Offaly Senior Hurling Club Championship 2011

[faithful22]

its easy know that a lot of these comments are coming from birr supporters, blowing their team up to be the best thing since the sliced pan. in fairness dillon hayden and rory haniffy had great games, and are class players, and are no doubt carrying this team of overated players. surely when you get a pick of players from crinkill, birr and coolderry even, a team should be of a good standard. as for barry harding and brian watkins getting a call up to the offaly squad, surely a bit too much hoping there. why should barry harding be even considered for senior, after refusing to play with the offaly u21s. brian watkins tied up conor gath? at no stage in this game was conor moved onto watkins, so mistake there. all this talk about drumcullens use of 'd timber' was embarrassing and shameful really has to get with the times. one bad stroke on miley, yes. correct punishment given, yes, miley able to resume playing without a bother, yes! that was the only bad stroke all game, and if it meant stopping your team conceding a goal, which it did, then im sure any player or manager would be happy with that. drumcullen has only 3 red cards in the past 3 years, im sure birr have a lot more than that. instead of picking out all the drumcullen behavior, i dont see you mentioning verney, gary haniffy, brian lonergans behavior, a lot worse than any of the drumcullen players. drumcullen went through a lot of punishment to earn a free, and not once was there retaliation so stop going on drumcullens reputation as dirty hurlers. remember it still is a contact sport and a lot of birr players are town based and dont like hardship, clearly showing in a few players shying out of tackles. look what eoin larkin done last week, and was still branded the cleanest hurler he knew by brian cody. hard hurling was always the way it should be. keiran dooley shouting pull timber, there is not one manager that dosnt say that so that is legitimate speaking. and il leave ye with the best one yet. all this trash talk about paddy kirwan, funny one this as birr were after him to take the senior job there this year. maybe its anger by being rejeted by him i dont know, but he clearly has a proven record.

[faithful22]

its easy know that a lot of these comments are coming from birr supporters, blowing their team up to be the best thing since the sliced pan. in fairness dillon hayden and rory haniffy had great games, and are class players, and are no doubt carrying this team of overated players. surely when you get a pick of players from crinkill, birr and coolderry even, a team should be of a good standard. as for barry harding and brian watkins getting a call up to the offaly squad, surely a bit too much hoping there. why should barry harding be even considered for senior, after refusing to play with the offaly u21s. brian watkins tied up conor gath? at no stage in this game was conor moved onto watkins, so mistake there. all this talk about drumcullens use of 'd timber' was embarrassing and shameful really has to get with the times. one bad stroke on miley, yes. correct punishment given, yes, miley able to resume playing without a bother, yes! that was the only bad stroke all game, and if it meant stopping your team conceding a goal, which it did, then im sure any player or manager would be happy with that. drumcullen has only 3 red cards in the past 3 years, im sure birr have a lot more than that. instead of picking out all the drumcullen behavior, i dont see you mentioning verney, gary haniffy, brian lonergans behavior, a lot worse than any of the drumcullen players. drumcullen went through a lot of punishment to earn a free, and not once was there retaliation so stop going on drumcullens reputation as dirty hurlers. remember it still is a contact sport and a lot of birr players are town based and dont like hardship, clearly showing in a few players shying out of tackles. look what eoin larkin done last week, and was still branded the cleanest hurler he knew by brian cody. hard hurling was always the way it should be. keiran dooley shouting pull timber, there is not one manager that dosnt say that so that is legitimate speaking. and il leave ye with the best one yet. all this trash talk about paddy kirwan, funny one this as birr were after him to take the senior job there this year. maybe its anger by being rejeted by him i dont know, but he clearly has a proven record.

[keenonsport]

Shinrone hammered Kinnity this morning in Birr...something like 5-12 to 1-08. Very poor performance from Kinnity who went in at the break 15 pts down after playing against a strong wind and were never going to come back from that. On a side-note the pitch looked immaculate - let's hope we see a lot more games there!!

[townman]

its easy know that a lot of these comments are coming from birr supporters, blowing their team up to be the best thing since the sliced pan. in fairness dillon hayden and rory haniffy had great games, and are class players, and are no doubt carrying this team of overated players. surely when you get a pick of players from crinkill, birr and coolderry even, a team should be of a good standard. as for barry harding and brian watkins getting a call up to the offaly squad, surely a bit too much hoping there. why should barry harding be even considered for senior, after refusing to play with the offaly u21s. brian watkins tied up conor gath? at no stage in this game was conor moved onto watkins, so mistake there. all this talk about drumcullens use of 'd timber' was embarrassing and shameful really has to get with the times. one bad stroke on miley, yes. correct punishment given, yes, miley able to resume playing without a bother, yes! that was the only bad stroke all game, and if it meant stopping your team conceding a goal, which it did, then im sure any player or manager would be happy with that. drumcullen has only 3 red cards in the past 3 years, im sure birr have a lot more than that. instead of picking out all the drumcullen behavior, i dont see you mentioning verney, gary haniffy, brian lonergans behavior, a lot worse than any of the drumcullen players. drumcullen went through a lot of punishment to earn a free, and not once was there retaliation so stop going on drumcullens reputation as dirty hurlers. remember it still is a contact sport and a lot of birr players are town based and dont like hardship, clearly showing in a few players shying out of tackles. look what eoin larkin done last week, and was still branded the cleanest hurler he knew by brian cody. hard hurling was always the way it should be. keiran dooley shouting pull timber, there is not one manager that dosnt say that so that is legitimate speaking. and il leave ye with the best one yet. all this trash talk about paddy kirwan, funny one this as birr were after him to take the senior job there this year. maybe its anger by being rejeted by him i dont know, but he clearly has a proven record.

Town based and don't like hardship go way you fool you don't win leinster and club all irelands been soft something Drumcullen won't know about as a kilkenny junior team showed yea
in the leinster final and yes Drumcullen were acting the mick that day as well, why is it that most days Drumcullen play theres some bullsh.t going on.
listen i won't bother getting into Birr v Drumcullen as both clubs are on a different world.

[puzzled]

As a neutral that was at the game friday evening i have to say some of the stuff being posted is way over the top,yes William Spain got what he deserved for a nasty stroke and i'm sure he will get a well deserved suspension for his troubles,but to think that it was a dirty game overall is wrong! Birr look like they are shaping up very well and play a great brand of hurling as always,hayden and hanniffy were outstanding,but fair play to Drumcullen as well they got relegated when the whole county knew they shouldnt have,maybe a lesser club would still be intermediate just look how long it took Walsh Island to get back up to senior football when they sliipped down! Great wins for Clareen and Shinrone and Belmont are shaping up pretty good as well perhaps the Tullamore bubble has burst??

[faithful22]

im not saying drumcullen are better than birr, they are well off that standard at present. i just pointed out a lot of the comments versus birr were false, typical begrudgers. yes that generation of hurlers won club medals, a golden generation. very few on this current team earned them. the few that are left dont have to much milage left, and when they go your left with a lot of players of a junior standard. you cant keep living on the fact that ye have won in the past, its 3 years now since birr contested a final. the glory days are well and truly gone and you fail to accept that, because you are too proud. if they win the championship this year il say fair play, but until that happens you cant go around with the idea of birr still being a dominant force. and about the bullsh*t behavior, trust me birr are not too far off the mark, on and off pitch.

[beirut]

Dirty strokes, I remember Stephen Browne pole axing Adrian Clancy in a Senior Semi Final/Final, does that make him and Birr a dirty hurler(s), well the way your talking it does! Barry Whelahan was no angel in his day either was he?

[townman]

Dirty strokes, I remember Stephen Browne pole axing Adrian Clancy in a Senior Semi Final/Final, does that make him and Birr a dirty hurler(s), well the way your talking it does! Barry Whelahan was no angel in his day either was he?

if you look at what i said was Spain pull a dirty stroke and gone the line which was right, and if a Birr player done the same friday night he would get the same dose
as for going back in history looking for Birr player's that were sent of is silly every club gets a player sent off, yes Sid got sent off in the all ireland final frankie pilkington
got sent off in replay leinster club final in 1994 you forgot them ones as well.

i didn't say all the drumcullen players were dirty if you were at the match on friday night you would know what i am talking about, and bye the way Beirut there was many a
Birr hurler pole axe bye Ryanghs players over the years

[club hurler]

Dirty strokes, I remember Stephen Browne pole axing Adrian Clancy in a Senior Semi Final/Final, does that make him and Birr a dirty hurler(s), well the way your talking it does! Barry Whelahan was no angel in his day either was he?

Ha, Adrian Clancy???? I think he won a FIFA fair play award one year didnt he??

[beirut]

Does he play soccer?

[puzzled]

Every club has had players sent off over the years,there isnt one club in the country that hasnt been effected by suspensions at one stage or another,if the physical side was taken out of hurling it would ruin the best game in the world! The players that are mentioned above have had issues with referees over the years but really and truely would any of ye really count them among the worst that has ever graced a GAA field in Offaly? The biggest worry i have after attending a number of senior games over the weekend was the beatings handed out to so many teams how Kinnitty have slipped so much in a couple of years must have their supporters very worried once they went behind their heads completely dropped and the fact that they wernt up for a battle doesnt bode well for the rest of the year,for all the training shamrocks have done they seem to have no real game plan and without Derek Molloy they are worse than average,Lusmagh ran Coolderry to the final whistle last year but yesterdays performance was their worst in years,Drumcullen were miles off the pace friday night,it seems like a two tier senior championship this year,the better sides seem to be miles ahead of the rest which is a pity!

[plain the maggot]

its very clear that all ye want to do is run down the players down. if any of ye have played hurling ye no what it is like to step out on the field. it is sometimes hard to keep your head i know ye are talking about the stroke pulled which was out of order. but in doing so those that do that will get there punishments.

[Lone Shark]

its very clear that all ye want to do is run down the players down. if any of ye have played hurling ye no what it is like to step out on the field. it is sometimes hard to keep your head i know ye are talking about the stroke pulled which was out of order. but in doing so those that do that will get there punishments.

While I can understand this post, I don't agree - and I say this in the general sense, I wasn't at the Birr/Drumcullen game so I'm making no comment about that particular incident. Everything that follows is about rough play in general.

It might be hard to keep your head, but the simple fact is that everyone who has stepped on to a hurling field needs to know where the line is - everybody needs to be able to go to work the next day and earn a living, everybody wants to walk off the field with no lasting injury and everybody wants to be able to hurl again next weekend. Any guy who struggles to "keep the head" threatens all that, and anyone who is capable of pulling a malicious stroke on someone for no reason other than they've had a bad day on the field should be kept off the hurling field for everyone's sake.

A punishment for the guy that did it isn't worth schyte to you if you miss out on a months wages with a broken arm, or you miss a full year of hurling, or you end up struggling to sleep because of a painful injury. If I go out playing football for Ferbane or if Belmont ever decided to field a team bad enough for me to get on, I'd happily take the field knowing that any of these things could happen due to sheer bad luck - a mistimed clash of heads, a genuine attempt going for the ball that comes a split second too late or any one of a myriad of other things. I play knowing all these things can happen - but I am entitled to play in the knowledge that the guy I'm marking isn't going to attempt to do me physical harm just because I have the temerity to get goal side of him and take him for a score or two.

Hurling people know the difference between an unlucky challenge and a malicious one - I've done feck all hurling and I'd make a fair guess. Anyone crossing that line gets no sympathy from me and we do our games no service by letting offenders off with measly four or eight week bans.

[beirut]

[quote]Hurling people know the difference between an unlucky challenge and a malicious one - I've done feck all hurling and I'd make a fair guess. Anyone crossing that line gets no sympathy from me and we do our games no service by letting offenders off with measly four or eight week bans.[/quote]

See this is where inconsistent refereeing comes in. Some referees let alot go to keep the game flowing, others don't and you have games where the majority of scores come from frees, both Hurling and Football. If we had the same standard of refeering across the board it would help and players wouldn't be acting the "maggot" early on to see what they can get away with. Sometimes when you look at the hurling games on tv, you wonder how did he get away with that e.g. a player running in on goals, the last defender behind him, gives him a good slap of the hurl on the arm, but the forward scores the goal and runs off back out to his position, ref doesn't punish the defender as the forward scores, but then again sometimes the ref will punish the defender with a yellow. Is striking of the hurl not a straight red?

Players need to know that no matter who the referee is they are not going to get away with this kind of stuff. I would expect then that referees would be given more respect and it would cut out some of the dirty stuff.

[Plain of the Herbs]

I meant to answer this earlier in the week and forgot.

Brendan Maher was a stylish young hurler from Killavilla. He had already made 2 Championship appearances for the County by his second year out of Minor grade. He was hurling for the South Offaly Junior Selection against Drumcullen in a County semi-final in 1966 when the opposition decided he had to be stopped. He was. One of them hit the chap full-bore with the handle of the hurl into the face, smashing his jaw.

Maher gave up hurling after that. Never went back. And why would he? See what Lone Shark wrote on Monday night about knowing where the line is.

(This was long before my time but the above is an eye-witness account which I believe. See the records section of The Music of the Ash – Maher was first to be substituted that day.)

Who was Brendan Maher, and what happened him?