Down Club Hurling & Football

[fitzroyalty]

It's the case of you having a chip on your shoulder.

[No1]

Wobbler, no harm to you but you are talking shite.  We have been lucky enough to have a successful (thus far) season in both codes and you reckon we are holding up Division 3?  The footballers had plenty of free nights in March, April, May, June and July when they could have played games.  The county board have fucked up and no-one else, they were well aware of the dates of Ulster competitions and they are well aware of the dual clubs in the county.  Every eventuality should have been planned for.

I understand you care not one jot for hurling and you are entitled to your opinion.  I am far from a hurling zealot but your hatred of the small ball game borders on the ridiculous.

As for fielding a weakened team in the football league, would Shane Mulholland do it if he was managing a team in our position?  If you have nothing to play for and you are happy enough getting beat by a cricket score then fair enough, but we have a chance of getting back to senior football and I think you are savvy enough to know what that would mean to us.

[thewobbler]

No.1 I have nothing but admiration for what Kilclief gave achieved this season. And I know all too well what senior football would mean to your club.

But surely you have to see that in giving Kilclief the chance to go fully armed to every fixture in both codes, it's actually disadvantaging every other club in your league, as everything is in limbo until you folks can concentrate on league football again.

What I'm suggesting above has nothing to do with whether or not I like hurling. What I hated most when I played ball was seasons dragging on indefinitely, and trying to avoid this situation is in everyone's interests. What Shane would do in this situation I don't know, but I do know we've played umpteen fixtures in Octobers over the past decade when it didn't suit us, and we had to put out a weakened team. The county board in those instances was unremitting, you play the fixture or you forfeit.

[No1]

It's not about giving us a chance to go into every fixture "fully armed".  The point I am making is that the county board had numerous opportunities to have Div 3 fixtures played in the spring and summer months and failed to do so.  I don't think our footballers or hurlers should be penalised at this stage for their c**k up. 

I'm nearly laughing at the thought of the county board pushing an agenda in favour of Kilclief and I can assure you that our boys are not exactly looking forward to playing league football in October and November.

I think you know rightly that anybody managing a football team in our position wouldn't countenance fielding anything other than their strongest possible 15.

[johnneycool]

Wobbller,
    The fixtures secretary and county board have every much an obligation to accommodate hurling as football, even though most of the time it doesn't seem like it. Hurling is part of your association as much as you don't like to admit it and to say that the fixtures secretary or county board would do the same for a soccer game as a hurling game is a bit galling. You like to put the two in parity, but that's not the case when you pay your subs to your club every year.
  Kilclief are doing a juggling act at the minute as I'm sure their hurlers would like to have a good crack at the Ulster championship as much as their footballers want to push on for an intermediate football championship and Div2.
  This is not something new as either last year or the year before we'd five hurling teams on hold for up to six weeks as Liatroim played out a protracted Div1 football relegation battle and wouldn't fulfill any hurling fixtures in the meantime. The county board accommodated them then, so its only right that Kilclief are accommodated now as much as it may mean the last few hurling competitions within the county are also delayed.
  It may be a new phenomenon for you footballers to be on the receiving end, but its all too common for us hurlers.

[ardtole]

No.1 I have nothing but admiration for what Kilclief gave achieved this season. And I know all too well what senior football would mean to your club.

But surely you have to see that in giving Kilclief the chance to go fully armed to every fixture in both codes, it's actually disadvantaging every other club in your league, as everything is in limbo until you folks can concentrate on league football again.

What I'm suggesting above has nothing to do with whether or not I like hurling. What I hated most when I played ball was seasons dragging on indefinitely, and trying to avoid this situation is in everyone's interests. What Shane would do in this situation I don't know, but I do know we've played umpteen fixtures in Octobers over the past decade when it didn't suit us, and we had to put out a weakened team. The county board in those instances was unremitting, you play the fixture or you forfeit.

You hit the nail on the head wobbler, you play the fixture or you forfeit. These fixtures would have all been fulfilled 6 weeks ago if they had to have been organised.  The last 5 games for all div 3 teams were never allocated a time slot at the start of the year, so trying to squeeze them in now is not Kilcliefs fault. Ardglass have 5 games to play yet and we have no hurling team. We have only had 1 game in 3 or 4 weeks. If any team from the 3rd division got to the ifc final it was going to fcuk up the league. This situation is soley the responsability of the person who was in charge of organising the fixtures for div 3 this year. Posters on here a lot longer than me highlighted the potential problems back in march, clubs in div 3 pay their fees at the start of the year and deserve to be treated a lot better than they have recently.

[duffed]

Carryduff are in the same position.  They are in the mix for play-offs in Division 3 and are in the Ulster Hurling Junior Championship. They sat for weeks with no games in football so why should they have to field a weakened team in either code.  It is sometimes hard to believe but the County Bpard cover all codes and not just football.

[forevergreen]

Lads, i think we are all missing a vital point here, the time for starting our league is far too late, most teams are starting pre season in January and dont start league games until end of march. Then we are into intercounty championship time and suddenly we have games called off, players missing and all sorts. Why the county board don't start the leagues alot earlier I don't know.

The starred game system was started to accomodate county team preparation, but now we have situations were starred games are cancelled or replaced with other fixtures and slowly the system deteriorates. Clubs have to be more honest and realistic about why they look for games to be called off or refixed, and then in turn get them played in the middle of the following week.

Similarly I am all for accomodating Hurling but surely in the case of Dual clubs, we would be better having an agreement whereby if the club has a football fixture on a friday night , they must play their Hurling fixture on a sunday or vice versa. We lose too much valuable time in the long summer evenings where games are not played. The argument might be that it disrupts training schedules to play on a sunday but a good game will work every bit as well for them dual clubs.

Cut the July break to two weeks. I remember there was always a game played on the thursday or friday of the holidays and then again on the last sunday. There are umpteen opportunities to get games played but unless we Take them, we will be playing before the christmas dinner every year.

[sabhallphadraig]

ACL4: St Pauls 0-5 Saul 7-11

One step closer. Bkinlar at home to finish and then good luck to Bredagh and Drumaness in the scramble for 2nd.

[DownFanatic]

Weekend Results

Division 1

Burren 1-14  Longstone 1-07
Bryansford 0-10  An Riocht 0-14
Saval 1-07  Kilcoo 1-11
Rostrevor v Clonduff - 5pm

Division 2

Annaclone  1-10 0-14 Loughinisland   
Drumgath  1-8 3-15 Shamrocks 
Downpatrick  1-14 2-9 Warrenpoint
Castlewellan  2-16 1-11 Clann na Banna   
Liatroim  1-13 0-13 Ballymartin 

Division 3

Glenn 1-07  Bosco 1-07
Tullylish 3-17  Dundrum 0-07
Glasdrumman 2-18  St Johns 1-10

Division 4

Bright  0-8 2-24 Drumaness   
Teconnaught  2-11 1-7 Aghaderg   
St Michaels  0-0 0-5 Dromara   
Ballykinlar  0-4 4-21 Bredagh   
St Pauls  0-6 7-10 Saul 

[No1]

Kilclief hurlers were destroyed 2-24 to 4-8.

Maybe we'll get Div 3 finished now.     

[thewobbler]

Here's hoping

Tell mr, is Down hurling not a good enough prep for Ulster, or did you meet a crack outfit?

[umpire]

Clonduff beat Rostrevor this evening.
If Clonduff, Longstone and An Riocht all win their last game, then Rostrevor will go down to Div 2 automatically

[SHEEDY]

rostrevor 1-10 clonduff 2-9

[whitegoodman]

Was just thinking that myself, any one of 4 teams could still be automatically relegated.  Clonduff will know what they have to do when they eventually come to playing Burren in the league.

Also Clonduff could be beat in a championship final and relegated by the same team.......Or win the championship and stay up against the same team.  Burren are going to define Clonduff's year.

On the game today they were 2 behind with less than 10 to go and pulled it out of the bag.  They are gathering momentum and have clearly generated a lot of spirit but its diffiicult to know whether they have enough to trouble Burrens defence or enough to stop Burrens forward line.