Messages

My understanding was that instead of a 7/5 split, it was going to be 6/6.

Common sense prevails, A 7/5 split makes would have made no sense at all.

PnH at 1.30. Surprised they have sent it to us but pleased. Mitchel's of Birmingham should be gutted. There was an All Britain there this year.

Ah well that rules out going to the game for me. Think Mitchells will edge it. Dont know a huge pile about Connellys but the more competitive nature of the Lancs championship may just mean that the Liverpool lads are a bit more battle hardened.

On a differrent note, it looks like its confirmed that the pennine league next year will be a two division competition with 7 teams in Div 1 and 5 in Div 2. Played on a home and away basis, with top 4 going into semi finals in Div 1 and top 2 into a final in Div 2. I think this is a good development. Offers a minimum of 12 games to Div 1 teams and 8 to div 2. Most Div 2 teams will also be involved in county junior leagues during midweek of the pennine league so they will be getting plenty of football. The Pennine league will replace the Lancs senior league, however, Yorkshire may still run their as it only involves a handful of teams and can be run off fairly quickly. The League is likley to start in April with the final in early August with a break for inter county matches in June.

Who will be the 7th team in division 1?

The top 6 is quite obvious looking at results for the last few years. Mitchels, Brendans, Peters, Oisins, Benedicts and CuChulains.

I'll go for a Mitchels win, both sides are not as impressive as previous years.

I've not seen Connolly's play this year but based on the evidence of a few people who have Mitchels will just have a bit too much for them although there probably won't be a lot in it.

While I think a 20 game league would be difficult to run and not likely to be successful in terms of fulfilling fixtures etc. linking counties is the way to go in Britain. Bar London I'm not sure there is a single county which can provide all it's clubs with a decent season. There are obvious logistical problems linking some counties and some counties would need it more than others but the key to British GAA is constant development and that doesn't always happen.

Can anyone list the active underage clubs in Yorkshire and Lancashire? Do the U12 ABC champions, St. Brendans, come from Lancashire?

In Lancashire we get more games now than we have for 20 years. There's 10 senior league games plus a semi final and final if you get that far. A minimum of 2 championship games plus a semi and final if you get that far. That's a minimum of 12 plus the Pennine League which apart from this year normally gives you at least 5 games.

Its the quality of the games which is important though, opening up a Lancs/Yorks league would give both the stronger and weaker teams more competitive games which I think were all agreed on.

Although I'd love to see a situation where we could have 20 guaranteed games for our senior team, as pointed out before the gulf in class between clubs would lead to a few pointless games, especially if played home and away. Could we really imagine JFK travelling to Liverpool to play John Mitchells after taking a tanking in Leeds? One suggestion is that we could start with a league of 11 or 12, play each other once and split the league in two. So say a league of 6 and 5. Play the return game against those in your half. Top 2 after that then make the semi final and next 4 play off to get into semi.

My other suggestion would be to have a senior and junior pennine league, any club who played senior championship in Yorks or Lancs in 2013 will be in senior and the rest junior. If clubs feel they can field in both then they can with fixtures made to accommodate them.

I'm led to believe this restructured pennine league will replace the Yorkshire senior league and the Lancs senior league may get scrapped too or reduced to just a single leg (I think). It's early days in the discussion process as far as I know and everything is still up for debate. To be fair, Yorkshire is slowly dying on its arse, the few clubs that are making an effort to improve need these extra games as it's hard to convince lads to stick at it when the matches are so sparse.

Just don't see the point of the stronger teams playing the weaker teams, it doesn't do either team any favours.

From our point of view I'd be happy playing our senior league to start the season on a one legged affair. The Pennines League could commence in May. Brendans, Mitchels, Oisins, Peters, Benedict's and CuChulains in division one and Lawrence's, Wolfe Tones, Ann's, Hugh O'Neils, Brother Pearses and JFK's in division 2. I'm not sure if Young Ireland's have a team currently?  Lots of competitive games for all teams, can't see too many hidings in either division. It should be ideal preparation for everyone come the championship and keep everyone interested.

The Lancashire senior league would have to be scrapped if we were to play home and away even under a 2 division format? I'd be in favour of this as we'd end up with more competitive games.

Can't see many clubs that would agree to a 11 team league. Don't think there's enough room in the calendar for that many games either.

Rumours abound about next year's Pennine League.

There seems to be two ideas floating around: One league of 11 teams playing home and away, or, if the three other clubs enter, one division of 8 and one of 6, also playing home and away. Either has to better than current arrangements with better quality games for all clubs more often. My own club played 12 senior and 5 junior games between early March and the end of October. Too few over such a long period. However, June is normally left out of the fixtures due to the county games and August slows down due to the holiday effect.

Far better to improve the Pennine League as proposed.

11 teams in one league playing home and away would mean 20 games unless I've read it wrong?

[TomCo]

Invest in TomCo (American oil Company on the London Stock Exchange) you heard it here first!! 

Still invested?

I worry about the future of GAA in the UK especially in my own county Lancashire.

We have great games that could grow and grow all over the world but I'm not sure the powers that be fully understand how to do that.

Its great to see GAA been played in different countries all over Europe but i'm not sure how sustainable this is going forward. Can't rely on emigration for the future of our games.

Sometimes in life you have to take a step backwards to go 2 steps forwards. 

The UK is such a huge market, there are millions of second and third generation Irish. There are no language barriers, were only an hour away in the air at most and we already have a strong foothold.

There has been no real development in the sports in the last 25 years, in face we've regressed.

Yorkshire final is today at 1.00pm at Beeston - c* Chulainns v St. Benedicts Harps.

John Mitchell's 0-10 St Brendan's 0-8 in Lancashire and CuCuchullainns 1-9 St Benedicts 0-8 in Yorkshire. Bizarrely the game in Yorkshire was moved at the last minute as the posts had disappeared from the County pitch at Beeston. The wonderful world of the GAA in Britain.

Anyone know how the game went in Scotland?

Dunedin Connolly's won.

You got a lot closer to CuChulains this year, are you a lot stronger or CuChulains weaker or a mixture of both?

Our game against Mitchels was very close, they took the lead for the first time with about 10 minutes to go and held on. They deserved their win although it was a game that could have gone either way. A lot of our younger players will benefit from the experience.

I'd say its a mixture of both to be fair. We're a bit frustrated not to win the game, CC scored 1-3 in a 7 or 8 min spell about 10 mins into the second half. Benedicts had just gone a point up and in the resulting kick out and attack lost both our mid fielder and full forward to injury. It took a while to reorganise and the game was gone, though we still possibly could have knicked it with a bit more composure in front of goals. CC are still a formidable, strong and powerful team but have probably lost a bit of class with the departures of Burns, McCloskey, McCourt, O'Gara and a few others. They'll still not be easy to beat though.

Like ourselves you're getting closer, experience counts for a lot too. We'd beaten Mitchels twice in the last 6 weeks, first in the league final and then in the round robin in the Championship. They won the one that mattered most though.

You still have the high percentage of local lads playing? I'd imagine any good player coming to Leeds now would opt to join yourselves over anyone else.

John Mitchels Liverpool will be hard to beat, think their a slightly better team than 2 years ago, they've added another quality forward, would expect them to beat St Nicks and think Heston will beat John Mitchels of Birmingham. Think the winners of the tournament will come from that game although it won't be the first time I've been wrong.

Yorkshire final is today at 1.00pm at Beeston - c* Chulainns v St. Benedicts Harps.

John Mitchell's 0-10 St Brendan's 0-8 in Lancashire and CuCuchullainns 1-9 St Benedicts 0-8 in Yorkshire. Bizarrely the game in Yorkshire was moved at the last minute as the posts had disappeared from the County pitch at Beeston. The wonderful world of the GAA in Britain.

Anyone know how the game went in Scotland?

Dunedin Connolly's won.

You got a lot closer to CuChulains this year, are you a lot stronger or CuChulains weaker or a mixture of both?

Our game against Mitchels was very close, they took the lead for the first time with about 10 minutes to go and held on. They deserved their win although it was a game that could have gone either way. A lot of our younger players will benefit from the experience.

Lancashire final this Sunday, St Brendan's v John Mitchel's at Old Bedians at 3pm.

Both teams won their semi finals comfortably as expected last Sunday.

Is the Yorkshire final this weekend?

Cross 0-06   Maghery 1-03

goal from penalty

everybody still on pitch mysteriously

Half Time

Is it live on a website?

Were at semi final stage in Lancashire in the Championship

Both games at Old Bedians on Sunday.

St Brendan's v Wolfe Tones at 1pm

St Peter's v John Mitchels at 3pm