U20 footballers 2024

[G91]

Surely that's the last of ken furlongs involvement

Another disappointing year for under 20 football

It's a hard pill to swallow going out like that after so much preparation for championship and I thought they might have kicked on a bit after the kildare win

I've no doubt there's good players on the team it just hasn't happened for them

[jk1022]

Surely that's the last of ken furlongs involvement

Another disappointing year for under 20 football

It's a hard pill to swallow going out like that after so much preparation for championship and I thought they might have kicked on a bit after the kildare win

I've no doubt there's good players on the team it just hasn't happened for them

Never felt as embarrassed for a group of players. Lot of talent in there but the way they’ve been asked to play is hard to watch. You could almost feel a sense of relief from the players that’s it’s over.

[Superhans75]

Well done to Carlow good luck in the competition.
For us why did we bother playing?
Is it bad management or players with an attitude were too good for this competition?
If wasn't for Melia during the campaign
We would have conceded some serious amounts of goals .
Teams need games to improve.

[joey1001]

Well done to Carlow good luck in the competition.
For us why did we bother playing?
Is it bad management or players with an attitude were too good for this competition?
If wasn't for Melia during the campaign
We would have conceded some serious amounts of goals .
Teams need games to improve.

I think they had their games, they missed out on their goal and there would be no benefit for this team to continue in the second competition. Let them back to their clubs or if any of them are joining senior or hurling panels they can go. Will be interesting to see how Kildare get on.

[jk1022]

Well done to Carlow good luck in the competition.
For us why did we bother playing?
Is it bad management or players with an attitude were too good for this competition?
If wasn't for Melia during the campaign
We would have conceded some serious amounts of goals .
Teams need games to improve.

Bad management, there's no other way to look at it. In the most part they tried hard last night apart from the behavior and attitude of a couple of players. Player selection for this game was questionable too. Thank god it's over.

[Superhans75]

I agree got home at 1am but i have noticed some of the younger and not so young. Players have a bad attitude.
Maybe it's the modern way but your playing for your county .

[jk1022]

I agree got home at 1am but i have noticed some of the younger and not so young. Players have a bad attitude.
Maybe it's the modern way but your playing for your county .

Maybe we just don't have the players. If you go through the panel, how many of them are playing senior A football this year?Less than a handful. Some of them won't even start with their clubs first team. Maybe it's just of measure of where we are.

[joey1001]

I agree got home at 1am but i have noticed some of the younger and not so young. Players have a bad attitude.
Maybe it's the modern way but your playing for your county .

Maybe we just don't have the players. If you go through the panel, how many of them are playing senior A football this year?Less than a handful. Some of them won't even start with their clubs first team. Maybe it's just of measure of where we are.

Has everyone forgotten that we beat the reigning all Ireland champions?!

[JimBwobb]

I agree got home at 1am but i have noticed some of the younger and not so young. Players have a bad attitude.
Maybe it's the modern way but your playing for your county .

Maybe we just don't have the players. If you go through the panel, how many of them are playing senior A football this year?Less than a handful. Some of them won't even start with their clubs first team. Maybe it's just of measure of where we are.

Has everyone forgotten that we beat the reigning all Ireland champions?!

And where did that get us ?

[joey1001]

Maybe we just don't have the players. If you go through the panel, how many of them are playing senior A football this year?Less than a handful. Some of them won't even start with their clubs first team. Maybe it's just of measure of where we are.

Has everyone forgotten that we beat the reigning all Ireland champions?!

And where did that get us ?

So it means absolutely nothing? Lads saying no talent, bad team , bad attitude etc but that result says different

[JimBwobb]

But what did we benefit from it in the greater scheme of things?

[Superhans75]

To be honest a reasonable successful modern intercounty team needs 3 or so
U20 footballers every year that can step up
Into the senior panel when you haven't got the big population.
Immigration is a bigger factor now in the gaa
In rural Ireland than it was in the 1980/90s
Substitutions Have probably favoured the big panel squads massively as well
Id like to see the stats on that .
Enjoy the drier weather

[ah lethimoutwithit]

For me a couple of things,

Certain players were going to play regardless of whether they brought their football boots with them. This type of stuff has started to creep into the underage set ups.
Secondly, how they were set up to play, and you can go on what way you like about us beating Kildare, a one off freak result. Kildare were woeful that evening. We were shocking against Longford and Louth (last 10 mins against Louth decided to go at them), same last year against Louth and didnt take chances against Wicklow.
How we were set up to play has been brutal and Brian Darby has added nothing to the set up. Ken will have his eye on the Tullamore job and I hope he gets it eventually.

To be fair, as I sad already, we have a big issue with coaching and quality coaches in the county. There are some but not enough and not enough who are willing to take on the less lucrative and high demands of underage teams. I commend those that do it and Ken is a good bloke , no doubt with a strong committment. But there are gaps in the skillset and an over allegiance to certain players who have not delivered.
There is now the issue to deal with that players are now emerging that could play for either football or hurling and picking hurling. More look to them but this has tied his hands to a certain degree.

[private joker]

Beating kildare was no mean feat but at underage being the all ireland champions means nothing g especially if most of that all ireland winning team is over age. How many players did kildare have thst won thst all ireland?. Tipperarywho bet offaly were all minor hurling champions, following year, lost every match. Team had moved on.

[jimbob17]

For me a couple of things,

Certain players were going to play regardless of whether they brought their football boots with them. This type of stuff has started to creep into the underage set ups.
Secondly, how they were set up to play, and you can go on what way you like about us beating Kildare, a one off freak result. Kildare were woeful that evening. We were shocking against Longford and Louth (last 10 mins against Louth decided to go at them), same last year against Louth and didnt take chances against Wicklow.
How we were set up to play has been brutal and Brian Darby has added nothing to the set up. Ken will have his eye on the Tullamore job and I hope he gets it eventually.

To be fair, as I sad already, we have a big issue with coaching and quality coaches in the county. There are some but not enough and not enough who are willing to take on the less lucrative and high demands of underage teams. I commend those that do it and Ken is a good bloke , no doubt with a strong committment. But there are gaps in the skillset and an over allegiance to certain players who have not delivered.
There is now the issue to deal with that players are now emerging that could play for either football or hurling and picking hurling. More look to them but this has tied his hands to a certain degree.

It was a disappointing year for these lads no doubt. Some harsh enough talk going around both here and off site that may or may not be merited. I know very little about the coaching / organisation that went on but to be fair, I think the BD comment is unfair. He is a lad that gave his 20's and lot of his 30s to the county team and was one of our most committed through that. He has a young family and took on a selector role giving huge volume of time to that team over last 6 months or more. Last thing he deserves is singling out when there was likely many more factors at play. If having a pop at management, it should be as a collective. There are others there involved with background in nutrition, S&C physio etc that should have ensured the fitness etc would be right. KF is a very decent guy, hugely committed and nobody will be more disappointed. He has done great things in Tullamore helping to revitalise the underage there - and maybe there was a gap in skillsets across the management team. There were other people involved also with strong reputations. If there were gaps, that is hugely disappointing given they have been involved for last 5 years between minor and U20.

The bigger question is the coaching and who the best fellas are and how do we get them in with the championship underage teams. BD is only starting on his journey in coaching so maybe we need to have markers of experience for coaches of inter county teams. You could really see the experience and level of knowledge of the Longford management in our game by how they engaged with players on the line. The best coaches are not always former inter county senior players.

There has been talk of favouritism towards certain players and I won't lie because I heard it myself. It has been said among players within the squad also. I dont know how fair or unfair that was as I didnt see them train to be fair. All I do know is that within the 4 games, there were some of the forwards who barely got a shot at the posts, let alone score and we conceded way too much and too easily. Maybe the tactical set up was reason for this but I felt there were some lads on the bench or not even on panel that could have offered more than some who played. Where was Conor Grennan from Ferbane? Where was Cameron Egan from Brigids during the championship games? Ben Kennedy surely offers more than the time he was given - or maybe not. Only those that selected the teams know - and maybe there were reasons some players were not involved or not played.

Beyond that the hurling is definitely a factor here with this group. Conor Doyle, Patrick Taeffe, Alex Kavanagh, Ter Guinan, Donal Shirley and a few more hurlers would definitely have added to the team and squad. It would have allowed maybe Geordi O Meara to push out to midfield or half forward line where he could exert more influence going forwards. For me the most disappointing thing was we played like we didnt really have a proper go - at Louth, at Longford, at Carlow and came out with poor results. These are not world beaters. For all the 'positive vibes' coming out of Faithful Fields in recent years, outside of the 21 under 20's, I've yet to see a football team that inspires a whole lot of confidence that we are doing anything much better than we did over the last 15/20 years.