Antrim Football Thread

[Hectic]

I see Rossa gave St Endas a fair oul thumping in their U21 A match last weekend.

That's a great win for Rossa considering the fact that the St Endas men had 6 county under twenty ones playing against Derry earlier this year!! And Rossa had none.

Anyone with an inside track on how this can happen?  Were St Endas vastly understrength? Were Rossa just too strong? Something not adding up here at all.......

Or perhaps St Endas are overrated - folk were saying at the start of this year they were heading straight to Div 1 - granted in what was a weaker Div 2 than usual they gave it a good shot but also around this time last year folk had them winning the U21s or certainly being closer to St Johns than anyone.  Maybe just loads of good PR coming out from High Town.  County underage teams never a full measure either - some clubs are more committed than others on that front including mentors which will always lead to more than a little bias.

[Hectic]

I see Rossa gave St Endas a fair oul thumping in their U21 A match last weekend.

That's a great win for Rossa considering the fact that the St Endas men had 6 county under twenty ones playing against Derry earlier this year!! And Rossa had none.

Anyone with an inside track on how this can happen?  Were St Endas vastly understrength? Were Rossa just too strong? Something not adding up here at all.......

Think u'll find that St Paul's were on the receiving end in that one BS.

Ha - time to delete my last comment!!

[Hectic]

That makes sense now CB. Couldn't get my head round that at all. St Endas at full strength must be favourites.

I still say Aghagallon.

[country bumpkin]

The under-21 football championship, after a period in which the competition had been dormant was revitalised in the early 80s as I recall.
At such juncture this was sited early in the season and in fact finished around Easter and was completed in expediency with no postponements on good terrain to prove very successful.
As to why this format was changed is anybody's guess..........  but hey the under-21 hurling seems not to have any problems.

[Hectic]

Yeah I heard it said that exams were an issue so do hurlers not do exams plus when I was in that age group I was at Uni and the tournament was played in late spring and I don't recall any issues around exams.

I suppose the first step to change if the appetite is there is for a motipon to be brought forward to be debated and voted on but as things stand it seems to becoming more of an afterthought right down to player level. Or maybe it is just symptomatic of the young ones nowadays 

[Hectic]

And would add that there was a stage when the competition was in a good way of going it was very much second only to the senior championship.

[Hectic]

And would add that there was a stage when the competition was in a good way of going it was very much second only to the senior championship.

Though in the interest's of balance it may have been the case at that time that more teams competed in the Senior Championship meaning the lower tiers were of a lower standard. I'm sure someone can fill in the pieces but I know our reserves won the Junior Championship, possibly in the 90's.

[imtommygunn]

Provincial a big incentive in junior / intermediate now too. We haven't had any winners but our intermediate winners tend to be competitive at least. Reserves have won the junior(and the intermediate in hurling) but it's not really fair in my view - should be first teams only.

The u21 used to be great and generally, though not always, ran off before the senior. Seems to have slipped down the calendar year on year which is a pity. We are not a successful enough county to have a bottlenecked calendar fixture wise, though dual may have an impact I guess, so no reason it should be done the way it's done.

[Hectic]

Yeah I do prefer the idea that no reserve teams playing Intermediate or Junior - gives more clubs something to aim for.

Having a look there at this weekends fixtures and I see Moneyglass are back in and playing Antrim.  I would assume that means no final next weekend in that grade unless they are playing a couple of midweek games.  I know Ballymena and Dunloy played last Wed night but on the theme of the unsuitability of the time of the year it makes an even bigger mockery if you are asking teams to play evenings at this time of the year when we could be getting into sub zero temperatures etc.  Not so sure when clubs were installing floodlight that the idea would be to play on late autumn/winter evenings.

[country bumpkin]

When was the last time a championship hurling game at any level was fixed 'under lights' in our county?

[Hectic]

When was the last time a championship hurling game at any level was fixed 'under lights' in our county?

Not sure what the answer to that is.  I have enjoyed watching some football games under the lights, Ballymena in particular have great floodlights but at this time of the year if football has to be played it really needs to be played on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and even at that you are hoping for the best but generally knowing the quality on offer will suffer because of the conditions among other things.

[Two Hands FFS]

When was the last time a championship hurling game at any level was fixed 'under lights' in our county?

2012 County final between L'Giel & Dunloy at Casement was played under lights. Dunloy played St Galls & L'giel in QF replay & Sf matches as well. Minor C'Chip finals too.
An intermediate championship match between Cloughmills & Sarsfields played in Ballycastle a couple of years ago..

No venue in Antrim with good enough lights at minute IMO for hosting C'ship Hurling matches

[paddyjohn]

When was the last time a championship hurling game at any level was fixed 'under lights' in our county?

2012 County final between L'Giel & Dunloy at Casement was played under lights. Dunloy played St Galls & L'giel in QF replay & Sf matches as well. Minor C'Chip finals too.
An intermediate championship match between Cloughmills & Sarsfields played in Ballycastle a couple of years ago..

No venue in Antrim with good enough lights at minute IMO for hosting C'ship Hurling matches

Ballycastle or Ahoghill aren't to bad for hurling under.

[Two Hands FFS]

When was the last time a championship hurling game at any level was fixed 'under lights' in our county?

2012 County final between L'Giel & Dunloy at Casement was played under lights. Dunloy played St Galls & L'giel in QF replay & Sf matches as well. Minor C'Chip finals too.
An intermediate championship match between Cloughmills & Sarsfields played in Ballycastle a couple of years ago..

No venue in Antrim with good enough lights at minute IMO for hosting C'ship Hurling matches

Ballycastle or Ahoghill aren't to bad for hurling under.

Yeah and the new pitch at Ballymena too but still wouldn't want to play a Championship match there.

[Milltown Row2]

Football is fine under lights, done a match under lights at Ballmena and it was good..... Hurling is not meant to be played under lights at all, Casement was very good but most players will tell ya that they'd much prefer natural light for hurling...