U21 hurling championship..

[How ya now]

The apperent fall out between ferbane/ belmont and lusmagh was over the changing of the first round minor hurling championship game being changed by lusmagh from a Sunday morning to a Saturday for an apperent good reason even though lusmagh knew Ferbane/ belmont u16 were not availble due to thier own championship game. it then surfaced that lusmagh had switched the game just the way there own lusmagh players could play a junior challenge game that sunday

[Plain of the Herbs]

Semi finals earlier this evening, Coolderry beat neigbours Shinrone/Ballyskenagh something like 0-14 to 0-12. Ballinamere/Brosna Gaels beat Clareen something like 1-16 to 1-13.

The Ballinamere win is not such a surprise. Although Clareen were aiming to reach the Final for the fourth successive year, This is St. Malachy's third semi-final in four years, losing to Coolderry last year and kilcormac three years ago. They were Minor semi-finalists two years ago as well.

[Certainly Gerry]

Ballinamere/Brosna Gaels beat Clareen something like 1-16 to 1-13.

*Ballinamere/Brosna Gaels/Clara.
*Clareen/Drumcullen/Gracefield.

[andy]

i believe there were 13 clareen players and 2 drumcullen players starting.. so ur kind of off there...

[tacmot]

Can sum 1 please tell me what teams are making up Ballinamere gaels, is it not the same teams as st davids last year. Are coolderry the only team in the U21 champ that are not ammalgamated?

[superman]

The team comprimises of ballinamere, clara and brosna gaels players

[Greenwhiteandgold]

There were other teams not almalgameted.... lusmagh, kinnity, kk, tullamore...

[bazza]

Could Ballinamere, Brosna Gaels and Clara not field a full 15 or what's the reason behind the ammalgamtion? Having won the Minor B three years ago I thought Brosna would be able to field a team? And Ballinamere had an U-21 football team this year didn't they?

[Lone Shark]

Genuine question here.

With all these amalgamations, would we be better off introducing an U21 "B" championship? You always hear of teams saying that they "don't have the numbers", but I've found that in a significant minority of cases that's the truth, but in a majority of situations it's code for "we don't have fifteen lads that are good enough". People have a tendency to think in terms of the guys who are going to become senior club hurlers (and footballers, the same principle applies) and not the other young lads who aren't that good but who might be amenable to togging out if there was a realistic prospect of getting a game.

For example in Belmont, a lot of young lads of the right age didn't bother looking to play U21 this year, but they might have done if there was a Belmont team. On the other hand, I'm not home that much these days so maybe they wouldn't - but the point is I can see why they wouldn't want to go in against strong clubs, but maybe playing B against Brosna Gaels on their own, Ballinamere on their own, Drumcullen, maybe a "North Offaly" selection, Killurin, and a few like minded clubs from South Offaly willing to go their own way might be more appealing.

Emigration is a huge issue for adult teams, but not so much at this grade - I expect that some clubs simply don't have fifteen lads aged 17-21, but is that the case all round?

[bazza]

You always hear of teams saying that they "don't have the numbers", but I've found that in a significant minority of cases that's the truth, but in a majority of situations it's code for "we don't have fifteen lads that are good enough".

Have to agree with you on this point LS. I would have a lot more respect for smaller clubs and areas like Lusmagh and Kinnitty who put in their own teams rather than the likes of Brosna Gaels and Ballinamere who join up on a glory hunt. Ballinamere had 3 adult hurling teams last year. Can someone seriously argue that they wouldn't be able to field fifteen U-21 hurlers this year? If the answer to that is no then Ballinamere have no place in an amalgamation. They should be proud enough to field their own team like they did in the football. If they are good enough to win, fine, if they are not they must take it on the chin like other teams and get on with it. Same applies for Brosna and Clara.

The fact that there are clearly young lads sitting on the bench and missing out on U-21 hurling for their clubs because of an unnecessary amalgamation just isn't right in my eyes. Maybe that's fine with other users on this site.

[Lone Shark]

I think that in a lot of cases, clubs genuinely convince themselves that the players aren't there, when they don't have twenty lads who happily come down for the first training session of the year having received a text message.

Of course the guy who once scored six points in a minor semi final but since went away to college and quit for a while gets plenty of calls, but I sometimes wonder about the guy who dutifully showed up for training for years but rarely got any playing time and quit bothering after U-16, or any other guy who would be a junior B player at best. I'm not suggesting ten phone calls in a Mrs Doyle-esque fashion going "Ah go on", but just one call to say that we're trying to get together a squad of eighteen players together to enter in a B competition, would you come out?

The real tragedy is that a lot of these guys would go on to flesh out all the junior teams that clubs are struggling t make up this year due to genuine reasons like emigration etc.

[sean1976]

lads I have been reading this site for a long time and this topic has angered me. Over the years people have been complaining about offalys disadvantage of having a lower standard of hurling than kilkenny tipp etc. now, we see a number of clubs in the north, who lets face it could probably field teams on their own. but why would they do so when some lads(the minority) do not want to play. There are a number of reasons why lads do tend to lose interest in clubs geographically north of the county. obviously there are social distractions and other sports such as soccer, golf, rugby, gaelic etc. but also there is a certain arrogance in the south(a minority i stress, well i hope!!) , whuich i have personally experienced a long number of years ago and am still aware of it today. tullamore have silenced some critics, which is brilliant to see, but i have pity for northern clubs who have been developing hurlers as good as if not better than some in south, yet somehow the south lads tend to get lucky breaks when it comes to trials etc. take for example, did timmy molloy, who is from tullamore, who is pushing for a place on the tullamore senior team, but can anyone confirm that he never got a trial for the minors in 2009?? correct me if im wrong, but i dont think he did. now, if he was from the south, would he have been given a run?? this is a prime example of what i am talking about. i am not here to stir rubbish, but for the benefit of offaly hurling as a whole. there is talent in tullamore and its surrounding areas and we need to develop all of offaly to get us back to the top asap. and while, my club is at a disadvantage, as we would rather ballinamere with us, we must give them credit, as over the past 6 or 7 years, they have given lads an opportunity to hurl at a higher level, while amalgamated with brosna and clara. so, less of the "should be able to field a team on their own". because at the end of the day, it is offaly hurling that will develop in the long run, as a higer standard of club hurling will be seen accross the county, particularly at minor and u21 levels.

[bazza]

Sean1976 are you not worried about the weaker lads from these clubs not getting a run on the amalgamated team in the U-21 club championship or is it all about the development of elite players for you?

Also, all this rubbish about North/South is really irrelevant. Just look at the Offaly team last Sunday - Stephen Egan, Conor Mahon, Shane Dooley, Derek Molloy, Ger Healion and Shane Kelly all featured. Offaly really don't have the caliber of player to avoid picking lads from the North even if they wanted to. It's pretty clear at this stage that if you're good enough you'll be on the Offaly panel.

[Sharp Eye]

There should be a properly run B Championship in Under 21 Hurling. All teams should get a minimum of two games. The B championship could be 13 aside. The County Board should not allow clubs like St Rynaghs who appeared in the past 3 county minor finals recruit 3 players from Belmont and leave 5 county minors from St Rynaghs sitting in the subs.

[Lone Shark]

Welcome aboard Sean, and don't let the fact that I personally disagree with you put you off staying on board here!

I think people are in danger of accepting as gospel this theory that what you are always best served by having lads "play at the highest standard possible".

Leaving out what standard we are actually at for the moment, let's say that there are 120 good under 21 hurlers in the county at any time, that is lads that have the potential to become decent senior club players at the very least. Please note here that I am just picking 120 as a number, it's a pure guess, not scientifically derived or anything.

Obviously then by the logic of wanting players to play at the best possible standard, you then have eight teams and divide up the lads accordingly. The problem then is that nobody outside of that 120 gets to hurl. Additionally, that's in a world when the divide is perfect - when you have ten of those players at one club and twenty at another, you end up with five good players getting no under 21 hurling. Alternatively you can spread things so thinly that you have games which are essentially a contest between the spinal positions as the guys on the wings are just not good enough to make any impact whatsoever. There's pros and cons to each approach.

Als, let's not forget, that even if you do end up with a B tournament and only a few good players on either side, Chris McDonald of Brosna Gaels is still likely to end up being marked by a good defender and getting a good test because he'll be marked by the best defender the other side has. The battle in the other corner might be between two lads that will never hurl outside of junior, but so what?

If you keep amalgamating teams, you don't have the pride of parish stuff that makes the GAA what it is. Different things work for different parishes. Kevin Corrigan is long on record as saying that teams should amalgamate left right and centre in the football championship, but if we follow that logic to it's natural conclusion, you have Rhode, Clara, Tullamore and maybe three divisional teams playing in a six team championship. The standard would be great, in the short team at least, but people would stop caring. It would be great for creating county teams, but in the long run things would die out.

If you're Ballinamere club, you have to balance out the fact that increased possibility of success is a good thing, but there will be five or six of your hurlers who will miss out that get replaced by lads from Brosna Gaels or Clara. Those five or six lads may leave the club and may turn out to be the difference between fielding and not fielding a junior team. Worse yet, one of those guys could turn out to be a great underage coach, or a tireless club secretary, and as we all know, either of those guys is at least as valuable as a good wing forward to a club.


As for the issue of selectoral bias, well all I can say there is that there is an issue that has been with us since time immemorial. I won't comment on the case you mentioned since I don't know anything about it, but in general, if you have selectors that are picking teams on the basis of where lads grew up instead of what they see on the training ground and in matches, then you have a huge problem and lumping clubs together will never change that.