Antrim Hurling

[Na Glinntí Glasa]

Feis cup semi. Cushendall 1-17 dunloy 1-10.
Easily the worst game I've seen us play in 2 years. God help anyone who paid in. Should get their cash back!
We were terrible and how we only lost by 7 was luck! That said cdall didn't score in the last 15mins.
That was our 7th game in 17 days. Don't think anyone else has had that many games.
A week off. Thank god!

[Milltown Row2]

Disappointing couple of results recently by our lads. Wasn't too despondent after cushendall match. They were better team but we always had a threat up front. Although at times our style of play was frustrating and hard to figure out. Sunday night v johnnies was just crap. Very flat performance and we got what we deserved.....sweet f.a. However I must add that mr Johnstons behaviour in the hill with us was unreal. Man is a lunatic.

Massive game on Friday night for us. U21 final v johnnies with both squads littered with senior players. The johnnies will have edge at minute gong by Sunday night. I really hope wee mickey can get our lads going for Friday night. We need to win this one. It will be big test for both camps but I'm hoping our big players like Matthew, stoogie and Clarkey are going to deliver.

On a side note. Choice of Ballymena as venue for county final is hard to work out. For county bard coffers a Friday night in Dunloy or loughiel would bring in a bigger gate.


Anyway up the Town.........

I think Ballycastle will win this game, seen them up against Dunloy in their first game and was very impressed, the Johnnies are good but I think at this level the Town will win through.

[CitySlicker11]

The u21 final on Friday night is too close to call, I'll go for St john's after extra time or replay.

[Na Glinntí Glasa]

I'm the same. From what I've seen of St. John's and ballycastle at u21 this season I give st johns the slight edge in this one.

[cfclg]

The fact that there is no mention of a county championship final on our county website the day before the game says it all for me. As a county we (I don't believe in blaming county board etc , we're all in this together) continually put all our eggs in one basket and our primary aim every year is our county hurling team. Until we have our club game and underage structures fully operational our county hurling teams will continue to struggle, its a case of putting the cart before the horse.

An example which really angered me was the cancellation of the U21 semi final as a request of the county manager. 50/60 young lads ready to go for a massive game and then its called off for the sake of 3 or 4. Why can we not see that counties like kilkenny/Tipp etc put their club game first and foremeost, success at county level will then follow. Why do we think we have better ideas than the likes of KK and Tipp?

League games: Another rant from me. Little hurling in May, few games in July, nothing in August and just after playing 4 games in 12 days in June. Championship in September. Absolute crazy schedule. Again all to suit the county team at the detriment of the club game which supports it.

I wish I had solutions to these problems but I think that until we put our club game as number one priority, we as a county are going nowhere

[NAG1]

How come LG had no game at the weekend?

[btdtgtt]

As you can see MR2 you cant win! However your example quoted is IMO a poor one, your highlighting a local south Antrim referee who maybe doing it for the crac, or his club needed to put a name forward to facilitate county requirements, or hes doing it for the readies! Then drawing parallels to National Referees who have more experience across the board at a higher skill level! The question begs as always wether your a county or national referee when is a foul not a foul? This purely comes down to interpretation of the referee who has 2 secs to make up his mind, as i am sure you can see from the championship already the national guys in the majority are blowing for frees that in the past they would have let go in the interest of TV and crowd, and looking at media reaction its not going down well!!! The problem with Ulster Referees is that most of the time they have been blowing for these frees and the southern lads have not, thus the age old comment, " ah ref did you watch such and such game FFS let it go!" Its all about attitude and what they are prepared to accept

The same referee is also doing div 1 down to div 4 and is an ex senior hurler for his club which was a div 1 club when he played so that first point is wrong for starters.

I'm not trying to win, just call it as I see it, it won't make me friends nor will I keep everyone happy. National referees (and I was at the seminar in Croke) stated that they blow for the same fouls at juvenile level in their own county as they would at National level.

Players are really daft I've just found that out, they first off think that you have eyes in the back of your head, they also think that you are cheating them over some other club, they also think cause they give you water, crack a joke or hand you a match ball beforehand that you may favour them!! While at the same time during their team talk, the referee is a w**ker he'll give ya fcuk all he hates this club (the latter would be right, though I hate all clubs) Oh the best is he's from a football club he knows fcuk all. They also believe that by shouting at the referee that he'll in some way give them soft frees lol. I could go on.

I must be mental cause I actually enjoy refereeing (to a point) you get to see some decent games keeps you fit and you put a bit back into the game, as for the readies as you put it it's not a while lot and just about covers your fuel, you won't become rich with it.

btdtgtt, you can only referee it to the rules, you can't make rules up and I'd like to see how well the players would do if they were set a test on the rules, christ I'd like to see the managers do a test on the rules. For some reason and I've heard this before players/managers seem to think that a referee gets off on being the man in the middle and makes decisions, I'd like nothing more than to blow the whistle at the start, halftime and fulltime. It's the players that make mistakes throughout the game that ruin it, If they stop making mistakes we'd have no problems

Refs cant make them up - but they can interpret fouls whichever way the please.
To suggest otherwise is ridiculous.

For example - how many times to we see southern refs allow southern teams to be physical against Antrim - becasue the "know what they're doing"
Meanwhile Antrim are blown time again becasue the impression is that they are "careless".

The same thing happens within Antrim.
Refs make their mind up on which team is playing the best hurling - and interpret what is a foul and what is physical to suit that assupmtion.

It might not sound pelasant - but it happens. And all too often.

[btdtgtt]

The fact that there is no mention of a county championship final on our county website the day before the game says it all for me. As a county we (I don't believe in blaming county board etc , we're all in this together) continually put all our eggs in one basket and our primary aim every year is our county hurling team. Until we have our club game and underage structures fully operational our county hurling teams will continue to struggle, its a case of putting the cart before the horse.

An example which really angered me was the cancellation of the U21 semi final as a request of the county manager. 50/60 young lads ready to go for a massive game and then its called off for the sake of 3 or 4. Why can we not see that counties like kilkenny/Tipp etc put their club game first and foremeost, success at county level will then follow. Why do we think we have better ideas than the likes of KK and Tipp?

League games: Another rant from me. Little hurling in May, few games in July, nothing in August and just after playing 4 games in 12 days in June. Championship in September. Absolute crazy schedule. Again all to suit the county team at the detriment of the club game which supports it.I wish I had solutions to these problems but I think that until we put our club game as number one priority, we as a county are going nowhere

+1

So accurate it may as well be a biblical quote!

[Gizzy15]

The fact that there is no mention of a county championship final on our county website the day before the game says it all for me. As a county we (I don't believe in blaming county board etc , we're all in this together) continually put all our eggs in one basket and our primary aim every year is our county hurling team. Until we have our club game and underage structures fully operational our county hurling teams will continue to struggle, its a case of putting the cart before the horse.

An example which really angered me was the cancellation of the U21 semi final as a request of the county manager. 50/60 young lads ready to go for a massive game and then its called off for the sake of 3 or 4. Why can we not see that counties like kilkenny/Tipp etc put their club game first and foremeost, success at county level will then follow. Why do we think we have better ideas than the likes of KK and Tipp?

League games: Another rant from me. Little hurling in May, few games in July, nothing in August and just after playing 4 games in 12 days in June. Championship in September. Absolute crazy schedule. Again all to suit the county team at the detriment of the club game which supports it.

I wish I had solutions to these problems but I think that until we put our club game as number one priority, we as a county are going nowhere

Lucky you. I know div 4 won't change the standard of county hurling but our league is over. If you take away the 6 week gap between the two blasts of fixtures our league was run out over 5weeks (2 1/2 weeks at start of April and 2 1/2 weeks at end of may/start of June. We like everyone else pay our dues etc and love our hurling as much as the next guy but are treated with complete contempt. I think it was a case of getting the fixtures out of the way, one less league to worry about ( by worry I mean provide referees etc)

[theskull1]

Gizzy ...what about organising a few tournaments with the other Div 4 clubs to bulk out the season?

We've a county administration thats alien in alot of ways to grass roots, so no point in being "totally reliant" on them to tell you when to hurl if there's massive gaps in your fixtures calendar

[Na Glinntí Glasa]

Our hurlers have just completed 7 games in 17 days. That's just mental. Oh and we have 2 more games away from home next week to boot! Great having games but within reason! We have played a lot of games without shorty and woody this season and had no county players again last night. Cdall played theirs (that was their decision ) but we have continued games without them.

Personally we will play games without the county lads and have no probs in doin so.

[Milltown Row2]

Skull sent you pm's there

[theskull1]

Cheers MR

[Gizzy15]

Gizzy ...what about organising a few tournaments with the other Div 4 clubs to bulk out the season?

We've a county administration thats alien in alot of ways to grass roots, so no point in being "totally reliant" on them to tell you when to hurl if there's massive gaps in your fixtures calendar

Not a bad idea, need to do something as the current setup will only discourage as if we were to lose the first round of c'ship we would end up with 46 free weeks in our club hurling Callander.

Will take your idea on board.

[Jesusjones]

Dunloy Realist, are both Woody and Shorty not injured and this is the reason they didn't play last night?