(Oldest Posts First)
link JXV (Mayo) - Posts: 39 - 11/10/2016 13:57:48 1924908 Link 0 |
John Henderson is a good man and he is putting his shoulder to the wheel. His native county are very good at hurling as they play a lot of hurling there, There are lots of clubs and the players are exposed to lot of competitive hurling. If you amalgamate a heap of weaker counties like Kildare, Meath, Carlow etc, I am not sure you will be narrowing the gap between Kilkenny and Wicklow as it is not addressing the reasons why Kilkenny are better. bennybunny (Cork) - Posts: 3917 - 11/10/2016 15:07:34 1924954 Link 0 |
No, bumpernut (Antrim) - Posts: 1852 - 11/10/2016 15:10:58 1924959 Link 0 |
Here we go again, take the easy option and just amalgamate the weaker counties and save the main culprits { the individual county boards and provincial councils especially ulster } the hassle. Same with the Tain leagues and look where they've went. What makes you believe that the majority of county players would come from Antrim and a couple from derry and down. Just typical of antrim attitude to the rest of ulster counties and a tad patronising. Think too good to play in the Tain leagues as it's beneath them, get a bye into an ulster final every year { after } being defeated in leinster, no other county gets that privalage you're either in one or the other. and yes i'm well aware that the antrim leagues are full of outside teams which the antrim clubs want to stop allowing. Shows exactly why amalgamated county teams wouldn't work, who's going to make the hard calls on selection etc. Also it's a bit demeaning to the other county hurlers as there is as many extremely talented hurlers from Tyrone, Armagh, Fermanagh, Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan who would hold their own in most of the main counties. Also you have the attitude of most football oriented counties and the limited number of clubs involved with only 4 senior hurling clubs in Tyrone even less in Fermanagh and it is a constant struggle especially with facilities with 3 clubs now being in possession of their own new facilities, and the county squads having a constant battle with so called officialdom to use the proclaimed Garvaghy complex and even getting equipment. The bigger problems are the laziness of county boards not promoting hurling and the provincial councils and especially Croke park allowing them to just tick boxes to draw down the very limited coaching funding. Most schools coaches are that badly paid they probably just bring in min wage. As the development officer says the best most of these hurlers can aspire to is final in the Meagher / Rackard and Ring cups at the start of june to get them out of the way for { the big boys days }instead of playing them before the semis or other high profile game at croke park. What sort of message does that send out to young hurlers from the other 20 odd counties who will never get to play in front of big audience in the biggest stage. It may look like a pop at Antrim and yes they have done well considering the ulster councils attitude but i'm not sure about other provinces and can only guess that the same applies with a sort of perceived hierarcy and all the inherent politics of county and inter club rivalries. Throwing money at the problem will not work without a serious plan from all the counties and a change of attitude from everyone.
bulmccabe (Tyrone) - Posts: 361 - 11/10/2016 18:04:36 1925037 Link 0 |
Merging lads from different counties at 16,17,18 just isn't going to work as they won't have played with and against top quality players from 7,8 yrs of age up until they are adults developing their skills all along the way (at a far higher rate than the weaker counties due to a severe lack of numbers) HurlingWarrior (Limerick) - Posts: 61 - 11/10/2016 18:22:34 1925046 Link 0 |
Merging counties can seem like an attractive idea from the outside looking in, but I'm not sure its the best solution. If the amalgamated side is a logical unit that people can identify with, like a provincial side, then maybe. But as bumpernut mentioned above, you might have players from one county dominating the team, which wouldn't help any of the counties involved. I'm not saying its a bad idea, I think it has merit, but there may be better options to look at first. Marlon_JD (Tipperary) - Posts: 1823 - 11/10/2016 18:23:40 1925047 Link 0 |
Gaa need to place there top top coaches in the schools and clubs of these weaker/struggling counties and keep them there. Pay better wages if needed. These players need to be well coached from 6 and for years not a few months. Merging at 16 will achieve what? Brianmac78 (Dublin) - Posts: 1168 - 11/10/2016 19:31:27 1925068 Link 0 |
Celtic challenge was a good competition. Whammo86 (Antrim) - Posts: 4172 - 11/10/2016 20:00:32 1925087 Link 0 |
I read this during the summer. Its a depressing read for any Antrim native who grew up with a hurl in hand. How it was allowed to get to this level i'll never know, but its ensured we'll be no emerging force for the foreseeable future! SaffronDon (Antrim) - Posts: 2385 - 11/10/2016 20:43:51 1925122 Link 0 |
To fair we're not helped by the current structures. What young lad wants to commit to months of training where you get 1 game versus a team way above you in standard who have qualified by right to the same stage you waltzed in at. Their needs to be a dismissal of the provincial system in hurling at underage level. They're not working.
Whammo86 (Antrim) - Posts: 4172 - 11/10/2016 22:52:34 1925190 Link 0 |
For someone who wasn't having a pop at Antrim you had a fair craic at it there. How many clubs again from outside antrim participate in our senior and juvenile leagues if we are such an insular county? bumpernut (Antrim) - Posts: 1852 - 12/10/2016 13:59:15 1925360 Link 0 |
yeah but part of the reason the other teams are higher in standard are that they train and prepare like champions and get their just reward. Preparing 5 weeks in advance is the reason our hurlers are lambs to the slaughter, not because of structures. The structures are different at senior level now with the Leinster round robin and it hasn't helped our hurlers progress one bit. Having said that I do welcome those extra games at senior but because of our poor attitude and commitment levels it clearly doesn't matter how they structure it at present.
SaffronDon (Antrim) - Posts: 2385 - 12/10/2016 14:26:07 1925377 Link 1 |
In fairness to Henderson, he is drawing attention to the imbalances between hurling in Wicklow (where he lives now) & his native Kilkenny. I don't agree with his suggestion of amalgamating counties, though. Pressure needs to be put on individual county boards to promote & develop hurling properly. Amalgamations would just make it easier to cop out. The South Ulster Hurling Academy is a prime example. After all the investment into Cavan hurling development they had to join with Fermanagh & Monaghan to make up decent teams? Monaghan have since opted out of it & the club structure put in place in Cavan has fallen apart. Proper coaching & development at schoolboy level needs to commence in earnest as well as grants, guidance & assistance for new underage clubs being established. keeper7 (Longford) - Posts: 4088 - 12/10/2016 16:25:51 1925430 Link 0 |
I think it's disappointing that Antrim hurling has gone the way it's gone. It's not all our fault though. We are very separate from the rest of the hurling world. We don't get enough games against good teams the whole way up. It's not just that we don't train that we aren't up to standard. We just aren't in a position to produce hurling in the same way as the current hurling stronghold counties where their juveniles get constant access to good quality hurling. Clubs, schools, development squads. We just don't get access to that. 6 months of training for 1 game isn't going to make up for years of playing the game at a high level that their players have under their belt. Whammo86 (Antrim) - Posts: 4172 - 12/10/2016 17:02:07 1925444 Link 0 |
I'd agree with that. But we are also far from being a county that makes the best of what we have. Too many self inflicted wounds that stems from the top, right down. We'd want to look to get those issues in order before we'd hope to be taken seriously by the GAA if they are to back any new funding propositions.
SaffronDon (Antrim) - Posts: 2385 - 12/10/2016 17:41:31 1925455 Link 0 |