Antrim Hurling

[PlayWithTheWind]

I reckon that has the makings of a decent div 2 and div 3 next year. Despite many predictions to the contary there were not a lot of heavy thumpings in Div 2-3 this year as expected. The likes of Cloughmills, Rasharkin etc were reasonably competitve in most games.

Question to scb or anybody else who had experience of this league

Do you think if all clubs were surveyed on how they felt the div2/3 league went this year, would there be a majority who felt that the opertunity to fight for 8 top places was actually beneficial to hurling development? That is a straight question btw. Wondering if more clubs fought better thorughout the season when there were more places for the taking? If so, would it be an idea to plan to combine the leagues like this every 3/4 years, just to shake things up?

So far, I would say this has been a step forward in developing hurling throughout the county. It has brought teams down a peg or two and has also proved to more "weaker" teams that if the hard work is put in, they are able to compete with the so called elite. clubs have no excuse, they were told at the start of the year that 8 teams would form the new div2 and the bottom 8 would make up the new div3 with one team being relegated.
Teams need to realise that the league tables dont lie!

[theskull1]

Anyway and this is no shit! the guys comment in response to the defeats i.e  6 in a row was,,,,,, that the builders while developing Fr Healy Park should never have cut down the Fairy Bush, and that it was comming back to haunt them again!!!!!!!!

Is this true? Down my way that was always a major no no, but seriously i could,nt believe that was the excuse now!

Well theres always excuses when you don't want to find the real reasons. Dunloy had their hocus pocus excuses as well in years gone by.

[theskull1]

I reckon that has the makings of a decent div 2 and div 3 next year. Despite many predictions to the contary there were not a lot of heavy thumpings in Div 2-3 this year as expected. The likes of Cloughmills, Rasharkin etc were reasonably competitve in most games.

Question to scb or anybody else who had experience of this league

Do you think if all clubs were surveyed on how they felt the div2/3 league went this year, would there be a majority who felt that the opertunity to fight for 8 top places was actually beneficial to hurling development? That is a straight question btw. Wondering if more clubs fought better thorughout the season when there were more places for the taking? If so, would it be an idea to plan to combine the leagues like this every 3/4 years, just to shake things up?

So far, I would say this has been a step forward in developing hurling throughout the county. It has brought teams down a peg or two and has also proved to more "weaker" teams that if the hard work is put in, they are able to compete with the so called elite. clubs have no excuse, they were told at the start of the year that 8 teams would form the new div2 and the bottom 8 would make up the new div3 with one team being relegated.
Teams need to realise that the league tables dont lie!

I was hoping that the extra incentive to fight andtry and get into the top 8 places would have mean't that even the top div 2 teams would have got something from the experience. Would that have been the case or do you think the standards from the top 3/4 sides would have been negatively affected from this years 16 team league?

[the colonel]

Reported to moderator

I wouldn't mind going back to my original questions about the possibility that the div2/3 leagues combining every 3/4 years if it was deemed by the majority to be beneficial to hurling development. Perhaps more of those with knowledge of this years div2/3 league can give their views?

skull i  agree from the outside looking in the division has been very competitive and this would help.

and assessor, just talk about hurling. its a hurling forum, not a bitch fest

[milltown row]

the only way to make the leagues competitive is this, 8 teams, two way leagues two up two down, leagues to be finished before the Championship. end off.

means that teams will be competitive right up till the first round of the championship they will be peaking for it, and crucial league points needed to stay up or for promotion will be played for on a level playing field. the problem we have now is, teams have nothing to train for, they cant get promoted or relgated turn out crap teams, some teams believe they are competitive with bigger teams are actually getting false results.

personally i've given up fight within my club over hurling, any views on it aren't really shared and points of view are lost.

as for Rossa they are a decent team but going through a lean period at the minute. but they are still producing great hurlers at juvenile level and will be a top team again, Gorts wont, trust me. they will struggle to get their best 15 players out every week and thats what they need to compete at senior. St Johns will maintain their status as long as they bring 3/4 players through each year. Naomh Gall will not compete at senior for at least 10 years i'm certain of that. nothing coming through. St Pauls and Lamhs will struggle, Sarsfields have some talent coming through not much.

North Antrim teams to win senior for a long while yet and the belfast teams to win inter and Junior

as i've said at the start, 8 teams, two up two down, only way to go

[milltown row]

[/quote]
I was hoping that the extra incentive to fight andtry and get into the top 8 places would have mean't that even the top div 2 teams would have got something from the experience. Would that have been the case or do you think the standards from the top 3/4 sides would have been negatively affected from this years 16 team league?
[/quote]

no skull, i have noticed that (from my club only) that we will play at the level we are at. has always been like that. better league the better we've played. thats been the way (not me personally)

[PlayWithTheWind]

the only way to make the leagues competitive is this, 8 teams, two way leagues two up two down, leagues to be finished before the Championship. end off.

i agree. this would be ideal and now that div2-3 will be broken down at the end of the year, this can now happen.

[theskull1]

fair enough....was just a thought. Looking at this year regardig fixtures....when you think about all those weeks in august this year when there were very few fixtures it does seem a bit mad that there we'ren't a few more league games in that period . Was it like that for everyone else? Would this have been the clubs fault? (i.e. nobody looking for matches whilst they were building up for the championship).

[sail_in]

Re: Division 2/3 this year.

Personally speaking I enjoyed this year.  My own club (Clooney Gaels) set a target at the start of the year to finish in the top half of it.  That looks to be more or less a certainty at this point and we've still 3 games to play (re-fixtures from different stages in the year).  I don't know if we'll end up playing them or not.

This year marked a few "firsts" for our club - we got the chance to play a few teams we've never played before which can only be a good thing as far as I'm concerned.  From the teams who were in Division 1 last year, we beat Rossa & Sarsfields and were reasonably close to St Gall's and Ballycran, and we would have beaten Lamh Dhearg only we effed it up big style!

As someone, I think it was theSkull said earlier, it would be great if there was more help available to help clubs bridge the gap, as I don't see how anybody could seriously argue that there's not a massive gap between Division 1 (certainly the upper end of it) and Division 2.  I think a starting point may be to bring the likes of Loughgiel's reserves into the leagues and/or the Intermediate Championship.  I know there are serious problems with the like of this, and I also know that some competitions exist to give us the chance to play teams like this - the Countess of Antrim and the various Feis competitions.  We were actually meant to play Loughgiel in the CoA this year, but the game was fixed for a time in May when there were a lot of football and hurling games and we ended-up conceding the game.  I know that's nobody's fault only our own but at the same time you can't please everybody - especially with the football league being a very high priority for Ahoghill this year!

I don't really go in for all this chat about certain clubs "deserving" to be in Division 1.  Ballycran knew the situation from the start of the year and set out to win all their matches.  They've done that, they'll go up - fair play to them.  In my opinion they're the only team who deserve to be in Division 1 next year. 

Regarding the leagues next year, as I understand it, the plan was always to move to a 2-way league after the first year or "playing for places".

[NAG]

Good to see Clooney making such a push on the Hurling front. I like the idea of the reserve teams from Loughgiel, Dunloy, Cushendall, should be pushed into this league but the only way that it will work for the other clubs is if the big three make a serious committment to the league and not to treat it like a joke.

This way it would have benefits for all the teams concerned, competitive games for reserve players and hopefully an insight to see the top clubs at work.

[sail_in]

Bringing something like this in would certainly not be without issues ...

I'm nearly sure they did something like this a few years ago where they split Division 2 into North and South Antrim and from what I could gather you ended up with the same situation as is very common in football where how you did against the bigger teams was largely dependent on whether or not they had a Senior game that day!

I'm not sure what the solution is, I'm not even sure how seriously the reserve league is taken by the teams that are in it!

[NAG]

Thats part of the problem the reserve leagues are treated like a joke except for championship so realistically a guy who older than 21 and not making the senior team could get one competitive game all year.

If a system was in place then the same player could be getting 5 6 7 competitive games in a season which is surely what we are looking to provide.

These games should be allocated a time slot of their own away from senior fixtures which should also have a set time slot/slots. Therefore avoiding clashes and weakened teams playing at the wrong time of the year, but the main thing is that the senior clubs put some emphasis on this and drive it forward.

[PlayWithTheWind]

I dont agree with bringing reserves into championships.
This will only benefit the stronger clubs and not the development of the county as a whole. This will only produce more problems, with senior players playing on the reserve team, players not being graded etc etc.
To improve are standard of hurling we need to now work with the league tables to produce competitive games week in week out.
Clooney Gaels are a great example for other clubs to show, that if the hard work is put in teams can compete and progress up the table and up the divisions.

[NAG]

I didnt mention championships I was talking solely about league structures, I believe championship to be a different entity completely!

[theskull1]

Playing reserve teams in the lower league structures can be difficult to work with NAG and has been tried before witjhout success. One team going to Belfast and the other to Cushendall can be hard to achieve as there are many occassions where overlap is needed to get both games played, but it is compounded by the fact that young players who play well in the reserves don't get to show their potential to the senior management, which can actually become a demotivating factor for the very boys you want to push on. I do agree that it would help the development of the game though if say the likes of Clooney Gaels, had the opertunity to play senior reserve teams in some other side league orginised between clubs for instance. As long as they were keenly contested meaningful matches then they would definitely help the game IMO