Queens withdraw from McKenna Cup

[yellowcard]

A truly pathetic response by Danny Murphy in today's Irish Independent. He acknowledges that Regulation 1 states that the colleges have first preference on players (in line with other provinces) but goes on to say that he can't enforce this rule (the opposite to other provinces) cos that would be telling players who they can and cant play for. Then why have rules and regulations at all if they can't be enforced?

So players will play with universities over counties? I forgot Queens were now in the race for Sam

What planet do you live on?

At this time of year their main focus will be Sigerson cup. Who said anything about Sam having anything to do with it? The players are made choose between college or county but really it's not a choice at all. If they choose college then at best they will be in the cold for the season and at worst they may not get another chance at a county career.

[INDIANA]

A truly pathetic response by Danny Murphy in today's Irish Independent. He acknowledges that Regulation 1 states that the colleges have first preference on players (in line with other provinces) but goes on to say that he can't enforce this rule (the opposite to other provinces) cos that would be telling players who they can and cant play for. Then why have rules and regulations at all if they can't be enforced?

So players will play with universities over counties? I forgot Queens were now in the race for Sam

What planet do you live on?

At this time of year their main focus will be Sigerson cup. Who said anything about Sam having anything to do with it? The players are made choose between college or county but really it's not a choice at all. If they choose college then at best they will be in the cold for the season and at worst they may not get another chance at a county career.

If you're a young player on a county panel and not established you need to give your county priority if you've any designs on being a county player. You could spend 3 months playing for your college right up to the sigerson final and miss half the NFL at least.

The universities pay these guys scholarships and want first call on them. As I said the refusal of the universities to even bend their necks to consider playing the sigerson re-xmas says a lot of them in my view.

[DuffleKing]

I love the way you know the hearts and minds of college players so well. Almost as well as everything else you post on with the conviction of your insider knowledge.

I also love how you seem to be under the impression that All colleges have a similar set up to the DCU / DIT / UCD models and give guys scholarships to play. If that were the case then there wouldn't be any debate about this issue. Paul Grimley never uttered a whimper about Kevin Dyas playing for UCD in the O'Byrne Cup because he can't effect it. The Ulster colleges have no such schemes or resources.

The reality is students play Sigerson football because they want to. The club championship that you love so much doesn't even register on their consciousness at this time of year for the overwhelming majority. The lucky few still involved there obviously prioritise but its a significantly lower standard of football than Sigerson Cup.

There also would be no debate over this issue of the majority of students with dual status did not want to play for the college in these January tournaments. Can you imagine how a county player would feel if his college was making this fuss to make him available when he'd rather play for the county? The player would simply walk from a college team. Again, the glossed over reality is that these students need the regulations as set out to be enforced or they are then in the tricky situation where they have to try and hide from their county manager that Sigerson remains their proirity for a few weeks more.

Despite what some posters have said, Sigerson is after 3 league games and in my experience the students play in every one of those national league games. of course people like to pretend that they are not properly integrated but the reality is they never stop with the county, training and playing challenges the whole way through Sigerson preparation - only a short sighted manager would punish them and theor team in the short term in that way.

Was there some sort of proposal to move the Sigerson to pre christmas, that was rejected, that i'm not aware of?

[yellowcard]

A truly pathetic response by Danny Murphy in today's Irish Independent. He acknowledges that Regulation 1 states that the colleges have first preference on players (in line with other provinces) but goes on to say that he can't enforce this rule (the opposite to other provinces) cos that would be telling players who they can and cant play for. Then why have rules and regulations at all if they can't be enforced?

So players will play with universities over counties? I forgot Queens were now in the race for Sam

What planet do you live on?

At this time of year their main focus will be Sigerson cup. Who said anything about Sam having anything to do with it? The players are made choose between college or county but really it's not a choice at all. If they choose college then at best they will be in the cold for the season and at worst they may not get another chance at a county career.

If you're a young player on a county panel and not established you need to give your county priority if you've any designs on being a county player. You could spend 3 months playing for your college right up to the sigerson final and miss half the NFL at least.

The universities pay these guys scholarships and want first call on them. As I said the refusal of the universities to even bend their necks to consider playing the sigerson re-xmas says a lot of them in my view.

Yes and in this way the county managers have preyed on the insecurities of young unestablished college players because they know that they will not do anything to harm their long term county career. The players themselves will likely not care one jot about the McKenna cup itself, only whether it will harm their prospects of figuring come championship time.

In theory the pre Xmas Sigerson date sounds great, but the practicalities of running off this competition in such a short time period is unlikely. The players are treated as pawns in this whole charade and its time the governing bodies got off their hands and make decisions rather than let the tail wag the dog.

Anyway we can go round in circles, some take the view that the county managers should control players decisions, others side with a more player orientated approach. Well just have to agree to disagree.

[INDIANA]

A truly pathetic response by Danny Murphy in today's Irish Independent. He acknowledges that Regulation 1 states that the colleges have first preference on players (in line with other provinces) but goes on to say that he can't enforce this rule (the opposite to other provinces) cos that would be telling players who they can and cant play for. Then why have rules and regulations at all if they can't be enforced?

So players will play with universities over counties? I forgot Queens were now in the race for Sam

What planet do you live on?

At this time of year their main focus will be Sigerson cup. Who said anything about Sam having anything to do with it? The players are made choose between college or county but really it's not a choice at all. If they choose college then at best they will be in the cold for the season and at worst they may not get another chance at a county career.

If you're a young player on a county panel and not established you need to give your county priority if you've any designs on being a county player. You could spend 3 months playing for your college right up to the sigerson final and miss half the NFL at least.

The universities pay these guys scholarships and want first call on them. As I said the refusal of the universities to even bend their necks to consider playing the sigerson re-xmas says a lot of them in my view.

Yes and in this way the county managers have preyed on the insecurities of young unestablished college players because they know that they will not do anything to harm their long term county career. The players themselves will likely not care one jot about the McKenna cup itself, only whether it will harm their prospects of figuring come championship time.

In theory the pre Xmas Sigerson date sounds great, but the practicalities of running off this competition in such a short time period is unlikely. The players are treated as pawns in this whole charade and its time the governing bodies got off their hands and make decisions rather than let the tail wag the dog.

Anyway we can go round in circles, some take the view that the county managers should control players decisions, others side with a more player orientated approach. Well just have to agree to disagree.

What that Danny Murphy can actually tell me to play for my university over my county. Thats exactly the tail waggng the dog!

[yellowcard]

A truly pathetic response by Danny Murphy in today's Irish Independent. He acknowledges that Regulation 1 states that the colleges have first preference on players (in line with other provinces) but goes on to say that he can't enforce this rule (the opposite to other provinces) cos that would be telling players who they can and cant play for. Then why have rules and regulations at all if they can't be enforced?

So players will play with universities over counties? I forgot Queens were now in the race for Sam

What planet do you live on?

At this time of year their main focus will be Sigerson cup. Who said anything about Sam having anything to do with it? The players are made choose between college or county but really it's not a choice at all. If they choose college then at best they will be in the cold for the season and at worst they may not get another chance at a county career.

If you're a young player on a county panel and not established you need to give your county priority if you've any designs on being a county player. You could spend 3 months playing for your college right up to the sigerson final and miss half the NFL at least.

The universities pay these guys scholarships and want first call on them. As I said the refusal of the universities to even bend their necks to consider playing the sigerson re-xmas says a lot of them in my view.

Yes and in this way the county managers have preyed on the insecurities of young unestablished college players because they know that they will not do anything to harm their long term county career. The players themselves will likely not care one jot about the McKenna cup itself, only whether it will harm their prospects of figuring come championship time.

In theory the pre Xmas Sigerson date sounds great, but the practicalities of running off this competition in such a short time period is unlikely. The players are treated as pawns in this whole charade and its time the governing bodies got off their hands and make decisions rather than let the tail wag the dog.

Anyway we can go round in circles, some take the view that the county managers should control players decisions, others side with a more player orientated approach. Well just have to agree to disagree.

What that Danny Murphy can actually tell me to play for my university over my county. Thats exactly the tail waggng the dog!

Emm no, that the county managers can dictate to choose to select college players and then the Ulster council are left powerless because they state that its the players choice when everyone knows that's a load of bull.

[Syferus]

Trying to colour this as 'player focused' or 'letting managers control players' is one of the most passive aggressive things I've read on this site, and that's saying something.

Some of you love the universities but please don't colour them as something they're not - I know for our players (a lot of whom are DCU players, easily the best college in the country right now) the FBD or O'Bryne for colleges is definitely below the Hasting Cup on their scale of importance as it's the u21 county team's only shot at competitive fixtures before a knock-out championship begins.

Colleges aren't half as important to players as some here would like to think but they are most certainly not worthless and the Sigerson Cup genuinely means something to them. It's just a fact that a situation where colleges tie up players mostly already also training with the u21's from playing with the seniors in their only chance to get a game-time clue before the league is untenable as it currently stands.

You can bemoan a nebulous collection of officials or Mickey Harte if you want but you need to be offering solutions because without change the likely end-game will be the removal, via apathy or by force, of colleges from the pre-season tournaments.

[Wildweasel74]

The reality is the McKenna cuo looked like it could fold before the uni teams entered, how many of Tyrones fringe players played in the McKenna cup seen action against Donegal later in the summer?there was a novelty watching Derry players playing against Derry lads on the queens panel, if  a county need their uni players for what is a really a warm up the league, then they really don't have that much cover or talent within the county

[INDIANA]

The reality is the McKenna cuo looked like it could fold before the uni teams entered, how many of Tyrones fringe players played in the McKenna cup seen action against Donegal later in the summer?there was a novelty watching Derry players playing against Derry lads on the queens panel, if  a county need their uni players for what is a really a warm up the league, then they really don't have that much cover or talent within the county

can you not see the managers point though? What is the point in them using numbers 30-50 when come summer they'll be nowhere anyway. Especially when 1-30 are playing with their university.

Then you may as well get the counties to drop out and let the universities take over the competition. Its either a county competition or a college competition.

At the moment its neither. And that's the problem.

[Wildweasel74]

Tyrone had the full pick last year, didn't do them any good, come crunch time Mickey reverted to most of the old hands, surely picking non univ guys (not ever body goes on to 3rd level education) is a bigger benefit and sent a selector to watch the Queens, ST Marys etc, This is a bigger trawl of players and may unearth a player previously looked over or unheralded

[Saffrongael]

It's an over hyped pre season competition lads, relax.

[Redhand Santa]

Tyrone had the full pick last year, didn't do them any good, come crunch time Mickey reverted to most of the old hands, surely picking non univ guys (not ever body goes on to 3rd level education) is a bigger benefit and sent a selector to watch the Queens, ST Marys etc, This is a bigger trawl of players and may unearth a player previously looked over or unheralded

.    People seem to make stuff up on this thread to suit themselves. Mickey did not revert to the old hands come championship. Against Kerry he started McNamee at half back and he'd never played before. McCurry started corner forward making his first start. Clarke at 20 played full back. Also the likes of Mattie Donnelly was brought in during the championship. Aidan McCrory nailed his place during McKenna Cup and never looked back.

[T Fearon]

In the new book on Higher Education GAA,The Cups that Cheered,there's a photo of St Joseph's Teacher Training College Belfast prior to the 1975 Mc Kenna Cup Final,containing a certain Mickey Harte.Seems like in his own playing days,Mickey was quite content to play for his college in the Mc Kenna Cup and not his County.

[Syferus]

Is there an echo in here? T boy, if you want to be a proper troll you'll need to be more inventive than 'copy & paste'. Sadly the comment didn't elicited the rise you hoped for the first time, eh?

[screenexile]

Mickey Harte talks some absolute shite!!

"the fact that Tyrone declared a strong desire to win every competition they entered is recognised by many as the catalyst which sparked a new interest on the competition"

More proof that football was indeed invented in 2003!