Derry Senior Championship Thread 2024

[lenny]

Toby47 you have to be from either Glen, S'neil or Magherafelt. Players want games, not loads of trainings with less games as it was for years upon years. Derry players get loads of games now, a schedule when they know when the games are, get a two week break at the holiday period and then a decent period of their county player being with them. The group stage is drawn out with a game every two weeks to accommodate hurling as well (unlike Tyrone). Clubs voted to increase the amount of teams in the league for next year, so they must like it (they couldn't have put self interest ahead of whats best ) I do not like the Tyrone model of football for 3 months for the club player. The average club season should cover 6 months for me, Derry starts mid April and will for 90% of the clubs be over early October, just under the 6 months.

My point is that Derry clubs will train far more than Tyrone clubs in a season because of the breakdown of the season, but won't play many more games over the course of a season.

The danger in Tyrone is that a player could get a hamstring injury which puts him out for 6 weeks and he could miss 10 or more games in that time. Also I'm seeing lots of people on social media completely lauding the tyrone system of straight knockout because they think it gives smaller clubs a better chance. I'm not sure if that's correct because in a straight knockout system the smaller teams will more than likely go for years with just one championship match every season. Yes, every now and then there's a shock but the stronger teams will just get stronger with straight knockout as they're getting 3 or 4 championship matches every season minimum and that's developing them into even stronger. At least with groups the weaker sides have a chance to develop, it might take a few seasons before results are evident but with good management and patience they should get stronger.

[toby47]

Toby47 you have to be from either Glen, S'neil or Magherafelt. Players want games, not loads of trainings with less games as it was for years upon years. Derry players get loads of games now, a schedule when they know when the games are, get a two week break at the holiday period and then a decent period of their county player being with them. The group stage is drawn out with a game every two weeks to accommodate hurling as well (unlike Tyrone). Clubs voted to increase the amount of teams in the league for next year, so they must like it (they couldn't have put self interest ahead of whats best ) I do not like the Tyrone model of football for 3 months for the club player. The average club season should cover 6 months for me, Derry starts mid April and will for 90% of the clubs be over early October, just under the 6 months.

My point is that Derry clubs will train far more than Tyrone clubs in a season because of the breakdown of the season, but won't play many more games over the course of a season.

The danger in Tyrone is that a player could get a hamstring injury which puts him out for 6 weeks and he could miss 10 or more games in that time. Also I'm seeing lots of people on social media completely lauding the tyrone system of straight knockout because they think it gives smaller clubs a better chance. I'm not sure if that's correct because in a straight knockout system the smaller teams will more than likely go for years with just one championship match every season. Yes, every now and then there's a shock but the stronger teams will just get stronger with straight knockout as they're getting 3 or 4 championship matches every season minimum and that's developing them into even stronger. At least with groups the weaker sides have a chance to develop, it might take a few seasons before results are evident but with good management and patience they should get stronger.

I wouldn't agree with that Lenny.

Most people would be of the opinion, that there are only 3 teams that could win a championship in Derry at the minute. Glen, Slaughtneil and Magherafelt. In the 4 years since the group stages have been brought in, those 3 teams were the only 3 teams to make a final.

2020 - Slaughtneil v Magherafelt
2021 - Glen v Slaughtneil
2022 - Glen v Slaughtneil
2023 - Glen v Magherafelt

In the 4 years previous to that, 7 different clubs made a senior final appearance.

2016 - Slaughtneil v Loup
2017 - Slaughtneil v Ballinascreen
2018 - Coleraine v Lavey
2019 - Magherafelt v Glen

A knock out championship give smaller clubs a lot more hope. Especially compared to the current system where if a 'smaller' team can scrape through to 4th place in a group they are likely to get a 'big' team straight away, or 'big' teams are going to be kept apart as they will usually finish high up the group.

[lenny]

Toby47 you have to be from either Glen, S'neil or Magherafelt. Players want games, not loads of trainings with less games as it was for years upon years. Derry players get loads of games now, a schedule when they know when the games are, get a two week break at the holiday period and then a decent period of their county player being with them. The group stage is drawn out with a game every two weeks to accommodate hurling as well (unlike Tyrone). Clubs voted to increase the amount of teams in the league for next year, so they must like it (they couldn't have put self interest ahead of whats best ) I do not like the Tyrone model of football for 3 months for the club player. The average club season should cover 6 months for me, Derry starts mid April and will for 90% of the clubs be over early October, just under the 6 months.

My point is that Derry clubs will train far more than Tyrone clubs in a season because of the breakdown of the season, but won't play many more games over the course of a season.

The danger in Tyrone is that a player could get a hamstring injury which puts him out for 6 weeks and he could miss 10 or more games in that time. Also I'm seeing lots of people on social media completely lauding the tyrone system of straight knockout because they think it gives smaller clubs a better chance. I'm not sure if that's correct because in a straight knockout system the smaller teams will more than likely go for years with just one championship match every season. Yes, every now and then there's a shock but the stronger teams will just get stronger with straight knockout as they're getting 3 or 4 championship matches every season minimum and that's developing them into even stronger. At least with groups the weaker sides have a chance to develop, it might take a few seasons before results are evident but with good management and patience they should get stronger.

I wouldn't agree with that Lenny.

Most people would be of the opinion, that there are only 3 teams that could win a championship in Derry at the minute. Glen, Slaughtneil and Magherafelt. In the 4 years since the group stages have been brought in, those 3 teams were the only 3 teams to make a final.

2020 - Slaughtneil v Magherafelt
2021 - Glen v Slaughtneil
2022 - Glen v Slaughtneil
2023 - Glen v Magherafelt

In the 4 years previous to that, 7 different clubs made a senior final appearance.

2016 - Slaughtneil v Loup
2017 - Slaughtneil v Ballinascreen
2018 - Coleraine v Lavey
2019 - Magherafelt v Glen

A knock out championship give smaller clubs a lot more hope. Especially compared to the current system where if a 'smaller' team can scrape through to 4th place in a group they are likely to get a 'big' team straight away, or 'big' teams are going to be kept apart as they will usually finish high up the group.

That's interesting Toby. How long have we had groups I wonder and how long is it since we had straight knockout? I still think at the moment we have 3 or 4 clubs with really strong panels who are very unlikely to be caught in knockout games and there are a number of clubs who would need many, many things going their way to beat a decent team in a knockout game. Going back even 5 or 6 years there wasn't the same gap between the top and the rest. Just my opinion though and I could very well be wrong.

[LoughNeagh]

Senior Predictions

[OakLeaf]

I'd go for Glen, Newbridge, Slaughtneil and Magherafelt.

[jmcgdoire]

Id say everyone would be picking those four.
The question is which team is most likely to cause and upset?

[jb77]

Bellaghy has gotten stronger as the groups went on, Lavey disappointing this year. Dungiven and magherafelt could be good

[LoughNeagh]

Glen v Lavey - Easy Glen win, 6/7 Points
Newbridge v Bellaghy - Bellaghy to surprise in this one
Slaughtneil v Ballinascreen - Big win for Slaughtneil
Magherafelt v Dungiven - Magherafelt but might be tighter than expected

[GTP]

Bellaghy has gotten stronger as the groups went on, Lavey disappointing this year. Dungiven and magherafelt could be good

Bellaghy won their first game, lost three including a big defeat to S'Neil and won the last, Lavey lost the first two by a point and won the last three, scored more and conceded less than Bellaghy in the group stage. So not sure this holds up.
In saying that Bellaghy probably a better chance of turning over Newbridge than Lavey have of getting past Glen. I'll go with the four obvious semi-finalists - Glen, S'Neil, Newbridge and M'Felt. With Dungiven the most likely to cause an upset, would expect this to be a tight low scoring match.

[shawshank]

Another variable, the Glen group imo was a lot stronger than the other group. Loup, Screen and Steelestown near the bottom of the league, Lavey playing intermediate league football. We were bottom of the group, and would have really have fancied us to qualify  for the quarter finals if we were in the other group

[toby47]

Glen v Lavey - Glen by 3
Newbridge v Bellaghy - Newbridge by 4
Slaughtneil v Ballinascreen - Slaughtneil by 9
Magherafelt v Dungiven - Dungiven by 2

[jb77]

Lavey committing football terrorism honestly

[OakLeaf]

Lavey committing football terrorism honestly

They'll have to play now. First 20 was brutal

[Brendan]

Lavey 90% possession according to Odhran Bradley on twitter, surely not

[OakLeaf]

Lavey 90% possession according to Odhran Bradley on twitter, surely not

Yep, but most of it around the midfield, passing sideways!