Messages

Ulster Hurling League Quarter Final: Newry Shamrocks 2-16 Armoy 0-6
Vast improvement from Shamrocks on their inept performance in the IHC on Sunday and Armoy bore the brunt of a team on the rebound last night. The use of a sweeper in between the half back and full back line made a massive difference and created space up front for the forwards particularly Eoin McGuinness to run riot.
It was great to the chance to put Sunday's poor performance behind us so quickly, looking forward to the semis now.

JohnnyCool, there was talk about Down twinning with Kilkenny from a hurling development point of view and in fairness to Kilkenny they sent a couple of coaches up last year to take a session and it was great and should have been built upon. I have a copy of a coaching manual the Kilkenny hurling development committee put together and sent to all clubs in Kilkenny when you see the content and the thought that went into it you would not be surprised by Kilkenny's recent underage success. Kilkenny county board actually offered Down places at the DJ Carey school of hurling and are keen to work on the links and help and instead of "taking their hand off" at the offer the Down board is stalling on the issue.
Some of the clubs are doing their own thing as well trying to build links with clubs down south, it seems that Ballycran have an arrangement with Carrickshock assuming that is via Dutch while Newry have had the advantage of building links with Cloyne via Donal Og and Diarmuid who are due up before the end of the year again.
The meetings the clubs had themselves last year with Frankie Quinn need to be orgainsed again, more progress made then than in 15 yrs of the hurling board!

Crossey is Five Times but where is the output? This has been discussed by hurling people in the county before, we have full time staff but no-one seems to know who or what they are answerable for and what objectives if any they have been set. In fairness to Paddy Branniff he is doing his best but at that man's age there should be others stepping up to the plate. the recent debacle with the U16 elite hurling camp said it all, the kids from the Ards didn't even know they had been selected until the Thursday night before they were due to go on a three day residential!
I'll pose a simple question is non Ards hurling stronger than it was 15-20 years ago?
Kilkeel - where Intermediate champions and one of the strongest non Ards teams (Folded)
Ballyvarley - no where near as strong as they were
Newry - Improved slightly possibly, certainly from 5-10 years ago but still a long way to go.
Warrenpoint - have improved at juvenile but no sign of breakthrough at senior yet
Ballea - great facilities but struggling to field
Kilclief - hurling is dying there if their performances this year are anything to go by
Downpatrick - Folded
Darragh Cross - Folded
Clonduff - making a comeback but far stronger 10 years ago and still only Junior
Liatriom - 10 years ago were playing senior league and actually beat Portaferry I think in a senior league game. Some good young hurlers but at par with where they were at best and still relying on Jerome, Brian and John as mainstays of the team.
Castlewellan - gone backwards at senior level without a doubt.
Bredagh - the one success story of hurling in the county but the driving force in this club have been North Antrim and Ards men who have moved to the area rather than any actions taken by the county board.

None of the teams above will make "senior" in the next ten years at least but they all have good hurlers just not enough of them and these guys don't get the chance to develop as they play in Junior and 2nds leagues, some drastic action needs to be taken to revive hurling and that includes thinking outside the box and looking at the possibility of joining teams at senior level to try and raise the overall standard of matches in the county. We have full time staff but my question again is what are the outputs and where is the improvement where it is needed most.

I agree with JohnnyCool don't think people realise just how bad things are for the GAA in towns such as Newry and yet it seems that the County Board have their eyes closed to what is happening. Biggest urban centre in the county, almost totally "nationalist" and hence should be regarded as fertile ground for the GAA and yet not one team in Division 1 in the football and one hurling team that would fold but for the efforts of one or two individuals.
Don't know what football coaching is happening in the schools but about the only hurling coaching is being driven by the Newry Hurling club with guys taking days off work to go into schools on a Friday and provide coaching. Granted that appraoch seems to be working as there are now about 30 U12/10s hurling on a Saturday morning in Newry now compared to about a dozen 18 months ago.
I think that we shoudl look at twinning some of the non-ards clubs with ards clubs as a first step to try and share the expertise within the Ards clubs certainly for hurling, we should then have a dedicated hurling coach for the Newry/Warrenpoint and Banbridge area along with one for Bredagh/Carryduff and the Ards - this is where the real populations and hence potential for the game lies along with the fact that we need to ensure that hurling remains the no1 sport in the Ards. IMO we are too lax about Ards hurling, people beleive it will always be strong and that we only need to focus on the non Ards and everything will be okay, rubbish - the Ards are the strong point of hurling in the county and need to be made stronger while at the same time improving standards in the rest of the county. We need a root and branch review of hurling in the county, we have 11 clubs playing hurling but if this increased to 18 would hurling be any stronger at adult level or would seperate juvenile teams but amalgamted senior teams to create 6/7 senior hurling clubs be better for the game. Remember that in Cork for years the 3 city clubs dominated then the divisional sides started to win county championship and eventutally after 10-15 years these divisional sides started to produce senior club sides in their own right but it took time. If it works in Cork and counties like that why not try it in Down, three senior clubs will never get us anywhere and with all the best will in the world no current non-ards club on their own is near senior level and won't be for the next 10 years at least. 

Robin Banks - you obviously don't know Diarmuid O'Sullivan at all. The guy is a pure gentleman off the field and a great ambassador for hurling as his many trips north of the border with Donal Og have proved. Didn't see the so called gesture and none of the papers have picked it up so could be a bit of a wives tale that. Little doubt that the Rock can be liberal with the hurl at times but he is not the only one and every county has a player their own fans love and everyone else hates it part of the game.
Same was said of John Mullane a couple of years ago during the Munster final when he gestured to Crok crowd and people started saying all sorts about the guy and yet he is really well thought of in his own club for what he does with juvenile coaching etc - as the tattoo on big Dan's arm says if you don't know me don't judge me.
Reality is great game between two great teams who served up another classic - little doubt that the Cork V Waterford games have been the highlight of the hurling championship over the past few years. All these players are great role models for the youth of Ireland, they mightn't be "saints" all the time but they are a hell of a lot better than the soccer crowd the media love to hype up. Take the likes of Mullane there playing yesterday and back on a building site on Castlemartyr in Cork this morning, you could just imagine Lampard heading to Manchester to work on a building site the day after a Champions League match!

Lecale - I will remind of that decision regarding the free at the end over the next few months in club games, expecting a few frees for the seamrogai in the coming weeks!

[Intermediate Hurling Championship]

Intermediate Hurling Championship

Ballygalget 4-26  0-07 Ballyvarley

Ballyvarley totally outclassed by an excellent Ballygalget IIs team. They had young lads capable of scoring from all over the field and with a solid defence had the game wrapped up well before half time. The crafty Galgets made sure they didn't use any subs to keep them for the juniors next week! Even when Spike Baillie went off injured they didn't replace him and he limped back on to score the 3rd goal.

Ballycran 2-15  1-11 Newry

A well deserved win for Ballycran who always looked in control. Whitehair is right about James Coyle - MOM. The game never really developed into the contest I was expecting and by half time the result wasn't in doubt. Courtney's a class act but Newry rely on him too much and they have too many lads well past their best. Somebody should tell McGuinness that points count in hurling.

I didn't see the Liatroim/Kilclief match - watching Cork/Waterford. Any reports?

Probably our worst performance all year - we got a brutal start with the goal when our full back took the head staggers and pulled on the ball 1st time letting it slip behind him and let Scotty in for a goal. We really missed the couple of lads on holiday as we have  asmall panel and ended up with a full forward line with the combined age of 116! That's probably the same as the whole of the Ballycran forward line. The two goals in the first half killed us and we struggled to play ctach up for the remainder of the game, to be honest we never really looked like threatening up front - we were very flat. A big issue is no games in the weeks coming up to championship, Ards clubs have the advantage of the Antrim league but we have played one game in the past month and that was about four weeks ago and it told as Ballycran were a lot sharper.
Agree that big Kieran is a class act but he will never develop to his full potential playing at that level with us but Eoin was disappointing and IMO has gone backwards this year, he never looked up for the game at all. Eoin is our main man up front and when he struggles the whole forward line does as he is vital to us in terms of winning primary possession. Biazarrely we played better against the wind than withit as we started to get to the pithc of the game but never looked like getting the scores to close the gap.
We can have no complaints beaten by the better team, we have a couple of new lads joining us next year who will be good additions and another couple of young lads coming through so I wouldn't write us off yet from winning an IHC in the next couple of years but we have  alot of work to do in speeding up our hurling.
The most surprising aspect was the lack of scores from play I'd say that we only scored about four points from play and Ballycran didn't score much above that. If the semi-finals are on before the Senior then fancy Ballgalget to beat Liatriom and the other game is a toss up although Crans might sneak that.

Have to agree with Home of Hurling there - not much between Cork, Waterford, Kilkenny or Tipp although Tipp are more in the development stages than the other three and consequently tend to get "edged" out by the others in big games.

As a Cork fan I was at the match, travelled the whole way from Newry for it and have to say that people are being unfair to Tipp in saying that Cork didn't try. It was clearly evident from the last 20 minutes that Cork wanted a win, yes little doubt they were complacent and probably their good start and Tipps well publicised injury concerns only added to this. However, from the moment Tipp got their goal they hurled Cork off the park for the next 25 mintues and got a well deserved win. Let's not forget that last year's Munster final between Cork and Tipp went right down to the wire, Eoin Kelly had a chance for a score went for goal instead of a point, blocked by Donal Og cleared down field and Kieran Murphy got the "insurance" point so Tipp are no bad team.

If Tipp had won the first two days against Limerick like they should would anyone be doubting their ability, remember they were 11 points up at one stage and got caught sleeping - Tipp IMO a lot better team than Limerick and not far off the top 3.

Happy to place any bet that Tipp will win more All-Irelands in next ten years than Waterford that's for sure while Kilkenny are on a good run but these things come to an end, remember they went from winning All Irelands in 82 and 83 until the early nineties without winning an All Ireland and had another sizeable gap from 93 until 2000 so people shouldn't get carried away.

Fully expect Cork and Tipp to be the main Munster teams in the next five-ten years, have the constant conveyor belt of talent both teams have had good minor and U21 squads recently just as good as the Cats in the overall scheme of things. Waterford great side currently and although I hope Cork win Sunday if they don't then I genuinely hope that Waterford get their day in the sun as that particular team deserves it but it is fast becoming last chance saloon for them and their county for the forseeable future.

Another disaster for Down hurling although no point in blaming the lads playing they are trying their best. Let's remember this was a fairly poor minor team at that grade three years ago remember Antrim giving them a pasting in Casement Park before a classic draw between Down and Antrim. The year of Crossey's classic "don't bring the children" quote!

Don't know what is to be done with Down hurling, U14 development training last week .....11 players tuened up and that's only a month before they are due to go to Waterford. Problems at every level in the county and we need to do something quickly to stop the rot. Personally I think stronger teams in the non-Ards are required at minor and senior level to try and drive up the level of competition and the only way that will happen quickly is via amalgamation - the time is here for drastic measures but county structures seem happy to trundle along into hurling obivilion.

We had proabably our best minor team for the best ten years this year and what happened, no support from the county - selectors having to buy kit for the playesr from their own pocket, no challenge games organised bar those arranged directly by management - did you see the article in Irish News today, Antrim played Laois, Wexford and Dublin this year including a training weekend, some hope of getting that in Down.   

IHC
Whitehair, its one each in the IHC between Newry and the Crans. Shamrocks beat them in Darragh Cross two years ago while the Crans won last year - Shamrocks are missing a couple of lads due to holidays so you would fancy the Crans but you never know if big Kieran and Eoin hit form.

My predictions are

Senior Hurling - Ballycran, I think the recent "rucus" in the camp will do them the world of good and they have the advantage of getting the juniors in the first round which gives them a gap of almost six-eight weeks to really prepare to meet the winners of Portaferry and Ballygalget. Think that the injuries the Ports have will come back to haunt them while Ballygalgets chances will every much hang on how Magic recovers from injury (if he does) so on balance it points to the Crans breaking their famine.

Intermediate - Hard to call obviously think that the winner of the Ballycran and Newry game could have a good say in this but reality is that if Ballycran win on Sunday they may have one or two players unavailable for the semi final due to subsequently playing in the Senior championship. That is what happened last year they beat Newry but by the time they played Liatriom had lost 3-4 of their starting 15 so if the same happened this year you would say that Liatriom would run out eventual winners. Don't see the Ports winning as I think they will have to "plug" too many gaps in their senior team due to injuries to have a realistic chance of winning while Ballygalget haven't really impressed all year.
In balance I expect the winner of the Newry/Ballycran game (could go either way) to play Liatriom in the final with it being a toss up for the winner, possibly Liatriom would be favourites.

Junior - Three teams in contention here namely Bredagh (who left it behind them last year), Ballea and Ballycran. Hard to know what the story will be with the Crans, they could decide they have a better chance of winning this than the intermedaite and line out their teams accordingly if they did and kept some of their players for the Junior championship then they would be favourites but don't know whether they will go for this or not.
If the Crans don't adopt that approach then I exepct Bredagh and Ballea to contest the final, this will be a lot closer than people think as Bredagh aren't a bad side at all although they depend heavily on some of their older lads to pull them through. In saying that Bredagh have a better balanced team than Ballea who rely heavily on some outstanding hurlers in Mal Magee, Johnny and Dan Mc Cusker although the likes of Doran, Mc Cann and Cosgrove are handy hurlers too. Expect it to be really close but Ballea just to shade it if Jonny and Mal hit form on a dry day.

Waterford to win by six points - Limerick will stick with them for 40-50 minutes and make it difficult due to the tenacity of their backs and the loose play of the Waterford back six but hard to see Limerick outscore a Waterford whose forwards are far more ruthless than Tipps.

Remember that Tipp in the 1st drawn game could have had the game wrapped up at half time if they had taken their goal chances, big Dan and Mullane won't miss those can't of opportunities.

With the limited options available for Down in the half back line now it looks like Simon Wilson and possibly Ciaran Courtney could be moved back. Would suit big Ciaran far better facing the ball and his strength in the air would be an advantage.

Expect Ciaran Coulter to start in attack to replace the one or two lads moving back - if the rumours about John Murphy are true it doersn't look good, no harm to the guys but not senior inter county standard at all. Surely drafting in the likes of young Conor Woods would be a better option?

Depends on how the likes of Ballycran chose where to play their young players - whether in intermediate or junior could decide if they win the junior championship. You would have to say that Ballea or Bredagh would be favourites, playing in Division 1 will be a big advantage to Ballea in terms of preparing them for the championship but Bredagh are flying in Division 2 so I'd make it 50:50 between them.

In the intermediate championship I'd say Liatriom are favourites given that they have avoided an Ards team in the 1st round always an advanatge, Ballycran and Portaferry along with Ballyglaget all likely to be hit be "defections" once the senior championship is played which will impact on their overall chances. Shamrocks have a big ask in the 1st round against the Crans although it will be tight and even if they win that Portaferry await them in the semi final couldn't have had a harder draw.