Down Club Hurling & Football

[thewobbler]

Regardless of the numbers in each division,there are a few  principles which must be adhered to, to ensure the success of any system.
1.closed season nov to feb.
2.rigid unchangeable fixture dates and times.
3.no more than 1 game per week-unless refixture.
4.games for all clubs most weekends in sept/oct.
5.clubs must accept that leagues must proceed regardless of county committments(magniers league).Promotion/relegation should reward/punish on the basis of a team's level of performance over a season.With promotion automatic if say 80% of maximum pts achieved,and relegation automatic if 20% not achieved.
6.extended championship series,including B championship for 1st round losers.With championship status independent of league status (heinikin cup)
7.acceptance that when nights are darker,saturday games are unavoidable given the likelihood of other GAA games on Sundays in sept/oct.
8.county player welfare and county success benefits us all
9.reduction in home games and thereby gate receipts and publicity is unlikely to be favoured by any club.
10.current 4 round div 4 must be changed,it must be demoralising to those teams involved and will be further undermined if other clubs go down the road of annsboro and killyleagh.

I wouldn't go along with much of this.

2. Rigid unchangeable fixture dates and times.
This just isn't a nice suggestion. Club footballers, especially those at the higher end of things, give a huge amount of the best years of their life in service of their club. Most of them will, during that time, pick up a wee lady and get married. If his bride is anything like most brides, she'll want a summer wedding, preferably on a Friday. Having spent so many years training with a group of fellas, it's only natural that they'll be invited to the party. Forcing clubs to fulfil fixtures in these situations is horrible and unnecessary. It goes against the ethos of the organisation.

Secondly, it is almost inconceivable that over the course of a season at least one set of fixtures will not be wiped out to due to bad weather, county commitments or club championship commitments, replays etc, or deaths of important Gaels.

3. No more than 1 game a week.
I believe this is the path Sean Rooney tried to take this season, and as a result, we'll be playing games til December. During late April and May, when the evenings are long enough and the pitches are firm enough, playing one week with 2 games and one week with one game would be perfectly acceptable to most players - and would alleviate so much fixture deadlock.

4. games for all clubs most weekends in September.
This will never happen when the Down championship is compressed. It's isn't feasible. Personally I prefer the compressed format, although I can see purpose in arguments against it. Either way you'll have begrudgers.

5. clubs must accept that leagues must proceed regardless of county committments
Every club I know of accepts the starred system is necessary evil. It's a superb system, don't f**k with it.

6. extended championship series,including B championship for 1st round losers.With championship status independent of league status.
Disagree with this entirely and completely. Nobody, anywhere, wants to play in a B Championship. all this would do is block off weekends that could be used for league football.
The second point  I disagree with more. In Down, you work your way into Senior football, and your team is responsible for keeping that status. It isn't decided by back-patting in a boardroom. It isn't decided by out of touch committee members.
Am I wrong? Well, tell me how many teams from outside Division I have had an SFC run in the past 20 years. One, maybe two? League football is the single strongest indicator of how good your team is and where it belongs.

10. current 4 round div 4 must be changed,it must be demoralising to those teams involved and will be further undermined if other clubs go down the road of annsboro and killyleagh.
I have no problem with Division IV being revamped, but not for the reasons you suggest. Division IV is the bottom of the pile. Pretending it is otherwise is just a pile of liberal nonsense. Teams aren't equal in this world, and clubs aren't equal in this world. If teams want to be treated more "equally", they should knuckle down on the training ground and force their way up the divisions.


 

[Lecale2]

Aughlisnafin, Ballykinlar & Killyleagh should play in East Down league.

Why?  They have as much right to ACFL status as any other club...Don't so condescending ..

That was a perfectly reasonable suggestion. Nothing condescending about it.

Aughlisnafin have won 1 game in the 4-5 years they've been back in football. Killyleagh dropped out this year because they were getting hammered week in and week out. Ballykinlar have a great tradition but they are a long way below the standards set by St John's, Aghaderg etc in Div 4.

Playing in East Down would give these clubs regular football at their own standard. When they improve they can move up. Pretending they are up to Div 4 standard at the minute is ignoring the blindingly obvious.
The suggestion is practical rather than condescending and may encourage Killyleagh back at adult level.

[the derg]

aghaderg beat bright handy enough  meaning we are level on points with dromara with a game in hand against ballykinlar so hopefully we will be promoted along with st johns this sunday

[bridgegael]

playing 2 games a week during the summer is the way to go,  if that was done this year the laegues would prob be over by now.

[goldenyears]

burren beat castlewellan 1.14 - 1.04 last night

fixture with Ballyholland organised for Monday night under lights

[spiritof91and94]

Aughlisnafin, Ballykinlar & Killyleagh should play in East Down league.

Why?  They have as much right to ACFL status as any other club...Don't so condescending ..

That was a perfectly reasonable suggestion. Nothing condescending about it.

Aughlisnafin have won 1 game in the 4-5 years they've been back in football. Killyleagh dropped out this year because they were getting hammered week in and week out. Ballykinlar have a great tradition but they are a long way below the standards set by St John's, Aghaderg etc in Div 4.

Playing in East Down would give these clubs regular football at their own standard. When they improve they can move up. Pretending they are up to Div 4 standard at the minute is ignoring the blindingly obvious.
The suggestion is practical rather than condescending and may encourage Killyleagh back at adult level.

Ballykinlar and Dundrum should merge together - they are the same Parish afterall - what I seen last saturday in Newcastle is a cry for help from Dundrum - 6.18 - 0.07, the worst ever seen.
Will McComiskey want to hang around this type of football much longer?
I know I will get slated for this but it is a reasonable suggestion.

[off the laces]

playing 2 games a week during the summer is the way to go,  if that was done this year the laegues would prob be over by now.

Bridgegael 2 games a week, lets remember we are amatuers here (managers from poofball cry out if their players have to play 2-3 games in 10 days when they are being paid for it and training full time) we are hearing about player burnout all the time and you want us to play 2 games a week, what about the people who have to go further afield to find work and are more than happy to leave work early on a friday to get to Dunavil/Warrenpoint or Maheralin on a match night to pull on their club colours, do we just ask them to play in the reserves?
Please think about points before you put them to print Gael.

[bridgegael]

last year or the year before the games were played on a friday and tuesday night,   i'm sure club footballers in down could manage to play 2 games in a week,  hardly getting slaughtered now!

[johnneycool]

Hurling final on Sunday, Portaferry v Ballygalget. Should be a good game.
There's little between the 2 team. Ballygalget beat them in the league a few weeks ago and in the SHC last year but I would still make Portaferry slight favorites. They had a tough semi final with Ballycran whereas the Galgets had a virtual walk over v South Down. Paul Braniff is back and when he plays well so does Portaferry. No quarter will be given or expected in Ballycran and I expect Portaferry to win by 3pts.

Without Magic Portaferry will eat them. If they can stay injury free they might even give Ulster a rattle (for once!).

I don't see us being 'eaten' by Portaferry and if Hugh clamps down on Dules diving big Aaron can keep him quiet enough in the closer confines of Ballycran provided the Ports don't try and suck our two corner backs up the field and they follow them. Wee Liam should be left in to cover around the house. The Ports don't have a whole lot left in the scoring stakes and I'd be more worried about Andy and Cougie in midfield than any of their other scoring threat. A lot will depend on how Gabriel Clarke gets on with BA. If Gabs gets a good start he usually has a stormer, but if BA gets on top Gabs falls away badly as he's no plan B after the tippy tappy stuff fails.
As I've said before we'll need at least parity in midfield to give the forwards enough ball to win the game, something Ballycran managed in spurts by fast early ground hurling to by pass the Ports half back line and trouble a dodgy Portaferry fullbackline. Our half forwards are the line we need to see most improvement out of as Gary Flynn and Stevie Clarke can become non-entities in the game far too easy. They need to start winning their own ball and taking scores now that Magic is gone. I think the ports have a decision to make in who picks up Dingy, as young O'Prey may be a bit green for his wiles. Historically Zelda has done well on Dingy but he's not the same hurler now that he was and may be the man to lose out for Murph's return. I'd expect Paddy Rat to get the nod ahead of Jonny Boon as we need to try exploit any lack of pace in the ports defence but he'll need to be a bit braver than normal.

The Ports will be favourites but I don't see them as world beaters unlike Deccy Bacon and our lads would need to step it up a gear but its not beyond them plus they'll be well reminded of their limp perfomance last year against Ballycran so giving up is not an option.

Good analsys JC. I'd make a couple of comments. Portaferry showed a fair degree of mental strenght against us in the semi. I hear what you're saying but I think they are over that issue now. In previous years they would have crumbled when we had them on the rack but this year they didn't.

I agree with you and Bacon on the lack of strenght in dept and for that reason neither will trouble Ruiri Ogs or Kevin Lynch's. I'm looking forward to a great game and I'd expect Ports to win by 2 but I certainly wouldn't recommend putting any money on it. Is Fox offering odds?

I wasn't surprised by the fact that we won but no one expected the manner of the victory with the 10 point margin being about right.
In a way it was the reverse of our performance last year with the right attitude being shown from the start. If you're attacking the ball you're more inclined to get the bounce and our lads were hungrier to the break and won most throughout the hour.
With Magic gone we had to be smarter with the ball into the forwards and the number of high hopefull balls into the forwards were few and far between. The ball was put into the spaces where both dingy and Stevie Clarke had the run on their respective markers for most of the game and they certainly made hay, Stevie in particular. The Ports were badly weakened by the absence of Murph who still hadn't recovered from his hand injury and poor Zelda got the runaround. I was surprised that Marty didn't at least try to change something in there by maybe throwing in a few of their decent minors who could at least keep up with the pace of the game.
I'm not sure who won the toss, but we started playing down the hill with the stiff enough breeze and that normally means you need a good start and a sizeable lead at half time. The Ports via Dule got the first score on the board but then our forwards started getting the better of their opponets with Stevie Clarke rounding Zelda with ease to give Dinger a handpass for the first goal. He was a bit heavy on the steps before he got his shot away, i'd him on his sixth when he finally hit the ball but some felt he'd even taken more than that. That score settled our lads down but we were giving frees away at the other end to keep the Ports in the game, over zealousness on a few lads part, going in at half time there was still only 5 points in it.
After half time we got the first few scores and you could visibly see the heads go down on a few of the ports players. Dule wasn't getting any change out of big Aaron especially with perma-tan Gabriel staying deep in front of them, BA who strangely started in the corner again wasn't getting any joy out of Stevie Johnston who was happy to wrestle with him and let his colleagues pick up the pieces. With those two ineffectaul Portaferry had nothing left to offer and we pegged on another goal and few points to pull away. Dule rattled over three frees near the end to take the bad look of it but the war was over long before the final whistle. The lack of mental fortitude in the Ports is still very prevalent fi you ask me and their one dimensional attack plan of getting the ball to Dule every time made it easy for us to nullify him. They only managed 3 points from play over the whole game and Graham only had to come out for one catch the whole game, with no real shots at him speaks volumes.

Certainly a much better team performance from our lads but god knows what team will turn up on sunday against Keady. It could be the laboured, scrappy, disjointed one I've watched for most of the year or it might be the one who played some good spells of hurling on sunday, who knows!

[Lecale2]

last year or the year before the games were played on a friday and tuesday night,   i'm sure club footballers in down could manage to play 2 games in a week,  hardly getting slaughtered now!

Hurling is played on Tuesday nights.

Sounds like a straightforward win Johnnycool. A big turn around from last year. How did the younger lads do on both sides?

[dundrumite]

Aughlisnafin, Ballykinlar & Killyleagh should play in East Down league.

Why?  They have as much right to ACFL status as any other club...Don't so condescending ..

That was a perfectly reasonable suggestion. Nothing condescending about it.

Aughlisnafin have won 1 game in the 4-5 years they've been back in football. Killyleagh dropped out this year because they were getting hammered week in and week out. Ballykinlar have a great tradition but they are a long way below the standards set by St John's, Aghaderg etc in Div 4.

Playing in East Down would give these clubs regular football at their own standard. When they improve they can move up. Pretending they are up to Div 4 standard at the minute is ignoring the blindingly obvious.
The suggestion is practical rather than condescending and may encourage Killyleagh back at adult level.

Ballykinlar and Dundrum should merge together - they are the same Parish afterall - what I seen last saturday in Newcastle is a cry for help from Dundrum - 6.18 - 0.07, the worst ever seen.
Will McComiskey want to hang around this type of football much longer?
I know I will get slated for this but it is a reasonable suggestion.

What is the suggestion Spirit that Mc Comiskey wont hang around much longer or we should amalgmate or both??? Cant argue with you about us last Saturday though there are lots of factors contributing that. In short we did perform quite well last year and played fairly well and if we had of brought it up a notch this year I believe would of held our own with quite a few of the teams, though thats all ifs and buts. To say we should amalgmate in theory may seem like a good solution to me its an insult. Maybe down the line you may be proven to be correct but we did win division 3 last year so its not like we have gone to being the whipping boys of Down football.

[6th sam]

Aughlisnafin, Ballykinlar & Killyleagh should play in East Down league.

Why?  They have as much right to ACFL status as any other club...Don't so condescending ..

That was a perfectly reasonable suggestion. Nothing condescending about it.

Aughlisnafin have won 1 game in the 4-5 years they've been back in football. Killyleagh dropped out this year because they were getting hammered week in and week out. Ballykinlar have a great tradition but they are a long way below the standards set by St John's, Aghaderg etc in Div 4.

Playing in East Down would give these clubs regular football at their own standard. When they improve they can move up. Pretending they are up to Div 4 standard at the minute is ignoring the blindingly obvious.
The suggestion is practical rather than condescending and may encourage Killyleagh back at adult level.

Rather than dismiss this completely-remember Dromara coming from the EDRFL to div 4,3,2 and IFC victory.
The proviso being that these clubs can reapply to join div 4 when they feel ready ,as opposed to having to secure promotion.This would undoubtedly improve the standard of EDRFL,with a spin off for a number of local clubs reserve outfits.Unless ballyk and fin are given the opportunity to win matches it would be hard to see them survive.
Is there any word on possible amalgamation of ballyk and dundrum at all levels?DF any thoughts?

[6th sam]

last year or the year before the games were played on a friday and tuesday night,   i'm sure club footballers in down could manage to play 2 games in a week,  hardly getting slaughtered now!

You have got to think of all clubs bridgegael----players can get back to mayobridge from Dublin or belfast in time for matches,but try getting back to ardglass or kilclief.

An occasional pre-planned extra fixture would be ok but 4 matches in 10 days is too much.

[spiritof91and94]

Aughlisnafin, Ballykinlar & Killyleagh should play in East Down league.

Why?  They have as much right to ACFL status as any other club...Don't so condescending ..

That was a perfectly reasonable suggestion. Nothing condescending about it.

Aughlisnafin have won 1 game in the 4-5 years they've been back in football. Killyleagh dropped out this year because they were getting hammered week in and week out. Ballykinlar have a great tradition but they are a long way below the standards set by St John's, Aghaderg etc in Div 4.

Playing in East Down would give these clubs regular football at their own standard. When they improve they can move up. Pretending they are up to Div 4 standard at the minute is ignoring the blindingly obvious.
The suggestion is practical rather than condescending and may encourage Killyleagh back at adult level.

Ballykinlar and Dundrum should merge together - they are the same Parish afterall - what I seen last saturday in Newcastle is a cry for help from Dundrum - 6.18 - 0.07, the worst ever seen.
Will McComiskey want to hang around this type of football much longer?
I know I will get slated for this but it is a reasonable suggestion.

What is the suggestion Spirit that Mc Comiskey wont hang around much longer or we should amalgmate or both??? Cant argue with you about us last Saturday though there are lots of factors contributing that. In short we did perform quite well last year and played fairly well and if we had of brought it up a notch this year I believe would of held our own with quite a few of the teams, though thats all ifs and buts. To say we should amalgmate in theory may seem like a good solution to me its an insult. Maybe down the line you may be proven to be correct but we did win division 3 last year so its not like we have gone to being the whipping boys of Down football.

The suggestion is your future looks bleak given what was on show last week - and i personally dont think McComiskey will hang around too long. If your clubs harbours any ambition amalgamation is the only way forward. Not being able to field one week and getting slaughtered the next is not the way to go.

[dundrumite]

Aughlisnafin, Ballykinlar & Killyleagh should play in East Down league.

Why?  They have as much right to ACFL status as any other club...Don't so condescending ..

That was a perfectly reasonable suggestion. Nothing condescending about it.

Aughlisnafin have won 1 game in the 4-5 years they've been back in football. Killyleagh dropped out this year because they were getting hammered week in and week out. Ballykinlar have a great tradition but they are a long way below the standards set by St John's, Aghaderg etc in Div 4.

Playing in East Down would give these clubs regular football at their own standard. When they improve they can move up. Pretending they are up to Div 4 standard at the minute is ignoring the blindingly obvious.
The suggestion is practical rather than condescending and may encourage Killyleagh back at adult level.

Ballykinlar and Dundrum should merge together - they are the same Parish afterall - what I seen last saturday in Newcastle is a cry for help from Dundrum - 6.18 - 0.07, the worst ever seen.
Will McComiskey want to hang around this type of football much longer?
I know I will get slated for this but it is a reasonable suggestion.

What is the suggestion Spirit that Mc Comiskey wont hang around much longer or we should amalgmate or both??? Cant argue with you about us last Saturday though there are lots of factors contributing that. In short we did perform quite well last year and played fairly well and if we had of brought it up a notch this year I believe would of held our own with quite a few of the teams, though thats all ifs and buts. To say we should amalgmate in theory may seem like a good solution to me its an insult. Maybe down the line you may be proven to be correct but we did win division 3 last year so its not like we have gone to being the whipping boys of Down football.

The suggestion is your future looks bleak given what was on show last week - and i personally dont think McComiskey will hang around too long. If your clubs harbours any ambition amalgamation is the only way forward. Not being able to field one week and getting slaughtered the next is not the way to go.

I would of said our future looked strong based on some of the performances last year by a young team, however, clubs levels of performance vary from year to year. Who in Banbridge, Bryansford or even Down for that matter could of imagined within 4 years Clann Na Banna would go from getting beaten by Glenn in a junior final to beating Bryansford in a league game. You must know Paul personally very well to come out with such a statement?