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Regarding students doing exams

Is this not a good reason why the players should be playing for the colleges? Imagine an arrangement where;
Students of county teams are able to play for their college and play inter county opposition
Fringe players not at colleges can now have an opportunity to play for their county and impress management
Students can train with the college, at the college, which reduces travel time and provides more time to study (yes they do study)
Summary, An arrangement where pressure on students is n reduced and opportunities for fringe players is created.

Wow, when you actually think of the student's well being, this arrangement has so many positives.

But counter to that, let's have a process that suits the ego of a manager, who doesn't really care about the pressure the students are under (exams) and who demands total control.

Ulster college all-star trials were held last week.
At one trial 13-aside games were played. Can anyone understand how a fullback or fullforward could have a fair shot at showing what they can do when not played in their chosen position.
Have these positions already been chosen?

Never understood the rationale for these trial games, the All Stars should be picked the same as the Senior ones on match performances no?

Would have to agree should be picked on performances throughout the league stages.

Would agree as well but very hard to watch all the college's football in Ulster.
There is not just the 'A' Competition ( the McRory) but also the 'B'  and 'C' competitions as well to consider.
How would anybody see all the games? 
Impossible ask and "trials" are probably the only way of doing it.

Living in the states now, and they have a great system. Schools are put into groups acording to size, and each year, the have "all star" awards for each group. i.e., a MacRory , McLarnon, etc all stars. Some of the sports identify the all stars based on votes from team mentors / opp team mentors for each game. The mentors pick a defensive / midfilder and forward vote for each games. At the end of the year, votes are tallied, and you have an all star awards.

There really is no reason why it is limited to 15 starting positions. What happens if you have 10 outstanding midlfielders in one year. Should they all not get an awards

Should they not be awared after the MacRory is over, and based on league and knockout performances.

All Antrim games home games in football  (with the exception of one, 9th feb) are to be played in Creggan in 2014...........great venue!

I suppose the Creggan gate 'clickers' will be taking up strategic positions as the punters flood in.  Sure to keep the Antrim gate men on their toes and improve the count/tally    I understand they were not too pleased following championship games hosted by Creggan, surprised Creggan got the nod all the same, great venue and all that, but, 

Did Creggan catch the county out? Since there is a revenue split, was the county ripping off Creggan, or were the gate men ripping off both club and county

if you read his book you would be amazed at some of the stories

Aye great book.

Gives a great insight to anyone (myself included) that has no understanding much about the skill involved in riding how rare these lads are and the dedication and risks they take.

The stories about him mitching from school and going to his 1st trainers yard (can't think of trainers name) and how no jockey in the yard senior or junior could handle this particular crankey horse until wee Tony got up on him and controlled him, he was only 12 or so!.

This is the big "special factor" that AP has. I know a couple of lads who are in the racing business (break in horses / trainers etc) and they say that AP has this ability control horses, and in the racing world, has the ability to push a nervious horse over a fence at full speed. Most jockey's will relax the horse and let it jump the fence at its own speed if the horse is twitchy. McCoy has the ability to make the horse jump the fence without slowing down. So his ability to control horses is apparently unrivaled.

The other thing that the lads said is that there hasn't been as brave a jockey(or crazy) as McCoy.

From a diet perspective, my uncle was in the car with McCoy when he was in his early 20's driving down to  game somewhere (Croke Park ) and they handed out the old Tayto's. McCoy opened the bag, licked the flavor of the chip, and through the chip out the window. Outside of the obvious littering habit, it show's you the level of discipline these guys have. Plus McCoy is talk for a jockey, so he probably takes it further that the other "wee jockey's)

Glens73
The following players were all considered hurling men (better at hurling)
Henry Downey
Seamus Downey
Collie McGurk
Tony Scullion
Brian Magillian
Kieran McKeever

while the follwoing were pretty handy hurlers
Johnny McGurk, Joe Brolly, Brian McCormack,

All these lads were on the 93 panel, which diverted their attention away from the small ball

manballandall

Not my opinion, but I do find the obvious naturally biased opinions interesting (Antrim towards Derry, and Derry towards Antrim)

I played both codes, so I got stick on both, which basically centered on the colour of our jersey ans the size of the pair in the shorts

Milltown Row2

I understand your point about "County Belfast", but I always felt that hurling had a really strong foundation in the city, for eg Rossa, and St Johns(along with St Marys CBS), and to a lesser extent St Galls, St Pauls, Sarsfields all seemed to have a strong hurling fraturnity that put hurling first.

Really interested about Antrim's perceptions on Derry hurling.

I'm an Antrim man, educated in Derry, and....

At the time I went there, they viewed the Derry style of hurling as closer to the Southern boys, i.e. skillful hurlers who physically assert themselves when going for a ball, while they always considered Antrim hurling as being skillfully superior to Derry, but lacking in balls in regards to physically going for the ball.

Regarding skill levels, they put that down to Antrim having a true hurling culture in the glens & Belfast where hurling is the no one sport in the clubs and therefore have a greeter pool of players to pull from, whereas Derry and Down have considerably smaller hurling areas in a football dominated county, therefore a smaller skill base to pick from.

What I heard was that the FB line did well, considering that we were being cleaned out in the middle third.

FB line will always struggle if the supply of ball coming in is good

ck
reference UUJ 94/95 and playing county, are you talking about Kevin Bateson?

He is mid 30's now and played for the poly and Antrim around that time

Regarding Kelly and his county performance, I always thought that he was a great club half back, but didn't have the mean streak to be a great county half back. Because of this I would have played him in a different role, give him the frredom of the park and I believe he would have excelled

James won one hogan (1986) when Rannafast winners rep Ulster in the Hogan Cup.

In 1988 the same team won Hogan again, this time as winners of the MacRory cup.

From a Maghera point of view, big Jeff won a Hogan at 15, and was a main reason why they won it, fantastic performace in the reply against Jar's.

Whats interesting, is that if they (Colmans) win, they will be the fifth team to do a two in a row. Jars, St Mels, Maghera, Navan have all completed it

"and the un-official showdown between young mc larnon and young fleming"

What's the full story?

Kickhams Creggan in Antrim have a 3G training pitch opened about two months ago