Messages

Ooh aah Pete Mc Grath

Im telling you folks, its all Poachers fault again !!

Next season, you will see really good 17 year olds playing under 17/19 and senior/reserve games every week.

It is surely the underage structures that need looked at, I would be of the opinion that the talent needs to be developed through minor to U21 which can then translate in to the senior team, we seen from the minor teams of 99 & 05 the small number that will filter through to the seniors and as such need a greater volume of successful teams under the seniors. I do not have any solutions, just believe the knee jerk reactions of 'sack the manager' are only diverting attention from where we should be looking.

Does anyone think that the new underage groupings will be a hindrance to minor, U21 managers as they won't be able to see who's competing well at these respective age groups as we're moving to U17, U19, etc etc?

The U-19 grade will be a disaster. There are going to be lads at first year at Uni who could be playing and training with the Freshers. Factor in playing and training with their club senior team plus the expectation on some to play reserve football plus the playing and training with their own U-19 grade. God help then the player who has county U-21 commitments too.

This seemed to be voted in quite overwhelmingly by county board reps. I genuinely think a lot of these reps just vote on their own bat. I doubt many of them actually canvass their club committee on these issues. If there was any sort of meaningful discussion in the clubs then this pilot scheme would never have been passed.

This was my main point when opposing this at club level. We only have 11 minor teams in the all county league this season, this won't improve for u19s, in fact in will most likely decrease.in the Bridge we rely on our under 16s to backfill our minor squad and we would have some of the largest numbers in Down!  I can't see how this will improve our footballers in the county but I hope I am proved wrong.

An unreal job with limited resources. He should be working within our county!

Any word on the proposals for age changes??

Mucksavages anyone???

Is the Burren v Kilcoo game on tomorrow???

We put in our best performance of the year last night beating the point. Our experienced players were key to the victory. It was great to see Conor Garvey play and he was outstanding at full back before moving out the field and scoring two fine points. He will be a miss to us next week when we travel to Kilcoo.

A few thoughts on improving Down football:

More amalgamations at underage level to increase 15 a side leagues .

Try the divisional model again for the  senior championship.  its its good enough for Kerry.......

Go games: I believe this holds back the best kids we have. Kids strive on competition! Surely there is a better model?

If we can contain Skinner then I would be hopeful of a victory but he's hard to handle. Any word who will mark him??

Burren were scary last night. Granted we gifted them easy goals but all over they were as good a team I have seen in a while.

Imagine the amount of people that would have been on it in Renshaws

   Fair enough points alright. But do you oblige Clubs for Stags,Weddings, etc
if the proposed refix date weakens your own Club's chances?

Usually both teams should come to an agreement. It's only a league game at the end of the day. If the stag or groom is a player and most of the team is away then clubs should accommodate. It only causes unnecessary grief between two clubs. Address two points really worth it??

Clubs should have a bit of common sense with regards to changing games though. Clubs and players don't forget that easily and it will inevitably come back to bite you in the future.