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Is there promotion from Div 2,3 & 4 this year I take it ?

Yes

Wednesday night 6pm throw in Div 2 games. Never seen the likes of it. All fairly close distance wise but still! Madness!

Any objections to Glenravel and Aldergroves inclusion in div 1 now? Both taking pts off top half teams?

County players available for this weekend?

6 Days before Ulster championship match?

will many games survive this weekend after that spell of weather

Absolutely terrible. Did he play senior football?

Just reading some of the comments on social media. It's absolutely terrible and all too common. A fit young fella with a so much to look forward to in life.

God help that family and his friends.

He did. Good player

Great news that these lads are back. A strange but welcome communication from the county manager by way of a player update as its been speculation and rumour as to who's fit and who's not.

I just hope its not too late in the day to bring lads into a panel. I don't know much about S&C but hope they've all kept themselves in good nick - to be able to compete in Leinster champ.

Ger Walsh a starter for sure, could slot right into full back to most likely line TJ Reid in the first game. The Kilkenny half back line were outstanding on Sat again Limerick (Paddy Deegan etc..). Our half fwds will have the work cut out for them.

But very positive! 

Dunloy lads all went deep into club football season. Im sure they havent dropped all the gym work either and they've 4 weeks to top up the fitness which will probably be off, as will the injured players obviously. Portugal training weekend would potentially get guts of 2 weeks worth of training done in 4 days

Awful news out of Moneyglass club today

It is abundantly clear both in football and hurling these days that you need a few years of the conditioning work to get properly up to speed. I would hope that the league will improve a lot of those boys a lot.

Are Gerard Walsh and Paul Boyle going to come back?

The statement said yes. Paul boyle getting a procedure and back playing very quickly after. And walsh back soon also. James McNaughton too. 3 Starters as are Ryan Elliot, Keelan and Nigel

Still young yes and should be kept on in some form. S&C wise for sure. Testing etc

Will there be a panel cut? Weve around 25 of a panel fit and add in probably 15 named players either returning from a break or injury we could have 40

If we ever had a football sub committee  their first job should be to reduce division 1 to 8 teams. There are so many sub standard teams in there, at least 4 of them would be in Division 3/4 in any other county and it's doing no one any favours, them or other teams that strive for better.

If this was later in the year after county was finished i could understand your case. In march though, not so much. Some of the newly promoted teams are countributing more county men than some of "these top 8 teams" and competing. Took 2 points off a team and ran a "top 3 team" to 2 points.

Jackman is obviously well placed to comment on the state of underage football in Antrim, and maybe his points deserve an airing at some stage. But the timing of that article was appalling.

Seemed a lot more competative than expect. Maybe he provoked a reaction

Here are the simple requirements of an intercounty player

Strength and conditioning
Nutrition
Endurance
Pace
Commitment
Attitude
Skill

There are more requirements and I deliberately put skill at the end cause you could have all the skill in the world but if lacking any of the above you won't cut it at intercounty level, at any grade.

We have all got those ballers who are the worst trainers. But give me 15 players with the 6 requirements above skill and I'll work with that over a lazy skillful players.

This is not a dig at any county  or player or management, these are the things a player has to bring to the table first before a manager can decide if he can use him.

The first 6 requirements are an individual thing, its called bluffing if you are not bringing that to the table.

At club level lads will, for their team, bring most of that, and that's why some teams punch above what their county as a hole are doing.

The buy in is a collective and I get that, that's from the set up all the way down to the kit man

The rowing can only be in one direction, someone rowing the other way doesn't work.

The standard needs set by player, by club, by school by parents and so on

For whatever reason, and I'm sure we could chat for another 50 years about it, Antrim does not have it in their locker  like the other Ulster teams 

I think the commitment and the attitude are the two most important. If you dont have them from an early age you're in bother

Were the u20s playing last night? If so how did they get on?

There was a good article in the irish news interviewing Niall Jackman. Pretty much covered what was covered here.

The game is tonight, they took a fair beating by Tyrone (who are on of the best) but by recent Antrim standards that u20 team has some real good players in it.
Most worrying aspect of the article was the reality that whats coming behind these current u20s is of a much lower standard

Worrying thought.

Maybe its time for Antrim to take the lead in alternative development rather than following in the slipstream of other counties. What is working for them isn't working for us. We don't appear to be any closer to catching up with the rest of ulster despite Dunsilly and the development squads. The only good thing about being at the bottom is the only way is up.

To quote Jackaman "I make no apologies for saying it, culturally there's not the same emphasis put on it by players themselves"

There lies the problem with Antrim GAA as a whole

If we snuck over the line by 1 point and progressed. Derry wouldve played B Competition. They beat Roscommon by 6 points in the final last year (in croke park) and have a good wack of that panel available this year? Why do we think we are too good for this??