All Ireland Club Championships 2024

[SaffronSports]

16 senior clubs in Antrim, 8 in Kerry. Definitely doesn't add up.

[SouthOfThe Bann]

16 senior clubs in Antrim, 8 in Kerry. Definitely doesn't add up.

Antrim would have alot bigger population than Kerry though 😛.

In all seriousness how many football and how many hurling clubs are in Antrim?

[SaffronSports]

16 senior clubs in Antrim, 8 in Kerry. Definitely doesn't add up.

Antrim would have alot bigger population than Kerry though 😛.

In all seriousness how many football and how many hurling clubs are in Antrim?

Antrim SFC - 16
Ifc - 10
Jfc - 8

Antrim shc - 8 ( was 7 this year as Creggan withdrew)
Ihc - 10
Jhc - 7
Jun b - 5

Near half our football clubs play senior. Pretty much restructures as folk didn't want to take relegation on the chin.

[Blowitupref]

To win the Intermediate All Ireland

Austin Stacks 3/10
Crossmolina 11/2
BallinaderrY 9/1
Caragh 11/1
Arva 20/1

[gallsman]

How many Stacks players this year played senior championship for St. Brendan's? Another aspect of the unfairness of it all. There should be a rule that non-senior club players in Kerry who line out with their divisional side in the senior championship are ineligible for their clubs in the provincial championship. The Cliffords whaling on junior clubs left, right and centre a few years ago comes to mind.

[SouthOfThe Bann]

How many Stacks players this year played senior championship for St. Brendan's? Another aspect of the unfairness of it all. There should be a rule that non-senior club players in Kerry who line out with their divisional side in the senior championship are ineligible for their clubs in the provincial championship. The Cliffords whaling on junior clubs left, right and centre a few years ago comes to mind.

Whatever about Stacks being intermediate I've absolutely no issue with players given the chance to play senior football.

Every player in every county should have the chance to play senior if good enough.

Then maybe we wouldn't have as many transfers.

Should be at least 12vsejior clubs in Kerry.

[gallsman]

Again, no problem whatsoever with the Kerry divisional system and it giving players from non senior clubs to play senior.

But if they spend a couple of months playing senior championship in Kerry, and are then unleashed in the Munster Junior against the Clare junior champions, that strikes me as more than a touch unfair.

[Armagh18]

How many Stacks players this year played senior championship for St. Brendan's? Another aspect of the unfairness of it all. There should be a rule that non-senior club players in Kerry who line out with their divisional side in the senior championship are ineligible for their clubs in the provincial championship. The Cliffords whaling on junior clubs left, right and centre a few years ago comes to mind.

Disagree there, sure Fossa were a junior club for years and have just happened to get 2 unbelievable players. Why shouldnt they be allowed represent their club

[gallsman]

How many Stacks players this year played senior championship for St. Brendan's? Another aspect of the unfairness of it all. There should be a rule that non-senior club players in Kerry who line out with their divisional side in the senior championship are ineligible for their clubs in the provincial championship. The Cliffords whaling on junior clubs left, right and centre a few years ago comes to mind.

Disagree there, sure Fossa were a junior club for years and have just happened to get 2 unbelievable players. Why shouldnt they be allowed represent their club

Can you read? How much more clarification do you need? Because they played (and won) senior championship. In most counties there are rules against that sort of thing.

The presence of the divisional teams in the Kerry senior championships reduces the number of spots available to other clubs, so you have clubs that would be senior in almost any other county playing intermediate, same for intermediate to junior.

[SouthOfThe Bann]

Again, no problem whatsoever with the Kerry divisional system and it giving players from non senior clubs to play senior.

But if they spend a couple of months playing senior championship in Kerry, and are then unleashed in the Munster Junior against the Clare junior champions, that strikes me as more than a touch unfair.

Is it unfair or should Clare or Cavan or whoever else not be doing the same thing.

Should we stop county players from playing aswell just because they spent half the year playing a higher grade of football with their respective counties.

[gallsman]

No, obviously not. What a daft attempt at muddying the waters or trying to draw an equivalence between the two.

The issue, fundamentally, is that the intermediate and junior teams in Kerry that compete in Munster and the All Ireland are not intermediate or junior as would be defined in most other counties. A potential solution to that would be "fine, you can enter the provincial championship but your players that played senior championship this year are ineligible".

Armagh, for example, allows reserve teams to compete in their lower championships. Clann Eireann made the semis of the intermediate this year. Not sure of the details but I'm pretty certain there are rules (other than, you know, common sense and decency) that prevent them from playing lads who play for their first team in the lower grade.

[Armagh18]

How many Stacks players this year played senior championship for St. Brendan's? Another aspect of the unfairness of it all. There should be a rule that non-senior club players in Kerry who line out with their divisional side in the senior championship are ineligible for their clubs in the provincial championship. The Cliffords whaling on junior clubs left, right and centre a few years ago comes to mind.

Disagree there, sure Fossa were a junior club for years and have just happened to get 2 unbelievable players. Why shouldnt they be allowed represent their club

Can you read? How much more clarification do you need? Because they played (and won) senior championship. In most counties there are rules against that sort of thing.

The presence of the divisional teams in the Kerry senior championships reduces the number of spots available to other clubs, so you have clubs that would be senior in almost any other county playing intermediate, same for intermediate to junior.

For a different club/amalgamation of clubs you simpleton.

Agree on your second point.

[Ciarrai_thuaidh]

Will do a separate post on the Kerry structure (for the 500th time!) but for now, fair play to Kilmurry on their win. Much the better team tonight.

For those wondering why they are in a third Munster Junior final, they won the old Junior A in Cork in 2022, lost Munster Final to Fossa.
Lost the Premier Junior (new grade) final in Cork to St Finbarrs 2nd team last year and lost Munster Final to Listowel.

Won the Premier Junior this year and now won Munster. Unusual one but just a factor of the Cork restructuring.

Have seen your previous posts and fair play for the way it's run, think the divisional teams are a brilliant idea and would love to see them tried in Armagh because I know theres lads at smaller clubs who would love to play against the best players and would be well able to.

No matter how you slice it though, the 9th ranked team shouldn't be going to Munster intermediate.

I doubt you'd find anyone that will disagree with the last line Armagh18 - that's why Kerry are making changes so that there will be 10 Clubs in Senior championship by 2026. I think it should have been done for next year but anyway.

People seem to forget that Kerry had 11 Senior clubs up until I think 2014 or 2015 and along with the 9 divisional teams there were 20 team in the SFC. So 12th rank team was going into Munster Intermediate. There were still 4/5 Kerry winners and 2 runners-up before this.

Anyway, everyone agrees change is needed and it's coming. The reason it didn't happen well before now is the narrow minded attitude of Croke park and their "one size fits all" approach to county championships. There's 100 years of history of Divisional teams in Kerry in the County championship and we're not sacrificing that as it works and works well for us. So when Croke park tried to pressurise Kerry (and Cork) then it was a reduction in club numbers that followed. It could have been worse only that Kenmare district divisional team dropped out of the championship, but sin scéal eile!

Even the 12th ranked team for a county with the pick and tradition Kerry have is probably too strong for an intermediate provincial. How many clubs are in Kerry?

Could Kerry and Cork not both stick to 16 senior teams and send team 17 into intermediate?

16 club teams?? Not a hope to be totally honest, no way is there 16 Senior level clubs in Kerry. Would just lead to a load of hammerings in SFC. This was happening a bit a few years ago and was one of the reasons the number of Senior clubs was scaled back. They went too far down to 8, so it's being adjusted up to 10 again, rightly.

In County SFC We have 8 Divisional teams that are there to stay anyway (although there's a possibility of a merger of 2 of those teams, so 10 clubs along with 7/8 divisional teams those is about the right formula as far as I'm concerned.

To answer your question, there is around 58 clubs in Kerry championships. There are a few clubs hanging onto existence just about unfortunately who exist on paper but barely field outside of regional leagues. There used to be over 70 clubs. South Kerry area is decimated for one thing and the region that produced Jack O'Shea, Mick O'Connell, Maurice Fitzgerald, Mick O'Dwyer, Declan O'Sullivan and others is in a really bad way with once proud clubs amalgamating, often 3 or 4 together to make one minor team. Valentia, the club of Mick O'Connell, refielded for the first time in 5 years or so this year to stop being de-registered but they are hanging on.

I often feel like someone should do a Q&A on Kerry structures here!

Also just on Cork - they put their 25th ranked team into Munster Intermediate -  winners of Premier Intermediate championship.
Premier Senior (12 clubs + Divisions)
Senior A (12 clubs)
Premier Intermediate (12)
Intermediate A (12)
Premier Junior (12)
Junior A - literally hundreds of teams, divided into various regions.

This is the Cork structure with the winners of bolded going into Munster.

[Ciarrai_thuaidh]

How many Stacks players this year played senior championship for St. Brendan's? Another aspect of the unfairness of it all. There should be a rule that non-senior club players in Kerry who line out with their divisional side in the senior championship are ineligible for their clubs in the provincial championship. The Cliffords whaling on junior clubs left, right and centre a few years ago comes to mind.

I just can't get my head around why somebody would post utter nonsense like this!

[gallsman]

Because of this bit:

The issue, fundamentally, is that the intermediate and junior teams in Kerry that compete in Munster and the All Ireland are not intermediate or junior as would be defined in most other counties.

This is the reason Kerry clubs have won twice as many AI intermediate titles as any other county. At junior it's even worse with Kerry clubs having won a full half of all the AIs. This is not news. You know this. It's not because you're all so f**king class at football.