Messages

I don't believe there is a split of South Down from the County Board. One of the reasons South Down was formed was to drive a split between the Senior County Hurling Team, The Ards and the County Board. An example of this was taking the Ards team to Newry to play Derry, who in their right mind would take and Ards based team out of the Ards to play in Newry against a very good Derry team. The hierarchy of the county board did not go to watch the Carlow game but chose to travel and watch South Down play fermanagh indicating that South Down are the priority team.
if it was not for Antrim Down hurling would be long extinct! The vast majority of hurling people in the Ards have no respect for either the Hurling Board or County Board and basically put club over county. Hurling in the Ards receives no support from the county, eg players played Christy Ring games on the Saturday and Antrim have fixed games for the Sunday. Did the Down County board contact Antrim to ask for games to be rescheduled, NO! Players who played against Derry had 4 games in seven days! On the other hand they are cancelling games galore to accommodate South Down.

Ballycran have a different agenda this year (and in the background they'll win Div 2 easy). I'd say they are going hammer and tongs for Ulster.

Glensman, I think you are forgetting Ballycran have to come out of Down. Portaferry will take some beating as they are flying in both Div1 and reserves. And as others have stated Div2 pace may be a deciding factor. Ballygalget are not at it a the moment so I fancy Portaferry to come out of Down. To win ulster you will also have to beat the the likes of Dunloy, Cushendal and possibly a few others, and even the winners of Derry who are usually up there. So to say Ballycrans aim is the Ulster is a bit of a shock! Dunloy are obviously favourites, outside bet is the Derry champions. Down Champions to loose in semi's

All rumours are correct. this appointment was such a fudge by Kevin Bell its untrue. From day one this was always going to be the appointment. The short list was quoted as being Kevin McNaughton, Seamus Elliott and Jingo for a meeting last Tuesday night. Seamus Elliott never put his name forward yet Kevin Bell used it as part of the shortlist!!!! Once again the underhanded way things are done is beyond belief. By trying to bring on the Ards club to the selection panel was only a bluff, it was always Jingo, the Sarsfields connection was always a winner. All appointments are made by one man and they all have to be his lackies and yes all the old faces are back. Congratulations County Chairman, you have eventually got all your men in place. We can have anyone who will rock the boat!!
Good luck Jingo but you need YOUR men around you.

I agree with the fact that taking the final out of the Ards will not serve any purpose. We have a number of people over the months commenting that it is only a PR exercise and that it in no way will promote hurling. The final last year in Ballygalget was one of the best in terms of excitement and atmosphere and also pulled one of the biggest crowds for some time. Keep the final in the ards and as one man has said on this board that if you are interested in Hurling from the mainland you will travel to watch the match.

I also hope doole has not rushed things as this was his second knee op. I suppose you will do all possible to get a championship game.

I believe Down Juniors had probably the best chance to cause an upset this year with them playing regularly together and now that I hear they were not putting in the effort is a bit of a dissapointment.

Why have down juniors not have any training sessions. After a little success in the Leinster shield surely this should have been a stepping stone to get things going for a strong challenge against Ballycran.

Portaferry v Ballygalget with the Ports probably scraping through with the narrowest of margins. With Doole back this should provide the difference. Any doole is allot better than most..

Has there been any venue set for the final.

JC while I agree its pipe dreams for the likes of Davey Fitz or Considine coming to Down there is no reason why with support from Croke Park and Paudie Butler that someone with the right skills cannot be sourced from Dublin or surrounding counties. Paudie B has been to Down on a number of occasions and was impressed with a number of things, one being peoples passion for the game. He should be consulted. We could even bring in the Ulster Council and the likes of Frankie Quinn who nows allot of whats going on in Ulster hurling. We can no longer just accept the norm, we need to think different and raise our expectations.
I agree with PHHNR in that the Hurling Coaches in Down are not up to the job and that there is no plan or direction. When will these posts be advertised again or are they a job for life?
Down need to appoint a full time Hurling Development Coordinator, the likes of Paul Blaney, Ronan Sheehan etc who have all the skills and contacts to pull the thing together.

Short list to date

Seamus Elliot
Gerard Monan
Joe Hayes
Davey Fitz
Tony Considine
Someone from Leinster!

Any others and who is favourite.

The county board have a difficult job on their hands in getting the new Manager. They have to get someone who will lift Down Hurling out of the staedy decline and an easy pick will do more harm than good. Down will soon be ranked 3rd in Ulster if not already so and soon they could be in 4th with the efforts of Armagh. Its a big job to fill and I hope as you say Pull Hard that they will take time to make the right decission. I think they should ask Croke Park for assistance in filling this post. The extra money given to the counties as a result of soccer and rugby games could be used to cover expenses if there was travel involved.

Totally agrree five times. This is why the county Board need to take charge and possibly do away with Hurling Board so as they can be completely responsible. Maybe there needs to be a change of chairman as well as a new Manager

I dont believe the myth about Seamus Elliot and money. He travelled to Down training a few times last year and money was not an issue.
Has the subcommittee been established? I hope it is not like last years as they are not in touch with who's who in the Hurling world. For goodness sake our Hurling Board Chairman did not even know who Frankie Quin was when he was at a recent match!
Pull Hard are you on it!
Not sure if Ballygalget would part with Gerard Monan and sometimes too many cooks spoil the broth.
I think we need to go outside the county. I also believe the players in Down are good enough to win a Christy Ring with ease and that there is a team there

I don't think there will be too many people jumping at this job! Players showed very poor commitment to the County Hurling Team this year and for what reasons remains a mystery. For years Down Hurlers loved to complain about how they got treated and this year they were treated better than before. Maybe Gerard had not got the right skills for the job or maybe it was because he was not a "neutral" but I believe Gerard was fair and maybe he was harder on his own club players than others.

where do we go from here? Firstly the subcommittee needs to dig deeper than they did last year and be a bit more transparent as there was issues regarding who was shortlisted and interviewed.

I agree in that we need to go possibly outside of the county, Jingo or Seamus Elliot are names from Antrim. I like the way Dublin Hurling is developing so some one instrumental in this could be an option, new roads make this a viable.
who ever is given the post must be a strong and good communicator who is up to speed with the latest training techniques

Any News on the St.Galls v Ballygalget match last night? Are the semis going ahaead on Saturday?

Johnney your sources are correct. Lets see who steps up to the mark as the Alley man, men were quite vocal about the set up and some of the people in charge. Will they put their money where their mouth is?

Let's see what the County Board do now after this shocking result. We all thought things could not get any worse after last year but they have. People talk about the Hurling Board, do you realise that the Hurling Board is only responsible for Juveniles and have no say what so ever around adult hurling where it be County Senior or Div2. All of the clubs in Down send one representative to the Hurling Board and one to the main county Board. The Football rep will go to the main county board where the guy who is interested in Hurling goes to the Hurling Board, this results in no Hurling at all being discussed seriously at the County Board as no one could give a dam about hurling and the guy who does is sitting on a committee that has no teeth and is a waste of time, i.e. the Hurling Board. For those Hurling people who are on the main County committee there is no hurling discussed until end of meeting and by that time they need to go and get the last ferry so no debate on hurling matters.
We all know Hurling will always come second in Down and I suppose why not, but does it have to trail so far behind. Issues such as what happened with the Minor Hurlers would never happen in football and rightly so but because you represent your county at hurling does that mean you are not allowed the appropriate gear. A quote recently from Hurling board secretary was that the "County Sponsors do not really support Hurling", basically be thankful for what you get. Is this the right message to send out? Can Canal Court or Morgan Fuels confirm this???
We have now got development squads up and running which is a start. However if there is not more effort or commitment shown by County Board they will fall to an arse. The squads rarely train in the same area twice and are sent to school pitches without appropriate facilities for hurling, ball screens etc. There was supposed to be individual training programmes for each squad in order to show a pathway for development through from U-14 to Minor, to date this has not been provided to coaches who are basically doing all the same drills. This will get boring year after year! If these squads fail now they will never be resurrected as all clubs have provided their top coaches and they will not give up their time again nor will players want to go.
Going forward there needs to be a Hurling Development Committee set up and the hurling board scrapped. This committee will report directly to County Board with their proposals. There also needs to be sufficient funding set aside to support any programmes. We need to show at least a 5 year plan on where Hurling in the county is going.
Don't get me wrong, yesterday's fiasco was also a lot to do with management and players. Firstly management should insist on the latest training techniques, equipment diet etc. This was not done. Are they capable? The attitude of the players also needs to be looked at and I believe this is born out of frustration due to the lack of professionalism shown at training sessions. Down also need everyone wanting to play for their county with at least 6 players missing yesterday due to injury or not wanting to play.
Maybe we should scrap county Hurling and concentrate on the club scene??!?!?

[confirmed]

The arrangement of the Down V Dublin game for the opening of Ballela's new ground has been some what of a fiasco which has been soley caused by Down County Board. Down County Board had only confirmed with Antrim County Board beginnig of this week that they wanted to keep the weekend free. There was plenty of talk around this match but from Down. These Antrim fixtures have been published for Months and it seems hard to believe Down County board have only tried to re-arrange these fixyures since Sunday. Antrim have implemented a strong policy this year of ensuring all fixtures are played and hence they have not agreed to change these fixtures at such short notice. The latest I have heard is that the Antrim league fixtures will go ahead with the Senior game being played first, 1.30 and then the county players will rush to get the ferry to be in Ballela for a 6.00pm throw in between Down and Dublin. With Ulster league games scheduled for Saturday it will mean county players will play three matches in 2 days. I believe Ballela need some answers!!