Down Club Hurling & Football

[skat man]

[/quote]Yet it seems to work in Tyrone. Coalisland the only team in intermediate and junior football with county players and they were deservedly relegated. 5 games without county players and play the rest with county players. They didn't manage to accumulate enough points with county players to avoid relegation playoffs and with the county players in the relegation playoffs they didn't manage to beat Clonoe so they were relegated. If you aren't good enough to stay up even if you have county players playing for the majority of the league you deserve to be relegated
[/quote]

Is the league system not totally different , 16 teams as oppossed to 10 , relegation play offs , league starts in june as oppossed to august . Teams only lose county players for half the league games. I think down tried the 16 team league a number of years back , it was binned. We cant compare down and tyrones systems because the leagues are hugely different. Also did clonoe not run one of the eventual championship winners to extra time last year or the year before ? surely not an intermediate team in reality then

[skat man]

the current system has arguably the best 16 teams in it . Its a toss up between castlewellan , an riocht , drumgath , rostrevor and saval on any given day so whichever two make it there isnt an obvious candidate in intermediate that should be there instead. if league and championship are to be connected it will bring back starred games and league playoffs which no one wants

[Splash]

Tonight is the start of the best weekend in the Down calendar- the hurling finals.

Probably the hardest game to call is the Junior Final tonight between Castlewellan and Kilclief. Kilclief won it in 2023, whilst Castlewellan are in their third final in four years if I'm not wrong. The two played in a dead rubber game in the last round of the championship, with Castlewellan winning by 4. I would expect the teams to look very different tonight.

Castlewellan will be looking to finally get the monkey off their backs and win a junior championship.

2022- lost to Warrenpoint in the final by a point.
2023- Were favourites but a shock loss to East Belfast in the round robin ultimately cost them a place in the final.
2024- Were favourites again but lost to Ballela in the final by four points.

Castlewellan will have looked at the progress the Point have made since winning their junior championship, and will feel as thought they need to break through this glass ceiling.

Kilclief came straight back down after their spell in the IHC, but they won't fear Castlewellan.

Castlewellan have plenty of good hurlers (and some very talented younger fellas who could make a name for themselves in the coming years), but to use an old adage, Kilclief just look like 'they have more hurling in them.'

Kilclief have some very good players, but I'm not sure if they have as great a spread in key positions as Castlewellan. Castlewellan seem to have solved some of the key issues they're had in previous years, notably, around the back line.

Both teams beat East Belfast comfortably in the championship. Castlewellan beat Ballyvarley comfortably enough, although Kilclief gave Ballyvarley a bad hiding.

It is difficult to call. I had originally thought Kilclief, but I think playing the football final last week could have taken a lot out of them, and I've a feeling now Castlewellan will get over the line.

Last year's junior final was probably the game of the weekend- hopefully there's similar quality tonight.



Tomorrow evening, Liatorim and Carryduff will contest the Intermediate Final.

Both teams will feel they are unlucky to be here and not in a senior semi final. Liatorim had the beating of Ballycran, whereas Carryduff will argue they would have beat Ballycran other than some contentious decisions. Regardless, both will find themselves in the SHC again in 2026, but they'll not be worrying about that this weekend.

This will be Carryduff's 6th Intermediate Final in a row I believe. They have lost the last 4- one of those to Liatroim. Carryduff have really improved in the last few years, and Liatorim seem to have regressed a little.

Nonetheless, Liatorim gave Carryduff a big enough beating in the round robin- 15 points I think.  Carryduff then had a relatively competitive game with Warrenpoint, whilst Liatorim beat Ballela off the field by 50 points. That is no small feat for any team in a championship game.

It will probably be a closer game this time, but I think everything is pointing towards a Liatroim victory. I'm sure last week's football defeat will have had an impact on Carryduff, and Liatorim, despite a shaky start, seem to have found their form again.

Carryduff are knocking on the door of being a top team, but I think that's still a few years away and Liatorim will have enough. Regardless, whoever comes out of Down could have a real stab at Ulster this year, so let's hope for the best.



The Senior Final on Sunday is probably, on paper, the easiest to call. Portaferry look to be well ahead of everyone else in Down at the moment, and probably have their eyes set on bigger prizes.

They beat Ballygalget by 5 in a dead rubber in the round robin, and comfortably beat everybody else en route to the final. They just seem to be well ahead of everybody.

Ballygalget put up some big scores themselves this year, and they will know the battles they will have to win on Sunday.

This has been a year of shocks in championships across Ireland- perhaps none bigger than the SHC result of our noisy neighbours , with St John's winning their first Senior Antrim Championship in 52 years- so I wouldn't be ruling out another shock.

Portaferry had the winning of Ulster last year, and Slaughtneil were very lucky to get over them in the Ulster Final. The winners on Sunday will play Slaughtneil in the first round of Ulster. I'd say that's a game Portaferry would like to sink their teeth into. With the Glens teams all eliminated from Antrim, Portaferry could very well taste blood in the water for this Ulster Championship- but let's take it one game at a time. There's a lot of hurling to be done before any talk of an Ulster Final.

Portaferry are going for their 4th Senior Championship in a row- something I don't think they've ever done before. Interestingly, the last time a team was going for 4 in a row was Ballygalget in 2006. Portaferry ended up the champions that year...

It will no doubt be a great game. Portaferry are a top side, and Ballygalget aren't far off, and are getting closer every year. It is certainly the 2 best teams in the county squaring off. Looking forward to it as a neutral.



As always, I would encourage anybody, connected to any of the clubs involved or not, to take a run down and see what the craic is. Should be 3 great games. It's hard to see any of the games this weekend being a case of one team dominating.

It is not Cork and Tipperary in the All Ireland- it is club hurling. There will be mistakes. Lads will drop sliotars. Shots will go wide. It's all part of it.

Down hurling is growing each year, with 2 clubs starting up hurling this year alone, and the standard seems to be improving.

The Junior Final between Kilclief Ben Dearg and Castlewellan is on tonight, in Páirc Esler, at 19:15.

The Intermediate Final between Liatroim Fontenoys and Carryduff is on tomorrow evening,  in Páirc Esler, at 17:00.

The Senior Final between Portaferry and Ballygalget is on Sunday afternoon, in Páirc  Esler, at 15:30.

All the finals will be broadcast on DownGAA TV, too.

If you've ever been curious about hurling, or wondered what all the craic is that we go on about here, and you've nothing else to do, why not take a run down and see some of it, or stick it on this evening or over the weekend? What else would you be at?

Best of luck to all the clubs, players, and management involved. Hopefully it will be a great weekend of hurling.

[No1]

Our hurlers are under pressure after the failure of the camogs and footballers in their respective finals.  Hopefully they can do it. 

The pitch is going to be a huge issue for all of the hurling finals.  The senior final should be in Ballycran, it's supposed to be the showpiece of the year and they'll be playing on a ploughed field come Sunday afternoon.  That might suit johnneycool's lads though! 

[ranch]

Don't listen to ranch.

Cullyhanna were absolutely intermediate standard in 2022. Anyone who watched them that year would tell you the same. They were dog shit. They had chances to stay up in 1B league with their county players available at the end of the season and they still got relegated. They got put out in the first round by Ballymacnab in the championship. Won a total of 3 games all year. Yes they were missing men, including county players, but then again most clubs at senior level will be missing their players for most of the league in Armagh.

Whether they had county players available at the end, or whether other clubs were missing players as well, isn't the point though, is it? They were affected by it more than other clubs.
In a normal league system I'm fine with it, in a championship set up however it creates an imbalance and really isn't the fairest way to organise who plays in what championship - even worse, we then use those league placings to seed that years championship.

Relegation play offs aren't ideal as you risk teams losing motivation. You'll also always get a club who think they're probably better off in the grade below. The same issue would also arise in a linked league and championship structure however. You'll also get teams motivated to avoid relegation to intermediate - I doubt Mayobridge wanted to go down to intermediate this year. So despite not being ideal, they're the best option at the moment in my opinion.
It also gets rid of the unfairness of a club being relegated based on league performances despite missing 2 or 3 players who were away playing with the county team.
It happened in Armagh when Cullyhanna were relegated a few years ago. They were never an intermediate standard team despite some of the comments on this site when the topic has been spoken about in the past. They comfortably won the intermediate championship the following year before going on to win the All Ireland. If there had been relegation play offs in the championship I doubt they'd have even featured in them, and if they did they wouldn't have been the team to go down.

Yet it seems to work in Tyrone. Coalisland the only team in intermediate and junior football with county players and they were deservedly relegated. 5 games without county players and play the rest with county players. They didn't manage to accumulate enough points with county players to avoid relegation playoffs and with the county players in the relegation playoffs they didn't manage to beat Clonoe so they were relegated. If you aren't good enough to stay up even if you have county players playing for the majority of the league you deserve to be relegated

Yeah, Tyrone has their system and seem happy with it. The majority of counties around the country however don't link league and championship. I think Down's league set up works okay at the moment without a link to championship, it would be crazy to change it in my opinion.

[Splash]

Best of luck to Down's Donal Hughes and Dearbhla Magee today representing Ireland at the hurling/camogie-shinty in Inverness.

Whatever your thoughts on the competition, it's a great honour for anybody to represent their country.

Particularly great to see somebody from outside the traditional hurling stronghold of the Ards Peninsula get the nod and be included alongside the likes of players who have won plenty with the likes of Limerick, Kilkenny, and Tipperary.

[johnnycool]

Disappointing day out for us yesterday.

We got off to a decent start, got a few match ups right in our forwards, kept Timmy close to the square where he is dangerous, but more importantly got him some ball to work with and we probably should have gotten another goal from one of his runs where he'd have been better off passing it off rather than shoot from the tight angle.
Portaferry got their first goal from a penalty I'm still not sure what for, big Milligan ran into a sea of defenders and seemed to just stop, but from a distance it is hard to tell.
That penalty and a few frees kept them to within two points going in at the break and from then on Portaferry dominated the second half as we fell off badly, didn't work the ball out from defence at all well, didn't compete with the same intensity of the first half and didn't have the same goal threat which we knew we would need.
We couldn't close a 7 point gap for most of the second half which got even wider by the end of the game.

For me I was pleased that some of the younger lads showed up this year, but we do need more strength in depth when the injuries mount and I knew of three or four lads struggling going into the game with hamstring issues.

We need to manage some players gametime during the round robin if we are to succeed and that means a stronger squad to allow us to do that. We don't have that yet but we must use the league in 2026 to get the younger lads up to speed.

Not that it impacted on the result yesterday, but the pitch was shockingly bad for hurling and the corner down near the scoreboard was really soft, a point that even a lot of the SN and South Derry ones near me were commenting on.
You don't expect a carpet at this time of year, but it was soft, uneven and very little grass on it, not conducive for an open game of hurling and there were numerous instances of lads missing the most basic of lifts, leading to rucks and throw balls.

One non SN lad from a neighbouring South Derry team thinks SN are better this year than last and won't have too much bother from Portaferry based on what he saw yesterday.

I thought that the Ulster Semi-final would be in Armagh, but a Slaughtneil lad was telling me both counties tossed for venue and Derry won and that game will be in Owenbeg on the 16th, not sure why that would be the case though.

[Truth hurts]

Disappointing day out for us yesterday.

We got off to a decent start, got a few match ups right in our forwards, kept Timmy close to the square where he is dangerous, but more importantly got him some ball to work with and we probably should have gotten another goal from one of his runs where he'd have been better off passing it off rather than shoot from the tight angle.
Portaferry got their first goal from a penalty I'm still not sure what for, big Milligan ran into a sea of defenders and seemed to just stop, but from a distance it is hard to tell.
That penalty and a few frees kept them to within two points going in at the break and from then on Portaferry dominated the second half as we fell off badly, didn't work the ball out from defence at all well, didn't compete with the same intensity of the first half and didn't have the same goal threat which we knew we would need.
We couldn't close a 7 point gap for most of the second half which got even wider by the end of the game.

For me I was pleased that some of the younger lads showed up this year, but we do need more strength in depth when the injuries mount and I knew of three or four lads struggling going into the game with hamstring issues.

We need to manage some players gametime during the round robin if we are to succeed and that means a stronger squad to allow us to do that. We don't have that yet but we must use the league in 2026 to get the younger lads up to speed.

Not that it impacted on the result yesterday, but the pitch was shockingly bad for hurling and the corner down near the scoreboard was really soft, a point that even a lot of the SN and South Derry ones near me were commenting on.
You don't expect a carpet at this time of year, but it was soft, uneven and very little grass on it, not conducive for an open game of hurling and there were numerous instances of lads missing the most basic of lifts, leading to rucks and throw balls.

One non SN lad from a neighbouring South Derry team thinks SN are better this year than last and won't have too much bother from Portaferry based on what he saw yesterday.

I thought that the Ulster Semi-final would be in Armagh, but a Slaughtneil lad was telling me both counties tossed for venue and Derry won and that game will be in Owenbeg on the 16th, not sure why that would be the case though.

It was bad yesterday for the hurling, and it wasn't good for the football finals. It cannot be beneficial for any pitches to have the junior and intermediate finals on the same weekend in October, and this needs to looks at by the county board.

Armagh and Omagh looked liked carpets yesterday and I do not blame the groundspeople because there is just too much games on in Newry. Pairc Esler's current usage is unsustainable and serious discussions need to take place about it.

[thebigfullforward]

Yet it seems to work in Tyrone. Coalisland the only team in intermediate and junior football with county players and they were deservedly relegated. 5 games without county players and play the rest with county players. They didn't manage to accumulate enough points with county players to avoid relegation playoffs and with the county players in the relegation playoffs they didn't manage to beat Clonoe so they were relegated. If you aren't good enough to stay up even if you have county players playing for the majority of the league you deserve to be relegated
[/quote]

Is the league system not totally different , 16 teams as oppossed to 10 , relegation play offs , league starts in june as oppossed to august . Teams only lose county players for half the league games. I think down tried the 16 team league a number of years back , it was binned. We cant compare down and tyrones systems because the leagues are hugely different. Also did clonoe not run one of the eventual championship winners to extra time last year or the year before ? surely not an intermediate team in reality then
[/quote]Why would they not be an intermediate team? They were rightfully relegated because they didn't do enough in the league. In Tyrone you actually have to play consistently good football to avoid relegation. Can't rely on a few championship games. It gives you more of an idea about the quality of teams since every team takes the league seriously.

Clonoe nearly beat Errigal Ciaran last year. Got a draw in the first game and narrowly beat in the second. Clonoe don't have a single county player. That just points to the strength of Tyrone knockout football were a team relegated should have beat the All Ireland finalists. The league system definitely works, teams just need to buy into the league

[thebigfullforward]

Kilcoo will beat Lough handy enough I reckon. Even on their best day Lough wouldn't be a match for them but they'll be out celebrating for weeks to come I'd say. Kilcoo have freshened the team up too have they? Haven't followed them to closely but it's what they needed

[Maurice Moss]

Kilcoo will beat Lough handy enough I reckon. Even on their best day Lough wouldn't be a match for them but they'll be out celebrating for weeks to come I'd say. Kilcoo have freshened the team up too have they? Haven't followed them to closely but it's what they needed

We will not be looking any further than Loughmacrory. Tyrone championship is wild competitive so won't be taking anything for granted. Yes, they'll celebrate their win for a few days but they'll be no push overs at all. Looking forward to this encounter.

[johnnycool]

Kilcoo will beat Lough handy enough I reckon. Even on their best day Lough wouldn't be a match for them but they'll be out celebrating for weeks to come I'd say. Kilcoo have freshened the team up too have they? Haven't followed them to closely but it's what they needed

We will not be looking any further than Loughmacrory. Tyrone championship is wild competitive so won't be taking anything for granted. Yes, they'll celebrate their win for a few days but they'll be no push overs at all. Looking forward to this encounter.

@maurice,
   No mention of your U14 camogs winning the championship at the weekend?

[Maurice Moss]

Kilcoo will beat Lough handy enough I reckon. Even on their best day Lough wouldn't be a match for them but they'll be out celebrating for weeks to come I'd say. Kilcoo have freshened the team up too have they? Haven't followed them to closely but it's what they needed

We will not be looking any further than Loughmacrory. Tyrone championship is wild competitive so won't be taking anything for granted. Yes, they'll celebrate their win for a few days but they'll be no push overs at all. Looking forward to this encounter.

@maurice,
   No mention of your U14 camogs winning the championship at the weekend?

A cracking wee team, the girls done brilliant and that would be a mighty scoreline to put up against any team, nevermind Portaferry in a championship final.

[razor]

No only did they win the U-14 A Camogie Championship. They won the U-14 A LGFA Championship. I think this is the first time this has ever happened in Down.

[Truth hurts]

Will we still be the whipping boys in the junior championship in Ulster?