Ulster JFC/IFC 2021.

[DownFanatic]

Kerry winners in bold.

All Ireland IFC

2020   Oughterard   Galway   2-16   Magheracloone Mitchells   Monaghan   0-12
2019   Kilcummin   Kerry   5-13   Naomh Éanna   Antrim   2-09
2018   Moy Tir na nÓg   Tyrone   1-10   Micheal Glaveys   Roscommon   0-07
2017   Westport   Mayo   2-12   St. Colmcille's   Meath   3-08
2016   St. Mary's Cahirciveen   Kerry   2-10   Hollymount-Carramore   Mayo   0-10
2015   Ardfert   Kerry   1-14   St. Croan's   Roscommon   0-09
2014   Gaeil Triucha   Monaghan   2-21   Kiltane   Mayo   2-13
2013   Cookstown Fr. Rock's   Tyrone   1-09   Finuge   Kerry   0-06
2012   Milltown-Castlemaine   Kerry   1-13   Davitts   Mayo   1-06
2011   Lisnaskea Emmetts   Fermanagh   1-16   St. James   Galway   0-15
2010   Cookstown Fr. Rock's   Tyrone   1-07   Spa   Kerry   0-08
2009   St Michael's/Foilmore   Kerry   1-13   St Michael's   Galway   1-09
2008   Moycullen   Galway   2-09   Fingal Ravens   Dublin   1-06
2007   Ardfert   Kerry   1-04   Eoghan Rua   Derry   0-05
2006   Inniskeen Grattans   Monaghan   2-10   Caherlistrane   Galway   1-11
2005   Carbery Rangers   Cork   1-14   Pomeroy Plunkett's   Tyrone   1-08
2004   Ilen Rovers   Cork   1-11   St Michael's   Donegal   1-04

All Ireland JFC

2020   Na Gaeil   Kerry   3-20   Rathgarogue-Cushinstown   Wexford   1-05
2019   Beaufort   Kerry   3-17   Easkey   Sligo   0-05
2018   Knocknagree   Cork   3-13   Multyfarnham   Westmeath   3-09
2017   Glenbeigh-Glencar   Kerry   1-14   Rock St. Patrick's   Tyrone   1-11
2016   Templenoe   Kerry   4-13   Ardnaree Sarsfields   Mayo   1-09
2015   Brosna   Kerry   0-09   John Mitchels   Lancashire   0-08
2014   Two Mile House   Kildare   5-07   Fuerty   Roscommon   1-11
2013   Ballinasloe   Galway   0-14   Kenmare Shamrocks   Kerry   0-10
2012   Clonbur   Galway   1-08   Derrytresk   Tyrone   1-07
2011   St. Mary's   Kerry   3-13   Swanlinbar   Cavan   1-05
2010   Castlegregory   Kerry   1-14   Kiltimagh   Mayo   0-15
2009   Skellig Rangers   Kerry   0-10   John Mitchells   Lancashire   0-09
2008   Canovee   Cork   1-08   Rock St. Patrick's   Tyrone   0-05
2007   St. Patricks, Greencastle   Tyrone   0-13   Duagh   Kerry   0-12
2006   Ardfert   Kerry   1-07   Loughrea   Galway   0-09
2005   Finuge   Kerry   1-14   Stewartstown Harps   Tyrone   0-06
2004   Wolfe Tones   Meath   0-14   Carbery Rangers   Cork   0-10
2003   Nobber   Meath   2-13   Kilmeena   Mayo   1-13
2002   Drumgoon   Cavan   1-14   Belmullet   Mayo   0-12

[Ed Ricketts]

Kerry and any other county can and should be able to do what they want with their club championships.

There is absolute integrity in All Ireland Senior club championship. The winner of that competition is the best club team in the land. No ambiguity.

But there is way too much grading inconsistency across the entire country, not only Kerry, for the Intermediate & Junior club championships to have much real meaning beyond a few extra days out for the parish.

And you'll never consolidate these grading inconsistencies because 32 different counties have 32 different sets of factors determining the optimum structure of their internal club championships.

Don't lose sight of the fact that these competitions are novelties. A nice extended victory lap for the clubs that come out on top in their home county. But they shouldn't be taken too seriously, and it's nuts to think any county is shaping their internal competitions just to find an edge here.

All Ireland club, a novelty and shouldn't be taken too seriously. OK Ed

Yes. These competitions have no intrinsic meaning.

The Senior championship crowns the undisputed best team in the country.

But what is the Intermediate champion? What is the Junior champion?

For any competition to have significance beyond novelty the winner must attain some indisputable honour. Best team in the country. Best team in the province. Best Junior/ Intermediate level team in the county - a unit in which there is a level playing field for all entrants and, therefore, some sort of intrinsic competitive integrity.

Inter-county Intermediate and Junior championships are essentially invitational tournaments, with very diverse, often completely incompatible, selection criteria. Of course, nice to win but not anything to be too read into. And not something worthy of prompting any county to change their internal structures.

[tiempo]

There is no shortage of meaning to clubs competing at relatively comparable level, there is an absolute lack of meaning when one county railroads the competition allowing their representatives to compete with teams of a significantly lower level and thus handing out severe beatings. Kerrys last 2 wins being 21 and 13 points respectively, I'd be embarrassed to celebrate those wins, but most of all its a total disservice to the clubs all the way through with the misfortune to cross their paths.

[Fear Bun Na Sceilpe]

Coming from a club beat in 3 Ulster junior hurling finals id have given my right arm for one. Completely done over this year too but hey ho.Definitely though at least one of those years we played a team who were in wrong grade. Donegal for example putting their senior hurling champions into junior Ulster mostly a joke .

[bigarsedkeeper]

Coming from a club beat in 3 Ulster junior hurling finals id have given my right arm for one. Completely done over this year too but hey ho.Definitely though at least one of those years we played a team who were in wrong grade. Donegal for example putting their senior hurling champions into junior Ulster mostly a joke .

Or Monaghan putting their senior runners up into the junior championship

[twohands!!!]

Certainly no confusion regarding the Kerry system. Gerrymandered to deliver an unfair weighting into the AI club series. Their use of the "novice" grade is part of the sham. They should be made to recalibrate so that Sen/Int county champs play off with the winner entering the Munster Senior Club, Kerry Junior Champs enter Munster Intermediate and Kerry Novice Champs enter Munster Junior

I saw the following on another forum a couple of weeks back regarding the Munster Junior Competition

The winner of the Junior football competitions in the various Munster counties this year

Kerry - 25th best team in the county [24 teams in the senior and intermediate football championships]

Limerick - 25th best team in the county [24 teams in the senior and intermediate football championships]

Clare - 26th best team in the county [25 teams in the senior and intermediate football championships]

Waterford - 29th best team in the county [28 teams in the senior and intermediate football championships]

Tipperary - 32nd best team in the county [31 teams in the senior and intermediate football championships]

This is a problem entirely of Cork GAA's making and the solution is entirely within Cork GAA's remit - change the names of the various tiers so there isn't 2 different tiers at senior and 2 different tiers at intermediate.

Cork had their 53rd best team - 12 at Senior + 12 at Senior A + 16 Intermediate + 12 at Intermediate A.

The reason why Cork are so out of whack, is that unlike all the other counties they enter the winner of the 5th tier competition into the Junior Competition.
The reason Cork do this is that they have 2 "Senior" tiers and 2 "Intermediate" tiers.
They enter the winner of their 3rd tier competition into the Munster Intermediate as well.

I had a look at the Ulster championships to see what the numbers looked like - this is based on last year's championships.

Junior

Tyrone - 37
Armagh - 34
Down - 33
Donegal - 29
Derry - 29
Cavan - 28
Antrim - 26
Monaghan - 21
Fermanagh - 17

Intermediate

Tyrone - 19
Armagh - 18
Down - 17
Donegal - 17
Derry - 17
Cavan - 14
Antrim - 15
Monaghan - 11
Fermanagh - 9

So while Kerry do have an advantage at Junior, it's by no means masssive. At Intermediate level there is more of an advantage and while some of this is based on Kerry having a small number of teams at Senior level, some of it is down to some counties with oversized Senior Championships.

Based on talking to people from Kerry what seems to be their big advanatage over other counties is the divisional system, whereby every player gets a chance to play in the Senior County Championship no matter what size of a club they are from and also that due to the fact that there are only 8 senior teams the senior and intermediate competitions are ferociously competitive. There are no teams just making up the numbers at Senior in Kerry. Maintaining Senior status is a serious business and there's no hand-holding about it - when you look at other counties who brought in no relegation because of COVID, I'd say you'd get laughed out of the county for suggesting that in Kerry. In a whole rake of other counties especially in those with 16 teams, the standard of the Senior County Championships seems way more forgiving and seem almost designed so that as many teams as possible can call themselves a senior team. In these counties there seems to be a number of teams every year whose main goal is avoiding relegation as opposed to winning the county championship.

The divisional system has been in place in Kerry for years and years before there was ever an All-Ireland Club competitons (even at senior).
So any suggestion that it was brought in to increase Kerry's chance of winning the Senior, Intermediate or Junior is clearly wrong.
The first winner of the All-Ireland Senior Club was a divisional side.

Also from what I can figure there is no Novice competition in Kerry - there is a Junior Premier and a Junior Competition with the Junior Premier being the 3rd tier competition and the Junior being the 4th tier.

Far too many folk seem to be looking at Kerry's structures and complaining about them instead of actually learning from what Kerry are doing.
It's clear that Kerry have the best structured club competitions in the land by a mile and this is a huge part of their success.
Any county with any bit of sense should be doing all they can to mimic Kerry's club structures as much as possible.

[Fear Bun Na Sceilpe]

Coming from a club beat in 3 Ulster junior hurling finals id have given my right arm for one. Completely done over this year too but hey ho.Definitely though at least one of those years we played a team who were in wrong grade. Donegal for example putting their senior hurling champions into junior Ulster mostly a joke .

Or Monaghan putting their senior runners up into the junior championship

No that's their level..usually never get past first round. Caught us this year. Fair play to them. But we have beat Monaghan runners up 3-4 times in this very convincingly.Monaghan harps , Clontibret and Carrickmacross.
Can't mind why Castleblayney were in junior as county champions year they beat us in final. We had disaster that day.

We lost 3. Bredagh went from senior to junior in their own county and were too strong for us. I think down had no intermediate championship that year.
Castleblayney beat us  as county senior champions. We had 2 men sent off and just played shite.
Setanta beat us in close game as Donegal senior champions. This year was probably as good a chance as any . Cruising and if we forget the disastrous umpire and ref we should have been home and hosed anyhow, have to take responsibility for our own failings

[Armagh18]

Yeah it's totally unfair that the 9th best team in Kerry (who are naturally going to to be strong anyway) get to play in the AI Intermediate. As someone else has said, thats like Clann Eireann in Armagh getting play Ulster intermediate.

[Milltown Row2]

Yeah it's totally unfair that the 9th best team in Kerry (who are naturally going to to be strong anyway) get to play in the AI Intermediate. As someone else has said, thats like Clann Eireann in Armagh getting play Ulster intermediate.

They'd still lose to the 9th best in Kerry, they got there.

At Endas Antrim got to an intermediate final and lost heavily to the Kerry champions, and St Endas were officially a div 1 team

[general_lee]

In a whole rake of other counties especially in those with 16 teams, the standard of the Senior County Championships seems way more forgiving and seem almost designed so that as many teams as possible can call themselves a senior team. In these counties there seems to be a number of teams every year whose main goal is avoiding relegation as opposed to winning the county championship.

Surely the fairest way would be for each county to equally divide their clubs into three. Top tier = Senior, middle tier = Intermediate, bottom tier = Junior. If they've a pile of weak clubs that necessitate another weaker competition then have one. If they've a pile of middling clubs that necessitate another intermediate competition then have one. Having 60+ clubs and only 8 graded for senior is a joke.

[Ball Hopper]

Paging "Ball Hopper" and/or "AZOffally" to this thread please to help explain the intricacies of club football in Kerry...

http://gaaboard.com/board/index.php?topic=29146.0

Same debate every year it seems.  There are moves afoot in Kerry to change the system, but I've not seen any proposals.  Having more than 8 senior clubs is supposed to be part of the new system, if approved.  Moving to 12 senior clubs is most likely.  That discussion started pre-Covid and two straight knockout championships later, who knows what way the feelings are under a completely new County Board. 

[Wildweasel74]

Leitrim has 12 teams in its senior championship and there only 24 teams I think in the county. Kerry taking the puss ever year, They don't win it at club senior too often as other teams are more evenly matched and most times better than them.

[Fear Bun Na Sceilpe]

Na gaeil we're junior 2019. I just think they are team on up. 4th strongest team in Tralee

[clubman21]

Na gaeil we're junior 2019. I just think they are team on up. 4th strongest team in Tralee

Won the Junior Championship whilst in Senior League, now on for a repeat in intermediate. Only means of promotion in Kerry is through a Championship win.

[tiempo]

Yep its the perennial discussion, I'll finish as I started, the way Kerry abuse the grading system they are actually underachieving and should be winning more (100%) of Intermediate/Junior AI Club titles