Down Club Hurling & Football

[dodgy umpire]

The lower sections of Minor football has been dying on its knees in East Down these past few years. I think until 13-a-side is introduced or more amalgamations take place at minor level the same trend is going to happen year after year.

very worrying development, something urgent needs to be done to revive the under age teams here. it must be a case of players opting to play other sports?

[mournerambler]

The lower sections of Minor football has been dying on its knees in East Down these past few years. I think until 13-a-side is introduced or more amalgamations take place at minor level the same trend is going to happen year after year.

very worrying development, something urgent needs to be done to revive the under age teams here. it must be a case of players opting to play other sports?

I would say that the sooner the Divisional boards are done away with & we have all county leagues the better our juvenile leagues will become, this may not be to the liking of a lot of the muppets/hangers on that exist on both South & East Down boards but it can only help the mess our juvenile leagues are in at the moment.

[Rois]

  Are you thinking of jumping from the (sinking) Good Ship Tyrone?

Just wanted to see what the story was, and sounds like a good plan with the diff membership levels. I'd imagine you'd get a good few on the tenner option.

Club Tyrone's not quite dead yet.  I hope it's a successful venture for Down. It's not like we're competing for the same people's money.

[Lecale2]

Hurling legue results:

Div 1
Ballycran 4-9 2-8 Bredagh
Warrenpoint lost by 30 at home to Liatroim

Div 2
Ballygalget 3-13 0-3 Warrenpoint

Any others?

[No1]

Kilclief Beat Ballygalget II's by a goal and a lock of points.

[johnneycool]

Kilclief Beat Ballygalget II's by a goal and a lock of points.

2-11 to 1-7 by my sources No1.

Glad to see growler is working his magic on your lads 

[No1]

  Aye, next stop Senior Championship 

  I only saw about half an hour last night and in fairness he seems to have got a few of our better hurlers back playing which is no mean feat!

[Lecale2]

That's a good win for Kilclief. Ballygalget looked good v our lot on Sunday.

[wobbller]

The lower sections of Minor football has been dying on its knees in East Down these past few years. I think until 13-a-side is introduced or more amalgamations take place at minor level the same trend is going to happen year after year.

very worrying development, something urgent needs to be done to revive the under age teams here. it must be a case of players opting to play other sports?

In our Club it's soccer and that great game of chasing--women.

[gerdy]

kilclief and bright amalgamated for the minors this year. even rgu had to join up with ardglass for the u21s this year. i was surprised 2 hear that saul pulled out. def does not bode well 4 them 4 the future.

[DownFanatic]

Ive said it numerous times before but I think it is now time for the East and South Down Divisional Boards to merge and operate under the one entity.

Apart from a few logistical reasons, i.e - travelling expenses for long journeys, I can see no real strong reasons for objecting to such a venture.

The biggest travesty has been the fact that the Bord na Og All County Leagues have been scrapped this year. Over the past few years there has seemed to be a reluctance by South Down teams to participate in them. This has been far from ideal.

In Tyrone they have got it spot on in my opinion. Underage competitions are run on all county basis and this allows for 3 or 4 grades of competition in each age group.

At underage level in Down at the moment from U-12 to U-16, there are only four occasions during the season when a South Down and East Down team get to face each other. These are the U-14 A and B Championship Finals and the U-16 A and B Championship Finals.

Now there are many examples in the past but I just want to illustrate one current one. The current Carryduff U-14 team is probably the best underage age team I have ever witnessed in action in East Down. More than likely they will win the East Down Championship this year and at the same time canter through their League. Their only game against South Down opposition will come in the County U-14 A Championship Final. Similarly in two years time if this group of players completes the same feats in East Down then they will once again get the chance to face South Down opposition in All County Final. That will be only two occasions that that team will get to face South Down opponents in the space of two years. Not good enough.

There have been occasions in the past where an underage team has come right through from U-12 to Minors from East Down and has never once faced a competitive game against a South Down side.

We need our best underage teams in Down facing off against each other in a well structured weekly All County programme. By limiting ourselves to geographical areas for the makeup of our Leagues, we are running the risk of creating un-balanced sections which in turn can allow for one or two teams to dominate therefore reducing the chance for competitive fixtures each week.

[T O Hare]

Bord nanog has been a farce for a number of years... The South Down leagues are well organised and games are played on a regular basis... the level of football is better and is played on a much fairer scale!!!!

[Square Ball]

great post DF and I agree with a lot of what you say, this year at u16, and I think its the same at u14 but dont quote me on it, its the top two or three in the South and East Down leagues who will play off in a league basis, at least the top teams will get to play a few games against eachother.

I would say that the best u14 team I have witnessed has to be the Kilcoo one that is now broken up between minor and second year u16s, and I have seen both at close quarters

[gerdy]

the south down clubs prob wudnt want the hassle of playing east down clubs at the moment. if their leagues are competitive at the moment why wud they want to face poor quality sides who are struggling to field. Ardglass have played 2 games at minor this year and the oppsition have about 5 scores between them. in hindsight we maybe should have entered the top division. the de la salle has 2 be congratulated in particular the coaching there has improved dramatically in recent years and clubs like ardglass are really seeing the benefits. i thought saul and kilclief would have seen the same results. we have at least 5 minors playing regulary for the seniors and they have preformed well so far all of them went 2 the de la salle as well.

[thewobbler]

I have to disagree with you entirely DownFanatic.

The one thing that will guarantee you juvenile footballers and mentors walking away from the game is a series of excessive away trips, especially for 7pm throw-ins on week nights. It takes the likes of our club the best part of a hour to hit half the clubs in East Down.

Why would a 14 or 16 year old from Newry, half-committed to anything and everything, go the whole way to Belfast to play GAA when all the soccer matches he wants is on his doorstep in Newry? What about when's 17 and working for a living? How many clubs really have a healthy selection at all grades to risk losing their half-committed players.

But there's worse. There's travelling for an hour to find out the ref hasn't turned up and you opponents won't play a friendly. Worse again, there's travelling an hour and finding out that your opponents have decided not to field because of a game the next night involving some of their players (this happened to our u16s last year). Did they phone ahead and let us know? Did they hell. That's when even your committed players and managers start walking away.

Let juveniles enjoy football, don't make them sick of it in an ill-advised attempt to make things more competitive for a team here or there.