OFFALY UNDER 21 HURLING

[Toxicity234]

Ballinamere Gaels play Tullamore in Ballinamere on Friday night.

What time Friday evening??

[Plain of the Herbs]

8 bells, according to the Tullamore GAA notes.

Ballinamere Gaels play Tullamore in Ballinamere on Friday night.

What time Friday evening??

[Buttons]

Ballinamere Gaels play Tullamore in Ballinamere on Friday night.
Cúchullainn Gaels play St Brendan's in Lusmagh at noon on Sunday.

When and where do Coolderry and Rahan play?

Ballinamere vs Tullamore is on Friday week the 7th of march just in case you thought it was tomorrow night, they are then playing u21 football Durrow vs Tullamore on the sunday 9th

[Sharp Eye]

"In the month of February it is not fair to ask anybody to manage the team."


And what did you mean by this point Sharp eye? February is too early to start training for the u21 championship?

By the way not picking at you, but yes we would love to have a Utopian world, and its easy from the safety of a key board. But being involved at club level, I also know that the reality of the best people being involved in running the GAA, (admin and coaching) is a pipedream. I am sick listening to lads giving out about various coaches or selectors in charge of different teams when several "hero's" have turned it down, (especially at club level and underage)!!

Sharp Eye, Training pitches, access to senior players etc are all convenient challenges which some coaches hide behind. You also make comments about payment of expenses. I dont think our county board are any different than any other county. We are not blessed with a pot of money that covers everything so we have to work within the constraints of financing hurling and football who are aiming for a high level of performance.
Sometimes I see comments on this site and wonder how close are any of you to the real cost of running Offaly Gaa and how we can provide this Utopia that you speak about. Yes we would like to see a more progressive approach to raising finance, developing training facilities, paying decent expenses(which I think is done as best can be, there can be skullduggery on mileage from time to time). But...its a hell of a job trying to run a budget of 500000 and bring in that sort of finance also for part time volunteers.
Also Sharp Eye, I guarantee that there are guys who you would class as top class coaches who have turned down the u21 job as its a hell of a lot of hassle, without the financial perks of training a club team!??

Managers to all adult teams should be in place prior to the County Convention. Management need adequate time to plan training etc properly. All players who are willing to be considered for County Panels deserve a reasonable chance of making the county panel. A management team appointed in February do not have sufficient time to prepare a team properly for the Leinster Under 21 Championship. We need our best players, properly trained & managed on the pitch.
Providing our managers with reasonable access to players (eg U 21 management with senior players), ensuring team managements and team panel members are not "out of Pocket", provision of proper training facilities, proper coaching, training gear for panel members are not Utopia- They are the current minimum requirements. If as you say the Co Board spends 500,000 each year, the first part of that budget should be spent on our county players. Notice development works still continue at O'Connor Park.

[sam88885a]

lads tox is right its not good enough that offaly has not an u21 manager in march .
who is to blame ?
its not the players .
surely the county board are to blame . the suggestion is that no one wants the job .
who has been asked ??????
the one guy that wanted the senior job was never asked so is it any wonder that guys dont come forward to express an intrest when there is a chance they will be ignored .
all club managers deserve huge respect
the county board did huge harm with that stroke harm that may take years to correct.
finally where is michael duignan he almost was give the senior job surely the u21 would be a learning experence first

[Observant 7]

Yes it would be interesting to know who was asked to Manage Offaly U21 Hurlers
Some names come to my mind,
Johnny Pilkington
Joackim Kelly
Pat Fleury
Pat Delaney
Although maybe some may not have enough experience, but then how much experience did some managers of the past have, and what about
Johnny Flaherty & Ronnie Byrne who both were involved in the Under age Developement Squads the earlier years. Have all of these refused?

[ryot]

Sharp Eye'e words
"provision of proper training facilities"

I agree and presume u mean a Floodlight Pitch & a Gym., at least 2 nights per week and a few Saturdays or Sundays

Now just as a matter of interest: since CB do not own either such facility could you advise of where they could rent such facilities and what will they cost.

Since Senior Hurlers, Senior Footballers, Under 21 Hurlers & Under 21 Footballers, Minor Hurlers & Minor Footballers and possibly Under 16 teams, Under 14 teams & Development Squads all need facilities they are probably costing quite a bit.

Is it now time for CB to acquire such facilities------------ 3 Floodlight sand based pitches with dressing rooms & gym. Cost will be 3 - 6 M €. How can this be financed ?

[manfromdelmonte]

We should change the under 21 club competition in the county to an under 20 grade and run it when adult competitions are winding down.

Then all eligible players from eg 2014 would be available to the county under 21 team in 2015

[Sharp Eye]

Sharp Eye'e words
"provision of proper training facilities"

I agree and presume u mean a Floodlight Pitch & a Gym., at least 2 nights per week and a few Saturdays or Sundays

Now just as a matter of interest: since CB do not own either such facility could you advise of where they could rent such facilities and what will they cost.

Since Senior Hurlers, Senior Footballers, Under 21 Hurlers & Under 21 Footballers, Minor Hurlers & Minor Footballers and possibly Under 16 teams, Under 14 teams & Development Squads all need facilities they are probably costing quite a bit.

Is it now time for CB to acquire such facilities------------ 3 Floodlight sand based pitches with dressing rooms & gym. Cost will be 3 - 6 M €. How can this be financed ?

It is Not the Job of a County Team Manager to beg clubs for their facilities for the purpose of training county teams.Provision of Training Facilities is a duty of the County Board.
A Number of Colleges in Offaly have Gym facilities which are available for renting at a reasonable cost. The payment of Private Gym Membership should be made of behalf of each player on a County U21 & Senior Panel or we will never reach the required fitness levels for todays games. We cannot expect players who are willing to undertake the necessary additional training to be "out of pocket".
The provision of a Full-Size Astro-Turf Pitch is long overdue in this county. Rumours have it that our Senior Football Management had to hire an all-weather pitch in another county for our Senior Football Panel as the County Board failed to acquire the use of any pitch in Offaly. Our neighbouring counties Laois & Westmeath both have a full-size Astro-Turf Pitches.
It is past time that The County Board, Birr GAA Club & Birr Community College become involved in a joint venture and provide a full-size astro-turf pitch at Birr Community College. Birr Community College compete in Leinster Senior A Colleges Hurling and need every support.
Further development works at O'Connor Park should stop until a Full-Sized Astro Turf Pitch has been fully completed at Birr Community College.
If the proper facilities were available, there would be no difficulty in obtaining a manager for our Under 21 Hurling Team.

[Lone Shark]

I certainly agree wholeheartedly that an all weather facility is badly needed, however is there some reason why Birr CS is the obvious facility for it - are they offering lands or why would they be chosen over any of the other schools in the county, or any of the other clubs for that matter?

Rest assured the last thing I want to do is turn this into another debate about Birr, I'm just curious as to what reason there is for choosing there that couldn't be applied to any other location in the county, particularly when there are other spots that would arguably be a lot more central to footballers and hurlers alike.

[kinnittyman]

To be fair to Birr CS Lone Shark, it's the only school in the county competing in Colleges hurling. That's not a bad reason. We need players playing in this competition to get them at some level up to speed for inter county minor hurling.

[ryot]

Sharp Eye & Lone Shark

I agree with the point that it is CB's job to supply the facilities and what I am saying is that they will cost.
Do we presently even have the funds to rent gym hours for our underage and pay gym membership for the Seniors ( between the 2 panels 88 players).

What I am asking is, as the CB do not at present have the 3milion minimum needed, how can the provision of those facilities be funded.

Other counties have them ( and some have had great fun slagging the likes of Kildare for borrowing 1 million as part of a 6 million facility and trying to point the finger at a former Team Manager who fundraised & sponsored a lot more then he received in exes).

Derry, Meath, Kildare etc have facilities so can we fund one for ourselves ???

[Lone Shark]

And Edenderry is the only school competing in colleges A football. Should we therefore build it in St Marys? I don't mean to be facetious, but you can see why the same logic could be used.

I'm not saying that Birr would be down the list of potential locations, I'm just pretty confident that helping out one school at the exclusion of others is an odd criterion for making this decision, particularly when if we had such a facility, it would be used every evening by different county teams so school and club teams would struggle to get access.

I agree that colleges hurling is of immense value and the gulf between A and B is massive, however we're talking about building a facility for the county here, not for a school. I'd have thought a more central location would make sense, unless a particular school is bringing something to the table, such as land, financial support, existing dressing rooms, etc.


I don't know what the total cost is, now how much of it would have to be funded ourselves, yet I find it hard to believe that Westmeath, Kildare, Laois, Carlow, Meath, Louth, Wicklow and others all have facilities like this, and just because I'm not aware of ones in Kilkenny, Wexford and Longford doesn't mean they don't exist. We're not looking for something different here, we're just playing catch up.

[manfromdelmonte]

St Lomans in Mullingar had their's part funded by the Leinster council in return for hosting loads of games (plus they were meant to start a hurling club, but never did..)
Their astro pitch gets a huge amount of colleges and challenge games. even from local clubs playing challenges and training on it.

Don't see why Offaly should have one considering it's central location and good roads through the county

[old yellar]

We ve spent a good few pound on our training centre in carlow - i m not sure if any of ye were at the recent mlr/ofdaly challenge. I was sceptical when it was mooted at first. We ve 6/7 floodlight pitches already down here. But seeing it in full flight now with all 3 pitches lit up at night warms the heart! It does now mean the begging off clubs is over - i had to do it when involved with squads, and the squads now have top class yr round pitches to play on. We had Birr juveniles down on it today (we beat them 1 15 to 0 5) and it was remarked by a birr man that our touch etc looked better and was training on good pitches a factor? Possibly. Having a centralised training venue - near tmore? Surely would be a massive plus for the county? It does help i feel..
As for not having an u21 management in place. Jayus! Most clubs would have that done by now. No excuse. I ll throw another name in the hat - ciaran mcdonald. I always thought he was a shrewd operator. But i ll call it like i see it, his wexfordness wouldnt go in his favour. An outsider. How ye can look at some of the names mentioned i dont know. Some got jobs on their names alone and feats on the pitch without ever managing a club underage team alone.
As for birr cs and the whole colleges a/b scene - no more voc anymore, well your county captain and 7 other panellists i had and didnt do to bad hurling at b level! But i see your point. Schools are a breeding ground. You do want birr, banagher and indeed the combined team going well in the A. Might be worth extending the combined team to senior level. You d have a decent team with banagher, kilcormac, tullamores, killina all available. Just a thought..