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Galway away this weekend. Tough fixture to say the least, not expecting much but a decent performance would be nice to set us up for Westmeath the following week. Is anyone heading down? Galway is a great city for a weekend break.

Great City for a break for sure, if you don't have to take a serious hiding in the game. I am worried about this one, squad starting to look thin on the ground away from home on what is supposed to be a great weekend weather wise, could get messy.

Hope I'm wrong but don't see another outcome at the moment.

Westmeath beat Wexford, having been 14 points down 26 minutes into the game.

I presume it makes no difference to next weeks game i.e. if we beat them, we stay up, but all the momentum will be with Westmeath  . . .

When we take the big beatings it tends to be the Munster teams. For me the big game was laois and it is way more disappointing than today. Our big test is the relegation playoff.

This 100%

Well that is just shit.

not really sure what you want here Cloot.  Can't relocate St Louis and your posts suggest you feel its mindset cant be changed.

What I am driving at is that I think it is simply unrealistic to expect football ever to become the "main" game in St Louis or even for St Louis to get to and compete regularly at A level in football, no matter what steps the school may take to promote football.

In much of St Louis' hinterland, hurling is the main, if not the only, game. Soccer is strong in the area too. Those are just the realities.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, if a talented (or ambitious) footballer from the southwest is looking at secondary schools and sees St Louis' and St Mary's as equal academically, he goes to St Mary's if he wants a chance to play McRory. How can St Louis' ever be attractive to such a player from a football perspective?

[Attract good footballers, get success, promote that success within and you'd be surprised how quickly the focus changes. When St Marys started being competitive in the MacLarnon Cup, the hierarchy bought into it. Before then yes the main sport was football played by the pupils, but its promotion and focus by staff was light years behind St Pats and St Pius.]

But football has always been the number one game for boys in St Marys, even when it had the reputation as being an "academic school only". As the number one game in the school, it was always ripe for development.

Football has never been even the second game in St Louis, let alone the first.

Attract good footballers, get success, promote that success within and you'd be surprised how quickly the focus changes.   When St Marys started being competitive in the MacLarnon Cup, the hierarchy bought into it.   Before then yes the main sport was football played by the pupils, but its promotion and focus by staff was light years behind St Pats and St Pius.
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You are assuming that the majority of people attending St Louis and residing in its catchment area want the focus to change to football . . .

[For whatever reason St Louis do not seem to promote that adequately]

Simply if St Louis is to thrive at football you need to convince the parents to send their kids there to get quality education (which it is known for) AND quality football education (which it is not known for).

In the 'hotbed' of SW football - the vast majority of parents of Cargin, Creggan, Moneyglass, Tir na nOg send their kids to South Derry Schools - St Marys, St Pats and St Pius, with sizeable numbers from PG1, Ahoghill and Antrim Town also following suit - all 3 schools now have a highly visible GAA culture within the school and a constant presence of the status of football.   For whatever reason St Louis do not seem to promote that adequately and are known in the area as for their academic excellence only - hardly a slight but GAA mad parents see the south derry schools as a major 2 for 1 offer which can only assist their children.

Lots of promotional work needed in the primary schools allied to a huge promotion within the school

Because football is essentially the third game in the school behind hurling and soccer???

If you live the South West and football is a significant factor in where you want to send your son to school, as many posters here have already said, you send your child to Maghera or Magherafelt. If all the "good" footballers are already going to Derry schools, how do you realistically expect St Louis to address that situation?

How do you think St Mary's Magherafelt turned it around from being an academic school only reputation to a school noted for both? They changed the ethos, culture, support, recognition and status within the school, and recruited intelligently for those delivering the sporting codes in both male and female codes - brothers and sisters both would come rather than splitting between St Pats and St Marys.  Initially, before St Pius began A-Levels,  they also assisted greatly those who were coming from St Pius high school to do A-Levels thus boosting their own playing nrs from a school which also had a strong football tradition.  (Unsure whether St Louis have this close relationship with St Pats Ballymena, kilrea, killians or Lourdes Ballymoney etc etc.) 

It wont happen overnight but it can happen with the correct planning and foresight. St Marys is the example of how.

But football has always been the number one game for boys in St Marys, even when it had the reputation as being an "academic school only". As the number one game in the school, it was always ripe for development.

Football has never been even the second game in St Louis, let alone the first.

[For whatever reason St Louis do not seem to promote that adequately]

Simply if St Louis is to thrive at football you need to convince the parents to send their kids there to get quality education (which it is known for) AND quality football education (which it is not known for).

In the 'hotbed' of SW football - the vast majority of parents of Cargin, Creggan, Moneyglass, Tir na nOg send their kids to South Derry Schools - St Marys, St Pats and St Pius, with sizeable numbers from PG1, Ahoghill and Antrim Town also following suit - all 3 schools now have a highly visible GAA culture within the school and a constant presence of the status of football.   For whatever reason St Louis do not seem to promote that adequately and are known in the area as for their academic excellence only - hardly a slight but GAA mad parents see the south derry schools as a major 2 for 1 offer which can only assist their children.

Lots of promotional work needed in the primary schools allied to a huge promotion within the school

Because football is essentially the third game in the school behind hurling and soccer???

If you live the South West and football is a significant factor in where you want to send your son to school, as many posters here have already said, you send your child to Maghera or Magherafelt. If all the "good" footballers are already going to Derry schools, how do you realistically expect St Louis to address that situation?

U20 game not going too well

4-27 to 0-7 FT Wasn't expecting that sort of beating

Laois seem to have given Kilkenny their fill of it in the Under 20s last night - lost by 3 having led for 3/4s of the game.

If gleeson wants to stay on he should be staying on no questions asked. It would be madness to not keep him on.

This times a hundred.

This is just grim.

Did we not play down last week in this age group?

Yes, the winners (Antrim) were to go into the Leinster minor championship proper last night and the losers (Down) went into the Peadar O Liathain Cup which they won the first round of last night..

It seems we are down to play Carlow in the Peadar O Liathain semi final on Wednesday.

Did we just not think we were up to playing in the "A" competition?

Should there be a root and branch review of hurling in antrim? I don't think Laois have ever beat us by 30+ points? The smoke screen of Gleesons seniors can't hide just how much we are struggling under age. Beaten by Kildare at minor last year and Laois yesterday. Not good.

Absolutely spot on, if we don't put more emphasis on our underage teams then it's hard to get new players to replenish our senior team. The last team that got the proper attention was the minor team Shorty, Mc Manus Hippie and co played on and they did good. We need some sort of plan and resources to improve it.

Saw it suggested somewhere on twitter that the minor hurlers have conceded tonight's game against Meath.

If that is correct, it will have been a pretty grim 24 hours for Antrim hurling.

That was disappointing, very impressed by Dublin. No need to keep giving these teams big leads

Dublin full back line just ate up all those high balls in on top of them. Our touch very poor at times too.

[On the sending off for Laois did we no carry out the same offence in Corrigan, Clare lad running in and was pulled down?]

I think there has been a right bit of weight training going on too as the likes of Burke , Campbell, Molloy, Clarke (to be honest the lot of them really) have bulked up and in a better position physically. Burke definitely broke a lot of tackles to make clearances yesterday and a few years ago I don't think he could have done that. That said as others said Clare wouldn't be known for being too physical.

The Clare team of old had some big heavy hitters on it!

Anyways is this the same Clare team that the pundits were raving about last year when Tony Kelly was single handedly rocking them through the championship?

Watched the Laois and Wexford game, Laois were staying with Wexford for good parts of that game, 2 soft enough goals in the first half put a better look on it for Wexford who until Chin came on looked ordinary enough, he's the type of player that grabs the game by the scruff of the neck, the last few scores were against a 14 man team after the sin binning.

Physically Wexford were bigger and may be bigger than our lads, I thought our hooking and blocking and defending in numbers was great to see as we'll need to up the anti again.

On the sending off for Laois did we no carry out the same offence in Corrigan, Clare lad running in and was pulled down?

Wondered about that myself...

Is there something in the rules about a goalscoring opportunity? Maybe with the other defenders back the ref in Corrigan decided Walsh didn't deny the goalscoring opportunity but the Laois lad wasn't afforded that same leeway.

I'd say the ref in Corrigan might get a call for some retraining....

Presumably the fact that there were two more defenders between the Clare player and the goal was the decisive factor?

Leinster either very late 70s or early eighties I would imagine. I think we competed in Leinster then.

We were unlucky against I think tipp? the year Brian mcfall was a minor. Must have been 95 or so? From memory Kieran Kelly playing and maybe Conor cunning if I mind right?

You are quite right - Antrim got to a Leinster minor final in 1979 when they were beaten by Kilkenny. I think Niall Patterson and a couple of others on the 1989 team were on that team.

Buit the general point still stands - we have been (generally) woefully uncompetitive at minor and indeed under 21 level (save for the victory over Wexford in 2013) - for our entire history.