Antrim Hurling

[Milltown Row2]

Talking about Derry hurlers, I always thought that Henry Downey was a super player, even better than he was as a footballer.

There was a rake of great Derry hurlers, Downey from Lavey up there with the best out of Ulster. But  that team he was involved with was winning All Irelands it's hard to compete with. Think Lavey won a club all Ireland in 90's and were unlucky in a few Ulster hurling club finals

Sorry bad timing. That was in reply to CSC not your good self . All about timing

So she was saying

[CSC]

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.

[CSC]

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

[glens73]

Talking about Derry hurlers, I always thought that Henry Downey was a super player, even better than he was as a footballer.

There was a rake of great Derry hurlers, Downey from Lavey up there with the best out of Ulster. But  that team he was involved with was winning All Irelands it's hard to compete with. Think Lavey won a club all Ireland in 90's and were unlucky in a few Ulster hurling club finals

Lavey won 2 Ulster club football titles and 1 All-Ireland in the early 1990s and with that and the county football team you're right there was no competition. I think Henry Downey was a hurling man as much as a football man though. His brother Seamus wasn't bad either and Olly Collins was decent too. Lavey were a fairly rough football team, I was in Draperstown when they lost to a Cork team in the All Ireland club football semi, they were over the top with their behaviour that day to say the least. Did they not have run in or two with Dunloy in the Ulster Club hurling?, can't quite recall as I had left home by then.

[CSC]

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

[Minder]

Talking about Derry hurlers, I always thought that Henry Downey was a super player, even better than he was as a footballer.

There was a rake of great Derry hurlers, Downey from Lavey up there with the best out of Ulster. But  that team he was involved with was winning All Irelands it's hard to compete with. Think Lavey won a club all Ireland in 90's and were unlucky in a few Ulster hurling club finals

Lavey won 2 Ulster club football titles and 1 All-Ireland in the early 1990s and with that and the county football team you're right there was no competition. I think Henry Downey was a hurling man as much as a football man though. His brother Seamus wasn't bad either and Olly Collins was decent too. Lavey were a fairly rough football team, I was in Draperstown when they lost to a Cork team in the All Ireland club football semi, they were over the top with their behaviour that day to say the least. Did they not have run in or two with Dunloy in the Ulster Club hurling?, can't quite recall as I had left home by then.

That's putting it mildly.

[glens73]

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

Are you sure about him? Scullion was a fabulous footballer, best corner back in the country for a while.

[glens73]

Talking about Derry hurlers, I always thought that Henry Downey was a super player, even better than he was as a footballer.

There was a rake of great Derry hurlers, Downey from Lavey up there with the best out of Ulster. But  that team he was involved with was winning All Irelands it's hard to compete with. Think Lavey won a club all Ireland in 90's and were unlucky in a few Ulster hurling club finals

Lavey won 2 Ulster club football titles and 1 All-Ireland in the early 1990s and with that and the county football team you're right there was no competition. I think Henry Downey was a hurling man as much as a football man though. His brother Seamus wasn't bad either and Olly Collins was decent too. Lavey were a fairly rough football team, I was in Draperstown when they lost to a Cork team in the All Ireland club football semi, they were over the top with their behaviour that day to say the least. Did they not have run in or two with Dunloy in the Ulster Club hurling?, can't quite recall as I had left home by then.

That's putting it mildly.

I didn't go to those games so I only recall talk of it at the time with family. They certainly weren't shrinking violets on the football field so it's no surprise. I used to work with a fella from Bellaghy and his hatred of all things Lavey was intense to say the least.

[theskull1]

That's putting it mildly.

[Minder]

That's putting it mildly.

[Milltown Row2]

That's putting it mildly.

let sleeping dogs lie, yeah I hear ya, I was diplomatic

[theskull1]

Yeah..can we get back to the BGaels discussion 

[Milltown Row2]

Yeah..can we get back to the BGaels discussion 

Yeah that was a fairy tale story lol

[theskull1]

There certainly was a woodcutter in the story.....although I can't remember if he was meant to give the damsel a Glasgow kiss 

[johnneycool]

Geez Johnney, you've a short memory about Devlin. You had him to thank for for winning the Ulster Club title in 98/99 when he played on deep into added time until the Galget got an equaliser to take the final to a reply. Ballycastle (who were there by default) were raging with him and you won the replay.

Have to say you are spot on with most of your observations and your analysis is normally excellent, but you should be more grateful to Gereard Devlin!

P.S. Bredagh are looking for a new coach/manager. Interested?

We won the replay in extra time after losing a man in ordinary time very harshly on a bog of a pitch at Corrigan.
My memory must have slipped if Devlin did us a good turn as he certainly got us back when playing Rossa in the club final where big magic was cut to ribbons and didn't get a free the whole day.
I also witnessed him playing almost 7 minutes of extra time to allow an Antrim U-21 team to beat Down who were holding onto a point lead in Ballycran, how he managed to get out of there in one piece remained a mystery to me.

JA Gribben was the best referee, eh Skull??

On the lavey thing, the best hurler they had was big Ollie Collins, Seamus was a better hurler than Henry and the McGurks were good hurlers too, but were more interested in winding up their opponents which led to johnny McGurk getting a dig in the mouth from Spike Baille when we played them once down in an Ulster semi-final in Lavey, ah those were the days.