - Senior

10. Darran O' Sullivan Glenbeigh /Glencar - Junior
11. Declan O' Sullivan Piarsaigh Na Dromada - Junior
12. Donnacha Walsh Cromane - Junior

13. Colm Cooper Dr Crokes - Senior
14. Kieran Donaghy Austin Stacks - Senior
15. Bryan Sheehan (Captain) St. Mary's - Junior

[bazza]

This is Kerry's team for Sunday, missing Paul Galvin of Finuge. I've put the grading of their clubs for the club championship (not the county championship) beside their name.

Could someone please explain how it is that they run the championhsips in Kerry? For example, what is the difference between the club championship and county championship as stated aobve? Which would be more desired by teams to win, etc.?

[azoffaly]

It's complicated, but basically the county championship is the one to win. The county championship is entitled to be contested by all the Senior Clubs on their own, such as Austin Stacks, Laune Rangers, Dr. Crokes, Kerins O'Rahillys etc, PLUS the divisional sides which are a mixture of the intermediate and junior clubs in a particular divisional board.

This means that South Kerry, for example, is an amalgamation of Renard, Dromid, St. Mary's Cahirciveen, Derrynane, Waterville, Sneem & Portmagee.

All of these clubs then play individually in the CLUB championship at either Junior or Intermediate, and if they manage to qualify for senior in their own right, they can then decide to branch out on their own while they remain senior, such as St. Michael's Foilmore have done this past few years, despite being in the South Kerry division. If Foilmore get relegated, they will revert back to playing with South Kerry.

So all that is a long winded way of saying the clubs play their own Senior, Intermediate, Junior (and Novice) championships. The County Championship is only played at Senior Level for Adults, and is made up of Senior Clubs and amalgamations of Intermediate, Junior and Novice Clubs.

Basically every single adult male in Kerry is entitled to play senior championship football if they are good enough, regardless of how poor their club is.

The same system is in place at U21 and Minor level.

One interesting side note is that each division in Kerry, (Mid, South, East, North) etc runs a local championship as well, and all clubs in the division are entitled to enter that as well. For example Laune Rangers play in the mid Kerry championship against clubs like Cromane, Glenbeigh, Milltown etc.

[azoffaly]

Meant to say, there is also a divisional and county league. They have a crazy amount of competitions down there. Of course they don't really have hurling (or soccer or rugby) issues.

Just as an example, my brother in law plays with Dromid Pearses. This year he is playing in the following competitions.

County League Division 3 - Dromid
South Kerry League - Dromid
South Kerry Championship - Dromid
Junior Club Championship - Dromid
Senior County Championship - South Kerry.

The only games postponed for 'county men' is Club and County championship. Everything else goes on regardless.

[Plain of the Herbs]

I wouldn't have any on-the-ground knowledge of the Daingean situation, but from a distance, an amalgamation would have to come from within rather than being forced on them.

There's a strong tradition of the divisional teams in Kerry and Cork, though I do recall a Corkman I worked for many years ago explaining the rational to me with the words "you'll go out and die for your club, and you'll go out and die for Cork, but fuckitt, no-one is going to go out and die for Imokilly".

Meaning even in a county like Cork where there is a tradition of amalgamations (based on baronies, I do believe), the commitment of the players is not guaranteed.

I suppose a parish like Daingean could, in the first instance, take a leaf from the Brosna Gaels project start by entering an amalgamated hurling team, but sadly they don't play adult hurling in the parish at all in order to allow a handful of hurlers tog out for Tullamore.

As for the St.vincents club thing,Im not a regular poster but log on evry day and dont know how many times it has being debated.I got the feeling small town pride and politcs will prevent it from ever happening.It really is a shame its one place you will seldom get an win from at underagethe always had 3 of 4 top class lads at evry level Ger Treacy,Noel Ghram,Colm Killmurray,John Mcgrath,Jamie hayes to name just a handfull.
It must be hard on them lads but then if you look at other places like Clonmore Harps lads like the Foys wouldnt they like to play senior football with Rhode ?? If Vincents lead the way would that lead on to other small clubs amalgmating. I think it would be brillliant for Offaly football just cant see it .

[Lone Shark]

This debate has been had before and I've long been an advocate of a system similar to Kerry's, however I would be awful worried that we'd end up doing it half arsed and end up with a worst of both worlds solution, as tends to be our way.

To take the Daingean example, the worst of both worlds solution is to simply amalgamate the four clubs of the parish, unless of course that's what the people in the club want. There is no way that a Daingean parish team could co-exist alongside the four existing clubs. The draw on the club teams would be too severe, and the resulting amalgamation would still struggle at senior level. Let's not forget here that this is a club that didn't provide a single starting senior or under 21 footballer for the county this year - by what logic are they entitled to be senior if they join up? Then what happens when five years down the road, Kilclonfert (for example) get promoted to senior by themselves? Does the amalgamated team now continue with just three clubs?

The only way this would work would be if we created regions in the county, much like Kerry do. Each region should have at least ten clubs in it - so if three or four of them are senior, there still is a minimum of six to choose from to make up the regional team. Have ten senior clubs in both football and hurling plus the four divisions. Play three rounds of open draw, much like the Kildare system. You couldn't play groups, since the danger of dead rubbers and amalgamations not fielding when they're out of contention would be too much.

If we want to keep junior clubs alive, and I strongly believe that we do, this is the only way. However the whole thing would have to be bought into by everyone - there's no point pretending that there isn't huge sacrifice. Here's the things that would have to be sold:

(1) a ten team senior championship means two less places at the top table for clubs - plus knock on effects the whole way down the line. By the way I think Offaly football would benefit from this generally - ten senior and ten intermediate clubs would mean teams like Clara, Clonbullogue, Bracknagh and Ballyfore (I picked those four simply based on 2010 form by the way, no other reason) would all go down to junior. This would mean improved standards at every grade, and possibly even a junior D grade, which would be no harm either. However clubs "status" would be threatened.

(2) This would be very hard on dual players, and in many cases dual players may be forced to make a call as regards to which sport to play at senior level. However this is more or less the case anyway.

(3) There would have to be guidelines put in place with regard to access to players for both clubs and amalgamations. There's no point in doing the whole thing half arsed and having amalgamated teams that barely know who their team mates are. It needs to be meaningful championship football, so there's no point in lads essentially showing up on the day. Junior clubs would have to accept that some of their players mightn't be available to them as much as they'd like for training, but the trade off would be that those players would be training to a higher standard.

(4) Financing the new amalgamations would be tricky and would have to be well planned. The costs should be low since they would use existing facilities, but it still would have to be prepared for.

(5) Severe penalties, such as fines on the clubs, for the amalgamations not fielding, or if it was possible to quantify, not trying. There would be a real danger of a region deciding that things were going so bad that they'd just throw the towel in and concentrate on the Junior/Intermediate, thus throwing the integrity of the scheme completely off.


Then if you were to split them up, I think this was covered before in a parish discussion, but this would be my idea of the split, with the clubs status in both football and hurling after their name (Based on championship this year - again, no bias intended!!):

Clonfert, Ardagh & Clonmacnoise

Shannonbridge (IF)
St Rynaghs (SH/IF)
Ferbane/Belmont (SF/SH)
Doon (IF)
Erin Rovers (IF)
Ballycumber (SF)
Brosna Gaels (SH)
Lusmagh (IH)

Killaloe & Ormond

Birr (SH/IF)
Carrig & Riverstown (IH)
Crinkill (IH)
Kinnitty (SH/JF)
Seir Kieran (SH)
Ballyskenach (IH)
Killavilla (IH)
Shinrone (SH)
Coolderry (SH/JF)

Meath (plus Killeigh parish to balance the numbers a bit)

Shamrocks (SF/IH)
Kilcormac/Killoughey (SH/JF)
Drumcullen (IH/JF)
Ballinamere/Durrow (IF/IH)
Tullamore (SF/SH)
Clara (SF/IH)
Tubber (SF)
Killeigh (JF/JH)
Killurin (IH)
Raheen (IF)
Ballinagar (JF)

Kildare and Leighlin

Daingean (JF)
Kilclonfert (IF)
Ballycommon (JF)
Capincur (JF)
Rhode (SF)
St Brigids (SF)
Clonmore Harps (JF)
Edenderry (SF/JH)
Ballyfore (JF)
Clonbullogue (JF)
Walsh Island (SF)
Bracknagh (JF)

[Plain of the Herbs]

Ahem, ahem . . . we're still Senior, despite ye're wishful thinking . . .

Lusmagh (IH)

And if our relegation comes as a package so ye footballers can have ye're lovely amalgamations and the like then ye can shove it.

[Bord na Mona man]

Ahem, ahem . . . we're still Senior, despite ye're wishful thinking . . .

Lusmagh (IH)

And if our relegation comes as a package so ye footballers can have ye're lovely amalgamations and the like then ye can shove it.

The scenes in Lusmagh as the amalgamations are proposed!

[theman]

Clara, Clonbullogue, Bracknagh and Ballyfore (I picked those four simply based on 2010 form by the way, no other reason) would all go down to junior

Lone Shark i dont know where you got your 2010 form from but correct me if im wrong. Have Clonbullogue, Ballyfore and Bracknagh not got more points in the championship at the moment than Shannonbridge, Doon and Birr? Maybe they should go down intermediate!!

[Lone Shark]

Ahem, ahem . . . we're still Senior, despite ye're wishful thinking . . .

Lusmagh (IH)

And if our relegation comes as a package so ye footballers can have ye're lovely amalgamations and the like then ye can shove it.

Clara, Clonbullogue, Bracknagh and Ballyfore (I picked those four simply based on 2010 form by the way, no other reason) would all go down to junior

Lone Shark i dont know where you got your 2010 form from but correct me if im wrong. Have Clonbullogue, Ballyfore and Bracknagh not got more points in the championship at the moment than Shannonbridge, Doon and Birr? Maybe they should go down intermediate!!

Christ on a pushbike with no bell.

I picked the teams that on form, are most likely to finish on the bottom of their groups - one from each senior group and thus two from each inter group. It was only intended as an estimate - of course the actual teams to drop would be based on results rather than the late night musings of yours truly.

Also, I included the hurling since, in fairness, if it's a good plan for the football, why would the hurlers not do the same? I would argue that the drop from senior to inter/junior in the hurling is at least as severe as that in the football.

Anyway, those reactions say it all about why it'll never happen. As long as clubs would react based almost entirely on how it will affect them, there is no chance of anything like this coming into play.