Ulster Colleges

[Estimator]

Serious performances by Omagh in the semi and final...winning by 18 and 17 points respectively. Almost a pity it was so one sided as the atmosphere never really got going in Croker. Great achievement for my own club having 3 players on the 15 one being the captain with 2-5 from play and another being man of the match.

Any one of 4 or 5 schools in Ulster could have made a great cracking at winning today. Standard very high across the province this year.

Surely a good few inter county players come from that side. Serious talents with serious attitudes

Doubt it. Schools football hugely over rated. Be doing well to get 5/6 top club players from any school side. Hogan winners or not!

From the St Colmans Newry side that won 2 hogans in 10 and 11 AFAIK Caolan Mooney, Jerome and Ryan Johnston, Niall McParland, Niall Donnelly, Donal O'Hare and Ross McGarry. There were others on that team that played for Armagh so I'm not sure if any of them went on to play at senior level with Armagh. Honourable mention to Shay McCartan who went on to play professional soccer across the water

How many of them would you call established county players? I wouldn't say one! And that includes Mooney. Maghera had numerous sides that won and reached Hogan finals over 3 or 4 years. Conor Glass and Shane McGuigan the only two to really come through to play at a high level.

Why change the argument to 'established' county players?

From those Maghera teams, would you just call Niall Toner, Padraig Cassidy, Oisin McWilliams, Shea Downey and Paul McNeill county players, but not 'established' county players?

You forgot McKaigue, McClosey, D Cassidy. McKindless, E Bradley, Lynch all played a couple of MacRory campaigns, some won it

Didn't forget, was just highlighting the other Derry players from those Maghera teams referenced by the previous poster.

Could also point out that McCloskey, Lynch, Cassidy, McEvoy, O'Donnell have all come through on the back of Convent victories in the last 7/8 years.

Or those Rossa players listed have come through based on the brilliant underage work at the club.

That's another different argument.

It'd be easy to say the same about every single school/colleges team in Ireland.

[JimStynes]

Is colleges football taken more serious in Ulster? Is it as big a deal in other provinces as it is here.

[InnocentByStander]

Serious performances by Omagh in the semi and final...winning by 18 and 17 points respectively. Almost a pity it was so one sided as the atmosphere never really got going in Croker. Great achievement for my own club having 3 players on the 15 one being the captain with 2-5 from play and another being man of the match.

Any one of 4 or 5 schools in Ulster could have made a great cracking at winning today. Standard very high across the province this year.

Surely a good few inter county players come from that side. Serious talents with serious attitudes

Doubt it. Schools football hugely over rated. Be doing well to get 5/6 top club players from any school side. Hogan winners or not!

From the St Colmans Newry side that won 2 hogans in 10 and 11 AFAIK Caolan Mooney, Jerome and Ryan Johnston, Niall McParland, Niall Donnelly, Donal O'Hare and Ross McGarry. There were others on that team that played for Armagh so I'm not sure if any of them went on to play at senior level with Armagh. Honourable mention to Shay McCartan who went on to play professional soccer across the water

How many of them would you call established county players? I wouldn't say one! And that includes Mooney. Maghera had numerous sides that won and reached Hogan finals over 3 or 4 years. Conor Glass and Shane McGuigan the only two to really come through to play at a high level.

Why change the argument to 'established' county players?

From those Maghera teams, would you just call Niall Toner, Padraig Cassidy, Oisin McWilliams, Shea Downey and Paul McNeill county players, but not 'established' county players?

This Argument is just rubbish, I Remember going to Maghera and attending a Hogan Final watching None other than  David Clifford put on a masterclass and beat Maghera on his won that day, Dara Moynihan was also on the team, probably a few others. Alot of Kerry's top players either play schools football for St brendans or SEM.

[bennydorano]

MacRory Cup Groups 23/24

 

Group A

St Pats Armagh

St Macartans Monaghan

Abbey CBS

St Pats Maghera

 

Group B

St Colman's Newry

St Michael's Enniskillen

St Pat's Dungannon

St Marys Magherafelt

 

Group C

St Joseph's Donaghmore

Holy Trinity Cookstown

Our Lady's Blayney

St Pat's Cavan

 

Group D

St Ronan's Lurgan

Patrician Carrickmacross

St Paul's Bessbrook

Omagh CBS

[GTP]

Group B

[bennydorano]

Definitely Group B.

See there's a 100 year anniversary match of the founding of the MacRory between Armagh & Macartans. St Pats have a commemorative jersey for the occasion (the old college black & white - as opposed to current Mayo colours, post amalgamation with CBS), saw it today, a cracking looking Jersey. Macartans are doing the same, tho I'm not sure if their original colours differ.

[bennydorano]

First game today, Maghera v MacCartans in Stewartstown at 2pm.

Edit - MacRory Full time: St Patrick's, Maghera 3:11: St Macartan's, Monaghan 2-10

[snoopdog]

[quote
author=bennydorano link=topic=22328.msg2187891#msg2187891 date=1679134335]
A nonsense argument Walter is putting forward, Colleges football is a super standard, much more Darwinian than some underage county panels.

IMO Tyrone' Schools' biggest advantage is that it is a huge county comparatively speaking with much greater nationalist leaning people (strong communities & clubs) than other counties. Gaelic football is king everywhere as well, little Hurling, Soccer, even Basketball? ( I remember Dungannon used to be a BB powerhouse but do they bother with it anymore?). In A grade Armagh have 2 regular MacRory teams, St Pats Armagh & St Ronans Lurgan and up until the creation of Ronans,  St Pats were the only A grade side, and a lot of our catchment area are Armagh clubs near the Tyrone border who gravitate towards Dungannon Academy. St Paul's Bessbrook flit between A & B grade and they have to contend with half of South Armagh going to Newry Schools. But that is just the way it is, there aren't going to be any structural changes that can level the playing field a bit.

Do many sth. Armagh lads still go to the 2 Newry schools?

Traditionally there was always big numbers of Cross,Mullaghbawn,Silverbridge and Killeavy lads in the Abbey and they obviously made up a large proportion of football teams.
     The College although on the Armagh side of Newry, traditionally had a bigger contingent of Down students. There was always a big Lurgan contingent in the College though.
     Much different now i'm told with a greater mix in both schools.
[/quote]
When I went to St colmans late 80s early 90s there were loads from South Armagh in the school.

[trailer]

Popped over to watch St Pat's Academy V St Pat's Armagh last night in the Rannafast final. Armagh led at the break by 2 points they got a fairly fortuitous goal in 1st half from a high ball into the square. Academy made hard work in first half running into a well organised and strong Armagh defence, who bottled them up and turned them over. HT 1-5 0-6
Academy better setup after the break and stopped running into the Armagh defence. Switching the play well to get a few danger men to catch handy marks as well as strong runners coming at better angles to break them down. Got a bit of a run on them. Armagh got another fairly lucky penalty to come back a them but Academy had a bit too much in the end running out 0-16 to 2-6 winners.

Good game. Best for Academy probably Joel Kerr, Liam McGeary and big lad in MF. Stewartstown lad.
Armagh Cathair Hughes, and Matty Daly.

https://teamtalkmag.com/rannafast-title-for-academy/

[Goals_Will_Come]

Tyrone schools flying again. Three of them topped their MacRory groups as well and automatically through to the Quarter Finals.

[trailer]

Tyrone schools flying again. Three of them topped their MacRory groups as well and automatically through to the Quarter Finals.

Good smattering of that Armagh Rannafast team are all from Tyrone as well. Eglish and The Moy

[TwoUpTwoDown]

Tyrone schools flying again. Three of them topped their MacRory groups as well and automatically through to the Quarter Finals.

Any word on how other Tyrone schools are going? I was interested to see how the Dean got on in MacLarnon.

[Estimator]

🏆MACRORY CUP  FIXTURES / RESULTS 🏆

Play-offs ( Wednesday, January 3 – Saturday, January 6)

Playoff 1 St Macartan's, Monaghan v Patrician, Carrickmacross
Playoff 2 St. Ronan's, Lurgan v Abbey CBS, Newry
Playoff 3 St Mary's, Magherafelt v St Patrick's, Cavan
Playoff 4 Our Lady's, Castleblayney v St Colman's, Newry

Quarter-finals (Tuesday January 9 – Sunday, January 14)
QF1 St Patrick's, Maghera v PO3 Winner
QF2 St Patrick's, Dungannon v PO1 Winner
QF3 St Joseph's, Donaghmore v PO2 Winner
QF4 Omagh CBS v PO4 Winner

Semi-finals (Tuesday, January 23 – Sunday, January 28)
QF1 Winner v QF4 Winner
QF3 Winner v QF2 Winner

Final
Sunday, February 11

Could easily end up with another all Tyrone final with the way the fixtures have panned out. And in fairness, those sitting in the QFs could be caught by one of the play off teams, with a bit of momemtum behind them.

Maghera, Macartans and Omagh have been the teams that have got to the various finals up through the year groups. So I'd hazard a guess that the semi-final line up will be:

Maghera v Omagh
Macartans v Donaghmore

[Onthe40]

Popped over to watch St Pat's Academy V St Pat's Armagh last night in the Rannafast final. Armagh led at the break by 2 points they got a fairly fortuitous goal in 1st half from a high ball into the square. Academy made hard work in first half running into a well organised and strong Armagh defence, who bottled them up and turned them over. HT 1-5 0-6
Academy better setup after the break and stopped running into the Armagh defence. Switching the play well to get a few danger men to catch handy marks as well as strong runners coming at better angles to break them down. Got a bit of a run on them. Armagh got another fairly lucky penalty to come back a them but Academy had a bit too much in the end running out 0-16 to 2-6 winners.

Good game. Best for Academy probably Joel Kerr, Liam McGeary and big lad in MF. Stewartstown lad.
Armagh Cathair Hughes, and Matty Daly.

https://teamtalkmag.com/rannafast-title-for-academy/

was it not the kildress lad in midfield...quality player..

[bennydorano]

Couldn't make it last night but I was at Armagh's last 3 Rannafast games, Dungannon beat us by 6 in the group stage so we knew it was going to be a big ask last night (& thats their 3rd Ulster title in a row for this group), but it bodes well for the future (& for my club as we'd 7 or 8 on show) should be competitive in the MacRory for a couple of years, noticeable that Dungannon & Abbey in the semi were that bit bigger generally. One of Dungannon's best players is young McGeary believe he's been starting on the MacRory team all year as well, a shame that he's in the Tyrone underage set up as him & his family are Armagh through & through, a major slip up there on our part.

As for the MacRory, was at all of Armagh's games including a few warm up games, unlucky to be departing at group stage after 2 x 1pt defeats and beating half a Maghera team (with half an Armagh team tbf). Was at Ronans v Bessbrook last week.

I predict a Maghera v Dungannon final.