Messages

[One of the things I love the most about Rory is how he pisses off]

One of the things I love the most about Rory is how he pisses off those people who see themselves as the de facto decision makers of who and who isn't Irish. Those people who have this narrow vision of Irishness. They usually get worked up about Rory because he doesn't drape the tri colour over himself, or when a black person does a small bit of Irish dancing. The irony being they have more in common with the little Englander that they do with Irish people.

In other words, you like seeing people getting pissed off?  How sad.

I like Rory because he is honest, down to earth, fantastic talent, is known all over the world and hails from the city in which I live, and his Dad once served me dinner in Clandeboye Golf Club.

Make sure you tell the grandchildren about that one

Everton has suspended someone pending a police investigation..

Wonder who that might be...

https://www.republicworld.com/sports-news/football-news/everton-star-gylfi-sigurdsson-suspended-over-arrest-in-alleged-child-sex-offences-case.html

whats the latest with griffiths at celtic? is he still being charged?

Wonder will mcguckin stay at fianna for their clash v edendork? Or will he depart like he did when he was with pomeroy

Murphy is getting to the age were he should be thinking of playing as a bear on the square, the roaming days are maybe not quite over but they're coming to an end. He'd be some handful as a static FF.

Could be a good shout but I'd say he would have more of an impact coming off the bench. imagine versus tyrone he came on after the second water break the lift it would give donegal. You cant even make the argument that they need hi starting as he got sent off after a poor lapse of judgement in the first half. Donegal still looked like they had a chance. I would have young o'donnell in full forward with mcbrearty in centre forward to come off the shoulder. young gallen somehwere in the half forward line as well to take murphys spot with murphy coming off the bench after the second water break. if donegal are in the lead you could bet your live he will hold it out as his presence alone is enough to shift the tempo of the game. If  they require a few points to catch their opponents i cant think of many men in the country who can strike a ball like murphy

Just let them play. Children all develop at different ages. Smile, encourage and have fun. Follow Shane Smith on Twitter. He has a great insight into coaching children. Remember they are not mini adults.

Shane's pinned twet
12 ways to retain more children in sport

1 Know names
2 Say hello
3 Include all
4 Play fun warm ups
5 Smile
6 Allow some free play
7 Reduce overly structured sessions
8 Play small sided games
9 Praise effort
10 Accept mistakes
11 Encourage creativity
12 Remove pressure

Going into far too much detail folks, god knows how the youth of yesteryear were trained without the advice of somebody from twitter...

Did Richie tog out yesterday?  I wonder how far away he is. He was having a really good game against Cavan before going off.

You'd have to find a place on the 15 for McKenna. Anywhere from 5 to 12

Looks likely that Darragh : Canavan will be available. Serious plus.

McShane could really do with 60mins under his belt with the club. The man needs game time

Brilliant to see Sludden and McCann resurgence. I'd written both off in my mind.

Still a concern at centre half back. Has been evident in each of the games this year

Still plenty of options for the management team to consider, and our bench should be pretty loaded for the next day

I was not too confident in Burns positioning yesterday. He always seemed to move to close out the danger very late, his big shoulder on the edge of the box a prime example. A lot of the Donegal attacks could have been turned out much earlier with better positioning.
Harder to judge ONeills ability to perform the role as he did a marking  go job against Cavan.

Burns was all over the shop yesterday due to poor timing of runs. Looks like he may be a bit rusty, probably from mcgearys bar in pomeroy with the same name.

I'm not huge on the amount of Covid restrictions in place in this country over the last 6 months, however I find what the English government are currently doing is totally insane & dangerous. A former work colleague of mine (as fit as a fiddle in his early 50's) is currently in ISU in a very bad way. Are the English off their heads or what, nightclubs packed to the rafters in doors is surely going to lead to disaster, vaccinated or not.

COVID-19 is never going to go away. We can't live like prisoners for another couple of years.

I would accept that, but is the English approach not too much to soon.

It's been too long in my opinion. Now with the roll out of the vaccines if we can't ease restrictions now when will we ever be able to? What else can be done?

Exactly, when is it not too soon? What are the criteria?

Infections need to be falling.
You need effective  test and trace
amd the borders have to be shut.

None of this applies.

Infections were falling but as you start to open things back up they are going to increase which everyone knew. The case numbers aren't what we should be basing anything on, our most vulnerable are vaccinated and the hospitals aren't being over run with it. We can't keep lock downs on a what if basis. I know I'm repeating myself but the key to it now is getting under 30s on board with the vaccine, once that happens then we are in a great place.

Shutting the borders? It's far too late for that, shutting the borders now will change nothing, the time for that was 18 months ago. Now we need to learn to live with it and get vaccinated and be sensible when out and about

I completely agree. For some reason people like johnnycool & seafoid think covid will be eradicated but this is impossible. COVID will always be here and all we can do now is roll out vaccines, study the new variants and act accordingly. Talk of another lockdown i ludicrous, covid is here to stay now all we can do is deal with it.

[his skill levels are unrea]

Never worried about results but would be worried if fundamentals were not there-that comes down to the coach

No it doesn't some kids are clean useless. No athletic ability, no balance etc. Then then chose when & when not to come to training. Coach can do nothing with those kids.

This is true enough. That and the fact that some of them only see a football or a hurley for an hour a week doesn't do any favours either.

I'd not be so keen on wains getting called clean useless tbh

I'm sure I'm not the only one who when they were younger prob fell into that bracket of being 'clean useless' don't think even my da woulda thought I was up to much but in fairness he kept me at it and when I was 12/13 it finally clicked and started getting ok, when I hit 16/17 I was pretty decent, played senior hurling and football for plenty of years. Football and hurling are to be enjoyed by everyone regardless of ability, I know my own lad is 4, football mad, started the under 6s, I've a mate who's wee boy is 4 months older, doesn't go to Gaelic but a wee soccer team and his skill levels are unreal, I was wondering was my wee boy just not cut out for football then I caught myself on and realised all kids will develop at their own pace. There's n such thing as dead wood or lost causes at under age, just late developers

The way covid has been handled is crazy in my opinion. Its an over-glorified flu. it is mental, now that we have learned so much about it all we can do is roll out vaccines to help prevent and if that still doesnt satisfy ye then sit in the fckin house and dont leave it

I don't mind him but I think it's time to rethink for Donegal. They should be doing a lot better with the players they have at their disposal. I don't think there's an AI in them but best in Ulster should be very achievable.

I'd say that's probably the view of most inside the county.

Bonner did all right, but time to let someone else try their hand at it.

A lot probably depends on who would be interested.

Maybe Murphy can do a McEniff and try player-manager now that he's washed up.

Last year worse than this year tbh. No shame in getting beat by Tyrone but should probably be running them a good bit closer than that.

With their  (soon to be washed up) talisman on the field all game I think Donegal would have prevailed. Tyrone only nailed the game in the last 10 minutes when they racked up 6 or so points in a row.   The scales were tipped when Murphy was dismissed.

Would a return of Big Jim  to the manager's seat be realistic?

Probably the best thing for donegal but it will cost them. Jim's experience coaching soccer will go a long way in adding a professional atmosphere in the donegal camp. The personality of the donegal team at the minute is too reliant on mick murphy who as we seen on sunday is past it

[Football is very competitive in Down at U11s]

its happening in the  team my lad plays with U11. players drifting away. in our club its by and large the coaches fault. its a pity, in a good few cases its lads that have loads of potential just not there yet, now they might never be ''there'' but they have potential.
but as others have said its easy to criticize from the sidelines the reality is any of the coaches would  probably gladly hand me the whistle if i thought i could do better. in my defense i do coach with another team in the club, with my younger lad and at this stage the best i can hope to do is learn from the mistakes of this bunch.

firstly they each have a kid on the team and each seem to believe that their lad is the next cillian o connor. this is bad enough but the real problem is they are bizarrely obsessed with winning U11 games. this results in team selection that leaves loads of player out and piles huge  pressure on those who play.
at one game the ''A'' team had 3 subs whilst the ''B'' team had 11 subs
now the result of this Cody like desire to win is that so far they have lost every game they have played ( GO games, so no one keeping score only themselves). and worse the other result is good lads/girls walking away (luckily the girls walk around the corner to the girls club).
now my lad would not be the greatest but not the worst either, incredibly enthusiastic absolutely LOVES football and  has a super attitude, never gives up, never complains. but after one recent match he was down in the dumps and upset for a week. i was so mad i was going to talk to them but he begged me not to.  instead he killed himself training for a week at home and when he went back things were  a bit better (only because 3/4 other players were away on holiday) but it will happen again next week, nothing surer and to be honest i will not  have him like that again,  ill sooner  pull him out, he plays soccer and rugby as well and while football is his first love they will have to do.

its a huge pity but the reality is the coaches have no interest in lads they dont think will be good enough  and they dont care if they go in fact i think they are happier. nothing is going to change this attitude and the longer my lads sticks it out the more knocks he going to have to take before he eventually gets the message and gives up.

Could the club not have 3 teams in that case?

Our club had too many for 1 team for the first time this year so entered a B team. A team carried 11 players and no subs, B team took whatever was left and maybe had a couple of very young U9s on the line in some games. It's worked well - not perfect by any means but better than we expected.

Football is very competitive in Down at U11s, in contrast the hurling is seen as a bit of a run out and lads enjoy it more. There's nowhere near the same yapping from the sidelines etc.

Made  my morning

Probably should have explained that better - the way games are set up leaves things very competitive for the age of the players involved. If coaches are getting sent off for slabbering at refs at U11s or starting rows with other coaches etc you're not doing it right.

Anyone taking U11 football seriously needs to see a Doctor. They're a danger to society unless they get medical help.

One of my first experiences of helping out with coaching structures within my club was trying to use young lads to referee the U12 games which up to that point was an official referee and £30 a game IIRC. I thought it was madness as it was Go Games so no score was kept and there was a middle third where the weaker lads got a run out, so in my simplistic view it was a no brainer. So our secretary was dispatched to a CB meeting to bring this up and he was met with a wall of incredulity at suggesting such a thing as the young lads would be killed by the parents and coaches if this was brought in. Mostly Down football clubs I might add. Nuts I tell you 

We don't have official referee's which is now U11.5 or P7 in old money, so kind of a win but just checking there an U11.5 football still appoints official referee's but as before they're nuts over there..

Each club should have a policy of sorts defining who gets what in terms of meaningful gametime.

We up to go games try to ensure that every kid at whatever agegroup gets a minimum of 50% of gametime available to them. Go games allows for that as you can have as many subs as you like, so roll them on and off. Every kid of a certain age gets an invite without exception as in the past we found that some coaches were "inclined" not to invite the weaker kids in an attempt to win a blitz of some sort or other.

The "competitive" age groups we deploy the 4 A's. Age, Attendance, Attitude and Ability (to compete, defend themselves) plus being a small rural club where we've overlaps between teams the amount of opportunity a kid gets at another level should be taken into consideration.

For instance if we've two 15yo's, one plays a lot for the U17's and one doesn't. The one who plays for the U17's should be taken off first and if we bring on an U13 then we need to be sure they are relatively comfortable to compete and look after themselves at that level and have the wherewithal to protect themselves.

Reflective glory by some of the coaches is still an issue..

It's mad the difference in dealing with the same clubs at different codes over here. There is refs sometimes at U11 football, sometimes not. But they get a load of shit whether its an official ref or not. Saw it only yesterday but it's the boards fault for setting up competitive leagues at that age. The blitzes going away has helped up at U9 to make it less competitive.

Boards by and large only put in place what the respective clubs want.

Clubs and respective boards need to step back and take the heat out of the environment we're expecting kids to develop, thrive and ultimately enjoy themselves if there's shouting and balling at referees at a Go Games match..

At the end of the day a good competitive mentally needs to be instilled into the youth. Of course some of the stories you hear are ridiculous but you have to put yourself in the parents shoes, every parent wants to be the father/mother of the next CON, David Clifford or Michael Conroy

Then 99.9% are bound to fail.

There is no "then" about it. It's a a fact that 99.9% will fail. There is no other way about it. What point are you trying to make johnny?

The point I'm making is that each kid should be afforded the opportunity to be the best that they can be and I don't necessarily think that noncompetitive games up to 12/13 year olds is hindering the high performers. They will still develop their skills along the way. When we enter the competitive games at 14 or 15 years old it's probably more important to develop the correct attitudes in terms of training, preparation and mental resilience to drive on when things don't go their way.

A kid not turning out to be a Tony Kelly or Kyle Hayes isn't a failure and if they've a positive experience of the club and association during those formative years then they're more inclined to help out at various different levels at a later date.

Breed for profit?

eh?

Are you inclined to sell off your offspring?

I'm not myself i was gonna ask you the same thing. I'd say you have a price

[Football is very competitive in Down at U11s]

its happening in the  team my lad plays with U11. players drifting away. in our club its by and large the coaches fault. its a pity, in a good few cases its lads that have loads of potential just not there yet, now they might never be ''there'' but they have potential.
but as others have said its easy to criticize from the sidelines the reality is any of the coaches would  probably gladly hand me the whistle if i thought i could do better. in my defense i do coach with another team in the club, with my younger lad and at this stage the best i can hope to do is learn from the mistakes of this bunch.

firstly they each have a kid on the team and each seem to believe that their lad is the next cillian o connor. this is bad enough but the real problem is they are bizarrely obsessed with winning U11 games. this results in team selection that leaves loads of player out and piles huge  pressure on those who play.
at one game the ''A'' team had 3 subs whilst the ''B'' team had 11 subs
now the result of this Cody like desire to win is that so far they have lost every game they have played ( GO games, so no one keeping score only themselves). and worse the other result is good lads/girls walking away (luckily the girls walk around the corner to the girls club).
now my lad would not be the greatest but not the worst either, incredibly enthusiastic absolutely LOVES football and  has a super attitude, never gives up, never complains. but after one recent match he was down in the dumps and upset for a week. i was so mad i was going to talk to them but he begged me not to.  instead he killed himself training for a week at home and when he went back things were  a bit better (only because 3/4 other players were away on holiday) but it will happen again next week, nothing surer and to be honest i will not  have him like that again,  ill sooner  pull him out, he plays soccer and rugby as well and while football is his first love they will have to do.

its a huge pity but the reality is the coaches have no interest in lads they dont think will be good enough  and they dont care if they go in fact i think they are happier. nothing is going to change this attitude and the longer my lads sticks it out the more knocks he going to have to take before he eventually gets the message and gives up.

Could the club not have 3 teams in that case?

Our club had too many for 1 team for the first time this year so entered a B team. A team carried 11 players and no subs, B team took whatever was left and maybe had a couple of very young U9s on the line in some games. It's worked well - not perfect by any means but better than we expected.

Football is very competitive in Down at U11s, in contrast the hurling is seen as a bit of a run out and lads enjoy it more. There's nowhere near the same yapping from the sidelines etc.

Made  my morning

Probably should have explained that better - the way games are set up leaves things very competitive for the age of the players involved. If coaches are getting sent off for slabbering at refs at U11s or starting rows with other coaches etc you're not doing it right.

Anyone taking U11 football seriously needs to see a Doctor. They're a danger to society unless they get medical help.

One of my first experiences of helping out with coaching structures within my club was trying to use young lads to referee the U12 games which up to that point was an official referee and £30 a game IIRC. I thought it was madness as it was Go Games so no score was kept and there was a middle third where the weaker lads got a run out, so in my simplistic view it was a no brainer. So our secretary was dispatched to a CB meeting to bring this up and he was met with a wall of incredulity at suggesting such a thing as the young lads would be killed by the parents and coaches if this was brought in. Mostly Down football clubs I might add. Nuts I tell you 

We don't have official referee's which is now U11.5 or P7 in old money, so kind of a win but just checking there an U11.5 football still appoints official referee's but as before they're nuts over there..

Each club should have a policy of sorts defining who gets what in terms of meaningful gametime.

We up to go games try to ensure that every kid at whatever agegroup gets a minimum of 50% of gametime available to them. Go games allows for that as you can have as many subs as you like, so roll them on and off. Every kid of a certain age gets an invite without exception as in the past we found that some coaches were "inclined" not to invite the weaker kids in an attempt to win a blitz of some sort or other.

The "competitive" age groups we deploy the 4 A's. Age, Attendance, Attitude and Ability (to compete, defend themselves) plus being a small rural club where we've overlaps between teams the amount of opportunity a kid gets at another level should be taken into consideration.

For instance if we've two 15yo's, one plays a lot for the U17's and one doesn't. The one who plays for the U17's should be taken off first and if we bring on an U13 then we need to be sure they are relatively comfortable to compete and look after themselves at that level and have the wherewithal to protect themselves.

Reflective glory by some of the coaches is still an issue..

It's mad the difference in dealing with the same clubs at different codes over here. There is refs sometimes at U11 football, sometimes not. But they get a load of shit whether its an official ref or not. Saw it only yesterday but it's the boards fault for setting up competitive leagues at that age. The blitzes going away has helped up at U9 to make it less competitive.

Boards by and large only put in place what the respective clubs want.

Clubs and respective boards need to step back and take the heat out of the environment we're expecting kids to develop, thrive and ultimately enjoy themselves if there's shouting and balling at referees at a Go Games match..

At the end of the day a good competitive mentally needs to be instilled into the youth. Of course some of the stories you hear are ridiculous but you have to put yourself in the parents shoes, every parent wants to be the father/mother of the next CON, David Clifford or Michael Conroy

Then 99.9% are bound to fail.

There is no "then" about it. It's a a fact that 99.9% will fail. There is no other way about it. What point are you trying to make johnny?

The point I'm making is that each kid should be afforded the opportunity to be the best that they can be and I don't necessarily think that noncompetitive games up to 12/13 year olds is hindering the high performers. They will still develop their skills along the way. When we enter the competitive games at 14 or 15 years old it's probably more important to develop the correct attitudes in terms of training, preparation and mental resilience to drive on when things don't go their way.

A kid not turning out to be a Tony Kelly or Kyle Hayes isn't a failure and if they've a positive experience of the club and association during those formative years then they're more inclined to help out at various different levels at a later date.

Breed for profit?

[Football is very competitive in Down at U11s]

its happening in the  team my lad plays with U11. players drifting away. in our club its by and large the coaches fault. its a pity, in a good few cases its lads that have loads of potential just not there yet, now they might never be ''there'' but they have potential.
but as others have said its easy to criticize from the sidelines the reality is any of the coaches would  probably gladly hand me the whistle if i thought i could do better. in my defense i do coach with another team in the club, with my younger lad and at this stage the best i can hope to do is learn from the mistakes of this bunch.

firstly they each have a kid on the team and each seem to believe that their lad is the next cillian o connor. this is bad enough but the real problem is they are bizarrely obsessed with winning U11 games. this results in team selection that leaves loads of player out and piles huge  pressure on those who play.
at one game the ''A'' team had 3 subs whilst the ''B'' team had 11 subs
now the result of this Cody like desire to win is that so far they have lost every game they have played ( GO games, so no one keeping score only themselves). and worse the other result is good lads/girls walking away (luckily the girls walk around the corner to the girls club).
now my lad would not be the greatest but not the worst either, incredibly enthusiastic absolutely LOVES football and  has a super attitude, never gives up, never complains. but after one recent match he was down in the dumps and upset for a week. i was so mad i was going to talk to them but he begged me not to.  instead he killed himself training for a week at home and when he went back things were  a bit better (only because 3/4 other players were away on holiday) but it will happen again next week, nothing surer and to be honest i will not  have him like that again,  ill sooner  pull him out, he plays soccer and rugby as well and while football is his first love they will have to do.

its a huge pity but the reality is the coaches have no interest in lads they dont think will be good enough  and they dont care if they go in fact i think they are happier. nothing is going to change this attitude and the longer my lads sticks it out the more knocks he going to have to take before he eventually gets the message and gives up.

Could the club not have 3 teams in that case?

Our club had too many for 1 team for the first time this year so entered a B team. A team carried 11 players and no subs, B team took whatever was left and maybe had a couple of very young U9s on the line in some games. It's worked well - not perfect by any means but better than we expected.

Football is very competitive in Down at U11s, in contrast the hurling is seen as a bit of a run out and lads enjoy it more. There's nowhere near the same yapping from the sidelines etc.

Made  my morning

Probably should have explained that better - the way games are set up leaves things very competitive for the age of the players involved. If coaches are getting sent off for slabbering at refs at U11s or starting rows with other coaches etc you're not doing it right.

Anyone taking U11 football seriously needs to see a Doctor. They're a danger to society unless they get medical help.

One of my first experiences of helping out with coaching structures within my club was trying to use young lads to referee the U12 games which up to that point was an official referee and £30 a game IIRC. I thought it was madness as it was Go Games so no score was kept and there was a middle third where the weaker lads got a run out, so in my simplistic view it was a no brainer. So our secretary was dispatched to a CB meeting to bring this up and he was met with a wall of incredulity at suggesting such a thing as the young lads would be killed by the parents and coaches if this was brought in. Mostly Down football clubs I might add. Nuts I tell you 

We don't have official referee's which is now U11.5 or P7 in old money, so kind of a win but just checking there an U11.5 football still appoints official referee's but as before they're nuts over there..

Each club should have a policy of sorts defining who gets what in terms of meaningful gametime.

We up to go games try to ensure that every kid at whatever agegroup gets a minimum of 50% of gametime available to them. Go games allows for that as you can have as many subs as you like, so roll them on and off. Every kid of a certain age gets an invite without exception as in the past we found that some coaches were "inclined" not to invite the weaker kids in an attempt to win a blitz of some sort or other.

The "competitive" age groups we deploy the 4 A's. Age, Attendance, Attitude and Ability (to compete, defend themselves) plus being a small rural club where we've overlaps between teams the amount of opportunity a kid gets at another level should be taken into consideration.

For instance if we've two 15yo's, one plays a lot for the U17's and one doesn't. The one who plays for the U17's should be taken off first and if we bring on an U13 then we need to be sure they are relatively comfortable to compete and look after themselves at that level and have the wherewithal to protect themselves.

Reflective glory by some of the coaches is still an issue..

It's mad the difference in dealing with the same clubs at different codes over here. There is refs sometimes at U11 football, sometimes not. But they get a load of shit whether its an official ref or not. Saw it only yesterday but it's the boards fault for setting up competitive leagues at that age. The blitzes going away has helped up at U9 to make it less competitive.

Boards by and large only put in place what the respective clubs want.

Clubs and respective boards need to step back and take the heat out of the environment we're expecting kids to develop, thrive and ultimately enjoy themselves if there's shouting and balling at referees at a Go Games match..

At the end of the day a good competitive mentally needs to be instilled into the youth. Of course some of the stories you hear are ridiculous but you have to put yourself in the parents shoes, every parent wants to be the father/mother of the next CON, David Clifford or Michael Conroy

Then 99.9% are bound to fail.

There is no "then" about it. It's a a fact that 99.9% will fail. There is no other way about it. What point are you trying to make johnny?

Sean Cavanagh v Michael Murphy

One has 6 ulsters, 5 all-stars, 3 all irelands, 2 national leagues and a coveted footballer of the year.

The other has been using caffeine shampoo since he was in secondary school.

[Football is very competitive in Down at U11s]

its happening in the  team my lad plays with U11. players drifting away. in our club its by and large the coaches fault. its a pity, in a good few cases its lads that have loads of potential just not there yet, now they might never be ''there'' but they have potential.
but as others have said its easy to criticize from the sidelines the reality is any of the coaches would  probably gladly hand me the whistle if i thought i could do better. in my defense i do coach with another team in the club, with my younger lad and at this stage the best i can hope to do is learn from the mistakes of this bunch.

firstly they each have a kid on the team and each seem to believe that their lad is the next cillian o connor. this is bad enough but the real problem is they are bizarrely obsessed with winning U11 games. this results in team selection that leaves loads of player out and piles huge  pressure on those who play.
at one game the ''A'' team had 3 subs whilst the ''B'' team had 11 subs
now the result of this Cody like desire to win is that so far they have lost every game they have played ( GO games, so no one keeping score only themselves). and worse the other result is good lads/girls walking away (luckily the girls walk around the corner to the girls club).
now my lad would not be the greatest but not the worst either, incredibly enthusiastic absolutely LOVES football and  has a super attitude, never gives up, never complains. but after one recent match he was down in the dumps and upset for a week. i was so mad i was going to talk to them but he begged me not to.  instead he killed himself training for a week at home and when he went back things were  a bit better (only because 3/4 other players were away on holiday) but it will happen again next week, nothing surer and to be honest i will not  have him like that again,  ill sooner  pull him out, he plays soccer and rugby as well and while football is his first love they will have to do.

its a huge pity but the reality is the coaches have no interest in lads they dont think will be good enough  and they dont care if they go in fact i think they are happier. nothing is going to change this attitude and the longer my lads sticks it out the more knocks he going to have to take before he eventually gets the message and gives up.

Could the club not have 3 teams in that case?

Our club had too many for 1 team for the first time this year so entered a B team. A team carried 11 players and no subs, B team took whatever was left and maybe had a couple of very young U9s on the line in some games. It's worked well - not perfect by any means but better than we expected.

Football is very competitive in Down at U11s, in contrast the hurling is seen as a bit of a run out and lads enjoy it more. There's nowhere near the same yapping from the sidelines etc.

Made  my morning

Probably should have explained that better - the way games are set up leaves things very competitive for the age of the players involved. If coaches are getting sent off for slabbering at refs at U11s or starting rows with other coaches etc you're not doing it right.

Anyone taking U11 football seriously needs to see a Doctor. They're a danger to society unless they get medical help.

One of my first experiences of helping out with coaching structures within my club was trying to use young lads to referee the U12 games which up to that point was an official referee and £30 a game IIRC. I thought it was madness as it was Go Games so no score was kept and there was a middle third where the weaker lads got a run out, so in my simplistic view it was a no brainer. So our secretary was dispatched to a CB meeting to bring this up and he was met with a wall of incredulity at suggesting such a thing as the young lads would be killed by the parents and coaches if this was brought in. Mostly Down football clubs I might add. Nuts I tell you 

We don't have official referee's which is now U11.5 or P7 in old money, so kind of a win but just checking there an U11.5 football still appoints official referee's but as before they're nuts over there..

Each club should have a policy of sorts defining who gets what in terms of meaningful gametime.

We up to go games try to ensure that every kid at whatever agegroup gets a minimum of 50% of gametime available to them. Go games allows for that as you can have as many subs as you like, so roll them on and off. Every kid of a certain age gets an invite without exception as in the past we found that some coaches were "inclined" not to invite the weaker kids in an attempt to win a blitz of some sort or other.

The "competitive" age groups we deploy the 4 A's. Age, Attendance, Attitude and Ability (to compete, defend themselves) plus being a small rural club where we've overlaps between teams the amount of opportunity a kid gets at another level should be taken into consideration.

For instance if we've two 15yo's, one plays a lot for the U17's and one doesn't. The one who plays for the U17's should be taken off first and if we bring on an U13 then we need to be sure they are relatively comfortable to compete and look after themselves at that level and have the wherewithal to protect themselves.

Reflective glory by some of the coaches is still an issue..

It's mad the difference in dealing with the same clubs at different codes over here. There is refs sometimes at U11 football, sometimes not. But they get a load of shit whether its an official ref or not. Saw it only yesterday but it's the boards fault for setting up competitive leagues at that age. The blitzes going away has helped up at U9 to make it less competitive.

Boards by and large only put in place what the respective clubs want.

Clubs and respective boards need to step back and take the heat out of the environment we're expecting kids to develop, thrive and ultimately enjoy themselves if there's shouting and balling at referees at a Go Games match..

At the end of the day a good competitive mentally needs to be instilled into the youth. Of course some of the stories you hear are ridiculous but you have to put yourself in the parents shoes, every parent wants to be the father/mother of the next CON, David Clifford or Michael Conroy