Messages

1. Steven Daly
2. Rory Donnelly
3. Rory Brennan
4. Conor Quinn
5. Peter Og
6. Tommy Canavan
7. Macauley Quinn
8. Joe Oguz
9. Conor Donaghy
10. Mark Bradley
11. Darragh Canavan
12. Dan Lowe
13. Ruairi Canavan
14. Martin Penrose
15. Darren McCurry

Some interesting choices as always

Mark bradley an unusual inclusion 

Any truth that no ACL until next July?

I doubt they'll have confirmed anything that far ahead until (a) GAA Congress is done, (b) Central fixture list for 2023 is published, and (c) the dust has settled from whatever has been brought up/passed after the County Convention.

In any case, good luck fitting fifteen rounds of the ACFL alongside championship games between July and the end of October - and that's assuming there's no fortnight's break at the start of July like there usually is.

Any word on whos going for Chair etc at convention ? Might have an impact too

Far be it for me to revel in the misfortune of others but unlucky to our big spending near neighbours today. As a wise man once said, "there's no point eating a couple of wee slices (Moortown and Donaghmore champ games) if you can't finish the pizza.

I hope someone gets a look at the set list for ABBA tonight because if the winner takes it all comes on it could get interesting 

Haven't posted since 10th September, back as soon as Clonoe are beat. I'm a total neutral but that's a bit pathetic lad.

Is there a reason the Intermediate and Junior championships are this weekend, whilst teams in the Senior championship get a week off?

Junior champs will be playin in Ulster club on 6th Nov, so i guess they need a hurry on

Intermediate could prob have done with a weeks rest in fairness, and the eventual winners wont start until NOv 13th

So are they looking at Junior final on the 23rd and Intermediate and Senior finals on the 30th with Senior semi-finals next weekend?

Senior Football QF's, Intermediate Football SF's & Junior Football SF's – 7-9th October

Senior Football SF's – 15-16th October

Intermediate Football, Junior Football, Intermediate Hurling & Senior Hurling Finals – 22nd-23rd October

Senior Football Final & Junior/Intermediate Football Final replays (if required) – 29th-30th October

Senior Football Final replay (if required) - 5-6th October

All divisions got a 1 week break between 1st round and quarters. Then quarters and semis on consecutive weekends. Then another break until the final.

[starting]

Onto schools football for a moment, what the heck in going on at St. Pat's College**, Dungannon ? I was looking at the gradings/sections for the U19 & U16.5 Ulster football competitions for the coming academic year and with seven different grades of competition at U16.5 I thought it was bad enough with Sacred Heart Omagh playing in the "F" grade but then I noticed SPCD entering in the "G" grade! Something must be seriously wrong at a Catholic co-ed secondary school of about 800 students in an area where Gaelic football is very popular for them having to resort to entering at the lowest grade, the school that Art McRory once helped blood a lot of future club & county footballers through in the past (if I'm not mistaken)? In their same section is Drumragh Integrated and St. John's Dromore, the latter being the smallest post-primary school in Tyrone.

I wonder if it's time for the Tyrone County Board to look at offering a helping hand at both St. Pat's College and Sacred Heart Omagh, because with the amount of students at both places (even allowing for the "town" factor for each) they really should be ideally competing at higher grades than what they are right now, should be "C" or "D" at least?



** (note - not the Academy next door!)

Can never understand why there was never an investigation of similar ilk to Holy Cross Collage. One of the biggest schools in the North.

I've a nephew in HCC and he said it's just a soccer school similar to St Columb's in Derry. Apparently a few members of staff are really pushing GAA the past few years but nephew will be gone before anything happens from that.

Logically you couldn't expect much from them when you see the clubs surrounding them in the lower divisions of Tyrone football. Strabane didn't field a minor team for games this year! I'm not sure if they take children from Doengal but the likes of Lifford and Castlefin aren't big GAA areas either.

In fairness there is one or two teachers starting to push it and credit to them.

However re the surrounding clubs argument. I can understand why people say that. However there has to be systems and structures put in place at the school in tandem with the Clubs that starts to move things in the right direction. There has been plenty of years where the year groups have been made up of underage teams that were mostly grade one and grade two and there was no structured corresponding year group from what I know, hear and see. Reports of teams being told about the first training session the day before the game etc.

At the very least you've had decent year groups playing and losing in very low level schools competition.

The culture of GAA in North Tyrone is not as strong as the rest of Tyrone, and that's owned by the Clubs, and schools of the area, but the TCB, I would've thought would have a vested interest in helping improve that.

Agreed. Has the decrease in School resources/budgets had an affect over the last 12 years too though?

Soccer is obviously a more popular sport in that school but how successful have HCC soccer teams been over the last decade? Have they won anything notable? Omagh CBS won a soccer title last school year along with a few GAA titles. I'm not convinced it's just a lack of focus on GAA that's the issue.

More likely a lack of resources across all sports in Schools - especially those without the pedigree of performing at highest level of Ulster Schools.

will the energy crises have an effect on clubs

Noticed last time at Fintona they have a generator running their lights (rather than running from the grid or as backup?)
They'd probably be able to give a figure (in litres of Diesel) of what it costs to run the lights when they host a championship game

I see a good few sports pavilions round the country have solar panels on the roof. Does anyone know how these work in terms of electricity bill? i.e. if the sun is shining is the club off grid and not importing any electricity or is it exporting to the grid and getting paid for it? I know it will depend on the usage at the time but I would be curious because I have heard some stories of people who have panels on their roof who are getting paid about 5p per unit that they generate but charged a multiple of that when they are importing. I know there are different ways to set this up with batteries etc but I woudl be interested if the clubs who have panels would recommend it and the best way to do it?

Our club have had solar panels for a good few years. I believe we make around ~£12,000 a year from them, which comes from NIE in quarterly payments. As far as I know this offsets a good proportion of electricity spend.

Don't think we have water connected up to them though. That would probably be a further saving.

I assume Trillick is still going out to beat Clonoe ?

Trillick are the kind of club to do favours to no one, which is fair enough TBH. At the same time I doubt they'll go into fifth gear against Clonoe just to secure home advantage in a league semi final.

Also I see the Minor Football Grade 1 Championship Final between Donaghmore & Eglish is being held in Fintona tomorrow night. Now I'm not complaining, glad to have one of the biggest games of the year on my doorstep, but was a venue in the east of Tyrone not available that would have been closer for both competing sides?

What hold do Fintona have over the County Board? How does a training pitch get so many championship games? I also see there are Senior Championship games fixed there too. Are the lights even proper match lights? Hardly inspiring going to play Championship on a training pitch,  not even a stand or anything for supporters. Bit of a joke really that it gets so many games, considering how good the set up on the bottom pitch is and it doesn't get any anymore.

Lights. From my understanding stewartstown and eoghan ruadh hurling were unavailable on wednesday. Only options then are Fintona or omagh.

Under 21 used to be played in November and December back in the mid 2000s.

I think the biggest problem with holding the U19 league as a winter competition, beginning in Nov/Dec, would be the inevitable complaints brought about from schools competing in the MacRory/Maclaron/Markey etc. competitions, although in principle it would be a good testing bed for the following years U20 county management to scout for potential players that might have slipped through the net at minor level.

November - February : MacRory/MacLarnon/Freshers
March - June : County U17/U20
June - October : Club U17 league & champ, ACL & Championship

It's a conundrum because the competition could be a real stepping stone to adult football.

What way did under 19s finish up this year? Was Grade 1 not finished?

Shambles of a competition. No respect shown to the players at all. County U20's not available to play and games played on Sunday mornings in pre season for young lads.

The only competition at this level and that was what was thrown at the clubs. Imagine the county U17's or county seniors not allowed to play club championship.... That's basically what happened with the U19/20's. Could have easily been played mid week from May onwards for 6/7 weeks snd finish it all off

Then it would have clashed with U17 midweek and ACL on weekends. Realistically Clubs won't let their best players play in an U19 comp while the ACL is ongoing. I really don't think there's a good window to place this comp.

The two week gap isn't bad as games spread out over a weekend and can be tight from a Sunday game to the following Friday.

Why have they left such a big gap between the last league games in division 1 and championship? Would two weeks not have been sufficient - the earlier you play the games the better chance of better conditions.

How long is the gap? 1 week for League Semis, 1 week for League Final and 1 week off.

I see Barry O'Donnell has on twitter that there is now a two week gap between first round and quarter final in senior championship. Does anyone know any changes to intermediate and junior dates? And does this impact the final date for senior?

Junior Football Preliminary Round x2 – 11th September

Junior Football First Round & Intermediate Football First Round – 15th-19th September inclusive

Senior Football First Round – 22nd-26th September inclusive

Intermediate Football QF's & Junior Football QF's – 30th-2nd October inclusive

Senior Football QF's, Intermediate Football SF's & Junior Football SF's – 7-9th October

Senior Football SF's – 15-16th October

Intermediate Football, Junior Football, Intermediate Hurling & Senior Hurling Finals – 22nd-23rd October

Senior Football Final & Junior/Intermediate Football Final replays (if required) – 29th-30th October

Senior Football Final replay (if required) - 5-6th November 

£120 for the club championship ticket

£70 for the Derry one

Yea Derry club football is like watching paint dry for the most part, but if you averaged out at someone going to 10 games in Tyrone upto the final (would they even?) it works out at 12 into a game ?

Which is probably what it would be on the gate anyway for division 1 games

There's approx. 48 games in the Tyrone Championship. If you go to even half that's £5 per game including the finals. Not bad value.

[All-Ireland MFC 2022...]

All-Ireland MFC 2022...

Quarter Finals

Saturday 11th June
(A) Galway/Mayo/Sligo (Connacht Winners) vs. Kildare (Leinster Runner's Up)
(B) Derry/Tyrone (Ulster Winners) vs. Cork/Kerry (Munster Runner's Up)
(C) Dublin (Leinster Winners) vs. Galway/Mayo/Sligo (Connacht Runner's Up)
(D) Cork/Kerry (Munster Winners) vs. Derry/Tyrone (Ulster Runner's Up)

Semi Finals

Saturday 25th June
Winners of (A) vs. Winners of (B)
Winners of (C) vs. Winners of (D)

Final

Saturday 9th July

So what is the curtain raiser to the all Ireland football final?
It doesn't seem to be the u17 final, it's not tailteann, any ideas? College football game?

Has there been a curtain raiser the last few years?

They don't really need one - it would mean a few more thousand tickets for the counties in the senior final.

Who would we potentially be looking at for the Senior call ups this year?
Canavan will be a cert. Steve Donaghy, Niall Devlin, Ruairi McHugh, Michael McGleenan, Conor Cush and Sean O'Donnell would be who I think will be in line.

Canavan still has another year - I believe they'll let him play it.

McHugh has another two years at U20 so too young. Cush and O'Donnell have another year each too.

Can see Donaghy, Devlin and McGleenan getting a call though. Possibly Bogue too.

The whole thing makes a joke of the gaa, greencastles appeal was thrown out by Tyrone, ulster and croke park already before the case took place

Tyrone still had the final say last night however...

No, the DRA had the final say. A group of barristers who've no doubt never even been involved in the GAA.