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Sean Duffin a proper player Dreen. You can just see the class oozing out of him. A county Star of the future without a doubt...has got the lot, now if he could be turned into a scoring forward that would be the cherry on the top.

But that wasn't who I had in mind. Let's just say he is bred in the purple to be a senior county footballer. We will be watching this young man for almost as many years as we have been watching his Dad and his uncles.

Sean O Neill, looked tremendous last night. Can play anywhere

Sean O'Neill is a class act EOC and has established himself on the senior ranks for a couple of years.
Seems BS missed last night him or his genealogy...??

BS doesn't appear to have missed much
CB take a scroll up and have a read.... Either that or your being way 2 cryptic for me

[healthy dividend]

A lot of interesting points being made there Barnish.

St Brigid's very strong at that age group too, I was equally impressed with them too, and a great bit of height about some of them for the age. Move the ball very well.

I'm not bumming PG1 up, the coaches involved wouldn't want me doing that, but there's a really nice conveyor belt in place across four or five age groups and work going on is top class. I'd expect to see a healthy dividend from this in time.

Interesting choice of words....Would there be the odd Tab that needs settled on top of the 4 in a row boys

What would Louth be like in Leinster at underage and schools cup level?


Would Westmeath have a decent under age set up county and schools? I know they won I think a minor championship before, can't remember how long that was. In Football are Limerick doing well at under age for county or schools?

Westmeath schools in 5 A finals between 2014 & 2020 + probably pupils going to. St Pats Navan

Louth 2 wins in A in last 20 years + probably pupils going to St Pats Navan & Gormanstown

Might be something in this Schools football after all

Munster dominated by Kerry so Limerick schools don't feature.

Strong sporting county Maybe JP throwing a few coppers behind it trying to follow the hurling model

There's no doubt those two were very quiet in the final, can't argue with that. There have been plenty of days when they haven't been though. Those two in particular did most of the damage against Portglenone in the elongated semi final. Their mountain had been climbed I think.

BS to steal some words from a famous Tyrone manager The next time Antrim are playing PG1......

The guys have undoubted potential
Adam didn't get much of a look in last year and didn't start for a UCD sigerson team beaten by Letterkenny
An undoubted underage talent but yet to make the mark at the higher level. Could be injuries & studies that have stalled the progress. Time is on his side to kick on.

On Ruairi you may have hit the nail on the head.... When in the mood.... Unfortunately at the higher level when in the mood doesn't really do it. You need the 6/10 on a bad day.

Again has time to rectify and bring the consistency required at that level

That was great quote, Art McCrory I think it was

It was  A confident lough shore forward supposedly on the receiving end

There's no doubt those two were very quiet in the final, can't argue with that. There have been plenty of days when they haven't been though. Those two in particular did most of the damage against Portglenone in the elongated semi final. Their mountain had been climbed I think.

BS to steal some words from a famous Tyrone manager The next time Antrim are playing PG1......

The guys have undoubted potential
Adam didn't get much of a look in last year and didn't start for a UCD sigerson team beaten by Letterkenny
An undoubted underage talent but yet to make the mark at the higher level. Could be injuries & studies that have stalled the progress. Time is on his side to kick on.

On Ruairi you may have hit the nail on the head.... When in the mood.... Unfortunately at the higher level when in the mood doesn't really do it. You need the 6/10 on a bad day.

Again has time to rectify and bring the consistency required at that level

Is there a need for a league though? There was never an under 21 league. Would most of these guys not be playing senior or reserve?

ITG as far as I'm aware there was an attempt @ an U20 league last year which pretty much failed followed by an U20 championship later in the year.(might be wrong on this)

The U20 league was only introduced to try any bridge the gap for the 17 year olds who miss the minor cut (and late developers) who were not in a position to step up to adult football.

It is a half baked attempt to patch up the stupidity of the decision to change the minor age level.

The GAA had the opportunity to reverse one of the worst decisions they ever made but chose not to.

You would struggle to find anyone who has ever been involved in coaching at any level who thinks it was a good decison

Couple of clubs raising concerns over the timing of the U20 league at the meeting last night. Chairman talked over the delegates and was completely dismissive of their concerns and very condescending. Not a good image for the top table.

Saffs is it the day of the week / time or period of the year the delegates are complaining about?

it was the saturday plus the 3pm, only 2 games went ahead from all the fixtures. No matter what the chair says , alot of lads do work on a saturday at that age, think the suggestion was made at the earlier meeting that clubs could drop to 13 aside and still play the competitive game but that really hasnt help. U20 hurling gets a weeknight slot when it starts!!!

My young lad in the Cargin squad at this age, he falls into that bracket of not making the senior team and overage for minor, he's already had word Ballymena aren't fielding this weekend so no game. With no adult games fixed for this weekend and games still being called off, it really does seem a waste of time. Why did teams enter if they weren't going to field?

U20/21 has always been difficult. It has been pushed around  various slots but never really worked well.
Worst decision ever was changing Minor age.
It is hard to see who that works for

Having said that it is hard to understand that Ballymena who have been competitive across the age groups can't put out 15 players. If they are ever going to make the step up they need to find a way to fix this. Their drop out must be very high

Have to say some of the derogrotary comments on here about Cavan GAA is quite sad lads. The first I heard of this vote was this morning. I am not happy about it and I dont like sly shit like this to get a upper hand. However, Corrigan park at 5k is not a suitable venue for big championship game and I can tell you we will bring more than 1k supporters to any venue anywhere in the province. I think its a bit of a laugh to hear one lad from a Derry/Antrim background sneering at Cavan support - are you joking?

I would say the game should go ahead in Corrigan park - no excuses and I will be very disappointed if we couldn't beat you there or anywhere. But ye should stand your ground for sure.

However, some advice for ye. Your county has a population of 615k. Even if we were to say half of those have no interest in GAA then you are still by far the biggest county in population terms in Ulster. So really take a look at yourselves lads, ye have no county ground and a team that moves indefinitely between Div3 to Div4. Stop throwing shite at small counties like Cavan with a fraction of your population.

Itchy who tabled the motion.....

Quote Itchy
"I am not happy about it and I dont like sly shit like this to get a upper hand"

Answer

The 2020 Ulster champions proposed a motion that the game be moved to another venue at a meeting of the Ulster Council on Wednesday night.

Itchy

Stop throwing shite

Sorry if I missed the nuances. Corrigan only recently completed, therefore this is the first time we have got a ground with a covered stand fit for holding an event of this kind.

This is new territory. We need to set a precedent or we could be playing home cship games at neutral venues...forever.

The 2020 Ulster champions proposed a motion that the game be moved to another venue at a meeting of the Ulster Council on Wednesday night.

Only Antrim, Derry and Tyrone voted against the motion.

Poor form..... Was the motion sprung on the night

Great to be at a high level game like that and see the club names Cargin, Moneyglass and Portglenone beside players names in the programme. Can only be a good thing. Can we not talk Brady into taking our minors or U20s at some point. Would love to see it.

Did I read the squads correctly that there was a player from St Comgall's on the St Mary's panel?

McKeating?

I noticed he was in the squad for the semi but when people were talking about the final squad he didn't seem to be mentioned but there was definitely an antrim boy in the panel at some point. Name I am not so sure on. Don't slag Belfast - MR is very sensitive 

Yes young lad McKeating... MR can lay claim I think he has St Galls connection

If there was an A tournament on the first day of Year 8, the Antrim schools would take a pasting. There's just no 2 ways about that.

I think we would all agree on this but none of our schools are  competing in A. What most people! on here believe and are looking for is to be competitive @ the level they are at... B, C or lower. Any have decent coach/coaches in a reasonable environment should be able to improve guys over a 7 year period. Make average players into good players Good into V Good at their level. I see very little evidence of this. As Spike indicated look at Creggan & Cargin (you could add Aghagallon). Compare the improvement in their players from year 8 that have gone to schools with good coaching setups.
The coaches in those schools are competitive and proud guys who would not be happy unless they were maximising the talent that they have at their disposal. You don't have to be an A player to be developed and moulded into a better player

I'm a bit disappointed that some here seem to be casting adverse judgement on the achievement of HTCs development from a Grade B participant to a Grade A contender. Why can't we just accept that they made this an important aspect of their school ethos and worked harder to make this happen. (As a shining light on what could be done in Antrim schools if they had any inclination).

And no I'm not talking about winning McRorys, just get competitive in grades they are completing in first of all and go from there.

Here's a stat for anyone still interested in this discussion. No less than 11 of the team who started in Sunday's final for HTC began their education there as first years and have completed 7 years at the school. That's different to what some posters here are attempting to convey.

Any idea if this was part of a Tyrone Strategic objective to help development in that area or was it purely a HTC or individuals within HTC driven initiative.

Either way it is going to make Tyrone as a county stronger in the medium to longer term 100+ guys over the 3 schools competing @ Grade A per annum

We might have 10-15 across 3 schools

You're right Flanker, I remember Terence telling me the story - think a big majority of the squad were St Thomas thats what it was. His mate was Martin O Neill who was of course the main man at St Malachys when they won Mc Rory.

TBH i had no idea who St Thomas were. Never realised there were so many schools in the West Belfast area. Lots of mergers .... Might explain how the fortunes of clubs in those areas have fallen. A lot of links, identities and allegiance's were probably broken along the way

Indeed we had Flanker, Terence McWilliams played for St Thomas in 1968.

You have me on the St Thomas bit BS where does that fit in

[Derry]

i mind in the 90s watching some good games in croke park before the likes of national league finals and I'd say at least half of one of them donegal teams played senior.

The All-Ireland Intercounty VS football final was for a long time the curtain raiser to the NFL Finals in Croke Park, I think it stopped being the case by the early 00's (2002 which was the last time Donegal won the title IIRC).

In Tyrone from around the mid-90's until the late 00's the VS football level was quite strong and well developed, in that time five different schools won Ulster titles (when there was only one competition at provincial level at U14, U16 & U18) while the intercounty team reached six All-Ireland finals winning three of them. Until about 2004 or so, there were only two schools in the county that were in Ulster Colleges competitions namely Omagh CBS & St. Pat's (Boys) Academy Dungannon - then when Holy Cross College Strabane was established it decided to enter the Colleges sector whereas one of the schools it replaced, St. Colman's High School, played in VS competitions. Later on St. Joseph's Donaghmore went from being a girls grammar school to becoming a co-ed and entering their own teams in the Colleges sector and finally a year before the Ulster Colleges and VS GAA councils merged to become Ulster Schools GAA, St. Ciaran's Ballygawley & Holy Trinity Cookstown decided to throw their lot in with the colleges a year before they would have been playing with them otherwise.

Antrim did win one All-Ireland Intercounty VS title back in either 68 or 69, the same year as their only Ulster title win.

I could be wrong on this but I believe we had a Derry man on the team. We knew how to do it then just all down hill since