Messages

It's the Joseph Donnan final (u20 13a-side) in two days time and still no venue confirmed. Where was Joseph Donnan from? Should the final not just be in his home club? Or a nearby club if unavailable.

No one wants to open their pitches, The two clubs should toss for it.

Would it make sense to move reserve football away from Saturday ? The local soccer leagues are every Saturday, which may help participation.

Dare I say it, you could use your favourite AI tool

And there are specific ai tools out there as well that act as training aids

What do you mean?

what are you looking to do? Wendler 5/3/1 or strong lifts have a decent free version if all youre looking is strength

Yes more strength, I will have a look at that thanks.

Every Tom, Dick and Harry is a PT these days.

Has anyone a cheap APP or programme to use without breaking the bank? I have a gym membership but I am looking at something to coach and guide me. The  prices are extortionate and I do not have the budget to afford £300 a month.

£15 into Ulster club games, I think a £10 should be enough

First round of the Ulster Intermediate and Junior hurling championship over.

Unfortune for Liatroim but they represented the county well. Always a hard ask to travel away and get a result in North Antrim.

Glenariff have been on the up and up over the past number of years. Not that the league really represents a teams true capabilities but they won Division 2 of Antrim this year and beat our Down teams Bredagh and Carryduff comfortably who are on parr with Liatroim.



They will be strong favourites for Ulster now.

Burt beat Castlewellan away by 21 points, so that's interesting and kind of highlighting a couple of flaws in the 'Junior' aspect of the Junior championship but its been spoken about before.

Lavey and Cuchulainn's also won without much contest.

Castleblaney beat Middletown in the intermediate which was probably the most surprising result for me but Armagh hurling has dropped off alot in recent years.

The reality is our Senior and Intermediate teams are similar in standard to what is in Ulster but our Junior teams are not at that level. The teams in our Intermediate group are closer to the junior level required in Ulster. Should they play Junior and introduce a Junior B for the developing clubs. I seen there was an Ulster junior B completion this year too.
The same could be argued for our Intermediate and Junior football winners too- I hope Saval prove me wrong but Clonoe are a quality s
ide

I have been saying this for a while, it is time to restructure our championships

Will we still be the whipping boys in the junior championship in Ulster?

Disappointing day out for us yesterday.

We got off to a decent start, got a few match ups right in our forwards, kept Timmy close to the square where he is dangerous, but more importantly got him some ball to work with and we probably should have gotten another goal from one of his runs where he'd have been better off passing it off rather than shoot from the tight angle.
Portaferry got their first goal from a penalty I'm still not sure what for, big Milligan ran into a sea of defenders and seemed to just stop, but from a distance it is hard to tell.
That penalty and a few frees kept them to within two points going in at the break and from then on Portaferry dominated the second half as we fell off badly, didn't work the ball out from defence at all well, didn't compete with the same intensity of the first half and didn't have the same goal threat which we knew we would need.
We couldn't close a 7 point gap for most of the second half which got even wider by the end of the game.

For me I was pleased that some of the younger lads showed up this year, but we do need more strength in depth when the injuries mount and I knew of three or four lads struggling going into the game with hamstring issues.

We need to manage some players gametime during the round robin if we are to succeed and that means a stronger squad to allow us to do that. We don't have that yet but we must use the league in 2026 to get the younger lads up to speed.

Not that it impacted on the result yesterday, but the pitch was shockingly bad for hurling and the corner down near the scoreboard was really soft, a point that even a lot of the SN and South Derry ones near me were commenting on.
You don't expect a carpet at this time of year, but it was soft, uneven and very little grass on it, not conducive for an open game of hurling and there were numerous instances of lads missing the most basic of lifts, leading to rucks and throw balls.

One non SN lad from a neighbouring South Derry team thinks SN are better this year than last and won't have too much bother from Portaferry based on what he saw yesterday.

I thought that the Ulster Semi-final would be in Armagh, but a Slaughtneil lad was telling me both counties tossed for venue and Derry won and that game will be in Owenbeg on the 16th, not sure why that would be the case though.

It was bad yesterday for the hurling, and it wasn't good for the football finals. It cannot be beneficial for any pitches to have the junior and intermediate finals on the same weekend in October, and this needs to looks at by the county board.

Armagh and Omagh looked liked carpets yesterday and I do not blame the groundspeople because there is just too much games on in Newry. Pairc Esler's current usage is unsustainable and serious discussions need to take place about it.

What's the basis for having Ballyholland and Saul as SFC teams when they were relegated to Division 2, and having Glenn as an IFC team after they were promoted to Division 1 and beat Ballyholland in the Championship?

Glenn are a senior team.

Glenn would not beat Clonoe, Coalisland or the Moy. I'm attempting to argue that there are too many teams competing in the senior and intermediate divisions.

SFC- Kilcoo, Burren, Carryduff, Clonduff, Mayobridge, Loughinisland, CPN, RGU, Ballyholland, Saul, Bredagh, Saval
IFC- Glenn, Bryansford, Rostrevor, An Riocht, Castlewellan, Longstone, Drumgath, St Johns, Annaclone, Clann Na Banna, Liatroim, Darragh Cross

I'd venture to predict that most club players in the county would want to eliminate championship relegation in senior and intermediate and to have the league associated with the championship.

I am a believer that the league should be linked to the championship. The top 16/12 from the league should be in the senior championship with the IFC winners if they are below that.
There was nothing wrong with the old format and I have never witnessed a relegation championship game that seemed to have a massive feel about it. The Liatroim and Bryansford game this year was a non event.

Should the SFC and IFC be reduced to twelve teams each to improve standards?

How does that help the SFC? Less teams won't close the gap to Kilcoo. If you have a lot of Div 3 teams in the JFC it would make it very hard for the div 4 teams but you could argue most struggle anyway.

You could say it would make us more competitive at IFC & JFC in Ulster.

Yes, our records in IFC and JFC at provincial level have been poor in recent years. A Junior B title could be effective for teams knocked out of the first round of the junior (seeded draw based on league placings).  I don't believe our championships met very high standards. It is a debate that I believe we should and it would be interesting to hear peoples opinions.

Should the SFC and IFC be reduced to twelve teams each to improve standards?