Underage squads 2024

[The real town]

I know in Kilkenny there gone back to 18. If it's your last year of 18 you are able to play senior hurling for your club.a young lad that played for Thomastown this year in the country final also played minor in the same year.that could be the way to do it. Also it must be harder for clubs to get challenge games outside the county because the amount of county's that are gone back

[Voice of tReason]

I know in Kilkenny there gone back to 18. If it's your last year of 18 you are able to play senior hurling for your club.a young lad that played for Thomastown this year in the country final also played minor in the same year.that could be the way to do it. Also it must be harder for clubs to get challenge games outside the county because the amount of county's that are gone back

Is that actually better than the current set-up we have?
I'd like to have minor back to 18 for romantic reasons but I think the simplicity of having separate minor and adult fixtures is helpful.

[Downtheroad]

I know in Kilkenny there gone back to 18. If it's your last year of 18 you are able to play senior hurling for your club.a young lad that played for Thomastown this year in the country final also played minor in the same year.that could be the way to do it. Also it must be harder for clubs to get challenge games outside the county because the amount of county's that are gone back

The problem is that it is almost impossible to run minor competitions unless
Is that actually better than the current set-up we have?
I'd like to have minor back to 18 for romantic reasons but I think the simplicity of having separate minor and adult fixtures is helpful.

I know in Kilkenny there gone back to 18. If it's your last year of 18 you are able to play senior hurling for your club.a young lad that played for Thomastown this year in the country final also played minor in the same year.that could be the way to do it. Also it must be harder for clubs to get challenge games outside the county because the amount of county's that are gone back

Is that actually better than the current set-up we have?
I'd like to have minor back to 18 for romantic reasons but I think the simplicity of having separate minor and adult fixtures is helpful.

The problem is that in a dual county like Laois it would be almost impossible to run minor competitions unless it is fully decoupled from Adult. Clubs will want the lads up to the age to play every grade from Junior C upwards. The Offaly vote to go back to under 18 was won by 1 and there was strong opposition from smaller clubs. Personally, I'm in favour of under 18 but we can't have it both ways.

[Verbal]

I think having a full independent set of fixtures for minor is more important than moving it to U18.

Or

If moving minor to U18, move the adult eligibility to there too. Clubs wouldn't be happy, but they'd actually survive.
I know it would be hard to swallow for smaller clubs.

When you look at the number of ACHL Divisions that the likes of Camross are involved in, how in the name of God will you squeeze in a decent number of minor games also?

[Blueforever]

Reading on Kilkenny live that Kilkenny Gaa and St Kierans college are going in joint venture to provide a full size astro turf pitch on the college ground we cannot get young lads in Portlaoise schools to take up the game it's no wonder hurling is at such a low ebb in the county

[ottoman]

Has the Tony Forristal taken place yet? If so, how did we get on?

[Ogie]

Unfortunately the Munster Council have decided to keep the Forristal Tournament to Munster teams only from this year on, big disappointment and break from tradition.

Leinster have set up their own Tournament in response, Finals day this Saturday
We have one team qualified into Division 1 Semi Finals in Portlaoise and one team in Division 3 Semi Finals in Kildare (I think)

[Blueforever]

Reading college results during the week think 3 of the four Harty semifinals are tipp schools and see the Rugby school in Roscrea gave Mountrath a bad beating in the B championship 3 years ago Cistersians hired Former Tipp all ireland winner Tommy Dunne as full time coach and mow they are seeing the fruits of their labour  god forbid that any School in Laois would do something similar  this is part of the reason we play in Joe Mac tournament and Tipp win all irelands

[Genocide Organ]

Reading college results during the week think 3 of the four Harty semifinals are tipp schools and see the Rugby school in Roscrea gave Mountrath a bad beating in the B championship 3 years ago Cistersians hired Former Tipp all ireland winner Tommy Dunne as full time coach and mow they are seeing the fruits of their labour  god forbid that any School in Laois would do something similar  this is part of the reason we play in Joe Mac tournament and Tipp win all irelands

Pretty sure Tommy Dunne has a son in Cistercian, so that's probably part of the reason he's coaching there. Also, the school has Laois lads there too, including a player from R/E on the current team - but most of them are from Offaly and Tipp, for sure. Cistercian is a private school, and obviously see sporting excellence as a way of advertising themselves, whereas I don't think any of our secondary schools are sufficiently invested in hurling to bring in a top coach. Besides, it'd be few enough parents in Laois would decide what school to send their children to based on the hurling team there. I know there are some, but it's not like St. Kieran's or anything.

[Laois man]

Cistercian have a very good team Tommy Dunne is on the books there the last 3 years coaching all teams in the school to get them to the next level and it's working he has no son on there panel of 37 either. It's a win for the college aswell as Tipperary gaa there's a fair chance they will win out the B competition this year and move up with the big boys into the A nezmxt year. Schools like mrath are doing there best but it's all driving by a few teachers who have to teach aswell so it's not easy. Maybe if laois gaa had a full time coach between all the schools mrath/RdowneyClonaless etc if might help long term.

[Ogie]

We are now one of only 4 Counties remaining at odd ages (13/15/17) which includes Clare, Leitrim and Wicklow

Every other County has returned to even ages, it should be a motion brought at next weeks convention to immediately return to even ages.

[The real town]

I haven't talked to a single person yet that wants the underage championship to remain as is.it makes it very hard for club managers to get challenge games.no one wants to play a friendly against a team you could meet in championship.

[the sash]

We are now one of only 4 Counties remaining at odd ages (13/15/17) which includes Clare, Leitrim and Wicklow

Every other County has returned to even ages, it should be a motion brought at next weeks convention to immediately return to even ages.

Our county board delegate Cathal Ryan has brought this up at numerous county board meetings this year to no avail.He said that they don't want to hear about it as at the moment the way it stands it causes no issues with fixtures as if they move it back to 18 , minor and senior fixtures could clash as good players will play up and some of the smaller junior clubs were happy to keep it as is because they are getting players up to adult alot earlier.

It has to change, presently in Laois if you come out of the minor grade at 17 and you are an average player maybe not that well physically developed and you manage to play on a minor final in October. You next step up is adult football/hurling which your not ready for and the u20 club championship is played at the end of the year, so a year could pass by basically before you play,if you wait around that long. Some lads get lost in the System and give it up before that. We're in a bad way in laois as it is .

[Laois man]

I think the principal in mrath is a female from Dublin.

[Laois Rising]

I made that point here before regarding the jump from u17 to playing adult football. Some lads might make the jump and perhaps due to the size of the club e.g. Arles Kilcruise will get opportunities to play adult football. However some very good and average footballers with potential are almost being thrown on the waste pile once they finish with minor.

THE u20 championship is played off in November in a couple of weeks and as you can see forfeits aplenty. Some clubs just fielded teams with little or no training at all for it. If that is the only football you have for the year or two then its no wonder that so many will drop away or have their development as players stalled. Secondly, giving young players of that age a further year together collectively as a team can have a hugely positive impact on their development as individuals etc. We talk about mental health and achieving the goal of ensuring children have opportunities for life-long participation in Gaelic games. Finishing up at u17 does not achieve this. The GAA a few years back were looking establishing U19 as the new minor grade at club level for the reasons mentioned above.

At club level minor should be u18 simple as. It won't happen but the u19 proposal had huge merits to it. Unfortunately, we in Laois, want to make life easier for the fixture makers and bend to clubs wanting access to their top few 17 year olds to fill out their adult C and D teams. That's the priority. If we actually gave young lads a proper pathway to life long involvement in GAA then in a couple of years time clubs might find they have a more pentiful supply of lads 19 and 20 years of age available to field their teams. Fixtures can be worked around. Nearly every other county in the country has reverted to U18 for minor. Why? Commonsense. That's why.