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St Enda's actually provided 5 county players this year

Tough situation - take 5 boys away from a small squad and its going to have a big impact.

What if these boys decide to focus on club hurling - then we have the old "only 3/4 north antrim clubs providing county players" yet if in this example of St Enda's you have a cohort of players putting their hand up for the county it can be at the detriment of your club..... how do you square that round hole?

The otherside as pointed out, st Enda's where not up to it this year and have probably been on the decline since monty left. Take your medicine and rebuild to go straight back up?

The squad has the quality to survive but i have serious doubts about the style of play.

Both wing forwards are asked to run doggies up and down the line. Play as half backs then when the ball is played forward 70m davey is going crazy why theyre not under the breaking ball

Forwards totally outnumbered - attack after attack breaks down and eventually the backs are grinded down and leak the scores

Whats everyones thoughts on senior championship this weekend?

Ballycastle V St Endas - Endas by 3
St. Johns V Dunloy - Dunloy by 8

Cushendall V Loughguile - Loughguile by 3
Carey V Rossa - Rossa by 15

I belive ballygalget are already safe?

Only 1 up 1 down - no playoff is what I've heard?

In which case ballygalget on 6 cant believe caught by ballycran on 1

Ballycran need to beat both Portaferry and St Endas to stay up

St Endas need to win 1 game to stay up (or balycran failing to win both)

Thats how i see it?

There's three games left for everyone, so we most definitely can be caught.

Ballycran will need to win all theirs starting with Portaferry and with their last game ending in a bit of argy-bargy the Ports may want to be putting down a marker for later in the year.

Crans failed to beat Portaferry tonight so go down which is as well for us as we were pure dung against a much better St Endas team.

The last two rounds of games are meaningless but holy jesus if we continue to be as shit it'll be a dire championship later...

When is the last time ballycran went down? In my memory i cant remember

Glenariffe up

Offers change of scenery for the league

I belive ballygalget are already safe?

Only 1 up 1 down - no playoff is what I've heard?

In which case ballygalget on 6 cant believe caught by ballycran on 1

Ballycran need to beat both Portaferry and St Endas to stay up

St Endas need to win 1 game to stay up (or balycran failing to win both)

Thats how i see it?

Well it'll probably be meaningless games in both halves of the division 1 split.  Apart from Ballycran, Ballygalget and St Endas who will be fighting to avoid the drop.  As for the top half I can't imagine winning the league will be a massive target for any of those 5 teams.  They'll likely use those games to try things out ahead of championship or hold back against some of their championship group opponents (Bit of shadow boxing).  I think it's just one up and one down in all leagues this year.  I don't think there are any play offs (2nd bottom v 2nd in a league).

What drop?
If you come last can you not just say you don't want to go down and everyone smiles and agrees?

So div 1 has split

Top 5 fighting for the league

Bottom 5 playing 4 meaningless games heading into championship?

Thats how it works isnt it?

Davy to go

McManus & graffin to follow

Mcshane gets my vote provided he gets the right people behind him

Mckenna walked off the panel while being injured

I would ask how does a manager have a disagreement with someone out injured but then again he would fight with his own shadow

If things don't end well at least we can look at getting the right people involved to drive things on again.

Gleeson not only was a great manager himself but had a good backroom team with a good mix around him.

Absolutely huge losses, add in the loss of Clarkey and McCann

Alot of experience to lose in 1 year particularly in the forward line hence why I do question if any manager would get different results with what we currently have

Mckay, mclaughlin, mckeown u20,s all worthy to be in the squad and cracking young players but I do question if they're ready for the amount of minutes being given at this level

Add in players like s Walsh & mcambridge who aren't intercounty forwards and I don't see how a good result can be expected.

Losing kealan and Johnston was a massive blow today.

Players I'd consider (i do have doubts myself but more from the point performing at club level and more size) - focusing on forwards

Ballycastle - T Smyth
Rossa - E Trainor
Loughuile - S McGrath
St Johns- s. Shannon
St Endas - R Donaghy

Some im aware have had a crack at it before and may have opted not to be considered this year but just a small bunch i believe could offer more than some current players or at the very least, offer more from the bench / squad depth perspective

Do I want to look at Fitzy and blame him? Yes but that's lazy

Fact is, the squad of players available at the moment aren't division 1 or Liam McCarthy quality - too many injuries/retirements

I think I said this before either last season or start of the year. There are better and physically more mature players more capable of having an impact on the pitch on days like today than some of the players.

That also isn't a shot or direct criticism of the young lads putting their hand up as I absolutely think we need to mould the u20's and have them exposed to intercounty demands so that by the time they're 23/24 they are the next crop really driving forward and being leaders.

I just feel the squad is extremely light (numbers/weight) and lacking experience, there are at least 7/8 players performing regularly for their clubs who would do better than some of what we currently have yet fitzy and co are relying on u20s to win us a championship game

You could half that and there would still be too many teams in Division 1. Realistically, you have Cargin who are on a level of their own. Then you have Portglenone, St Brigid's, Creggan maybe? The fact there are so few decent club sides absolutely impacts the county team but it's one of many, many issues. 

Doesn't seem too long ago Aghagallon would have been worth a mention...what's gone wrong there ?

Cargin undeniably the best team (as has been the case for a long time) but the other teams named here are right on their coat tails at present. I'm also curious what's going on at Aghagallon. They have plenty of decent players if they can get their act together again.

On a different note, what's gone wrong at St Enda's?  Massive underage hype but they have completely failed to deliver at senior level.

Emigration has hit them hard!

Was speaking to a few of their members last year and was told that their intermediate AI final team is essentially gone.

Rebuild job but even I'm surprised by just how far they've dropped

Lets call it for what it is...

An absolute shambles

Lets just scrap the leagues and send the players out to do hill sprints from now until July then we can worry about championship.

At least then we can be straight up that the leagues are nothing more than a gimmick that we play about with every year

Teams get relegated but get a reprieve to remain in the divisions.

Will this precedence be followed in future years?

County is a shambles, no integrity in the league - hurling being played amongst boardroom tables and secret phonecalls