Down Club Hurling & Football

[PAULD123]

Delighted to see there are five Down players starting for Qieen's today. On a personal note it's nice to see two Warrenpoint players there. Maginn, Shay McCardle, Mallon will all be an important part of our league squad, and Ciaran McCartan can't be too far away.

[The Raven]

With the Down hurling Board not long scrapped, I hear they have gone one step further and done away with the Down Hurling leagues.  A complete disgrace.  A 7 hour round trip on a Saturday evening for a hurling league game in Donegal is going to do wonders for the club game outside the Ards.  Development my hole.  Anyone an idea if the clubs agreed to this at convention or county board meetings?

Seems to be  very little thought has gone into this proposal. Surely we have have enough teams  of an equal standard to maintain a league of our own, take last years junior championship as an example. At least jf this Ulster league was more regional based ie Down/Armagh clubs it might have a chance. But in reality teams that could only field 13 players last year are going to have big problems.

[Lecale2]

There's a meeting been called of the hurling clubs for Tuesday to try and sort all this out.

[ApresMatch]

Whats Queens team today? Down men?

[Mourne Rover]

FT from Kingscourt is Cavan 1-9 Down 0-5. It sounds like a pretty ordinary performance and we only got one point from an injury time free during the final 30-odd minutes. Our scoring difference has also taken a hit, so we will need a convincing win against Antrim on Wednesday to qualify as the best runner up.  Darragh O'Hanlon got a black card for the second game in a row, but, on the more positive side, Benny got a late run out from the bench.

[snoopdog]

poor showing in Kingscourt. Cavan 1.09  Down 0.05 .
Be interesting to see the reports from anyone that was at it.
If your gonna play defenders in the forward line as was posted above then you get what you deserve.

[The Raven]

There's a meeting been called of the hurling clubs for Tuesday to try and sort all this out.

Is this an open meeting or is it just for county board reps. As usual not a word about these proposals on the county website. So much for communication

[Gabriel]

What a miserable performance by Down in Cavan. Two teams determined to suck the life out of each other by playing dour, negative football, but Down just aren't that good at it. They lacked any quality whatsoever, cleaned out in midfield and carried the ball continually into rucks of Cavan players. Seemed to alternate between over-elaborating around the middle of the park and hoofing hopeful ball in on top of Madine and McCartan, neither of whom made an impact on the game, both substituted. The second half in particular was desperately poor from Down. I think they only managed to score 0-2 from play over the whole game, a woeful return. Darragh O'Hanlon, Peter Turley and probably Brendan McArdle and Aidan Carr are the only Down players to emerge with any credit whatsoever. Can only hope that some of the bigger names will be ready for the league.

Also must be said that Cavan will probably do alright this year, but Jesus they are horrible to watch. A hyper-defensive team that make Donegal look like Brazil. Worryingly, they outclassed Down in the second half particularly and look a far fitter and better-organised team than us. When we try to match that type of football by replicating it, we are liable to produce some really awful stuff, barely able to score from play and posing no attacking threat.

[NP 76]

Absolutely pathetic performance from Down today. The only players who I think could take any credit from that performance was o hagan possibly benny mc Ardle and o Hanlon who got a stupid black card. They were the only players who tried to push forward whereas the rest of them had nothing in their head only going back or across the field. I know it's early days but some of the mistakes from experienced players was nothing short of woeful. Lets hope some of the lads who have to come back into the team give them some drive

[Aristo 60]

FT from Kingscourt is Cavan 1-9 Down 0-5. It sounds like a pretty ordinary performance and we only got one point from an injury time free during the final 30-odd minutes. Our scoring difference has also taken a hit, so we will need a convincing win against Antrim on Wednesday to qualify as the best runner up.  Darragh O'Hanlon got a black card for the second game in a row, but, on the more positive side, Benny got a late run out from the bench.

Wretched performance & match generally. It was thrills and spills without the thrills. Apart from a spell towards the end of first half we never looked like getting on top. I saw somewhere we missed ten dead balls so on another day with O'hare on we might have got something from it.

I saw no positive side of Benny's run out. I've been his biggest fan over the years but it's sad we're still springing him and doyle from the bench.

The future is younger than benny and liam unfortunately.

[johnneycool]

With the Down hurling Board not long scrapped, I hear they have gone one step further and done away with the Down Hurling leagues.  A complete disgrace.  A 7 hour round trip on a Saturday evening for a hurling league game in Donegal is going to do wonders for the club game outside the Ards.  Development my hole.  Anyone an idea if the clubs agreed to this at convention or county board meetings?

Seems to be  very little thought has gone into this proposal. Surely we have have enough teams  of an equal standard to maintain a league of our own, take last years junior championship as an example. At least jf this Ulster league was more regional based ie Down/Armagh clubs it might have a chance. But in reality teams that could only field 13 players last year are going to have big problems.

I was surprised by the CCC in Downs decision to cancel its own leagues and throw all their eggs in the one basket of the Ulster hurling league which up until now was a good enough way of getting early season games under your belt..
There doesn't seem to have been any consultation with the clubs affected and IMO the Ards clubs are affected in a bad way as we've another swarth of young lads coming out of U-16 who won't get an awful lot of hurling, a few minor league games early on, nothing for months and then into a knockout championship in late July, early August.
We'd historically have thrown them into the seconds and thirds on a Monday night so at least they we're getting some hurling.
The reserve league in Antrim is a good standard, higher that Div1 in Down, but with senior games regularly pushed out to a Wednesday night, a lot of them don't take place as the North Antrim teams have plenty of games either in the NA leagues, feis' etc, etc. so they may only get another 9 or 10 games there!!

The traveling involved in this Ulster league is crazy and TBH I can't see any more than 50% of the fixtures being fulfilled..

[Mourne Rover]

Benny still has a role to play for Down, although it may involve coming off the bench. With Danny Hughes uncertain about his availability, the idea that we will have 12 better forwards than Benny when we name our championship squad takes a little believing. He clearly does not have the pace he did when he won his All Star, but he remains our most natural goal scorer and he deserves to be involved.

Liam Doyle is a different case, as he has made a huge effort to come back after a series of injuries. He was getting close in 2012 but had another setback last year and is probably going for a last roll of the dice. He is worth a run in the McKenna Cup, and at the very least it is doubtful if we have a better left-footed free taker.

The league will give us a chance to look at the players who have been away with their universities, although the performance against Cavan on Sunday did not suggest that some of the other new faces are ready to step up to the mark.

[thewobbler]

Serious question for those from a hurling background.

Do you believe that changes to the way hurling is administered in the county is undertaken by the County Board:

a) as a result of the influence and direction of the prominent hurling clubs and reps, or
b) as the result of decisions by a bunch of clueless fools in a dark room, who wouldn't know one end of hurling stick from the other, yet refuse to ask for advice, or
c) as a deep-lying ploy by a sinister group of football-loving reprobates, whose endgame is redrawing of county lines to send the peninsula over to Antrim, and terminating any hurling in "real" County Down.

If you think there's a d), let me know.

I'm genuinely interested in the results here.

[johnneycool]

Serious question for those from a hurling background.

Do you believe that changes to the way hurling is administered in the county is undertaken by the County Board:

a) as a result of the influence and direction of the prominent hurling clubs and reps, or
b) as the result of decisions by a bunch of clueless fools in a dark room, who wouldn't know one end of hurling stick from the other, yet refuse to ask for advice, or
c) as a deep-lying ploy by a sinister group of football-loving reprobates, whose endgame is redrawing of county lines to send the peninsula over to Antrim, and terminating any hurling in "real" County Down.

If you think there's a d), let me know.

I'm genuinely interested in the results here.

I really don't know where this mind fart came from, but it certainly wasn't a).

On point b) after asking a few questions I'm not entirely convinced  it was an idea spawned in Castlewellan by Sean O'g or Seamus Walsh, put possibly from Sean O'gs pay masters in the Ulster council.
Either way it was not discussed with any of the hurling clubs in Down or no one was asked for their opinions on it.
The Ulster council are rightly getting a bit of stick for their development plans in hurling and they maybe have put all their eggs in the one basket with this all Ulster hurling league (minus Antrim clubs!) and foisted it upon Down, but why weren't those going to be directly affected not asked for their inputs at an earlier stage?

c) We're a minority sport in Down, I can live with that, however the Down county board have responsibilities to hurling as much as they do football. You can't force people to play a sport they don't want to but those that do should be afforded a bit of leeway and given the option to do so, not make fixtures etc in such a way that people are forced to choose either or.

Do you honestly think Down county board would have countenanced stopping all the football leagues and making the clubs row in with an all Ulster club football league in the same manner as is happening in the hurling?
Not a chance in hell and in my mind that's a bit of double standards, but I'm prepared to give those in power in Down a break if this was imposed upon them.

[thewobbler]

Thanks Johnnycool, just looking to see some perspectives here.

You're right, there's no way that CB would force all football clubs into an Ulster League unless that's what the majority of clubs wanted to do. I'm genuinely interested to know if/how/why/when hurling clubs get together (or are even consulted) in a similar way.

I've a long-running theory (and it's only a theory, not a fact) that hurling clubs don't help themselves in these situations. Rather than take the bull by the horns and drive hurling forward in the county, they simply expect "football men" to run things for them, and complain bitterly when it doesn't work. Which it never will, if that is what is happening.