Antrim Hurling

[BigSmoke123]

Paddy McNaughton soon to be back in cushendall? Could he be a boost for the cushendall squad or will he have lost his touch?

[Sleeping giant]

Any truth that Shane Mc Naughton is out for the year with injury?  i thought he finished the match on Sunday.  Maybe just rumors that always seem to appear around this time of the year.

[bogieman]

Two hands, you're bang out of order.

Trying to have a cheap go at CB volunteers by insulting a fellow Gael club's pitch is a poor show.
You should reflect on your overall attitude to the GAA and the people in it.

Well done Dunloy for allowing use of their pitch and also for stewarding it.
DR, don't lower yourself...
'Nuff said.

[getevennotcross]

Two hands, you're bang out of order.  Hes no better or worse than the rest of us, we are all culpable!

Trying to have a cheap go at CB volunteers by insulting a fellow Gael club's pitch is a poor show.
You should reflect on your overall attitude to the GAA and the people in it.

Well done Dunloy for allowing use of their pitch and also for stewarding it.
DR, don't lower yourself...
'Nuff said.

'Nuff' said,  very interesting from a newbie? I'm not fooled.

[getevennotcross]

Bog may have been harsh but you'd have to admit that playing a double header on a pitch that was pretty soft in places would be bordering on stupidity, especially when Dunloy had to move their league match last weekend.
Fair enough this was not Dunloys decision to hold the 2 matches there but I think it's unfair on the 4 teams involved. Surely you can see the logic in that?

I'm totally bowled over by the issue you're making about this two hands. I really don't get it.

A pitch can be unplayable one day and playable the next ... you do know this?  Sounds like you don't. Good job others do.

The rain the previous weekend from the early hours of Sunday morning was biblical. There was 3 matches played on it between then and the Championship games last Sunday and there was one last night since. The pitch was clearly playable and has not shown any signs of damage since the double header on Sunday.

You do know that even the likes of Casement has been unplayable in the past after heavy overnight rain?

You do know that teams play hurling in the winter on much softer pitches? Will you be consistent with this 'unfair' to both teams 'logic'?

I think you're the one who needs to re-calibrate their logic. Making an issue where there wasn't one on the day and claiming stupidity in the decision making to stage the games there. Of course given enough games in Dunloy, you'll be proved right eventually  (a stopped clock springs to mind)

Sure we all headed down to Cushendall when Antrim played Tipp a few years ago!! what a wash out that day ..... and that was for NHL game ffs!!  It happens, not just in Dunloy but everywhere (well maybe not our pitch)

it even snowed. But we just cant legislate for weather or condition of pitches, no matter where in Ireland.  Maybe Shinners will get us an EU grant and build a conservatory over the country?

But then all us croppy bois would have to pay their salaries some other way. Why are we croppies so gulable letting ourselves be exlpoited and abused by Shinners, CB, UC ?  Time for a call to action, shaft the whole bloody lot of them I say!

[bogieman]

Two hands, you're bang out of order.  Hes no better or worse than the rest of us, we are all culpable!

Trying to have a cheap go at CB volunteers by insulting a fellow Gael club's pitch is a poor show.
You should reflect on your overall attitude to the GAA and the people in it.

Well done Dunloy for allowing use of their pitch and also for stewarding it.
DR, don't lower yourself...
'Nuff said.

'Nuff' said,  very interesting from a newbie? I'm not fooled.

but you are a fool... 

[getevennotcross]

Talking to yourself Geteven?

Nah, just responding to the meaningless crap that is peddalled by you and other insignificant Trolls.  You and others offer nothing but dispair and perpetual negativity. Come the day of reckoning you'll see who is at the coalface, "times they are for changing" dont ya just love Dillon.  Enough, back to work bois.

[Sleeping giant]

Any all Ireland tickets floating about?? Worth a try 

[theskull1]

Surely Loughgiel with the strongest group of hurlers is awash with tickets from all their county players? 

Oh thats right .... how could I forget !!   

Maybe next year

[Hirty Darry]

This thread is getting very boring and predictable.

You still have your annoying pr1cks (they don't need to be named).

MR2 - who has an opinion on everything but doesn't have the b@lls to criticise another ref if they have a poor game or the CB for fear of getting demoted to Div 4.

SIE - Same old, same old, playing down his teams chances of winning the championship, bla bla bla.  Don't know how LW got on the pitch against St Galls with SIE hanging from his @ss.
(PS - Is it true someone will need binoculars for the next round of the SHC. :-) )

Everyone can talk all they want about St Johns being unlucky, Cushendall getting out of jail etc etc.

The result is determined by the score at the end of the game, not at half time or with 5 mins to go.

St Johns were flying, Cushendall's problems with injuries had been well enough documented, St Johns were coming to cause an upset - close but no cigar!

[theskull1]

Spotted this discussion on the Laois forum and thought Id post it here

You wouldn't get these discussions in an Antrim forum

Anyone have the results from the weekend? Saw some U15 ones that didn't look too bad but it seems that we got an awful hammering by KK in the Tony Forristal. This is really very very disappointing to be this far behind in development at U14 level. Kilkenny, Tipp, Cork, Waterford all take this tournament very seriously and play their best players. To be beaten by 20 or 30 points over 2 x 15 or 20 minute halves asks many questions about how effective our underage programs really are. How could the skills gaps be so severe for kids so young?

Yeh, they really struggled by the looks of those scorlines. Only scored 7 points in 2 games and conceded 51(goals and points combined)

They won't be able to stay in the A competition with performances like that.

Very disappointing alright.

Lads, we have to up our game with the underage, I think after a few relatively "successful" years at minor we were becoming complacent thinking the work is being done- clearly from last weekend it isn't.

One wish that I have for next year that there is a big drive on for the U21s. This is an age group that Laois should target to do well in. WE had a decent minor team in 2013 plus this age group has a better potential to bring players through to senior level.

You are spot on beano. However, I think by U21 it is way too late. 

No point in calling it a crisis in 7 years time when our U14s are being hammered as U21s. We need to be developing our U8s-U12s to be AT LEAST AS GOOD as Kilkenny. I think the big difference right now is that we are doing great work with county development squads but the school and club level development is still not good enough. In many clubs, the lads looking after underage development don't have what it takes. In KK for example, a significant proportion of underage coaches are former Kilkenny hurlers - not so in Laois.

It requires plenty of money, focus and being honest with ourselves in terms of development performance. Right now I think we measure success by the existence of the setanta and other programs but not by the endpoints such as the scoring difference when we play A-grade counties. Yes, we are not Kilkenny but there are other smaller counties such as Clare, Wexford and Waterford that are able to develop competitive underage teams with a limited number of clubs to draw from. I think we have been clapping ourselves on the back from beating very poor Offaly teams over recent years rather then focusing on what has gone wrong against KK at minor level for the last number of years.

One thing I have observed is that the clubs seem to be relying on the county to produce their underage 'stars'. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Yes, there have been improvements, to be fair. However, most of us want us to be winning and there is evidence that we have stopped improving.

Jesus blueandwhite1, I'd have to say I disagree with a lot of that to be honest.

I think a lot of the progress over the last number of years has been fuelled by the clubs, not the county board. Yes, the Setanta programme has been a success but I would contend that it is not on the same trajectory it was 3/4 years ago. I think our county standards have slipped but our club structures are far above what they were.

Our U12 teams have done very well down in Kilkenny this summer; we have been very competitive in most divisions. Our Cumann na mBunscol teams have excelled at Leinster Blitzes over the last 2 years and these are young lads with little or probably no engagement with the county. I know a lot of clubs are now running their own Saturday blitzes at U8-U12 grade because they don't feel they are getting enough opportunities within our county. I don't think the clubs would take kindly to a suggestion that they are sitting back and letting the county produce their stars. I'd say their frustration is that they are not seeing the same emphasis replicated up the line.

I've seen a fair bit of our U12 League/Championship this summer and the standard is excellent. I think only Portlaoise are unbeaten with loads of teams taking points off each other; great for competition. I would be extremely hopeful that they will mature into a very nice team in a couple of years but maybe they won't.
We have to remember where we are coming from. We wont have brilliant crops of youngsters every year, no more than other developing counties will. The results at the weekend were disappointing but we probably all know 3/4 hurlers from these age groups who have the potential to come through and impact at a higher level and that's not a bad baseline for our development squads. Yes, we'd all love to see us competing regularly with the elite counties but that doesn't just happen over-night...

Pat Critchley has indicated that he would like to start back at Setanta Level and I believe that would be a good step. I also understand our Laois GDAs are planning to hit our primary schools a little harder and primary-school players will be invited to coaching sessions once or twice a month. Again, this is catching them at a younger age and can only help. This is where the money comes in as if Croke Park is serious about seeing a real and tangible revival in Laois Hurling then they should be releasing funds to put Pat back on secondment from Scoil Chriost Rí and putting 2 more GDAs to work alongside our current two. Now, that is something we should be fighting very hard for. And don't think the funds aren't there after the recent deluge of high-profile Draws!

I also don't think too many of us have gotten carried away with 'back-clapping' after beating Offaly; I actually think that's unfair. Teams don't just go from being 5th/6th best in Leinster to contesting against the Kilkennys or Galways of this world. It takes time and we could be looking at 5-10 years before we are in a realistic position where we can 'expect' to make a real breakthrough. This year's minor campaign frustrated me because we had a really strong bunch but they just didn't fire on the big day. Again, that will happen to teams and counties who haven't built up a bank of memories and experience at playing and beating teams at the top table.
Margins between success and failure are so fine that if we don't take some pleasure in beating our neighbours who have dominated us for years then what's the point in any of this...

Good Post Merman

As a Tipp blow in to Laois who has lads playing u8,the structures are slowly coming together in Laois and the fruits won't be seen for another 15 years that's the reality.

What people also have to realize is Laois doesn't have the depth in terms yet of other counties,for example in u12 in Laois you have 3 divisions in the North division in Tipp you have 5 divisions.

That said it's great to see the likes of Portarlington and Slieve Margy playing hurling,there should be a target of getting another 2/3 underage teams set up and getting another underage set up into portlaoise,similar to what they have in thurles.

The U12's have been very competitive in the KK league with Abbeyleix winning it,that makes a huge difference as there seems to a belief in Laois that kk hurlers are a master race,which needs to dispelled at a young age

Kudos also to Abbeyleix who ran an u8 blitz last Saturday taking in the likes of Ballyhale and Kilcormac,from an outsider looking in they seem to being going about their underage business in the right way

[clootfromthe21]

Spotted this discussion on the Laois forum and thought Id post it here

You wouldn't get these discussions in an Antrim forum

[/quote]

Was hoping that I might some report somewhere of how the Under 14/15/16s got on over the weekend at the various national tournaments but haven't come across any.

From the scorelines alone, it would appear the Under 15s "did best" out of the three groups - winning one, drawing another and losing two by small enough margins, the latter against teams that got to the final and semi final respectively.

It seems the Under 16s didn't perform to their full potential, which is a shame as they seem to be a promising enough group.

Internally, the North Antrim underage initiatives look promising but as always, Belfast seems to be a desert (at least on a divisional level) although I see both Rossa and the Johnnies won their respective divisions in the Mullinahone tournament.

[btdtgtt]

Spotted this discussion on the Laois forum and thought Id post it here

You wouldn't get these discussions in an Antrim forum

Was hoping that I might some report somewhere of how the Under 14/15/16s got on over the weekend at the various national tournaments but haven't come across any.

From the scorelines alone, it would appear the Under 15s "did best" out of the three groups - winning one, drawing another and losing two by small enough margins, the latter against teams that got to the final and semi final respectively.

It seems the Under 16s didn't perform to their full potential, which is a shame as they seem to be a promising enough group.

Internally, the North Antrim underage initiatives look promising but as always, Belfast seems to be a desert (at least on a divisional level) although I see both Rossa and the Johnnies won their respective divisions in the Mullinahone tournament.
[/quote]

Absolute nonsense.

Belfast teams continually win underage leagues and championships - and overwhelmingly represented and underage squads for the county. Always have been.

It's just no longer the case at senior and hasn't been for a while.

[clootfromthe21]

Spotted this discussion on the Laois forum and thought Id post it here

You wouldn't get these discussions in an Antrim forum

Was hoping that I might some report somewhere of how the Under 14/15/16s got on over the weekend at the various national tournaments but haven't come across any.

From the scorelines alone, it would appear the Under 15s "did best" out of the three groups - winning one, drawing another and losing two by small enough margins, the latter against teams that got to the final and semi final respectively.

It seems the Under 16s didn't perform to their full potential, which is a shame as they seem to be a promising enough group.

Internally, the North Antrim underage initiatives look promising but as always, Belfast seems to be a desert (at least on a divisional level) although I see both Rossa and the Johnnies won their respective divisions in the Mullinahone tournament.

Absolute nonsense.

Belfast teams continually win underage leagues and championships - and overwhelmingly represented and underage squads for the county. Always have been.

It's just no longer the case at senior and hasn't been for a while.
[/quote]

You are missing the point I was trying to make, although I accept the language could have been better.

Its not that individual Belfast teams are not strong (Rossa and the Johnnies have always been strong, clubs like Davitts etc appear to be making progress), its more there appears (to a Culchie like me) a lack of divisional structure in Belfast (leading, for example, to St Enda's coming into North Antrim). I am only going on what I hear and read, but I read somewhere that while there was a year long primary schools football league, the hurling was run off in a one day blitz.

Where I said North Antrim was taking the initiative, I meant in terms of the regular group coaching sessions, trips to Kilkenny, Festival of Hurling etc on a divisional basis. To my knowledge, none of that is happening in Belfast. While individual clubs are of course the fundamental key, surely the coming together (occasionally) on a broader level can only improve standards across the board and help keep people (players and mentors) engaged?

At the various blitzes last weekend, a number of the counties had more than one team participating (e.g. Wexford North, Wexford South). If we got our act together (I know, I know), there is no reason why we couldn't put in a Belfast team and a "rest of Antrim" team.

[getevennotcross]

This thread is getting very boring and predictable.

You still have your annoying pr1cks (they don't need to be named).

MR2 - who has an opinion on everything but doesn't have the b@lls to criticise another ref if they have a poor game or the CB for fear of getting demoted to Div 4.

SIE - Same old, same old, playing down his teams chances of winning the championship, bla bla bla.  Don't know how LW got on the pitch against St Galls with SIE hanging from his @ss.
(PS - Is it true someone will need binoculars for the next round of the SHC. :-) )

Everyone can talk all they want about St Johns being unlucky, Cushendall getting out of jail etc etc.

The result is determined by the score at the end of the game, not at half time or with 5 mins to go.

St Johns were flying, Cushendall's problems with injuries had been well enough documented, St Johns were coming to cause an upset - close but no cigar!

Ooohh Petal, and you belive your postings and/or contributions are so rivetting, enlightening, appealiing and of interest.  These guys you refer to are the eyes and ears of whats happening and how and when it happens. Like the press they tell it as it is, how are we to find truth otherwise?

Now just sit down Tulip, be a good boi and go read AndyTown/NB News, Fanity Fair or something with a nice cup of tea.  You"ll feel much better Petal after reading that stuff.  Free speech and freedom of expression are alive and well, but hurry DUP, Shinners; CB and UC may soon curtail the rite for all us Croppies to openly express ourselves.  Relax Petal, better now?


Lets face it boi, we are all WUMs, messers, assh**es, mixers, stirrers, dickh***s, but lets not take ourselves too seriously. A bit if craic, antagonistic debate, slegging never killed anyone or lost or won a championship!  Lets take real comfort in the fact that anything we contribute here is not going to shake up the world or change our status in Antrim. We are all falble, human, culpable.  But on the day of reckoning, I would say some of us (not all of us) will be there to put the shoulder behind the wheel.  The sooner that day comes the better, for all our sakes. But even if we have our new stadium, good football and hurling teams, good structures and administration, you and your like will still be an asshol*, a cretin, a WUM, but ya know what, life will go on. Cest la Vie!