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Glenariffe were excellent on Saturday, some serious hurlers in their ranks. Not sure they will get near Dunloy but wouldve loved a pairing with Loughgiel as i think they couldve gave them a game


Would like to see Glenarm make an intermediate final. Same with Glenariffe its good to see a team progress from the lower grade and make their mark. Glenarm have been int for a few years now but have been slowly building for this

Creggan have loads of experience also and know how to dig out championship wins. Intermediate is a cracking competition

Sarsfields stumbling over the line v Gort. Said it before i dont think they will win it. LD beating Armoy is a shock in my book now can they back it up and get over the line. I think they can

Ardoyne V All Saints in the Junior B. 50/50 game. Would be good to see as a double header with either the Junior final or an intermediate semi

As JC and NAS says, a lot of pushing and shoving! Noone was hurt on the pitch. The big issue is off the field. They joys of live streaming games eh!

Onto the weekend now for the next round of games and this will rightly be forgotten about.

Who have we got, any surprises or upset on the cards?

NE too much for Oisins
Ógs to get past the town
Creggan should beat NP (potential for a talking point)
Glenarm maybe 1/2 points to the better of NG
Paddies (intermediate team) too much for forts unless Desmond capitalises on the frees
LD to take it to a city final?
Ardoyne and B'mena to toss for the rigs in the final

Johnnies to win by 5 after a gallant effort from the Oisins. Expect this to be tight until the latter stages

Cushendall by 8, town forwards will struggle to score enough to keep this close. Cushendall very poor v Dunloy, will be in full championship mode now the shadow boxing is over

Creggan to beat St Pauls by 7. Footballers out and a full week of hurling they'll be hungry to get something from this year.
SO'N NG could go either way. Ill give the Glenarm men the nod by 1 point who might have a larger spread of scorers

Dunsilly pitch 2 will suit GNM more than Sars. Not sure Sars are as good as everyone thinks but should get over the line. Sars by 3

Armoy and LD has potential to be a cracker. Game of the weekend. Both seemed to have improved from last year. Armoy have a few lads back and i fancy them to pip this and also the final

Ardoyne LMDG. Ardoyne should win pulling up with something to spare. They'll be on the hunt for the double

AS Belfast saints. Tight pitch wont suit a younger lighter Ballymena side. Should get the job done though. AS by 6

The ref and one of the linesmen did right. No point hanging around to potentially get smacked themselves then that opens up another can of worms! The other guy enjoys the attention anyway! Leaking sneaky Joe's messages will get some of those boys off too

They didn't do right, nothing was on them. Stand back and observe. Ray'main character syndrome' actually did right for once. The leaking of the messages, whilst distasteful, won't have any ramifications on wee Joe. How were they meant to deal with it. Plain to see on video that there were observers. Questions needed asked. And answered.
Don't see how the players will get off because of a leaked message.

I don't know, if there's a brawl there is always a small group of people who feel that it's ok to abuse refs and they were in risk of getting hit if they stayed! Yea there's video evidence, use it instead of trying to get something that wasn't in the refs report surely? I reckon from seeing the messages and the video it doesn't link up, especially with what was 'seen' not being on the video

The question is, why was it not in the referees report?? How can that have happened and ye turn a blind eye?? That's more damning, lack of integrity and makes a rod for your own back

What isn't in the referees report?

A load of pushing and shoving?

The crowd issues are another matter and for me the referee can't be responsible for reporting on that.

What's the craic with the leaked screen shot from some lads phone?

Thats scandalous that has been leaked!
Videos are there for all to see, if the crowd trouble wasnt part of this we wouldn't be talking about it. Didnt look to be anything major. Crowd trouble is nothing to do with referee officials unless i suppose they witness a player becoming involved.

Not much loyalty among our refereeing fraternity

A belfast man shall not tout on a fellow belfast man?

I think this is the worst standard of championship I have seen in Antrim for as long as I can remember. A decent run and bit of momentum by any of the top 4/5 clubs would get you close to the final in Antrim these days. Very little quality on any team that I have seen so far.

We made a complete balls of the LD game. Cruising with 10mins left and somehow get beat. Adam getting injured right before the PG1 game was a disaster too. But we are still a good bit behind the level we were at a few years ago. Hopefully another winter will help a few of the young lads and we have a decent age profile.

With Aghagallon having met Sarsfields, Lamh Dhearg and Portglenone it isnt hard to see how you came to this conclusion. You havent met either of the two clear favourites Dunloy or Cargin or even St Brigids. Il agree to a certain extent that the championship is a worse standard but letting 16 teams enter it when 8 max are worthy of a place is the main issue but that's been covered on here numerous times.
Joe Cassidy loved that PG1 result yesterday, its taken the heat completely off what he has done at Creggan and that is stick them firmly in reverse gear!

Take the teams you mentioned. Dunloy, Cargin and St. Brigids. In my opinion they wouldn't get near the Cargin teams from the recent past and obviously no where near the St. Galls teams. They're the best of a bad bunch. Hardly a player in Division 1 that you could get excited about. And yes, 16 teams is stupid. That's an easy fix.

Seann Elliot, Conhuir Johnston?

They're 2 of the ones I thought of. One or 2 potentials on St. Brigids team and the likes of Molloy on Dunloy. But bad job when you can hardly think of half a dozen properly quality footballers in a whole championship. You'd have had 5/6 in your Cargin teams alone! Still some of them playing now well into the twilight of their careers too! Antrim football is as poor as it's been in a long long time.

Whats the craic with Johnston, barely kicks a ball all year for antrim and flying in club championship

Him and likes of loughran are needed going forward for antrim, ryan murray looked hungry yesterday

Rumours mcaleer is gone, he had a good championship for AS

We really need ball winning and ball playing midfielders

TBH doesnt sit easy with me calling out Bannside for whatever has went on. Hes made himself known on here, whereas the rest of us are annonymous posters. If your name was attached would you call Bannside out SS? Doubt it

Jesus lads punditry/reporting is based off both facts and also opinion. Why should it matter where hes from or even if he has played the game before. Hes calling it as he sees and is right on this occasion

To be its a Cargin Dunloy final. The rest are well back. St Brigids included, they had a poor showing v St Johns I thought

Agree , Johnnies didn't actually preform that well either I thought and were unfortunate with the goal being ruled out and the free at the end.

Dunloy will punish St Brides unless they can find another gear but need to be careful on the receiving end. LD got their goals a tad too easily I think.

Agree also, Dunloy were porus. But they now have time on the football training pitch they have the hurling break. LD probably left 2 or 3 goals behind also

To be its a Cargin Dunloy final. The rest are well back. St Brigids included, they had a poor showing v St Johns I thought

Also worth noting there are no top level SW antrim referees any more?

Derry hurling structure is shocking. Swatragh contest a junior final this weekend having competed in ulster intermediate the previous 2 years

Feel for an antrim team making it that far as they are up against it

One and only Sean Kelly is the man behind the excellent camogie promotion. Light years ahead... Antrim football and hurling could do with his PR skillset.

And Saffron Gael shouldnt be taken for granted, Curly and Paddy wont be around forever and who will step up and try to fill those boots.

County should be supporting them much more too imo...

The saffron gael is a team now to be fair. Paddy and John do a lot but likes of BMCT, Kevin Herron, Bert, Brian McKee plus a lot more contribute a lot to it

They've been slagged on here already also but the we are antrim podcast is fantastic. Look forward to it every week.

To be honest things are probably 10x worse if the subs etc are over the fence on saturday. There will always be heated moments inside the white lines, its the fools outside the wire is the problem

I wondered why a certain gentleman was very quiet ( not like him), he's too busy making sure the quill has plenty of ink on this one.

He'll be sitting down with Totes, reviewing the disciplinary handbook (10th edition), the Official Guide Part 1 and whatever bylaws are in Antrim ensuring whatever they come up with stick if it comes to appeals etc.

On a serious note, not entirely sure how it kicked off on the field, a water carrier is getting a lot of blame, but it really grates on me the number of hangers on allowed inside the fence that when the players do go at it seem to think they need to get involved and in my experience it only ever makes things worse.

"Breaking it up" seems to involve putting hands on an opposition player, fúck off with that one, it pure BS, pull out your own player if you want to break it up.

Agree with this. Have seen water carriers get involved before, standing 10 yards on the field and talking nonsense. Far too many inside, water carriers, hurl carriers, dunloy had 2 x physios on the field yesterday at the same times plus a massive squad of players

Big couple of weeks ahead for the county board. Sanctions needed for both clubs and hopefully a permanent ban for a certain county "footballer" after his actions were read out in court last week.

Dealt with by the courts now you want Antrim/GAA to open a can of worms and permanently suspend a player? Catch yourself on. Where do you draw the line on suspensions in that case?

Read the article. If you're happy enough to take your kids to watch somebody like that well thats up to you.

That's not my point. My point is that plenty of bad things go on around the country, where are you happy to draw the line under suspensions?