Ulster JFC/IFC Club 2017

[Tyrone Gaa]

Divisional teams are not allowed to compete in provincial competition so I doubt An Ghaeltacht are a divisional side, but are they an almangamaion of dingle and other clubs or is that one area just called An Ghaeltacht?

One club, An Ghaeltacht. Dingle are a separate club. I wish more counties would adopt the Kerry system.

Why do you wish more would adapt the Kerry system? Would it not make sense for Kerry to fall into line with the other systems? 10 of the last 11 Munster intermediate titles have been won be Kerry clubs. If your club is strong enough to compete in the Senior league within the County they should also compete in the senior championship.

[oakleaflad]

Divisional teams are not allowed to compete in provincial competition so I doubt An Ghaeltacht are a divisional side, but are they an almangamaion of dingle and other clubs or is that one area just called An Ghaeltacht?

One club, An Ghaeltacht. Dingle are a separate club. I wish more counties would adopt the Kerry system.

This would give Junior clubs around the country nothing to compete for nationally.

Just looking at my own county and basing on league positions, if we had the same numbers as Kerry in each championship, we would have something like the following:

Senior: Slaughtneil
Intermediate: Dungiven
Junior: Craigbane

That's too strong at Intermediate and Junior in my opinion and alienates Division 3 (currently Junior) in Derry.

[befair]

I had my reservations about the different systems in Ulster, but so many of the games were won by only a single point we must be doing something right. The Kerry system does seem unfair to the other counties

[Tyrone Gaa]

I had my reservations about the different systems in Ulster, but so many of the games were won by only a single point we must be doing something right. The Kerry system does seem unfair to the other counties

This "intermediate" side are second only to Dr Crokes in the Kerry senior league, it baffles me that they qualify to play intermediate championship. And to win a provincial final by 22 points makes a mockery of the system, they won 9 of 11 games in the Kerry SENIOR league and then play intermediate championship to hammer teams and claim success.

[general_lee]

The mayo team that beat loughinisland a few years ago were senior league also, near the top if I recall correctly. Surely if there are three grades the most logical thing to do is to have a system where the clubs are equally divided between senior intermediate and junior.

[Tyrone Gaa]

17th December An Ghaeltacht are to contest the Kerry Senior League final against Dr Crokes

[Boycey]

http://gaaboard.com/board/index.php?topic=26247.msg1556189#msg1556189

This topic has been covered before, I think Kerrys system is designed to get the best from their county team rather than any wish to win multiple club championships at junior and intermediate levels. A read of that link above and other posts from around that  time will help you understand.

[Farrandeelin]

Divisional teams are not allowed to compete in provincial competition so I doubt An Ghaeltacht are a divisional side, but are they an almangamaion of dingle and other clubs or is that one area just called An Ghaeltacht?

One club, An Ghaeltacht. Dingle are a separate club. I wish more counties would adopt the Kerry system.

This would give Junior clubs around the country nothing to compete for nationally.

Just looking at my own county and basing on league positions, if we had the same numbers as Kerry in each championship, we would have something like the following:

Senior: Slaughtneil
Intermediate: Dungiven
Junior: Craigbane

That's too strong at Intermediate and Junior in my opinion and alienates Division 3 (currently Junior) in Derry.

There are clubs in Mayo who don't represent nationally. Moygownagh won the Junior C championship this year, yet it's only the Junior A winners (if not a B team) who represents the county at Junior level.

[mrhardyannual]

The mayo team that beat loughinisland a few years ago were senior league also, near the top if I recall correctly. Surely if there are three grades the most logical thing to do is to have a system where the clubs are equally divided between senior intermediate and junior.

Hollymount-Carramore defeated Loughinisland. They were in the first year as an amalgamation of an intermediate (Hollymount) and junior(Carramore) club. There are 16 Clubs in the Mayo Senior Championship, 16 in Intermediate, and 16 in Junior A. The remainder play Junior B and Junior C. At the time of writing all clubs in Mayo play in the one league in Divisions  A - F of between 10 and 12 teams. League and Championship are completely independent of each other. Therefore it is not unknown for a Senior Championship team to be as low as Div C and for an Intermediate team to play in DivA.  An alternative system is under discussion at present.

[twohands!!!]

Divisional teams are not allowed to compete in provincial competition so I doubt An Ghaeltacht are a divisional side, but are they an almangamaion of dingle and other clubs or is that one area just called An Ghaeltacht?

One club, An Ghaeltacht. Dingle are a separate club. I wish more counties would adopt the Kerry system.

It's a complete no-brainer in my opinion.

The key thing for me is when you look at how the Kerry county team constantly seem to have players spread among all of the various clubs in the county.

It seems some folk would like Kerry to get rid of what works best for them and switch to an inferior structure as opposed to other counties changing their structure to imitate a superior setup.

[general_lee]

This would give Junior clubs around the country nothing to compete for nationally.

Just looking at my own county and basing on league positions, if we had the same numbers as Kerry in each championship, we would have something like the following:

Senior: Slaughtneil
Intermediate: Dungiven
Junior: Craigbane

That's too strong at Intermediate and Junior in my opinion and alienates Division 3 (currently Junior) in Derry.

Yeah,clubs like Dromintee and Carrickmore would be intermediate using the Kerry system..each county will have certain requirements, especially counties with high volumes of clubs like Cork, Mayo, Dublin etc but the Kerry system certainly benefits their intermediate and junior clubs going into provincial competitions

[westbound]

I think ye are looking at this from the wrong angle.

First of all, there is no doubt that a by-product of the kerry system is that they have strong teams in the intermediate/junior provincial championships. [they also have strong teams in the senior championships, but that's irrelevant really]. However, I don't believe that is the aim of the kerry structures as this general structure was in place before junior and intermediate provincial and all ireland championships were played (admittedly, changes were made in recent years to reduce the number of senior clubs). I believe the structure was implemented to improve the county team.

Anyway, the point I really wanted to make was that we should be looking at this from the point of view of the players.
EVERY player in kerry has the opportunity to play senior club football in this system. Even if he is from the worst junior club in the county, if the individual is good enough he can get the chance to play senior football against the best players in the county. Surely that's a good thing?
If you take this system away, you deny players the chance to play at the highest level. 
I played with an intermediate club for most of my career, but it would have been great to have had the chance to compete against the best players in the county on a regular basis. (I probably wouldn't have been good enough to make a divisional side anyway!!!).

So I think this system is very good and more (all?) counties should adopt it. But I'm sure politics of amalgamated teams would be a problem in a lot of counties

[general_lee]

You can still keep the divisional set up in Kerry without the second best team in the county (going by league standings) playing Intermediate football. The divisional sides playing senior championship is not the problem. Teams that are seemingly more than capable of playing Senior football playing Intermediate is the problem.

The team that finished second in Armagh this year was last year's Senior Champions. In Antrim it was this year's finalists. In Cavan the team that came second was this year's Ulster finalists and in Derry it was Slaughtneil, Ulster champions. Is the team that finished second in Kerry really intermediate standard?

[AZOffaly]

You can still keep the divisional set up in Kerry without the second best team in the county (going by league standings) playing Intermediate football. The divisional sides playing senior championship is not the problem. Teams that are seemingly more than capable of playing Senior football playing Intermediate is the problem.

The team that finished second in Armagh this year was last year's Senior Champions. In Antrim it was this year's finalists. In Cavan the team that came second was this year's Ulster finalists and in Derry it was Slaughtneil, Ulster champions. Is the team that finished second in Kerry really intermediate standard?

Ye keep equating League to championship. Ye have a mental block over that. It's already been said that because of Kerry player availability, the league in Kerry is *not* a true reflection of where a club might be.

Kerry championship has no bearing on league, and nor does league on championship.

That said, Ghaelteacht got relegated not that long ago, and are back up again, so they probably were too good for intermediate, but that doesn't mean they didn't deserve to be there after getting relegated.

The issue I had was where the Intermediate Champions were not allowed go up a few years ago. That was wrong.

[mackers]

Ye keep equating League to championship. Ye have a mental block over that. It's already been said that because of Kerry player availability, the league in Kerry is *not* a true reflection of where a club might be.

Could that not be said in every county in Ireland?