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Mountmellick is a good spot, as is rosenallis in recent years, always thought errill had a good pitch too.

I see the league fixtures have been put up and that they have went away from the A and B sides to the league, which im happy enough to see, would of rather of had 3 divisions of 8 instead of the 2 divisions of 12 for division 2 and 3 and had for every division would of thought it would make the leagues more competitive and even planning fixtures easier and clearer for the county board but at least the county board willing to correct the A and B sides when it was clear it wasnt working in the lower divisions

Shanahoe and Ballypickas play together underage and have done so for the past few years, this year there's an amalgamation underage of colt, shanahoe, clonad, ballypickas and trumera. As for colt, clonad and shanahoe realistically whats the difference between them having 6 teams between them and having 4 if they amalgamated, they seem to be happy enough to go solo in their areas. At the end of the day playing senior isn't the be all and end all for them. Like ive said before if some people had their way there would only be around 12 clubs in the county, in 10 years people would be looking for the likes of ballinakill/the harps join.

Amalgamations in the main are ultimately for short-term gains and over time lead to less people playing the games. At the moment ballyroan and abbeyleix are the 2 most dominant teams in underage gaa in this county. Realsitically take one of our juvenile teams, on average half wont be playing gaa by the time they hit u21 largely due to the fact that we have the numbers to not miss them, off the 8 left 4 will pick hurling over football and out of those 4 left only 2 will probably be good enough for the first team.

GAA at the end of the day is a past time, there is probably as many lads who get a kick out of representing their area as there is that are ultra competitive and probably just as many who go for the craic.

Basically i feel that you will get a short term boost in standard from amalgamations but long term numbers will dwindle thus resulting in standards slipping again

Crettyard Gaels – Senior Football Championship – Crettyard with players from Spink

That should be Crettyard with Spink & Ballinakill players

Spink caters for the football side of ballinakill and knock parish and ballinakill caters for the hurling so it is only players from spink club
Preferably you would like to see a link between clubs weather that be underage amalgamations or parish neighbours but sometimes the senior club wont allow this, Joesphs and Barrowhouse being a prime example, so if the oppurtunity comes up elsewhere to play at the top grade you cant exactly blame a junior club for taking it

The Castletown one is specifically for ben reddin who has always played football for mountmellick and hurling for castletown to be fair to him

Sounds like the attendance is going to be Yuge!!!

Any of the experts on here care to make a prediction beforehand.

Winner gets a Clonad Jersey (non flammable)

If you cant get a bit of heat out of it what use is it, even your own players will be wearing colt jerseys by the summer

Heard that Timahoe's committee threw away the idea meaning that they have managed to piss off both sides of the club if true. The long distance/lack of juvenile link gales teams seem to be failing to get off the ground. The only one that seems to be happening is crettyard and spink which was always likely given the success they had last year. Also seems to be a higher chance in hurling. From the gales teams ive heard proposed.
The Heath Gales (Timahoe) No
Mountmellick Gales (Emo) No
St Josephs Gales (Barrowhouse) No
Crettyard Gales (Spink) Yes
Arles Killen Gales (Barrowhouse) N/A
O'Dempseys Gales (Annanough) No
Castletown Gales (Slieve Bloom) N/A
Ballinakill Gales (Slieve Bloom) No
Colt Gales (Clonad) Yes
Ballyfin Gales (Mountmellick) Yes
Shanahoe Gales (Ballypickas) Yes

Ive heard that some of the bigger clubs, hurling ones in particular have been complaining about these gales teams and how it is an unfair advantage but the reality is that a colt/clonad or a shanahoe/ballypickas combination still wouldnt have 2/3rds the pick of a borris/kilcotton or a camross.

got told otherwise by a player, i know that the juvenile option is real, i heard too that timahoe werent putting in a hurling team and that the players were either going to clonad or ballypickas, possibly as an amalgamation with the latter, and wherever they went they were all going together

Won kerry a christy ring and brought offaly on big time dont know how people could complain really, has a solid track record at this level

are you drunk brought offaly on big time,   lost to kerry first time in 40 odd years, lost to westmeath by 14 points in championship,

This the same Kerry team that hammered us twice, got to league quater final and leinster semi too railroading us in the process after getting spanked by us the year before, your statement is a prime example of a big issue with laois supporters, over analysing one or two games instead of looking at the overall picture. Has he intercouny experience? Yes. Has he improved the teams that he was over? Yes. Did the players that he was in charge of rate him? Yes. Considering the dire state Offaly were in last year he did very well with them.

I wonder could John Scully from annanough be approached

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Not this again

thought cormac murphy from cretty was worth inclusion too

Well they had a 10 point lead against Ballinakill the first day in the semis, ended up drawing it, had an easy free to kill ballinakill off in the replay drove it wide ballinakill equalised, then when they had a chance to tap over a winner after it they inexplicably went for goal luckily for them one of the ballinakill players threw there hurl, and in the final they held a 5 point lead going into the last 10 minutes and a 2 point lead in injury time and rathdowney got the draw. There is examples in there last 3 matches never mind the 5 years they have been together. They dont have the ability to hold down a lead on the home strech, there is no killer instinct there

I actually happened to see bruno's injury and i can honestly say it was a complete accident, bruno had gone in behind the full back and checked to turn back and ran into the full back, there was absolutely no malice in it whatsoever

I actually think the loss of Cotter is absolutely massive, argubly Portlaoise best defender after Healy. They may get over the line without him Sunday but I think it will cost them in Leinster, not even Portlaoise can replace an intercounty player with someone of simular ability

BallyroanAbbey are an all parish football club

What does that have to do with anything?


Look at the end of the day teams can't be forced to join together no more than portlaoise could of been forced to split. Portlaoise won't be on top forever, every team gets caught eventually, just look at Crossmaglen in Armagh this year. As regards Killen and Kilcruise I actually think they would of won an all ireland club had they went together, but im sure that arguement could be made with stradbally and timahoe, rosenallis and clonaslee, colt and shanahoe in hurling. The fact that they have achieved more than the likes of josephs and ourselves with much greater picks and resources is a credit to themselves. Unfortunately they seem to be going on a downward spirll at the moment, certainly Kilcruise, but senior medals at the end of the day isnt the be all and end all of the gaa, and from ive seen on this fourm and generally in the gaa alot of people have forgotten this.Take Barrowhouse and Kilcavan for example, im sure if you ask most people in those clubs winning a junior championship means alot more to them than a senior with mountmellick and josephs, same with Slieve Bloom last week.