Antrim Hurling

[Last Man]

Yeah we had a good few who didn't play anything like themselves, there's the challenge for the management team. Happens all the time.

[marty34]

I think, with Antrim, there should be no knee jerk reactions. Judge how things go over the full league then review.

No point in picking things out in isolation or small things that happen in games. In saying that, need to learn from mistakes etc. That's important.

[groundlie]

I'm not sure why this panic amongst our following appears to be setting in. Even under Gleeson last year we lost to Westmeath and got licked by every other team in league hurling  apart from Dublin who stole from us at Corrigan. We would have been relegated last year had the league not been restructured.
 
Our championship last year was good, beat Wexford and Carlow (just about) but got heavily beaten in all the other games. My point is let's not fool ourselves, the team is where it is, I don't think that's the managements fault.

There's nothing to say Davy won't get us a few decent results this year. Time and patience needed.

[Milltown Row2]

I think, like a lot of things Antrim, the negative is better, Davy was always going to bring division but I n that last load of years I've not seen us lined up with a CV as good.

Club all Ireland winner
County all Ireland as player and manager
Two University all Irelands

I'll wait to see how he goes before writing off our season just yet

[Saffrongael]

I'm not sure why this panic amongst our following appears to be setting in. Even under Gleeson last year we lost to Westmeath and got licked by every other team in league hurling  apart from Dublin who stole from us at Corrigan. We would have been relegated last year had the league not been restructured.
 
Our championship last year was good, beat Wexford and Carlow (just about) but got heavily beaten in all the other games. My point is let's not fool ourselves, the team is where it is, I don't think that's the managements fault.

There's nothing to say Davy won't get us a few decent results this year. Time and patience needed.

Don't see much panic, people are just calling it as they see it - game by game. As we are entitled to do

[Antrim Coaster]

Division 1 same 10 teams as last year.

Bredagh coming up the only change in 2.

Gort and Davitts up to 3 with reserve teams from Dunloy, Ballycastle and Cushendall added too. No Na Magha.

In 4 Larne and St Galls Reserves gone but reserve teams from Glenarm, Naomh Eanna and Rossa added in.

I hate how they do this nonsense tbh. Meetings to decide what division clubs are in. Set a structure in place, 2 up 2 down and let teams find their level. Anything else makes it pointless. Teams scrapping for points to stay up but a board meeting actually is what decides their fate then you've teams winning league and championship and back in the same league. Pointless.

Might want to get your facts right here, chap.

[Antrim Coaster]

A facile win in the minor championship today, we played our U-16 panel in this last year - I thought that would be the case again.

Your U20's didn't put a young Down team to the sword as much as I'd have expected.

Two quick Antrim goals in the first half proving to be too big of a margin for Down to overcome, but they did get it down to 2 points in the end and maybe rue not having big Shea closer to the Antrim goals earlier.

That's some management team with Mickey!
Shane Elliott, Johnny Tosh, Brian McFaul, the great and good of Antrim coaching.

Are they ready to take over from wee Davy?

Down were in that match right until the final whistle although Antrim just had that wee bit more to see them through.

Great fightback in the second half and the lad Pucci is some operator.

Im guessing Antrim started to believe the hype after the victory over Derry and thought all they had to do was turn up and collect the points. But Down were having none of it.

On that showing Down should overcome Derry in the final match which if they defeat Derry would set up a rematch with Antrim which Down wont fear at all.

[SaffronSports]

Division 1 same 10 teams as last year.

Bredagh coming up the only change in 2.

Gort and Davitts up to 3 with reserve teams from Dunloy, Ballycastle and Cushendall added too. No Na Magha.

In 4 Larne and St Galls Reserves gone but reserve teams from Glenarm, Naomh Eanna and Rossa added in.

I hate how they do this nonsense tbh. Meetings to decide what division clubs are in. Set a structure in place, 2 up 2 down and let teams find their level. Anything else makes it pointless. Teams scrapping for points to stay up but a board meeting actually is what decides their fate then you've teams winning league and championship and back in the same league. Pointless.

Might want to get your facts right here, chap.

Saw a list of the divisions and Larne definitely weren't on it. I would know a good lot of them and they're small in number and it's definitely not an easy place to promote hurling but it would be good if they can keep it going.

[SaffronOak]

I was at the u20 game in Ballycran and travelled to Tullamore.

u20s probably needed that game.  It brought them back down to earth - some crazy speak after the Derry game.  I've heard calls of a young Down team but Antrim's starting 15 had none in it that are under 20 next year if not the year after that as well.
The talent that was missing out also would be a blow to any side - Jack McCloskey, Aodhan McGarry to name two but there is plenty more.

Tullamore was a case of leaving with more questions than answers.  I read a good quote somewhere recently that a good manager will adapt his system to the players he has, a poor manager will try to adapt players to his system.  Everyone can see the system DF is trying to instil, but do we have the calibre of player capable of playing it?  It leaves plenty exposed as the last couple of away games have shown.
Also, DF has said that change was needed to make us competitive.  We werent competitive against Offaly in the recent past - we were beating them!!  I know they've been on the up in last couple of years but there's no way it should have been such a gulf between the sides.  Sunday was a serious step back, 15 points flattered us.  But for Ryan Elliott in goals and to a lesser extent, Nigel Elliott, not many left O'Connor Park with plus marks.
Players looking panicked before possession comes their way, a sure sign that confidence is sapped.

Work to do to say the least.

[Gael-in-exile]

Davy has played a similar system since taking over Wexford around 2017/18.
It involves a sweeper. Even then it was a tactic that had been around a few years.
Teams have developed further and now can counteract that system pretty well. The best teams are comfortable in playing in more than one tactical style and the top teams are able to change mid game.
I'm hopeful but not confident there will be improvements. And for me watching online the game on Sunday was error ridden by a team who were tactically hammered - and had no change to the approach. That affects confidence and belief which seemed to disappear as the second half continued.

[let it fly]

Division 1 same 10 teams as last year.

Bredagh coming up the only change in 2.

Gort and Davitts up to 3 with reserve teams from Dunloy, Ballycastle and Cushendall added too. No Na Magha.

In 4 Larne and St Galls Reserves gone but reserve teams from Glenarm, Naomh Eanna and Rossa added in.

I hate how they do this nonsense tbh. Meetings to decide what division clubs are in. Set a structure in place, 2 up 2 down and let teams find their level. Anything else makes it pointless. Teams scrapping for points to stay up but a board meeting actually is what decides their fate then you've teams winning league and championship and back in the same league. Pointless.

Might want to get your facts right here, chap.

Saw a list of the divisions and Larne definitely weren't on it. I would know a good lot of them and they're small in number and it's definitely not an easy place to promote hurling but it would be good if they can keep it going.

I seen that structure you mentioned and apparently it's just a proposal for now

[SaffronSports]

Division 1 same 10 teams as last year.

Bredagh coming up the only change in 2.

Gort and Davitts up to 3 with reserve teams from Dunloy, Ballycastle and Cushendall added too. No Na Magha.

In 4 Larne and St Galls Reserves gone but reserve teams from Glenarm, Naomh Eanna and Rossa added in.

I hate how they do this nonsense tbh. Meetings to decide what division clubs are in. Set a structure in place, 2 up 2 down and let teams find their level. Anything else makes it pointless. Teams scrapping for points to stay up but a board meeting actually is what decides their fate then you've teams winning league and championship and back in the same league. Pointless.

Might want to get your facts right here, chap.

Saw a list of the divisions and Larne definitely weren't on it. I would know a good lot of them and they're small in number and it's definitely not an easy place to promote hurling but it would be good if they can keep it going.

I seen that structure you mentioned and apparently it's just a proposal for now

They do some arsing about year by year. Personally, it should be 2 up 2 down and you let that run a couple of years and everyone finds their level.

[Saffron71]

So If Carey get the reprieve from promotion to Division 1 in the league will they be allowed to do the same for championship?  Though if I'm right in saying, when you win the Ulster Junior or Intermediate you can't play in that championship for 3 years I think. So if Carey were to win Intermediate again this year they wouldn't be allowed to enter the Ulster competition.

[Milltown Row2]

So If Carey get the reprieve from promotion to Division 1 in the league will they be allowed to do the same for championship?  Though if I'm right in saying, when you win the Ulster Junior or Intermediate you can't play in that championship for 3 years I think. So if Carey were to win Intermediate again this year they wouldn't be allowed to enter the Ulster competition.

Correct

[johnnycool]

WRT the leagues, we were asked whether we wanted to go back into Div1 by Antrim CCC (I think) and we agreed to go back into Div 1 but it wasn't a clearcut decision within the club due to the fact we've now eight players involved with Down seniors and another seven with the U20's albeit there's two of our players overlap.

So if we get a bad weekend with the seniors playing and the U20's playing we're decimated for a league game that same weekend which happened twice last year where the Dall put 50 points on us up there and Loughgiel had almost 30 on us with both our sub keepers playing in the FF Line as well as a lad in his late 30's who helps me coach underage who just wanted to play a bit of seconds hurling in the half forward line.
We're probably looking at something similar this year and in all fairness some of the Antrim teams have big contingents in both their seniors and U20's as well which might be a bit of a leveller...

We'd hope to have everyone back for when the league splits and take it from there, but I'd say the split season is one of the reasons the club leagues have become more or less meaningless, especially the Div 1 league.