Antrim Hurling

[Na Glinntí Glasa]

There's grading lists surely, but depending on the club in question and available resources depends on how many you grade. And due to several balls up by the NA divisional board over the years, declining interest in this once great competition and declining numbers, there seems to be a leniency that allows ye to play across the competitions. The old way of if you played senior feis, you couldn't play down and so on, seems to have gone and with it, the integrity of the competition.
Not that will bother the current occupiers of the 'top' roles in the divisional board. They do what they want, run it like a boys club, meetings badly attended and on when they want them. And you only have to look at the debacle today where the players from Naomh Padraig and Creggan were forced to choose either playing for their club in a final or playing for their county. Madness.

And don't get us started as to why the glens feis is taken out of the actual glens never mind glenariffe. A farce. 

Glenariffe hosted it the past two years. They didn't want to do it this year.

no one from the glens wanted to host it

Dunloy when asked said yes.

No great farce about it. There's a lot of work in hosting the games for three days.

It involves people having to be there at the clubs all weekend doing that work. organizing the pitches, scoreboards, cleaning up the rubbish, doing the shops etc.

[SaffronSports]

Just look at today. Our national sport has an all Ireland semi final. What do they do, fire the feis finals on at the same time. Madness. And absolute arrogance. An absolute joke. And before the usuals come on and say 'sure offer your help' the offers are there, proposals have been made, but the bigwigs in charge know best and show complete ignorance towards others. Our way or the highway scenario. A trip to Dublin this morning from Belfast was much more appealing than a trip to Dunloy to watch reserve teams slug it out for Senior feis finals. Serious rethink needed within the whole county.

The Feis weekend was held the past two years over the 11th/12th July.

The clubs asked for this to be moved away from it due to a clash with players/managments etc all going on holidays. The weekend before was suggested and agreed.

This was also cleared with Antrim GAA early in the year to keep it free from fixtures to allow all of this to be played.

Prior to this it was played in June which was also deemed not able to work according to the clubs.

It was moved to the 4th/5th. The clubs agreed to this in April.

What other weekend do you suggest would work?

The one that clashes with holidays? The one that clashes with the All Ireland football championship? the one that clashes with the U21 championship?

You cant please everyone so it has to go somehwere or do we just delete parts of our traditions and culture that doenst suit you?

You'd 100% be better holding the Feis on a Football weekend. Good to see it being included with the Rasharkin vs Cloughmills match but for the majority of the clubs there's much more interest in the hurling.

[podge]

There's grading lists surely, but depending on the club in question and available resources depends on how many you grade. And due to several balls up by the NA divisional board over the years, declining interest in this once great competition and declining numbers, there seems to be a leniency that allows ye to play across the competitions. The old way of if you played senior feis, you couldn't play down and so on, seems to have gone and with it, the integrity of the competition.
Not that will bother the current occupiers of the 'top' roles in the divisional board. They do what they want, run it like a boys club, meetings badly attended and on when they want them. And you only have to look at the debacle today where the players from Naomh Padraig and Creggan were forced to choose either playing for their club in a final or playing for their county. Madness.

And don't get us started as to why the glens feis is taken out of the actual glens never mind glenariffe. A farce. 

Glenariffe hosted it the past two years. They didn't want to do it this year.

no one from the glens wanted to host it

Dunloy when asked said yes.

No great farce about it. There's a lot of work in hosting the games for three days.

It involves people having to be there at the clubs all weekend doing that work. organizing the pitches, scoreboards, cleaning up the rubbish, doing the shops etc.

Dunloy were great hosts from what I saw. I wouldn't underestimate the time and effort involved for one minute.

I do think there are other very fair challenges being made around the timing of some of the matches clashing with development squads and the grading lists - the fact that at least one player (maybe more ) played junior
Feis, countess of Antrim and senior Feis finals doesn't seem right. 

It would just be great to see some of those challenges acknowledged,  discussed and acted on if necessary, rather than what seems to be a policy of simply defend the position to  the extreme.

[Na Glinntí Glasa]

There are meetings, of which i attended, and the grading is discussed and agreed by the club reps.

If anything the grading was changed in the junior league to reduce it to help the clubs who are at intermediate level so they dont have to grade as many players, thus allowing them more freedom to field in the games.

The NA fixtures were released in April of which every club was sent. Individual coaches do request the spreadsheet of fixtures of which they were given if their club didnt distribute them.

Last year there were conversations about moving games on a saturday away to allow the designated development squad dates to be left free. NA did listen to those requests and didnt fix any games on those dates - dates that were given to NA. These dates were included in the master planner that was issued to all of the clubs.

They also leave free the Antrim football/hurling feile weekend and also the national/regional feile weekends.

One of the biggest gripes that came back at the end of 2025 was parents (from different clubs) complaining about games being cancelled due to development squads. Clubs didn't play the games due to small numbers being missing - or the reality being it was their best players - so clubs wont play without them.

They told NA that this was unfair to see so many kids miss out on a game or see it simply cancelled due to a few players missing. Why cant their kid get a match if they aren't good enough for a county panel was the question.

Is there a perfect calendar in the year to make it all work? No, but the idea is to try and get the games played for all the children as best as possible. And just like 2025 you take on board the comments from clubs about that year and sit down again to try and make it perfect - if ever at all possible!

The NA games are now finished for everyone over 14 so now they can go on holidays, get back to training etc and prepare for championships coming up at the end of July/start of August.

[paddyjohn]

Fair play for coming and explaining it is such simple terms.

Dunloy as usual put on a fantastic display of how clubs should host games. Couldn't do enough to help people.

[Na Glinntí Glasa]

Personally the grading does need to be altered slightly as you seen it in the intermediate Countess of Antrim cup with stronger players getting to play but with only 12 graded its really not the clubs fault.

If the grading does need to be changed the clubs need to request it at the end of the year to be on the agm and it voted on.

It would be good to see more clubs attend the NA meetings as it is poorly attended with some clubs never going. You cant change anything if you never go to these things.

Some day we will get it to suit everyone 

[podge]

I get the low numbers required to be graded for junior league, as that would presumably result in more games being played. 

It could be worth looking at higher numbers of grading being required for junior feis, CoA and senior feis.  Or even back to the old days of if someone plays in one of the higher levels comps they can't play in a lower one in that season.

[Na Glinntí Glasa]

The camogie have that approach for grading in the Feis & championship - you send in a 'graded list' of agreed seniors and anyone outside of that can play down.

However when you play up you are therefore graded and cant play again down.

It has its draw backs as clubs then use players and then come further on into the comps they dont have enough players and end up pulling out of the games.

It maybe needs to be changed to 15 for the foreseeable but it needs the clubs to ask for it and vote on it. I dont personally see any objection to 15 being graded. It might make it more competitive for other clubs to get further in the cups.

If anything the camogie feis is very poorly attended by the clubs. Only three entered the senior feis and three the junior feis. It does need work to be redone and changed up - suggestions of which were given to Antrim camogie earlier this year by NA but nothing was ever done about it.