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Slieve Bloom  linking up with Emo is doing the rounds. It won't be a runner for football if Castletown put in a football team as if there is a football team in a parish Slieve Bloom will have to stay put. Mind you the group status team could allow for junior and intermediate players to play outside the parish.

Good call. Castletown have entered a football team and Emo's Slieve Bloom plan has been refused by County Board.

On what grounds?

Does this mean that Slieve Bloom football players will now have to try to seek permission to play with Castletown/Ballyfin/St. Fintans?

They have in the 1st instance to play within the parish so its Castletown.

Could kileen not just sign another few players and stay senior by themselves  , but if they did join with barrow house does that mean the St joes/barrowhouse underage team is finished.I will prob be shot down for saying this but I think there is way too many amalgamations underage instead of clubs making more of an effort to properly coach their young players and bring in proper underage structures .

That's nonsense talk. Numbers are way too low for that to be a runner. Competition from other sports these days is huge as well. Young lads don't want to tog out for teams taking regular beatings, so they go elsewhere. In an ideal world, we would all like to see strong clubs with a good supply of players coming through, but we have to prepare for the reality; not a dream.

Agree fully. The big challenge facing the average GAA Club is holding on to the better players who are talented at nearly all sports. These players are not going to play for a poor set up with no expectation of achieving anything. It's not all about winning but been able to play at the highest possible level. Even strong clubs like Portlaoise are faced with the challenge of holding to players.

I may be alone in my opinion, but is it not a  complete joke that the reason many senior clubs refuse to take on a few players from a junior/intermediate club and become a senior amalgam IS BECAUSE if they win the senior championship they cannot then compete at provincial level.

one club in laois has monopolised the senior for 9 years, and it would be a very big job of work for an amalgam to dethrone them.

surely if an amalgam did win the senior championship, that in itself would be a huge achievement, they could alter their arrangement the following year if they want to meet the provincial qualification criteria.

the "not eligible for leinster" is the biggest red herring of all.

agree 100%

Apart from the identity thing, the main reason why a club would not want to go by group status  route is that a winning group team cannot take  part in provincial club championship. St Josephs/Barrowhouse are very competitive underage outfit having won a couple of under 21 championships in past number of years. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think St Josephs are credible contenders on their own as  they are no better or worse than a dozen other senior teams. Nevertheless, they are a proud club with a great tradition who are entitled to stay on their own if they so wish.

I have heard nothing about any clubs looking into the option. I imagine they won't be any this year as  clubs will stick to the status quo. I hope I'm wrong as we definitely need some sort of a shake up to the current championship. 

To add to the confusion,  technically Emo and Courtwood play as isolated players with The Rock which is in Mountmellick parish. Actually if Castletown put in an adult football team , Brendan Reddin won't be able to play with Mountmellick which won't go down well. The bottom line is that there won't be any Slieve Bloom players going anywhere if Castletown put in a football team.

Slieve Bloom  linking up with Emo is doing the rounds. It won't be a runner for football if Castletown put in a football team as if there is a football team in a parish Slieve Bloom will have to stay put. Mind you the group status team could allow for junior and intermediate players to play outside the parish. I think the biggest problem and the reason why Ballyroan abu is almost certainly right in saying it won't happen  are situations where intermediate and junior players will want to cherry pick their group team which can make the whole thing unmanageable.

There might be some breaking news about Divisional style teams for the year ahead. It may be possible providing, the Co board gives permissions, for players in intermediate and junior clubs to play for a senior club while also playing with their own club. The only difficulty is that such a senior team if it wins senior championship can't take part in Leinster club. Mind you I don't think that will bother many football teams considering the dominance of Portlaoise.  You could have Emo/ Courtwood, Stradbally Parish Gaels and Mountmellick Parish Gaels, Heath Gaels, St Josephs/ Barrowhouse among others.

Kerry are in the process of reducing the number of senior club teams from 11 to 8. They have also 8 divisional teams. The system allows every player of ability to play senior football within the county. Yet in Laois,  we have 16 teams and a lot of good players still not playing senior. I think 12 senior teams and 4 area teams would make an interesting Laois competition played within the current format. The county board have to lead on this.