Antrim Football Thread

[Flanker]

Following on our discussion last week re schools development, Holy Trinity Cookstown continue to break the mould for smashing tradition and creating their own by beating St Pat's Maghera and making it through to their first ever McRory cup final.

It's John McKeever and Peter Canavan versus Kevin Brady and Ronan Devlin in the battle along the line. Plenty of Antrim interest going on there too!

Shows what can be done with forward vision and a bit of hard work. Maybe some of our schools can channel that energy into something positive in next few years.

And an "interesting" recruitment policy.

Teachers, Pupils or Both ?

[bannside]

Do you think by any chance there was an extra few points awarded to an applicant who had a gaa profile and a committment to partake in the school GAA programme of excellence policy?

You definitely wouldn't have anything like that going on in Antrim schools, that's for sure!!

[bannside]

Most here including myself agree 100% with all you say DIE. In Tyrone it's the B all and End all, only show in town. Support structure in place everywhere, most notably in every house where Mum is probably as passionate about GAA as Dad.

But... surely it's a reasonable expectation that at least one school in Antrim would grab the bull by the horns and aim to bring home a Grade B title at any age group.

Antrim schools are a nothing short of an embarrassment in this regard. Won't be long until Antrim teachers union will be out all faux rage, but the evidence is damning.

[Milltown Row2]

Most here including myself agree 100% with all you say DIE. In Tyrone it's the B all and End all, only show in town. Support structure in place everywhere, most notably in every house where Mum is probably as passionate about GAA as Dad.

But... surely it's a reasonable expectation that at least one school in Antrim would grab the bull by the horns and aim to bring home a Grade B title at any age group.

Antrim schools are a nothing short of an embarrassment in this regard. Won't be long until Antrim teachers union will be out all faux rage, but the evidence is damning.

You've hit nail on head about one code counties, it's no surprise Monaghan Derry Tyrone Donegal and Armagh are good at football both at school and county.

Blaming schools or teachers for that matter isn't the full picture, Belfast and north Antrim schools concentrate on hurling, to have won 3 b grade football competitions in 14 years based on how our seniors do is decent.

For whatever reason Antrim supporters have an inflated view of where we are or where we should be, but unless the effort is put into the areas you've mentioned, GAA mum/dad structures club tournaments, games every week, no hurling and so on then you might get improved performances further down the road.

It's surprising that your club hasn't had better results considering it's a single code club without the distractions of hurling 

[bannside]

Not buying that at all. Too easy to adopt that attitude and  sure if that's the case why not just pack up altogether and don't waste the money on entry fees.

I went to a school in Antrim and we worked very hard at it, got beaten in a Mc Larnon final, after taking a few decent skelps along the way. The team that best us (De La Salle Ballyshannon) had 7 on Donegal under 21 team that win all ireland and 4 made panel when Donegal won All Ireland.

They went on to win All Ireland B colleges after that.  We had no county stars, not one, but hard work and sheer determination by one school teacher almost got us there.

Now it just looks like no one cares.

[bannside]

Ok we are going to wheel out the excuse we are all playing hurling now.

One thing we are good at is making excuses.

[Milltown Row2]

Ok we are going to wheel out the excuse we are all playing hurling now.

One thing we are good at is making excuses.

But it's a split county with divided resources and two competitive competitions... don't need to be a rocket scientist to see that.

We are also very club concentrated and the county teams don't have the buy in others do, how do you fix that one? City verse county

[Dreen]

Calling schools an embarrassment, who are you actually blaming for that BS, who is ultimately responsible?

You are spot on in your example of the team you played in, I saw something similar when 1 man took the bull by the horns and brought about success. Although he did have plenty of talent to work with

[bannside]

Easy. Clubs take responsibility for proper development of its juveniles. Send a better standard of player into the secondary schools. Start of on broader, better base.

[Dreen]

If we could get clubs doing that we will be in a strong position alright

[bannside]

Exactly Dreen. All roads lead back to club juvenile development. Without that we have no hope.

[JimStynes]

Maghera win both hurling and football and they're not a hurling county.

[Milltown Row2]

Maghera win both hurling and football and they're not a hurling county.

S'niel would have something to say about that for 5/6 years

Derry do extremely well at school under age, no commitment after leaving school for hurling at county

[JimStynes]

Schools football isn't important in Antrim. Sport in general doesn't seem to be that important in antrim schools apart from the rugby schools. Belfast schools like Rathmore are no more interested in GAA. Big schools like St. Malachy's as well, all just ticking boxes that they're into sport. They're more worried about their ETI reports than winning Gaelic football matches. It's the same at primary school level. The leagues are half organised. 20 mins down the road in Lurgan you've got a primary school league that is better organised than the Antrim minor league ffs.

[JimStynes]

Maghera win both hurling and football and they're not a hurling county.

S'niel would have something to say about that for 5/6 years

Derry do extremely well at school under age, no commitment after leaving school for hurling at county

Maghera were winning long before Sneil were winning. I'd say it's more to do with the ethos of the school and attitude towards sport.