Antrim Football Thread

[Dreen]

Surprise Surprise, Tyrone school casts net a bit wider to attract grade A footballers. Are we saying this ambition us wrong? Heaven forbid an Antrim school would ever start thinking like this!

Perhaps just annoyed that Antrim loses it's grade A footballers to schools like Magherafelt and St Ronan's Lurgan.

Maybe they are Grade A because they went to Magherafelt and Lurgan?  Apart from the grammar schools we also have to encourage our high schools and vocational schools.

There is a good point, a good number of our lads go to St Conor's, and although a Derry school their success is as important if not more to us as Saint Louis. 

Had a look into it last week and there are 42 teams in the MacRory(14),MacLarnon(16) and Markey(12) competitions.

We have 3 MacLarnon (Rathmore, St Marys CBS and St Louis) and 1 in the Markey (St Malachys Belfast).

Donegal has 9 teams across the 3 and it'd be interesting to look at their county squad and see which of these schools they came through.

Then you have Derry who have 5 schools competing but when you have Maghera and Magherafelt as two of them you are in a strong position.

As has been said before it's up to us in some of our clubs to up our game before we blame either school or county development squads.

[imtommygunn]

Some other counties have strong vocational schools. Donegal used to have and I think Tyrone maybe have had some success at those levels.

[imtommygunn]

i mind in the 90s watching some good games in croke park before the likes of national league finals and I'd say at least half of one of them donegal teams played senior.

[JimStynes]

Surprise Surprise, Tyrone school casts net a bit wider to attract grade A footballers. Are we saying this ambition us wrong? Heaven forbid an Antrim school would ever start thinking like this!

Perhaps just annoyed that Antrim loses it's grade A footballers to schools like Magherafelt and St Ronan's Lurgan.

It doesn't  lose players to those schools. They go to those schools and play for the county teams if the managers call them up. St. Ronan's 2/3 mile away from Aghagallon so it's literally the closest school. We would have a few who go to Abbey and St. Coleman's in Newry as well. Bannside is correct though, maybe those schools around the Derry border need to start recruiting for footballers. As I said before, I doubt it would happen as it's just not very important in those schools.

[Spike]

Surprise Surprise, Tyrone school casts net a bit wider to attract grade A footballers. Are we saying this ambition us wrong? Heaven forbid an Antrim school would ever start thinking like this!

Perhaps just annoyed that Antrim loses it's grade A footballers to schools like Magherafelt and St Ronan's Lurgan.

Maybe they are Grade A because they went to Magherafelt and Lurgan?  Apart from the grammar schools we also have to encourage our high schools and vocational schools.

There is a good point, a good number of our lads go to St Conor's, and although a Derry school their success is as important if not more to us as Saint Louis. 

Had a look into it last week and there are 42 teams in the MacRory(14),MacLarnon(16) and Markey(12) competitions.

We have 3 MacLarnon (Rathmore, St Marys CBS and St Louis) and 1 in the Markey (St Malachys Belfast).

Donegal has 9 teams across the 3 and it'd be interesting to look at their county squad and see which of these schools they came through.

Then you have Derry who have 5 schools competing but when you have Maghera and Magherafelt as two of them you are in a strong position.

As has been said before it's up to us in some of our clubs to up our game before we blame either school or county development squads.

St Louis perhaps have a hurling / football / soccer conundrum, CBS a soccer one.  What is it stops Rathmore and St Malachys launching as the go to development school in Belfast for education and GAA?    St Malachys has a grand tradition in the McRory Cup so what happened that it frittered away?  Can it be reignited?  Is CBS lost to soccer?  Rather  than targeting every school, Even the targeting of one GAA orientated school in Belfast and St Louis would bring dividends surely? 

[Flanker]

Surprise Surprise, Tyrone school casts net a bit wider to attract grade A footballers. Are we saying this ambition us wrong? Heaven forbid an Antrim school would ever start thinking like this!

Perhaps just annoyed that Antrim loses it's grade A footballers to schools like Magherafelt and St Ronan's Lurgan.

Maybe they are Grade A because they went to Magherafelt and Lurgan?  Apart from the grammar schools we also have to encourage our high schools and vocational schools.

There is a good point, a good number of our lads go to St Conor's, and although a Derry school their success is as important if not more to us as Saint Louis. 

Had a look into it last week and there are 42 teams in the MacRory(14),MacLarnon(16) and Markey(12) competitions.

We have 3 MacLarnon (Rathmore, St Marys CBS and St Louis) and 1 in the Markey (St Malachys Belfast).

Donegal has 9 teams across the 3 and it'd be interesting to look at their county squad and see which of these schools they came through.

Then you have Derry who have 5 schools competing but when you have Maghera and Magherafelt as two of them you are in a strong position.

As has been said before it's up to us in some of our clubs to up our game before we blame either school or county development squads.

Agree clubs can/must up the game  Schools and development squads play a big part as well. Most rural clubs have peaks and troughs in numbers. Mixing and playing with a higher and more competitive standard of player plus what should be a higher standard of coaching pulls everyone up.
Average players develop into good players... Good players develop into Very Good...

As for Donegal.... Historically they did well at County Vocational level. There school numbers would be relatively small but they are competitive at lower levels. They have been very strong for many years with regards to development squads and were way ahead of most on this.

Take a look at Letterkenny IT Sigerson team who beat a star studded UCD team..... 15 starters all from Donegal got beat by a late goal by finalists Nuig.

Different model that works for them

Unfortunately apart from the odd exception neither schools or development squad model works in Antrim

[Flanker]

Surprise Surprise, Tyrone school casts net a bit wider to attract grade A footballers. Are we saying this ambition us wrong? Heaven forbid an Antrim school would ever start thinking like this!

Perhaps just annoyed that Antrim loses it's grade A footballers to schools like Magherafelt and St Ronan's Lurgan.

Maybe they are Grade A because they went to Magherafelt and Lurgan?  Apart from the grammar schools we also have to encourage our high schools and vocational schools.

There is a good point, a good number of our lads go to St Conor's, and although a Derry school their success is as important if not more to us as Saint Louis. 

Had a look into it last week and there are 42 teams in the MacRory(14),MacLarnon(16) and Markey(12) competitions.

We have 3 MacLarnon (Rathmore, St Marys CBS and St Louis) and 1 in the Markey (St Malachys Belfast).

Donegal has 9 teams across the 3 and it'd be interesting to look at their county squad and see which of these schools they came through.

Then you have Derry who have 5 schools competing but when you have Maghera and Magherafelt as two of them you are in a strong position.

As has been said before it's up to us in some of our clubs to up our game before we blame either school or county development squads.

St Louis perhaps have a hurling / football / soccer conundrum, CBS a soccer one.  What is it stops Rathmore and St Malachys launching as the go to development school in Belfast for education and GAA?    St Malachys has a grand tradition in the McRory Cup so what happened that it frittered away?  Can it be reignited?  Is CBS lost to soccer?  Rather  than targeting every school, Even the targeting of one GAA orientated school in Belfast and St Louis would bring dividends surely?

That would be an excellent start and something DOF and Games Development should have high up their list

[Kickham csc]

Surprise Surprise, Tyrone school casts net a bit wider to attract grade A footballers. Are we saying this ambition us wrong? Heaven forbid an Antrim school would ever start thinking like this!

Perhaps just annoyed that Antrim loses it's grade A footballers to schools like Magherafelt and St Ronan's Lurgan.

Maybe they are Grade A because they went to Magherafelt and Lurgan?  Apart from the grammar schools we also have to encourage our high schools and vocational schools.

There is a good point, a good number of our lads go to St Conor's, and although a Derry school their success is as important if not more to us as Saint Louis. 

Had a look into it last week and there are 42 teams in the MacRory(14),MacLarnon(16) and Markey(12) competitions.

We have 3 MacLarnon (Rathmore, St Marys CBS and St Louis) and 1 in the Markey (St Malachys Belfast).

Donegal has 9 teams across the 3 and it'd be interesting to look at their county squad and see which of these schools they came through.

Then you have Derry who have 5 schools competing but when you have Maghera and Magherafelt as two of them you are in a strong position.

As has been said before it's up to us in some of our clubs to up our game before we blame either school or county development squads.

Agree clubs can/must up the game  Schools and development squads play a big part as well. Most rural clubs have peaks and troughs in numbers. Mixing and playing with a higher and more competitive standard of player plus what should be a higher standard of coaching pulls everyone up.
Average players develop into good players... Good players develop into Very Good...

As for Donegal.... Historically they did well at County Vocational level. There school numbers would be relatively small but they are competitive at lower levels. They have been very strong for many years with regards to development squads and were way ahead of most on this.

Take a look at Letterkenny IT Sigerson team who beat a star studded UCD team..... 15 starters all from Donegal got beat by a late goal by finalists Nuig.

Different model that works for them

Unfortunately apart from the odd exception neither schools or development squad model works in Antrim

The develpoment squad system doesn't. Our standard baseline is lower than other counties, so they are picking the cream from a higher talented crop.

Antrim's development system needs to be focused on how to raise all standards.

This is one where I've experienced soccer getting it right. In both England and the US, professional teams run development centres that support a group of clubs. Clubs will encourage (some will enforce) their kids to go to these. The fact that they are getting top class coaching with the better players in a area helps with standards

[Flanker]

i mind in the 90s watching some good games in croke park before the likes of national league finals and I'd say at least half of one of them donegal teams played senior.

The All-Ireland Intercounty VS football final was for a long time the curtain raiser to the NFL Finals in Croke Park, I think it stopped being the case by the early 00's (2002 which was the last time Donegal won the title IIRC).

In Tyrone from around the mid-90's until the late 00's the VS football level was quite strong and well developed, in that time five different schools won Ulster titles (when there was only one competition at provincial level at U14, U16 & U18) while the intercounty team reached six All-Ireland finals winning three of them. Until about 2004 or so, there were only two schools in the county that were in Ulster Colleges competitions namely Omagh CBS & St. Pat's (Boys) Academy Dungannon - then when Holy Cross College Strabane was established it decided to enter the Colleges sector whereas one of the schools it replaced, St. Colman's High School, played in VS competitions. Later on St. Joseph's Donaghmore went from being a girls grammar school to becoming a co-ed and entering their own teams in the Colleges sector and finally a year before the Ulster Colleges and VS GAA councils merged to become Ulster Schools GAA, St. Ciaran's Ballygawley & Holy Trinity Cookstown decided to throw their lot in with the colleges a year before they would have been playing with them otherwise.

Antrim did win one All-Ireland Intercounty VS title back in either 68 or 69, the same year as their only Ulster title win.

I could be wrong on this but I believe we had a Derry man on the team. We knew how to do it then just all down hill since

[bannside]

Indeed we had Flanker, Terence McWilliams played for St Thomas in 1968.

[Flanker]

Indeed we had Flanker, Terence McWilliams played for St Thomas in 1968.

You have me on the St Thomas bit BS where does that fit in

[Saffsof82]

Antrim only seem to get fellas on board development squad management if their wee Joey or Tommy are involved,this is where other counties seem to succeed, getting the best coaches in place and not just anyone

Fair enough point, think that's why Dev squads are all now headed by a member of Gaelfast , g Mcnulty, s mckenna and Ronan mcartan, 14,15 & 16 respectively. Then coaches filled in around them like sambo, l Higgins, o Doherty, f Fitzsimmons . Takes the doting daddy equation out of it. But kevin is right , maybe the better model in Antrim is to run regional Dev squads and not cherry pick, upping the standards of everyone. Worth considering I'd say

[bannside]

You're right Flanker, I remember Terence telling me the story - think a big majority of the squad were St Thomas thats what it was. His mate was Martin O Neill who was of course the main man at St Malachys when they won Mc Rory.

[Flanker]

You're right Flanker, I remember Terence telling me the story - think a big majority of the squad were St Thomas thats what it was. His mate was Martin O Neill who was of course the main man at St Malachys when they won Mc Rory.

TBH i had no idea who St Thomas were. Never realised there were so many schools in the West Belfast area. Lots of mergers .... Might explain how the fortunes of clubs in those areas have fallen. A lot of links, identities and allegiance's were probably broken along the way

[bannside]

Think Big PJ O Hare played for that St Thomas team and quite a few others who went in to be part of Antrim under 21 team who won all Ireland under 21s a few years later.

Great era for Antrim then, excelling at Mc Rory, going well in vocational schools, county under 21, and senior team giving the great Down breakthrough team their fill of it several times in Ulster finals and semi finals.

There's no doubt between 68 and 71 Antrim were a coming force. Our decline since then has been nothing short of spectacular. Only hard work on all fronts will reduce the deficit.