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I was there too. Dreadful game. The Rock were just so, so poor without the O'Neill chap. Victor Oladapu tried very hard for them - he's a good chap.
Good achievement by O'D's to keep second team up intermediate. Big Dan is a big loss to their seniors. He offers something different.

First game today was OK. Enjoyable enough. Courtwood were slightly the better team for me. Just about deserved it but will have to be an awful lot better to have any chance v Graiguecullen.
Park gave it a right go in the second game but their inexperience cost them. Still they can be proud of their year. O'Dempseys pulled away well but wouldn't be happy with the first 40 minutes or so.
Didn't see last night's games. Fair play to Clonaslee. They have reinvented themselves big time as a good footballing side with none of the shite that they used to go on with. They are likely to stay senior for a long time now.

Ballyroan Abbey v Mountmellick - Mountmellick by 3
Timahoe v Arles Kilcruise - could be close - Arles by 1
The Rock v O'Dempsey's - I'm hearing O'Dempsey's aren't overly concerned about staying up so The Rock by 4

Courtwood v Rosenallis - Courtwood by 2 or 3
O'Dempsey's v Park-Ratheniska - O'Dempsey's by 9
Ballyroan-Abbey v Ballyfin - Ballyfin by 1
Stradbally v Clonaslee-St Manman's - Stradbally by 4


Ballylinan v Emo - Emo by 6
Arles-Killeen v Killeshin - very hard to call - Killeshin in a replay?!!

It's nearly 2 months now since Cheddar stepped down. It's absolutely criminal that the next senior hurling manager isn't in place. Kilkenny (yeah, different kettle of fish I know) replaced Cody inside a fortnight. Offaly have their job filled. Waterford, Cork, Tipp all acted quickly enough.
Is there anyone in the know who can actually explain the delay?

I was miles out! Joseph's impressive but I didn't realise how short Ballylinan were. No Kevin Byrne, Seamus Lacey, Andy McEvoy, Messi Redmond, Cathail Dunne. They could struggle against CSM next weekend.

Joseph's v Ballylinan this evening. I kinda expect Ballylinan to give Joseph's a good run for this. Joseph's have underperformed for years now in the championship while Ballylinan, although they are damn lucky not to be an intermediate team this year, have the potential to produce a performance on any given day.
Having said all that Joseph's to grind it out by 3 or 4.

Best wishes to the team and management. Would be great to get back up to senior.

Far from an expert but I'll go with R/E, C/B, Ballinakill and The Harps.

Arles Kileen are nailed on to get relegated, they're a Junior team in every sense but in name.

90% of their team against Port the other evening were over the age of 34/35 and even age aside, the majority were nowhere near mobile/fit enough to be playing Senior. There are very dark times ahead for that club, Kilcruise to their credit have a crop of about 10-15 young lads between Inter/Junior B so they'll be fine long term you'd imagine.

Its hard to see anyone that will topple Port this year anyway, opposition aside the other evening the pace that they attack at is brilliant and how they transition to defend when out of possession shows huge hunger and fitness levels.

Not sure it's as nailed on that Killeen get relegated as you say. They will no doubt go down at some stage over the next few years, but the two Kingston's might just be good enough to help them beat a Rosenallis/Ballylinan/Killeshin/Park. They only need one win.

I tend to agree with this. Killeen may well go down but they are masters of survival. Apart from the 2 Kingstons, they have a couple of other good young lads in Dunne and Byrne (currently injured). I wouldn't rule them out v Rosenallis and even if they lose that, they're capable of beating one of the three other teams in the relegation playoffs.
But, that said, they are very likely to go down over the next few years.

I feel like I've been b*tching and moaning about it for years but anyways, here goes.

The madness of having 16 teams at Senior and 8 at Intermediate was really exposed over the weekend. At the very least, the Senior should be trimmed down to 12. We could have a system whereby our Senior, Intermediate and Junior Championships each have 12 sides and follow an identical format. Simple, straightforward and easy to implement in theory.

Personally, I would be in favour of even more radical change. For example, we could have 8 clubs operating at Senior alongside 4 divisional sides representing the North, South, East and West as per the Divisional Championship run under Sugrue a few years ago. Every player would have access to Senior football and the championship quality would be greatly improved instantly.

We could then have another 12 sides in the Intermediate which would mean 4 current Intermediate sides would be relegated to Junior, a fair compromise in my eyes given how poor the quality is among the weaker Intermediate sides at the moment.

I think Steven Miller and LaoisToday proposed something similar a while back. I don't remember much reaction to it at the time but either way concessions will have to be made if we are to improve the standard and quality of football in this county. Of course, if people are happy with the status quo, then by all means leave the current format in place.

There was a botched effort to do something to change the SFC format due to go before last year's convention. I think it was withdrawn. There was a convoluted "points system" in place due to relegate 4 teams for the 2024 championship but the weighting of it was all arseways and it didn't see the light of day.

Joseph's also wanted to revert to 4 groups of 4. Don't know what happened their proposal.

Very poor quality over the weekend but hopefully round 2 will see some more evenly matched games.

Best team won but I'd be disappointed with our tactics. Handed them 4 points (2 bad puck outs and two pulls on the ground to free Offaly men).
We'll have to regroup quickly now for All-Ireland series.
Yer man Joe Troy on Radio Tullamore is a ferocious dose. Neutral commentary is needed.

Watching on TG4 with Midlands 103 (Radio Tullamore) audio. Our lads were a bit over defensive with that first half breeze.

Seán Greene in tháinig with seniors this morning

Good. He's a good lad.