The league is pretty tight this year, there is no real whipping boys. Two points separate the top six with the bottom two on three points. Ballycasle had a good result yesterday with their first two pointer. I think it could be between five teams to see who will drop, the three peninsula clubs and Ballycastle or Glenariff. Ballygalget's never say die attitude could keep them up but with Johnston going to the USA it'll be hard, Ballycastle have knocking on the door for their first two points and having beat Ballycran, who themselves have hit a bad spell, should get the confidence to move on. Portaferry have won three out of their last four and seem to be steadying the ship now and Glenariff had a great start to the league campaign. They have stuttered a bit at the moment but they will be hard to beat at home. Who will go down? Ballygalget/Ballycastle with Portaferry having to fight to the end of the season.
Winners will be Cushendall.

What league is this? Any decent players playing in it?

outdone i wasnt talking about the supporters, i was talking about the players.their fans were grand and i seen nothing to suggest otherwise. the number 4 tripped paddy richmond and it was a free. end of, paddy asked him what he was playing at to which the number 4 gave it a mouthfull and 'you know where im at' crap. i mean get over it and deal with the game. just a trivial thing maybe but their illdisapline is shocking.

how many times is tosh gona get sent off and cause them a game? dont get me wrong, i think hes a cracking player and one who would be good enough for any team but he ruins games for them. oh and i was away at the far end near the gate when he got sent off, i only heard the slap.

i dont think it would have mattered if he had of stayed on as i seen nothing of them to suggest they would have beat us. they missed a shockking amount of frees, pointable frees at that. i was actually dissapointed in them as i actually expected more from them. these are games they need to step up to now at this stage of the season if they are serious about moving on.

Realist - sorry thought you were talking about their fans, your right about their players they even argued among themselves.

They were still in it at half time and probably should have been leading due to frees missed also missed a few in the 2nd half, it was as strong a Dunloy team as they have played in the last two years and given the performance will see them hard beat again this year.

its early days i suppose at the min as the team did take a long lay off after the all ireland and i think that showed in the first few league games we played. its good to seem the back and flying again.

but i always maintain that Cushendall is the team to beat this year again. they were last year and it took a brilliant performance to beat them in the final.

Dunloy 0-18
Ballycran 0-15

not a bad game this one yesterday. ballycran were 0-06 up to no score playing with a strong win in the first half. the number 11, Woods took some brilliant scores. def a good player.

second half dunloy played a lot better and just had enough to pull away with the breeze to win it. not a bad game to watch

Cushendall 1-15

Glenariffe 1 -11

This was not a great game by any stretch of the imagination. Glenariffe were missing Johnny Tosh, Chris Sheppard, Paul McDonnell, Seamus McDonnell and Mick McKillop. Cushendall were missing Arron Graffin, Paddy McGill, Aidan Delargy, Declan McKillop and Brian Delargy.

There were some nice scores took from both sides, Thomas Quinn from Glenariffe rattled over a few good scores and Neil McManus and Shane McNaughton split the posts 11 times between them!!

Also commiserations to Shannon McToal from Glenariffe after he seemed to either dislocate or break his shoulder!! Hard Lines!!

For Cushendall its Loughgiel, who they play twice in 5 days, Feis Cup on Wednesday night and League on Sunday.

Glenariffe are down in Ballygalget who are heading the right way and beat Portaferry at the weekend!!

Realist definitely a good win, i see Cushendall beat Glenariffe by 5 points and Ballygalgett beat Portaferry.

At the half way stages - Dunloy, Cdall & Lguile are safe with the 3 down teams, Glenariff & Bcastle fighting out the relegation spot. I think that Dunloy will capture the league again as they have the Dall at home. Not sure about relegation ballycastle have a lot to do but if they get a couple of wins then Glenariffe could slip up as they have struggle since their good start.

One thing that has to be welcomed is that the matches are getting played with little disruption - we often criticise our county fixtures but overall things are going good.

I'll correct you realist, 0-8 to 0-0, looked like Dunloy were in real trouble at that stage, but some good performances from younger players turned it around, Kevin martin, Ryan McErlain and Chrissy Brogan put in big shifts

yeah your right it was, i thought that alot of the younger lads stood up. kevin molloy played well in the corner as well. we were missing alot of players for this one in ally elliot, woody, paul shields, cookie, colum cunning etc so considering that it makes the win even better.

Looking at the current league table it looks to be the closest league in years. ballycastles win over dunloy may boost their hopes for survival while glenariffe and ballycran look to be hitting a bad spell. Ballygalget seem to have raised their game with a few wins. Portaferry going well with L'giel, C'dal & Dunloy all fighting it out at the top.will be interesting to see who claims the league and goes down but alot of hurling to be played yet.

Def, ballycastle more than deserved their victory against us, they hurled well and we hurled nothing at all. a bad day at the races for us

Think louguile will win the league this year, seems to me that they care for it more because they never win a championship. Dunloy and cushendall will have there eyes on the bigger prize.

So Ballycastle have beeN relegated due to them losing against Ballygalget on Saturday and Glenariffe beating Dunloy. The cynic in me forecasts a "restructuring" of the leagues next year to accomodate the Town in Div 1.

I think Ballycastle should take there relegation on the chin. The league was played over 14 matches and at the heels of the hunt they didnt win enough matches this year to stay in Division 1.

As well as that they had their fate in their own hands on the last day but couldnt beat a poor Ballygalget side.

A year or 2 in Division 2 may help Ballycastle in the long run and give some of their good younger players like Matty Donnelly, Ciaran Clarke, Shane Jennings, Stephen McAfee, Fergus Donnelly and Eoin McAlonan a chance to play and get used to Senior Hurling with less pressure on them.

With these players coming through and with the likes of Cormac Donnelly, Ryan McGarry, Neal McAuley, Michael Dallat, Peter Dallat, Kiaran Kelly, Ryan Donnelly, Kevin Barry McShane and Malachy Dallas I would fancy Ballycastle to Be back in Div 1 in 2012 and be vastly improved

I have seen on other forums people saying Neal McAuley, Cormac Donnelly and Ryan McGarry shouldn't be playing Div 2 hurling as their to good for that standard of hurling and it could affect the county team next year. I dont agree with this because the likes of Ciaran McGourty, Karl Stewart and Simon McCrory all played in Div 2 this year and played quite well for Antrim!!

It's a pity Ballycastle were beat but at the end of the day if they are not good enough they will have to go or will they? On paper Glenariff should not have beat Dunloy. Was there a betting syndicate involved, it was a very strange result. Could Dunloy be compared to the Pakistan of hurling. I don't think so as Ballycastle beat them unexpectedly earlier in the season. I think the league will be increased with two city teams to save McQuillan's from playing division two.

From what i hear dunloy fielded a very strong team (with only mal molloy & Aly elliot missing) i suppose it was Glenariffes championship match V's a meaningless match for dunloy. But talking to a few at it and they definitley deserved the win!
Maybe dunloy realist could confirm same.
Its tough for both Glenariffe & Bcastle in the league as they have small panels tro choose from and if they have any players missing then they struggle. At full strength i believe both teams are Div 1 but no strength in depth.

Silvertongue - I am going to let you in on something, matches are not played "on paper". Dunloy had nothing to play for, this was Glenariffes biggest match of the year and add in the horrendous conditions it wasnt that big a surprise.

So Silvertongue, you are still about, I thought you'd disappeared.

Can confirm Dunloy were as strong as was available, Mal Molloy has retired and hasn't featured all year, Ally Elliott got injured in Championship, Kevin martin suspended, Conor Cunning injured v Portaferry and Dick O'Kane flued.

Was a strong team out but Glenarriffe were fiercely determined and outfought us, which was very important in a terrible conditions.

the simple fact is Ballycastle had a match to win to stay in the division and were stuffed