Leinster Minor Football Championship 2011

[Dinny Breen]

What's the next round of fixtures lads?

Loser section Round 1 - 27/04

[stevecw]

That is a ridiculous scoreline for the Wexford/Kilkenny game.  The Kilkenny County Board really have no shame to put out a team that was as poorly prepared as that one clearly was and also very unfair to the young lads involved.

Do you think the Carlow County board should be ashamed of themselves after the tanking they got today?

Senior hurling league game today

Clare 4-28 0-08 Carlow, Cusack Park

That is one of the most stupid posts I've seen.
We gave most of our panel who haven't had a run, a game in for us a meaningless last game of league. We work off 6 senior clubs so strength in depth is not something u will get on the Carlow hurling panel. Once we go beneath the 1st 15, it's weak.
Clare needed a win to get to final and didn't let up at any stage.

We missed a few frees, and conceded a soft goal after doing well for 1st 15 mins. Once we went 1-8 to 0-3 down, the heads dropped and the lads seemed to give up. Management didn't seem to be too worried anyway and took off 3 of our better players and gave 3 more of the lads who never get a run 35 mins.

But yeah of course we should be ashamed and maybe thrown out of league for only winning 3 of our 7 games. And losing by a late point in Belfast to your lot too 

[laoisgaa]

At its meeting last night the Leinster CCC made draws for Losers Section of M.F.C. 2011 and confirmed arrangements as follows:-

Wednesday 27th April 2011
Longford (7.00pm)                                        Longford   v   Westmeath

Tuesday 3rd May 2011

Longford / Mullingar (7.15pm)                        Longford/Westmeath  v  Wicklow
Carlow (7.15pm)                                           Carlow   v   Meath

Extra time, if necessary, must be played in these fixtures

The Draws for the Leinster M.F.C. Quarter Finals will be made by the Officers of Comhairle Laighean on Wednesday 4th May 2011.

[Donnellys Hollow]

Is Leinster the only province which has a back door for first round losers? I know all the beaten provincial finalists go into the quarter-finals.

In theory then, a Leinster team could lose twice and still win the All-Ireland. Surely they should have done away with it after last year?

[Onlooker]

There is a back door in Munster as well.  The first round games were played last Wednesday with wins for Cork, Kerry and Tipperary.  They go into the Munster Semi Finals.  Clare beat Waterford last Saturday night and play Limerick in the losers group final next Saturday.  The winners of that game play Cork in the semi final and Tipperary play Kerry in the other semi final.  This has been the system for the last few years (hurling and football) and it is working well.

[LaurelEye]

Longford 1-10 Westmeath 0-7.

[thejuice]

Meath 1-17
Carlow 1-3


Woo-hoooo

erm.......up the back door!!*


*probably an appropriate metaphor for what it does to the competition.

[LaurelEye]

Longford v Wicklow now moved to next Saturday.

[Lone Shark]

QUARTER-FINALS
             
1. Laois v Louth    14.5.2011    Portlaoise    
2. Meath v Wexford    14.5.2011    Pairc Tailteann    
3. Longford/Wicklow v Dublin    14.5.2011    Longford/Aughrim    
4. Offaly v Kildare    14.5.2011    Tullamore    

SEMI-FINALS
             
5. 1 v 2    29.6.2011    Home Venue 1    
6. 3 v 4    29.6.2011    Home Venue 3    

FINAL: 5 v 6
   10.7.2011    Croke Park

Very tough draw from an Offaly perspective. Dublin look like the best team in this grade and Kildare are probably the second best, and we'll have to go through both of those to get to a Leinster final. (I'm not saying Dublin are unbeatable, but I will say with confidence that neither Longford nor Wicklow will be good enough to overturn them).

Hard to know on the other side of the draw. I'd have marginally picked out Wexford as the best of the bunch, but they have to go away twice. Maybe Louth are as good as their win over Meath suggests and they can keep going through this competition?

So who knows anything about Kildare? I saw the team from the last day, would many of those be playing in the Senior Championship at the weekend?

[Donnellys Hollow]

So who knows anything about Kildare? I saw the team from the last day, would many of those be playing in the Senior Championship at the weekend?

They've all been told that they can't play for their clubs in the championship this weekend by the county management but we won't mention the war....

It's probably not as strong a Kildare team as the past two years. They're backboned by Athy and Celbridge lads who have dominated the underage scene in recent years. The two lads in midfield (Farrell from Castledermot and Flynn from Balyna) are a very good pairing and Niall Kelly at full-forward is the main scoring threat. They lost their captain Tony Gibbons with a broken collarbone during the Longford match and he will be a loss to them. I was impressed with them against Longford but home advantage is probably worth a few points to Offaly and might be enough to swing it their way.

[Lone Shark]

I can understand restricting lads from training, but I thought clubs could request players within a certain amount of time before championship matches by rule? Being honest, from an Offaly perspective that kind of nonsense from management is great news. Whatever about the risk of injury to players (and let's face it, these are still teenagers so I presume they wouldn't be getting on most senior club teams even if they were available) putting them in the middle of a big row where they have club and county management each making them feel guilty is hardly ideal. Kids just want to play ball, they've no appetite for stuff like that.

Tullamore might be worth a point or two all to us right and if we had a full team I'd be confident of giving it a good go at least, but we've a centre back who's touch and go at best after going off injured against Wicklow, while our full forward, Brian Grehan, is out until after the leaving with a ligament injury. Very key players as well. I'd give us a chance, because we have been able to get goals so far, but Kildare look a lot more balancedd overall. Both our likely starting midfielders, as well as most of the team to be honest, is minor again next year. We've only two of last year's starters back so definitely there is a lack of experience there. 

[Dinny Breen]

Some reward for winning your first round game  - 2 away games 

Hopefully Kildare will pull through in a tight one as this would be better prep for the Dublin game (sorry Larries, Goat-Stealers) but as DH indicates prep for Kildare is hampered and wouldn't hold up to much hope for this year. But they might prove me wrong..

[Shamrock Shore]

Longford 4-14
Wicklow 0-04

Jesus - how bad were Wicklow?

[maigheo]

how good were longford?

[laoislad]

how good were longford?

Longford folk don't think that way...