Antrim Hurling

[NAG1]

Antrim and Down are the bigger fools if they play it.

+1

[btdtgtt]

Antrim and Down are the bigger fools if they play it.

I agree.
It would be dancing to the tune of people with no interest in hurling.
Last time this happened Antrim went to America to play the ulster final in October - you would think the football goats in ulster council would have learned their lesson. 
But lo and behold another complete failure to for an entire provincial council to fix a game of hurling.

[Seamroga in exile]

I think this one of those rare occasions when we're all in agreement. The ulster council are an embarrassment when it comes to hurling. I agree with skull, don't play it.

[johnneycool]

I think this one of those rare occasions when we're all in agreement. The ulster council are an embarrassment when it comes to hurling. I agree with skull, don't play it.

On principle I wouldn't play it as its meaningless at this stage, but you can bet your bottom dollar Frankie Quinn and his Down counterpart Sean Óg McAteer ensure its played for their paymasters in the Ulster council..

[theskull1]

I think this one of those rare occasions when we're all in agreement. The ulster council are an embarrassment when it comes to hurling. I agree with skull, don't play it.

On principle I wouldn't play it as its meaningless at this stage, but you can bet your bottom dollar Frankie Quinn and his Down counterpart Sean Óg McAteer ensure its played for their paymasters in the Ulster council..

Time for players to stand up then. If these officials arent going to respect the game, then its important that the players and supporters of the game do.

[Gizzy15]

I think this one of those rare occasions when we're all in agreement. The ulster council are an embarrassment when it comes to hurling. I agree with skull, don't play it.

On principle I wouldn't play it as its meaningless at this stage, but you can bet your bottom dollar Frankie Quinn and his Down counterpart Sean Óg McAteer ensure its played for their paymasters in the Ulster council..

Time for players to stand up then. If these officials arent going to respect the game, then its important that the players and supporters of the game do.

A week and a half notice in the middle of pre season perperation  for a national league, and your told to head up to Derry for a provincial final. Yeah fcuk whatever training camps or challenge games organised for that weekend, drop everything and do what your told.

What other provincial county board would try this let alone get away with it? Their not even paying lip service to hurling anymore, just taking the piss out of it.

[btdtgtt]

All good and valid points - It's impossible to even play devils advocate with this one! I was wondering why croke park don't step in and look at ulster council's running of hurling at this stage - but obviously it's not high in the agenda there. What's sure is that it isn't even on the ulster agenda!

[johnneycool]

And it could get better, if Down beat Fingal this weekend in the Kehoe cup, which they'd be favourites for then they'd be due to play Kildare or someone else in the Kehoe cup semi-final the same day the Ulster council has decreed for the 2013 Ulster hurling final.

The Ulster council knew about it, yet went ahead and fixed it anyway!!

With the NHL looming for both counties the Ulster council don't want this dragging on, forget about it lads, its an non-redeemable situation, don't compound the initial mess by compounding it and further.

[btdtgtt]

And it could get better, if Down beat Fingal this weekend in the Kehoe cup, which they'd be favourites for then they'd be due to play Kildare or someone else in the Kehoe cup semi-final the same day the Ulster council has decreed for the 2013 Ulster hurling final.

The Ulster council knew about it, yet went ahead and fixed it anyway!!

With the NHL looming for both counties the Ulster council don't want this dragging on, forget about it lads, its an non-redeemable situation, don't compound the initial mess by compounding it and further.

And the hits just keep on comin!

[cfclg]

And it could get better, if Down beat Fingal this weekend in the Kehoe cup, which they'd be favourites for then they'd be due to play Kildare or someone else in the Kehoe cup semi-final the same day the Ulster council has decreed for the 2013 Ulster hurling final.

The Ulster council knew about it, yet went ahead and fixed it anyway!!

With the NHL looming for both counties the Ulster council don't want this dragging on, forget about it lads, its an non-redeemable situation, don't compound the initial mess by compounding it and further.

Unbelievable, if this is true I really don't know what to say!

[aontroim abu]

They won't, but should, refuse to play it. Why don't they use the valid reason that they don't have their full squad due to the Loughiel contingent being more focused on something more important than this Mickey Mouse competition??

On another note, and hopefully Johnneycool can verify this, I seen on FB last night a post declaring that Down will not be running any hurling leagues this year? Is this true? If so, is it Senior only or does it include juvenile as well? Is the Down county board leaving promotion of hurling to the Antrim board and their leagues? I was asked in work to buy a raffle ticket for a draw being run by the Down County Board, decent prizes too, but i'll be damned if i'm going to buy a ticket for an organisation that does nothing to promote hurling!

[johnneycool]

They won't, but should, refuse to play it. Why don't they use the valid reason that they don't have their full squad due to the Loughiel contingent being more focused on something more important than this Mickey Mouse competition??

On another note, and hopefully Johnneycool can verify this, I seen on FB last night a post declaring that Down will not be running any hurling leagues this year? Is this true? If so, is it Senior only or does it include juvenile as well? Is the Down county board leaving promotion of hurling to the Antrim board and their leagues? I was asked in work to buy a raffle ticket for a draw being run by the Down County Board, decent prizes too, but i'll be damned if i'm going to buy a ticket for an organisation that does nothing to promote hurling!

I'm not entirely sure how this seemed to happen but with the Ulster leagues moving to a more summertime schedule and played at weekends someone either in Down or outside decided to drop all adult hurling leagues normally fixed for a Monday night.
IMO it had to be someone in Down who made the call as I didn't see anything about the Derry hurling leagues getting binned as well, just surmising there.

We couldn't possibly enter the Ulster league as it would in all likelihood either be on the day of an Antrim league game or the day before, probably the same reason Antrim teams don't seem to be involved this time around.

There was no consultation process with any of the hurling clubs in Down, they were informed about this approx a month ago and most voiced their disapproval of the cancelling of the Down leagues.
This led to what I'm being told a very heated debate with the Down CCC and the hurling clubs and the compromise is some sort of supplementary round robin competitions involving the Ards reserve and thirds teams and the rest of the Down clubs.
For some reason they don't want to reinstate the previous Down leagues which at best was 14 fixtures in a year and are going for this 'unofficial' tournament.

As much as ourselves, the other Ards clubs and Bredagh would be concentrating on the Antrim leagues we still needed the Down leagues to blood lads out of U-16 into adult hurling. Although we've struggled in recent years to field in the Antrim league reserves we've a good few lads out of U-16 who will make a power of difference in terms of numbers and ability to field but there's no guarantees of the amount of reserve hurling in Antrim either.
If say we've a midweek game with a NA team, either home or away then the probability is that the senior game will be the only one played and the reserve game won't be fixed after that. That's not uncommon and not understandable due to the expense of travel.

[Bonamargy]

I see on the Antrim guestbook that Rossa have decided to enter the intermediate championship this year. Bit of a surprise?  Glenariff and Cloughmills dropping down to Intermediate as well

[Tony Baloney]

I see on the Antrim guestbook that Rossa have decided to enter the intermediate championship this year. Bit of a surprise?  Glenariff and Cloughmills dropping down to Intermediate as well

Sounds about right to me.

[btdtgtt]

I see on the Antrim guestbook that Rossa have decided to enter the intermediate championship this year. Bit of a surprise?  Glenariff and Cloughmills dropping down to Intermediate as well

True HS?