Antrim Football Thread

[Milltown Row2]

There are a significant number of these transfers which come from sanctions.
A young lad sanctions for maybe 4 years and then decides to fully transfer.
It's hard to argue that he should return to his "home" club when he has spent more time playing underage football with his sanctioned club.
However, the sanction/amalgamation rules need looked at. There are clubs with a pile of their own players sanctioning in players and there are clubs who can easily stand alone and be competitive who are being allowed to enter amalgamations.

Dont disagree with this.

Clubs who can field a team should not be in amalgamations end of. Acceptance is a Coach's ego boost.    It needs to be 2 or 3 clubs who cannot field that need to be merged together. 

Not disagreeing here, but would be keen to know what would the number be for a team nowadays? Are we talking 22 for likes of availability over the year to allow for the injuries exams and the other reasons young ones give?

As entering a team because you have 15 won't cut it when teams that waiting on a game don't get one as someone is unavailable and two teams then lose out..

expect 17 or 18 would be enough. plenty of clubs with that. isn't there a rule you can line out with 13 players which many do around exam time which helps.     

Not sure if you have taken juvenile teams but I'm personally not taking a team with 17 of a squad.. That's just me, I've taken many teams and if at the start of the year that's all I had that SAY they are playing, come league or championship is different.. 2 subs (if you are lucky) isn't fair either as some players may be expected to play injured and so on..

Yes the rule is in place and every time I've spoken to the managers of the team with all their players there is usually a good aul rant, its not perfect but there are winners and losers all round when you have just 17 to call on.

Long gone are the days when you could have bigger squads as first year under 16's could play minor

You've been spoiled MR2 if you have never taken a team with low squad numbers.  wont say you'll win a trophy with a squad of 17 or 18 but you will at least keep them playing that season.   nothing perfect but that 13 rule gets a game

Its not brilliant but i figure in my case, even if im a useless coach, getting matches will help the kids more than just sitting on a bench at an older age group.

I coach girls football u14. I had 15 u14s and 3 u12s came up to play with us too so total panel of 18. Ladies football allows 11 a side minimum. Think the lowest we went to a game with was 12 but we lost both games when we were down to 12/13 and the opposition had a rake of subs. One probably would have beat us anyway but i think the other we would have beat as we were well ahead but one of our best players got hurt and went into nets.

Ultimately, i do think trying to get games will benefit the kids but as Spike says, if trophies are important to you, its going to be very difficult.

I never brought trophies into the conversation, its about fielding, because if you can't field every week as the squad is short of bodies then its a knock on effect with the team that you can't field against.. Its not about winning.

That team of mine for many years won nowt till they got senior and took huge hammerings along the way.

Winning is participating