Down Club Hurling & Football

[johnnycool]

Senior championship round robin ended yesterday with the three Ards clubs in the top three spots...

From all accounts Liatroim can consider themselves unlucky, only losing by a point against Ballycran.

Our game with the Ports was worse than a friendly, nothing of note in it other than I'm not overly impressed by some of our teams attitude and application and TBH Ports left off five or six starters and still won comfortably enough.
We've no consistency in our team, lacking leaders etc and wouldn't be surprised if Ballycran turn us over in two weeks time.

It's hard to see the Ports losing this one this year with all due respects to Bredagh, they'll get nothing out of their semi-final and then whoever comes out of our semi will have to seriously step in up a good few gears and hope Portaferry have a stinker.

Liatroim and Carryduff drop to intermediate, my moneys on Liatroim in that with Castlewellan for the junior.

[clonian]

Senior championship round robin ended yesterday with the three Ards clubs in the top three spots...

From all accounts Liatroim can consider themselves unlucky, only losing by a point against Ballycran.

Our game with the Ports was worse than a friendly, nothing of note in it other than I'm not overly impressed by some of our teams attitude and application and TBH Ports left off five or six starters and still won comfortably enough.
We've no consistency in our team, lacking leaders etc and wouldn't be surprised if Ballycran turn us over in two weeks time.

It's hard to see the Ports losing this one this year with all due respects to Bredagh, they'll get nothing out of their semi-final and then whoever comes out of our semi will have to seriously step in up a good few gears and hope Portaferry have a stinker.

Liatroim and Carryduff drop to intermediate, my moneys on Liatroim in that with Castlewellan for the junior.

Do Warrenpoint stand any chance against Carryduff? Liatroim going to Ballela in the other semi final.

[Truth hurts]

Dropping down from senior to intermediate seems unfair.

[johnnycool]

Dropping down from senior to intermediate seems unfair.

If we were winning Ulster Intermediate club championships by the bucketload then I'd agree with you.

The current format allows those yoyo clubs an opportunity to get exposed to senior hurling and develop accordingly.

If we revert back to the enclosed senior championship we used to have, intermediate and junior we'd end up with probably only 4 teams in the senior, for me that would be a step backwards in terms of overall development.

I can see how the teams competing at Intermediate might feel it's unfair to have the two senior teams parachuted in at the semi-final stage with the only solace is a home semi-final, but what we have now is better than what went before, it isn't perfect, but what we have now will help develop hurling more IMO.

[imtommygunn]

Would an alternative not be to just let them compete in the senior and have a relegation playoff for the next year or a winner of intermediate plays the bottom team for who plays senior the next year?

The group stages gives carryduff, leitrim and bredagh plenty of games at senior. It's not that they shouldn't be playing senior it's that they shouldn't be playing intermediate I'd have thought...

[clonian]

Dropping down from senior to intermediate seems unfair.

If we were winning Ulster Intermediate club championships by the bucketload then I'd agree with you.

The current format allows those yoyo clubs an opportunity to get exposed to senior hurling and develop accordingly.

If we revert back to the enclosed senior championship we used to have, intermediate and junior we'd end up with probably only 4 teams in the senior, for me that would be a step backwards in terms of overall development.

I can see how the teams competing at Intermediate might feel it's unfair to have the two senior teams parachuted in at the semi-final stage with the only solace is a home semi-final, but what we have now is better than what went before, it isn't perfect, but what we have now will help develop hurling more IMO.

The Ulster thing is more to do with how other counties set that up too - same at Junior with some of the Derry teams involved.

If the intermediate teams aren't improving but the senior championship is getting better it's probably better for the county team. You'd wonder then is it better to drop the intermediate teams to junior and have the bottom 2 at senior as your intermediate final. Maybe add in a Junior A for the lower teams in Junior to fall down to. It feels like the teams outside the senior championship now don't have the resources to ever push to where Liatroim, Bredagh and Carryduff are. Maybe CPN and Castlewellan disagree with that.

[johnnycool]

Dropping down from senior to intermediate seems unfair.

If we were winning Ulster Intermediate club championships by the bucketload then I'd agree with you.

The current format allows those yoyo clubs an opportunity to get exposed to senior hurling and develop accordingly.

If we revert back to the enclosed senior championship we used to have, intermediate and junior we'd end up with probably only 4 teams in the senior, for me that would be a step backwards in terms of overall development.

I can see how the teams competing at Intermediate might feel it's unfair to have the two senior teams parachuted in at the semi-final stage with the only solace is a home semi-final, but what we have now is better than what went before, it isn't perfect, but what we have now will help develop hurling more IMO.

The Ulster thing is more to do with how other counties set that up too - same at Junior with some of the Derry teams involved.

If the intermediate teams aren't improving but the senior championship is getting better it's probably better for the county team. You'd wonder then is it better to drop the intermediate teams to junior and have the bottom 2 at senior as your intermediate final. Maybe add in a Junior A for the lower teams in Junior to fall down to. It feels like the teams outside the senior championship now don't have the resources to ever push to where Liatroim, Bredagh and Carryduff are. Maybe CPN and Castlewellan disagree with that.

I fail to see how some intermediate teams expect to improve when they don't fulfil a lot of their league fixtures, especially when they have to travel to play the Ards seconds team.

Our seconds didn't fulfil their last league fixture as they were pissed off with having to trek to South Down to yet another team that can't travel to us.

We fulfilled every other game we could with whoever was available.

For me Castlewellan are the only team outside the senior championship teams with the structures in place to bridge the gap from intermediate, even though they're currently in the junior championship.

Down don't need a junior B, there's not enough teams to justify it.
Is there that big of a gap in standard between Newry, Clonduff and the likes of KBD and even East Belfast?

[clonian]

The teams you're talking about don't have enough players to push on. If you can only name 18-20 players for championship it's going to be hard to push towards senior. Their age profile isn't great either

Castlewellan could make the break though over the next few years if they keep their underage teams together and they have the population their to keep it going.

[SunnyJim]

One of the main issues is the league system. When it's only division 1 & 2, some that go up or at the bottom of 1 just can't compete with the top. It's essentially junior teams playing senior teams. There is little to no benefit for some to get promoted

Could easily be split into 3 leagues, home and away, mid season break and maybe a final. That way only slightly less games, and less 20 point hammerings for some teams/refusing to travel.

[Truth hurts]

Dropping down from senior to intermediate seems unfair.

If we were winning Ulster Intermediate club championships by the bucketload then I'd agree with you.

The current format allows those yoyo clubs an opportunity to get exposed to senior hurling and develop accordingly.

If we revert back to the enclosed senior championship we used to have, intermediate and junior we'd end up with probably only 4 teams in the senior, for me that would be a step backwards in terms of overall development.

I can see how the teams competing at Intermediate might feel it's unfair to have the two senior teams parachuted in at the semi-final stage with the only solace is a home semi-final, but what we have now is better than what went before, it isn't perfect, but what we have now will help develop hurling more IMO.

The Ulster thing is more to do with how other counties set that up too - same at Junior with some of the Derry teams involved.

If the intermediate teams aren't improving but the senior championship is getting better it's probably better for the county team. You'd wonder then is it better to drop the intermediate teams to junior and have the bottom 2 at senior as your intermediate final. Maybe add in a Junior A for the lower teams in Junior to fall down to. It feels like the teams outside the senior championship now don't have the resources to ever push to where Liatroim, Bredagh and Carryduff are. Maybe CPN and Castlewellan disagree with that.

I fail to see how some intermediate teams expect to improve when they don't fulfil a lot of their league fixtures, especially when they have to travel to play the Ards seconds team.

Our seconds didn't fulfil their last league fixture as they were pissed off with having to trek to South Down to yet another team that can't travel to us.

We fulfilled every other game we could with whoever was available.

For me Castlewellan are the only team outside the senior championship teams with the structures in place to bridge the gap from intermediate, even though they're currently in the junior championship.

Down don't need a junior B, there's not enough teams to justify it.
Is there that big of a gap in standard between Newry, Clonduff and the likes of KBD and even East Belfast?

Would Warrenpoint, Hilltown and Newry not have the numbers to bridge the gap ?

[johnnycool]

Dropping down from senior to intermediate seems unfair.

If we were winning Ulster Intermediate club championships by the bucketload then I'd agree with you.

The current format allows those yoyo clubs an opportunity to get exposed to senior hurling and develop accordingly.

If we revert back to the enclosed senior championship we used to have, intermediate and junior we'd end up with probably only 4 teams in the senior, for me that would be a step backwards in terms of overall development.

I can see how the teams competing at Intermediate might feel it's unfair to have the two senior teams parachuted in at the semi-final stage with the only solace is a home semi-final, but what we have now is better than what went before, it isn't perfect, but what we have now will help develop hurling more IMO.

The Ulster thing is more to do with how other counties set that up too - same at Junior with some of the Derry teams involved.

If the intermediate teams aren't improving but the senior championship is getting better it's probably better for the county team. You'd wonder then is it better to drop the intermediate teams to junior and have the bottom 2 at senior as your intermediate final. Maybe add in a Junior A for the lower teams in Junior to fall down to. It feels like the teams outside the senior championship now don't have the resources to ever push to where Liatroim, Bredagh and Carryduff are. Maybe CPN and Castlewellan disagree with that.

I fail to see how some intermediate teams expect to improve when they don't fulfil a lot of their league fixtures, especially when they have to travel to play the Ards seconds team.

Our seconds didn't fulfil their last league fixture as they were pissed off with having to trek to South Down to yet another team that can't travel to us.

We fulfilled every other game we could with whoever was available.

For me Castlewellan are the only team outside the senior championship teams with the structures in place to bridge the gap from intermediate, even though they're currently in the junior championship.

Down don't need a junior B, there's not enough teams to justify it.
Is there that big of a gap in standard between Newry, Clonduff and the likes of KBD and even East Belfast?

Would Warrenpoint, Hilltown and Newry not have the numbers to bridge the gap ?

Both Warrenpoint and Newry concede quite a few games this year, so numbers must be an issue.

Clonduff currently seem to be reliant on a lot of old lads blown into the area for their senior team, but do have good numbers around their minors and U14's etc. It could take them a few years to develop out of the junior/intermediate level.

[knowbetter]

If we all want to be truthful with ourselves then we should realise that the current hurling championship format works but the teams in intermediate should probably be in junior.

No disrespect to any club but it must be tough to play the intermediate round robin and then on to play a team coming down from senior who have always won it the last couple of years.

I think both Ballela and Warrenpoint will give it a rattle but Liatroim and Carryduff should win by 10+ points each, they are simply playing and competing at a higher level with more numbers.

I would have the senior championship as is with the 6 teams and the bottom two play for intermediate. The rest in Junior and if some of the lower teams are unhappy with this then create a Junior B. This would mean all teams representing down in ulster are actually fit to compete and challenge for their respective titles. We've always struggled in ulster across the board expect for Liatroim a couple years back.

[DuffGael]

If we all want to be truthful with ourselves then we should realise that the current hurling championship format works but the teams in intermediate should probably be in junior.

No disrespect to any club but it must be tough to play the intermediate round robin and then on to play a team coming down from senior who have always won it the last couple of years.

I think both Ballela and Warrenpoint will give it a rattle but Liatroim and Carryduff should win by 10+ points each, they are simply playing and competing at a higher level with more numbers.

I would have the senior championship as is with the 6 teams and the bottom two play for intermediate. The rest in Junior and if some of the lower teams are unhappy with this then create a Junior B. This would mean all teams representing down in ulster are actually fit to compete and challenge for their respective titles. We've always struggled in ulster across the board expect for Liatroim a couple years back.

Agree totally with this

[Truth hurts]

Would it make sense for the county board to reschedule the Carryduff and Burren game for Saturday or Monday in light of the weather warning for tomorrow night?

[ardtole]

If we all want to be truthful with ourselves then we should realise that the current hurling championship format works but the teams in intermediate should probably be in junior.

No disrespect to any club but it must be tough to play the intermediate round robin and then on to play a team coming down from senior who have always won it the last couple of years.

I think both Ballela and Warrenpoint will give it a rattle but Liatroim and Carryduff should win by 10+ points each, they are simply playing and competing at a higher level with more numbers.

I would have the senior championship as is with the 6 teams and the bottom two play for intermediate. The rest in Junior and if some of the lower teams are unhappy with this then create a Junior B. This would mean all teams representing down in ulster are actually fit to compete and challenge for their respective titles. We've always struggled in ulster across the board expect for Liatroim a couple years back.

What competition would the previous year's winners of the JHC compete in? Surely they can't be locked in junior forever, there needs to be a tangible path of progression.