Derry Club Football & Hurling original

[JoG2]

Derry County Board and Derry Senior management team are to be commended  in selecting a Senior Development squad. As many posters have said, when you add the Senior development squad to the already Senior panellists who get little or no meaningful game time with the Senior team in competitive matches, in essence you have now a full Senior reserve county team.

 They can train,play challenge games with other County reserve sides and generally learn what it takes to be proper Senior players who can properly develop their full potential.

At present Senior county players, who do not get game time, soon become frustrated as there are no meaningful outlets  for playing the game that they love so well, either at County level or at club level. So, as has happened in Derry and indeed other counties this year, Senior panellists have already left before the half way point in this year's league. It takes great man management skills to prevent this occurring with an ever increasing regularity.

Another increasing problem that managers have to face is the reluctance of some top class club players refusing to join Senior County  panels. For example there are at least three or four excellent club players in Derry who fall into this category. In fact most connoisseurs of Derry football rate them so highly that they should certainly not only  be on the match day 26 but would be serious challengers for starting positions. Perhaps management could encourage them to join this year's Senior Development panel instead.

All in all a very good development for the successful future of Derry football. Now, if we can get Padraic McGrogan, Conor McCluskey, Donncha Gilmore, Ciaran McFaul, Niall Loughlin, Brendan Rogers, Eoin McEvoy, Niall Toner, Cormac Murphy and Niall O'Donnell fully fit and no new injuries Derry could ruffle a few feathers in this year's championship!!

I'm going to play devils advocate here and say county board shouldn't be commended. Rory Gallagher and to certain extent Mickey Harte played with a bare bones panel and pushed them to the absolute limit and I believe we are suffering for that now. This is the issue with mercenary managers, in no way was the future of Derry football allowed for quick win at all costs attitude and on to the next pot of money. This happened on County Boards watch they are the mainstays in all that. They took their eye off the long term picture for the last 3/4 years because Sam was perceived to be within reaching distant. If they had won that in their opinion they have done everything correctly. The youth structures are in place but development from youth to senior level still appears to be a struggle.

If the county board started dictating to managers on how they should do their job, you wouldn't need interviews

[JB3456]

Any word of how the development squad got on against tyrone on saturday?

Hear tyrone had a strong team out

[THEALBION1878]

will we have McEvoy for the weekend? Both him & Rodgers would be massive losses to our defence.

[JE23]

will we have McEvoy for the weekend? Both him & Rodgers would be massive losses to our defence.

Don't think we'll see Rodgers until the championship.
Also understand Gilmore had a setback at during the week, sounds like his season is over unfortunately.

[THEALBION1878]

will we have McEvoy for the weekend? Both him & Rodgers would be massive losses to our defence.

Don't think we'll see Rodgers until the championship.
Also understand Gilmore had a setback at during the week, sounds like his season is over unfortunately.

unfortunate. the injuries' weve acquired in recent weeks is a clear sign we should of brought more defensive minded players on board. i know you cant predict injuries but surely we could of been better prepared?

[JoG2]

will we have McEvoy for the weekend? Both him & Rodgers would be massive losses to our defence.

Don't think we'll see Rodgers until the championship.
Also understand Gilmore had a setback at during the week, sounds like his season is over unfortunately.

unfortunate. the injuries' weve acquired in recent weeks is a clear sign we should of brought more defensive minded players on board. i know you cant predict injuries but surely we could of been better prepared?

Who player wise and how do you think Tally and Co could have prepared better?

[quit yo jibbajabba]

will we have McEvoy for the weekend? Both him & Rodgers would be massive losses to our defence.

Don't think we'll see Rodgers until the championship.
Also understand Gilmore had a setback at during the week, sounds like his season is over unfortunately.

unfortunate. the injuries' weve acquired in recent weeks is a clear sign we should of brought more defensive minded players on board. i know you cant predict injuries but surely we could of been better prepared?

Who player wise and how do you think Tally and Co could have prepared better?

Yet again this soon shuts them up 🤭

[smort]

https://www.derrygaa.ie down for a couple of days now?

[jmcgdoire]

will we have McEvoy for the weekend? Both him & Rodgers would be massive losses to our defence.

Don't think we'll see Rodgers until the championship.
Also understand Gilmore had a setback at during the week, sounds like his season is over unfortunately.

unfortunate. the injuries' weve acquired in recent weeks is a clear sign we should of brought more defensive minded players on board. i know you cant predict injuries but surely we could of been better prepared?

Who player wise and how do you think Tally and Co could have prepared better?

Shea Downey? I dont think he got a minute in the league

[THEALBION1878]

will we have McEvoy for the weekend? Both him & Rodgers would be massive losses to our defence.

Don't think we'll see Rodgers until the championship.
Also understand Gilmore had a setback at during the week, sounds like his season is over unfortunately.

unfortunate. the injuries' weve acquired in recent weeks is a clear sign we should of brought more defensive minded players on board. i know you cant predict injuries but surely we could of been better prepared?

Who player wise and how do you think Tally and Co could have prepared better?

Not Blaming Tally in this situation. he was put in late and was probably advised in regards to our county championship by the people with him. I'm simply saying surely there is 2 or 3 defenders in the county could of been brought on board in preparation for this scenario. maybe someone else can suggest names? hopefully this development squad can help with this!

[Wildweasel74]

Is Shea Downey still there? He hadn't been on the panel 26 last 3 games.

[shawshank]

Shea Downey left because he wasn't being given a look in. Baffling when you see a few of the players being used with no size nor power.

[lenny]

Shea Downey left because he wasn't being given a look in. Baffling when you see a few of the players being used with no size nor power.

He hasn't been on the panels named for the last 3 games which means he left after just 2 games of the league. That doesn't show much in the way of resilience so we're undoubtedly better off without him. Tomas McCormack has been one of the standout players in the league for Armagh this year at the age of 25. He made his debut in the first league game. This is his third year on the armagh squad and he has had to wait until now to make his debut. If downey had shown that kind of persistence he would definitely be getting game time now with the injury crisis that Derry are faced with.

[Wildweasel74]

If I remember right, he persisted  all of last yr and got a run out against Dublin R5, dont remember him been used of the bench. Now saying he started bck in 2022, u thought he been used off the bench past 2yrs. Is Murphy injured , I haven't seen him on the 26 recently either.Donegal and Armagh are fit to hold on to and carry big panels. Our panel been bare minimum since 2020 and gets thinned out every year  with a no. of drop outs. Nobody actually seemed to know who the panel actually is, unless they involved up at Owenbeg.

[lenny]

If I remember right, he persisted  all of last yr and got a run out against Dublin R5, dont remember him been used of the bench. Now saying he started bck in 2022, u thought he been used off the bench past 2yrs. Is Murphy injured , I haven't seen him on the 26 recently either.Donegal and Armagh are fit to hold on to and carry big panels. Our panel been bare minimum since 2020 and gets thinned out every year  with a no. of drop outs. Nobody actually seemed to know who the panel actually is, unless they involved up at Owenbeg.

I know he's been around the panel and also there may be injuries involved. It'd be disappointing to think he has missed out on the big opportunity which has opened up if he was fully fit.