The hurling/shinty crossover

[Lamh Dhearg Alba]

Good stuff.

I see that Shinty is a mainly rural sport.  Any initiatives underway to beef up its following in urban areas?

Not too any great extent, Eamonn. The aforementioned Glasgow Mid Argyll have a good youth system now when they traditionally (as the name suggests) were a club for exiles living in the big city. Only really university teams in the other cities. Interesting that the most successful new club outwith the Highlands is based in a small village in Fife, whereas new teams in Edinburgh have disappeared.

[johnneycool]

I see Glasgow Mid Argyll mens and ladies team were over playing challenges against Portaferry at the weekend. Would appear to have been a great success and talk of Portaferry going over to Glasgow next year.

Yeah, heard it was on saturday, didn't venture in to it, but met a Portaferry player on the sunday at an underage blitz and he wasn't keen on playing it again, reckoning the length and much stronger shinty stick made it very difficult to protect yourself with a hurl.

[Eamonnca1]

Hard to see the game growing much if it doesn't start making urban in-roads.

What way is the Cammanachd Association set up for development?  Do they have a development plan and dedicated people working on it?  Or is it all about running championships?

[Rossfan]

I see the Hurling/Shinty (Hurnty/Shinning???) is on before the Rules in Croker on Saturday.
Anyone going specifically for this?

[Lamh Dhearg Alba]

Hard to see the game growing much if it doesn't start making urban in-roads.

What way is the Cammanachd Association set up for development?  Do they have a development plan and dedicated people working on it?  Or is it all about running championships?

Sorry Eamonn, I don't get on here too often and hadn't seen this post. They do have a development plan and development officers. There is however a limit to how much work they can do, they are a pretty small organisation really. The association will do what they can but they will also rely on volunteers in the clubs and on supportive schools pushing the game. You aren't going to see any major inroads in the cities anytime soon IMO, the fact is that the new clubs that have appeared over the past few years (Aberdour, Ardnamurchan, Strathspey, Camanachd Leodhais) are from villages/rural areas.

I will be aiming to get the second leg of the internationals this year. The first game in Croke Park is live on TG4 and delayed transmission on BBC Alba later in the day. Second leg is live on BBC Scotland I think. Back to 3 points for a goal this year rather than 5. Will be a special occasion for the MacRae brothers from Kinlochshiel, 3 of them in the Scotland squad.

Ireland

BERNARD ROCHFORD (Kerry), DANNY CULLEN (Donegal), PAUL DIVILLY (Kildare), DAVID ENGLISH (Carlow), ARRON GRAFFIN (Antrim), CAHIR HEALY (Laois), RICHIE HOGAN (Kilkenny), GARETH JOHNSON (Down), JACK KAVANAGH (Carlow), BRENDAN MAHER (Tipperary), PATRICK MAHER (Tipperary, KIERAN McKIERNAN (Armagh), NEIL McMANUS (CAPT.) (Antrim), DEREK McNICHOLAS (Westmeath), DARRAGH O'CONNELL (Kerry), EOIN REILLY (Laois), SHANE O'NEILL (Cork), EOIN PRICE (Westmeath), CONOR WOODS (Down).

Scotland

Conor Cormack (Beauly), John Barr (Glenurquhart), Stuart MacKintosh (Glenurquhart), Liam MacDonald (Kilmallie), Finlay MacRae (Kinlochshiel), John MacRae (Kinlochshiel), Keith MacRae (Kinlochshiel), James Hutchison (Kingussie), Lee Bain (Kingussie), Donald Irvine (Kyles Athletic), Shaun Nicolson (Lochaber), Kevin Bartlett (Lovat), Callum Cruden (Lovat), Stuart MacDonald (Lovat), Norman Campbell (Newtonmore - CAPTAIN), Steven MacDonald (Newtonmore), Fraser MacKintosh (Newtonmore), Glen Mackintosh (Newtonmore), Daniel Cameron (Oban Camanachd).

[The Biff]

How long does the Compromise match last?  It is timed to start in Croke Park at 4:15.  Giving it an hour and a half (including half-time) means that it will be over well before 6 o'clock, but the Footy game doesn't start until 7 pm.  That's a big interval between the two games.

Myself and Junior have already bought the tickets for the Footy before we heard about this.  Although we'd love to see the Shinty, that is making it a very long evening.  It's almost as if they don't want to "join up" the two matches; maybe there are different sponsors for each.  We will go early, but I don't think we can make it that early.

[LondonCamanachd]

That's why I think a team of the top players would be capable of playing shinty if they trained for it.

I very much doubt that.  We've got a few ex-minor county players training with us in London (officially the second worst UK team going), even after 6 months they're getting outclassed by people that have only played for 7~8 years as adults, and when it comes to the matches they just look lost.

Sure, a current all-star hurling team would be fitter, faster and stronger than the best shinty team, but to beat a shinty team they'd need positioning, tactics, and another 20 minutes of fitness.  Hurlers can pick up the basic hitting very quickly, but that doesn't equate to match play.  No matter how hard this hurling team trained at shinty, they just wouldn't have the match experience compared to the Scotland squad.

I would see shinty teams as the equivalent of GAA club teams.

Very much so, especially in the smaller villages where they''ll form the heart of the community.

[Eamonnca1]

So is it just at club level that you have games then?  Is there not a regional level of select players from a region in the same way that we have county teams?  I'd imagine a regional model would stand a better chance of attracting bigger crowds and more support.

[Eamonnca1]

Just while you're here, Lamh, you might be able to help me with this: http://gaaboard.com/board/index.php?topic=23788.0

[LondonCamanachd]

So is it just at club level that you have games then?  Is there not a regional level of select players from a region in the same way that we have county teams?  I'd imagine a regional model would stand a better chance of attracting bigger crowds and more support.

Yes.

There's development/under-age tournaments based around regions such as Badenoch, Lochaber, Ross-shire, the Hebrides and Argyll, but whilst those are proper places, there's no regional set up at adult level.

There used to be a North vs South match for adults, but that was a one-off match, and in no way comparable to the GAA county system.  'North' and 'South' are separated by an arbitrary line between Ballchulish and Stonehaven.  I'm from Aberdeen, and hence the North, but I wouldn't feel any affinity or loyalty to the North in those matches, I'd just be looking out for the players that I knew.

There are only about 50 shinty clubs in Scotland.  If more of the season was devoted to mid-level representative shinty, it would mean less club matches.  I'm pretty sure a hurling club that's in no danger of supplying players to the county panel could still provide all of it's players with a decent season against a range of opposition.  Shinty couldn't do that if clubs can't field teams when players are training with the regional panel.


I like the suggestion of the All-Ireland club winners playing the Camanachd Cup winners.  The best 14 Ireland could put out will always beat the best 14 Scotland could put out, but if the player pool is limited to one rural town and it's surroundings, a 'Champions League' tie could be an interesting match-up.

[LondonCamanachd]

Sorry Eamonn, I don't get on here too often and hadn't seen this post. They do have a development plan and development officers. There is however a limit to how much work they can do, they are a pretty small organisation really. The association will do what they can but they will also rely on volunteers in the clubs and on supportive schools pushing the game. You aren't going to see any major inroads in the cities anytime soon IMO, the fact is that the new clubs that have appeared over the past few years (Aberdour, Ardnamurchan, Strathspey, Camanachd Leodhais) are from villages/rural areas.

Just to add to this, one of the more surprising turn ups has been a team in Cornwall.  It helps that unless you're into sailing or surfing, there's nothing else to do down there, but there's now a 4 team six a side league based around the local colleges.

Essentially, they're very lucky that they've got a very charismatic person there who's passionate about shinty, and persuaded enough people to start learning.  They've put a team into the development tournament in St. Andrews for the last 2 years running.

(in fact, you could argue that England's providing a mirror for Scotland, the rural team are going from strength to strength whilst London are only just starting to get themselves on their feet.)

Last year there was an England vs USA 'international' (although if you listen to the accents, Scots were in the majority on both sides...)

[Eamonnca1]

Would it be possible to schedule competitions in such a way that inter-regional games wouldn't clash with club games?

As for Cornwall, I always find it interesting how Gaelic football has taken off in Brittany and Galicia which are Celtic regions with aspirations to nationhood.  Is there still much of that sentiment in Cornwall, and has it helped feed into Shinty as a means of establishing a regional identity there?

[LondonCamanachd]

I'm probably not the man to answer that in fairness.

The London shinty team is a mix of exiled Scots, intruiged hurlers, and converts from other sports.  We were in down in Cornwall recently, and I got the impression that they're trying too hard - Cornwall has a very strong culture of its own, but I don't think it helps them to frame it in a pan-celtic context, it comes across a bit as coat tail hanging.  We were shown "Cornish kilts" and "Cornish ceilidhs" and the like, which just felt like facsimiles of Scots and Irish culture.  But then after they'd all had a few pints and started belting out some old Cornish songs, it got the hairs on the back standing on end.

Shinty isn't Cornish, there's a few teams down there because an English bloke went to uni in Scotland (well, St. Andrews, rather than Scotland), fell in love with shinty and has taken it back down South with him. 

[Lamh Dhearg Alba]

I like the suggestion of the All-Ireland club winners playing the Camanachd Cup winners.  The best 14 Ireland could put out will always beat the best 14 Scotland could put out, but if the player pool is limited to one rural town and it's surroundings, a 'Champions League' tie could be an interesting match-up.

They did try this a while back, maybe a decade or so ago. I recall Kingussie playing the All-Ireland club champions and Lochaber playing the intermediate champions. I think they were decent enough contests but it didn't last.

As LondonCamanachd has said, there is no equivalent of the county system in Scotland and there never will be. There was another experiment years ago when they had a weekend tournament between select teams from Badenoch, Cowal, Lorne, Lochaber etc and people just weren't interested. The county system in Ireland is brilliant but there isn't an equivalent here and you can't invent it and expect the same passion. People love their clubs and the same loyalty and affiliation could never exist for a regional select side.

[armaghniac]

People love their clubs and the same loyalty and affiliation could never exist for a regional select side

A bit like Derry, so.