Antrim Hurling

[Ruairi Og exile]

North Antrim..I thought the minor match was a good competitive tough match in poor conditions. The standard was never going to great due to the weather & state of the pitch, but it was hard fought by both teams.

It seems like the shamrocks are bit of early birds, the camogie team trained at 7.30am on Sunday, not sure if it was the best ever as well. Like Balboa says we arent going to know what they are like til the semi final/final. Every year you hear stories about how they are training like madmen but every year they shit the nest.

[theskull1]

Folks we will not know if Loughguile have improved until they get to championship final/semis and are getting it tight, will they push on or lay down like last year. I dont think fitness or hurling ability is the issue, i think its all in their head.

Better to have lost in love than never to have loved before rocky (if you get my drift) ....jesus here I am sticking up for the bodies  .......MAMMY

[milltown row]

well skull all set for milltown come the 22nd? 

reserves got a wee friendly last night but cant get games for the seniors, training this wed hope to get more than ten seniors this time.

have all your injury problems been sorted

[Balboa]

Folks we will not know if Loughguile have improved until they get to championship final/semis and are getting it tight, will they push on or lay down like last year. I dont think fitness or hurling ability is the issue, i think its all in their head.

Better to have lost in love than never to have loved before rocky (if you get my drift) ....jesus here I am sticking up for the bodies  .......MAMMY

Skull i didnt know we were talking about Glenariffe here, i think any points i have made about Loughguile are fairly valid.

[theskull1]

Folks we will not know if Loughguile have improved until they get to championship final/semis and are getting it tight, will they push on or lay down like last year. I dont think fitness or hurling ability is the issue, i think its all in their head.

Better to have lost in love than never to have loved before rocky (if you get my drift) ....jesus here I am sticking up for the bodies  .......MAMMY

Skull i didnt know we were talking about Glenariffe here, i think any points i have made about Loughguile are fairly valid.

I know you're not but I'm trying to get you to  . Regularly commenting about how loughguile have ate the onion stops you from looking at you own clubs failings does it not?

[Balboa]

Folks we will not know if Loughguile have improved until they get to championship final/semis and are getting it tight, will they push on or lay down like last year. I dont think fitness or hurling ability is the issue, i think its all in their head.

Better to have lost in love than never to have loved before rocky (if you get my drift) ....jesus here I am sticking up for the bodies  .......MAMMY

Skull i didnt know we were talking about Glenariffe here, i think any points i have made about Loughguile are fairly valid.

I know you're not but I'm trying to get you to  . Regularly commenting about how loughguile have ate the onion stops you from looking at you own clubs failings does it not?

Im pretty sure nobody on this board is too interested about the "failings" in our club, i am open to contradiction here. I think the issue of Loughguile getting to 4 finals in a row and not winning seems to be more topical.. 3 clubs have won Antrim championship since 1990 i think, and obviously Rossa was a bolt from the blue when you see the state they are in now so perhaps every other club in Antrim is failing. Its all relative Skull, in all honesty Glenariffe are not setting out to win a senior championship at the start of the year. We have only been playing Div 1 hurling for 5 yrs. 6 or 7 years ago our biggest rivals would have been Armoy  so i think we have come a fair way, and another big improvement is needed to make another step up.

[NAG]

North Antrim

I know your post was well enough meaning, but to describe Pinky as lacking in committment is unreal. This is a guy that has committed himself to Antrim for more years than I can remember. Where were you when he was running around Cushendun on a wintery sunday morning under Dinny Cahill or Tredging down to god knows where in the south under Sean McNaughton.

Is it any wonder our young guys think twice about playing for the county when all they get for it is stick.

[NAG]

As am I,this crap that we are being spoon fed about the lifestyle commitment and all that woody and sambo are trying to enforce. I dare you to take a dnader into cushendall at the week and see how many of the current squad you would find in sambo's bar. If pinky was able to shake of the hamstring injuries I would still take him above any of the current crop of young 'STARS' who have yet to prove anything tro me.

I know what your getting at North Antrim but what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

[youngfella]

i have alot of time for pinky, such a nice guy. A lot of county players past, present and future could learn from pinky's fitness and committment levels. I've seen the big fella more times that i remember on his own practising frees, sprint training, you name it. So what the fella takes a drink its not going to kill him, sambo should stop kidding himself its not like he never touched the stuff

[Balboa]

Is this the same Sambo & Woody that had some of the players out for a few pints the night before the Limerick relegation playoff this year? Dont believe everything S & W say.

[Ruairi Og exile]

North Antrim, I know Cushendall have alot of players on the county panel but I'd call up Donal McNaughton as well, he has been in excellant in midfield for us, excellant striker of the ball & strong in the air.

Agree with NAG, if you went to An Caman you would see most of our players in there as well. Every player is entitled to a drink or two, but I know most of our county boys were drinking after the Clare match, after the Laois match, & i'm sure the rest of the team where, but they should have been off it til after the 3 mccarthy cup quailifers & not during them

[NAG]

Boys

Dont get me wrong I think the lads should all take a drink when they want it. We ask too much of them already as amateurs. I just think that we shouldnt getting on one players case when the management know fine well that other players are doing the same, Woody drinks in the Bridge in dunloy and he has been in the company of many of the lads taking a drink there.

So when the try and push this forward as a reason for dropping players dont buy it!

[Glensman]

I have to be honest that I have no real firm opinion on whether players should be allowed to drink or not. It has been talked about a fair bit on this board before.

Some react better when they are allowed the odd occasional pint to relax, some psychologically like to stay off it to leave no excuses.
But I agree about the "what's good for the goose" argument...players are in this together as a group requiring the same commitment from every man. That's the only way to compete.

If a manager calls a drinks ban then abide by it.
When reading books about the sacrifices made by the great hurling teams down south and by the Ulster football teams in their periods of success over the last 20 years...going back to the 4 in a row at the start of the 90's and then the Tyrone and Armagh years...we pale into comparison.

Do we want to compete at that level? Then sacrifices are going to have to be made.

It won't come easy because it doesn't elsewhere.

A little true story:
I have quite a close connection to some people from Kilkenny and was chatting to them there a month ago.
One lady has two children aged 2 and 4. For a few years since the elder one knew what hurling was and knew where the pitch was every time he passed it he would say "When can I go and play mum?". To appease him the mother said something along the lines of "Don't worry son, they will come for you".
About a week before his 4th birthday (by way of reviewing the parish registry) a local man from the club arrives to the front door with his son. He had a little hurl in hand. The mother answers the door "Is Jimmy there?". Jimmy is also the name of the father and the wife said he's out at work. "No I'm looking for young Jimmy". Jimmy was stood behind the mother runs up to the man and pulls him by the leg. The man put the hurl in Jimmy's hand and Jimmy proceeded to run round the garden swinging the hurling. Turning to the mother the man said "There's training next week at the local pitch at 6pm, make sure Jimmy is there". They chat for a bit and he goes to walk away. Seeing Jimmy swinging the stick he turns back to mother and asks him what hand he writes with/uses. He had the wrong hand at the top of the hurl "see that he is holding the stick with the right hand at the top come training next week".
The man heads off no doubt to Jimmy's class mates' houses.

Now this is completely true, maybe paraphrased slightly.
At the time I was eating dinner and for a second stopped eating (nothing puts me off my food...).

That is what we are up against.

No one has a notion who that man is but he's arguably as important to this whole thing as Brian Cody is.

[maxpower]

amazing story glensman, from 4 years of age.

i was down at a coaching conference in Dublin a few years back with a lot of the top coaches speakers in Ireland there.  they presented an awful lot of the science of coaching, Mickey Harte talked about freshness and Niall Moyna and come of the Ulster Council lads spent alot of time preaching about the need to NOT coach young boys, this whole fundamental approach, it was suggested that kids didn't need to learn the skills of hurling/football until 10-14years old. 

They asked Brian Cody and his take on it was very simple, get a hurl in their hand as early and as often as they could, in complete contrast to the theme of the conference but its been working for them

[johnneycool]

amazing story glensman, from 4 years of age.

i was down at a coaching conference in Dublin a few years back with a lot of the top coaches speakers in Ireland there.  they presented an awful lot of the science of coaching, Mickey Harte talked about freshness and Niall Moyna and come of the Ulster Council lads spent alot of time preaching about the need to NOT coach young boys, this whole fundamental approach, it was suggested that kids didn't need to learn the skills of hurling/football until 10-14years old. 

They asked Brian Cody and his take on it was very simple, get a hurl in their hand as early and as often as they could, in complete contrast to the theme of the conference but its been working for them

If youngsters aren't holding the hurl right at a very early age you'll have huge difficulties trying to get them to change at even 8 years of age.

I'd be inclined to go with Cody on this one. I think a few of our lads were at the same conference and according to one of them they even talked about coaching youngsters how to run properly as a lot don't run unless it's in a controlled environment like coaching sessions etc. Gone are the days of running about the roads or fields with your mates to all hours and we're worse off for it, but that's the world we live in i suppose.