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Great stuff from Rossa, and indeed St Brides (albeit much less of a surprise).

Hard to know where things are at in the pecking order now.

Championship always the true measure so maybe the fancied SW club's are flattering to deceive at this point. In the cases of Cargin, Creggan and Portglenone maybe even regressing.

Dunloy can be excused given they are battering on two fronts and perhaps getting out of hurling early helped Rossa show their true worth.

Further fuel for the argument to decouple leagues and championships with Rossa also being a good example of a club that contributes well to county teams and also manages a heavy dual load during the league season.

Assume anything would come as a recommendation first and clubs then vote.

So they could be a review committee or they could be all of us via our elected club delegates.

Don't see the value in waiting either.

If teams have fallen to the wrong side they will quickly get to where they should be.

It's pretty simple, quarter finalists are next years senior championship and top 8 in league are next years division 1 and go from there.

Broken record - decouple leagues and championships as a lot of teams play them with different squads anyway so by aligning you would just end up continuing with a weaker senior championship.  And alignment also means you would be punishing clubs that contribute heavier to county squads across both codes.

The second division and Intermediate championship would then be pretty competitive and of a decent enough standard too for anyone worrying about not being called a Div 1/Senior team.

Maybe even be able to reduce fixtures giving the regional competitions a boost. They used to be well looked forward to occasions before we started murdering players.

Still need to decouple leagues and championships.

Has the last month taught us nothing in terms of how teams league performances align to championship performances? 

They don't.

There are reasons for this and they persist.

So league and championship need to be separate entities.

And whoever posted the usual bullshit line about taking up the whistle yourself. 

Not much wonder we have the officials we do if 'how some punter would get on in comparison' is the bar we use to measure them.

I think this is the worst standard of championship I have seen in Antrim for as long as I can remember. A decent run and bit of momentum by any of the top 4/5 clubs would get you close to the final in Antrim these days. Very little quality on any team that I have seen so far.

We made a complete balls of the LD game. Cruising with 10mins left and somehow get beat. Adam getting injured right before the PG1 game was a disaster too. But we are still a good bit behind the level we were at a few years ago. Hopefully another winter will help a few of the young lads and we have a decent age profile.

With Aghagallon having met Sarsfields, Lamh Dhearg and Portglenone it isnt hard to see how you came to this conclusion. You havent met either of the two clear favourites Dunloy or Cargin or even St Brigids. Il agree to a certain extent that the championship is a worse standard but letting 16 teams enter it when 8 max are worthy of a place is the main issue but that's been covered on here numerous times.
Joe Cassidy loved that PG1 result yesterday, its taken the heat completely off what he has done at Creggan and that is stick them firmly in reverse gear!

8 team Senior Championship and 8 team Div 1 A would do rightly.

Might give our Intermediate and Junior winners a chance in Ulster as well.

And decouple leagues and championships.

Intermediate and league winners go up and bottom place in leagues go down. Championship relegation is bottom placed in two groups of 4 playing off for championship relegation.

And runs down through leagues and championships.

Leagues represent what teams have available at that stage so shouldn't need to be aligned to championship.

I'd sit this one out Slemish😂

I mean how much have you boys paid Baker to only get promoted via your chairman's committee and then win one game in two years at senior championship level against a poor St Paul's?

And to add further context only one of the teams to come out of your groups over the last two years have navigated the quarter finals.

Dunloy are a team that can make creating chances and scoring look easy and often do it at pace.

Team to beat them will have to find a way to blunt that.

I'm sticking with Cargin though.

Also worth noting there are no top level SW antrim referees any more?

There are very few in the whole of the county.  I would struggle to name you two or three and I attend a lot of football.

While BS and Portglenone might be sore and posting in full pain we can't brush aside the fact that the standard of Gaelic football refereeing in Antrim is abysmal.

Point One. Well done to Rossa, great club, good people and good luck in the next round.

Point Two. Pg1 were poor today, almost as if we had an eye on the next round. Very few players stood up on the day. Not good enough to win anything.

Point Three. The level of officiating was so so so off in favour of the city representives that i honestly feel we have a major problem. As a very long experienced observer, who knows how to take defeat on the chin..the level of bias today in favour of a city club entered new territories.

Waiting to see the match video until i make another comment..but first impressions are that with 7 south Antrim officials on duty, at a SA venue, without full streaming evidence, and two penaltes at least that were more than dubious...I will make a fuller comment then.

I was watching behind the goalmouth and thought the first penalty was scandalous, but the second penalty was so blatently not a penalty and the result of good defensive work that it bordered on ridiculous.

This opens up a lot of questions.

From a small village we sponsor 4 of our club championships..punching well above our weight. The mood in the town tonight is that we were royally shafted. 

Not an excuse for PG1 exiting. More a shout out that the enormity of the one sidedness in officiating is at an alarming level when a SW club goes into a so called neutral arena with the whole of the county refereeing system against them.



Well done Rossa and Sean Fleming. You shook off the shackles and good luck next day out.

Wasn't at the game but I would be sympathetic to BS's frustrations.

Last year was year 3 when they let someone else have a go.

If you are judging where teams are at you are looking at championship. League is a lot of fluff.

If we really want to rank we are better taking performance over the last 2 years in groups and producing a league table.

Bit like champions league format these days where don't necessarily have to have played everyone but 6 games is a solid sample.

Might need to weight some teams points based on number of games played.

That's your best measure if anyone could be arsed digging out results.

Simpler way would be this years quarter finalists Div 1 A and Senior next year and go from there.  In my view only team maybe hard done by with that approach might be St Galls.

The rest would make a decent Intermediate championship. Current Intermediate teams become Junior and introduce a Junior B.

Semi finalists fairly easy to pick.

Portglenone and Dunloy are a shoe in and Cargin and St Brigids, while having to work a little harder, will be joining them.

Looks like randalstown in relegation playoff.

Are not.

Two great fixtures to attend this weekend in terms of what is riding on them.

Portglenone will be favourites but won't get it all their own way as Aghagallon capable of a big performance.

I think Creggan will show up and finish Ballymena's interest.

Everything else looks fairly settled though Randalstown could still turn up and steal an unexpected spot.  Could but I will be keeping my money in my wallet.

Some craic Slemish Soldier 😂

I'm sure you know well the end of the line is approaching this weekend.