Replying To galway19:  "This seems like madness. How do you reward Shefflin with an extra year? We are hardly 12-24 months within of winning an All-Ireland. He is hardly going to promote young players for senior debuts if he knows he will be gone in 2025. https://galwaybayfm.ie/sports/joyce-and-shefflin-to-stay-on-as-galway-managers/"

Replying To Stool Pigeon:  "How do you know that 'he knows he will be gone in 2025'

Where does it say that in your link?

He sure as hell won't 'promote young players for senior debuts' if he knows he will be gone in 2024 anyway, that's for certain"

Replying To Stool Pigeon:  "I did not say we had a 'COE' I said we have an academy/CoE 'system', which is not the same thing at all.

I'm waiting for you to tell me who all these 'successful counties' are, btw.

There has always been dialogue across all sports of course, but fundamentally, rugby is going to do what's best for rugby. It's a professional sport. I'm sot sure where you are going with your comparison of Carling and Blanco to today's hurler, unless you are implying that they are working in jobs that 'allow them to train as professionals'.

I imagine that would be news to 99.9% of IC hurlers. Do you want players to be paid, is this your take?

Is it your implication that Limerick's hurlers are essentially 'professionals' (presumably paid by JP McManus) and that their jobs are 'sham' ones?

That's a red hot take. And if you are correct, is it your belief that everyone else has to follow this model?

And lastly, though this is a purely personal take, and you're not obligated, would you mind using paragraphs or at least spacing your writing out, it makes my head hurt trying to follow what you're saying when you cram it all onto the back of a stamp.

The GAA is absolutely not 'up there with rugby' in things like 'player tie ins', I mean players can choose to tie in or not in GAA, it's an amateur sport, in rugby it's part of your contract as a professional.

I mean while things could always be improved you make it sound like it's 1950 in Galway and 2050 everywhere else.

Success is relative. As is how you measure it.

Broadly, 'success' I would define as getting the maximum possible from your resources. it's not just about titles. Brentford are a recent example of a highly successful football club given their resources, Tottenham Hotspur would be a recent example of a relatively unsuccessful club though they are much bigger, have better players, much bigger budget, higher league position etc. But if you were to compare both clubs and ask who had the better season last year there is only one answer."

Replying To GDL:  "Henry absolutely had to stay, who else is there? The problems with Galway hurling not producing players who can win when the chips are down are mostly club related and not the manager, you can send players into the academy but then they retutn to low standard of club competition. Just take a look at the U16, Minor and U20 club competitions this year, we have big traditional clubs hiding in lower divisions hoping to be Minor B1 champions, it is a joke. We have an A competition and this is a very good standard, and then an A1(it is called this so teams don't want be known as division two standard), then we have B as teams don't want to be division 3 standard and then we have 3 groups at B1 as teams don't want to be division 4, 5 and 6. I'm taking about Senior clubs entering underage teams in B1 standard and then they can't fugure out why they can't win when they turn senior. They'd prefer to hand out hammerings at U16 and minor to Tuam, Cois Fharraige, Sylane, and Michael Breathnach etc in B1 than be challenged in a higher standard. It unfortunately has two consequences also, 1. It slows down the growth of hurling in none traditional hurling areas and 2. It gives young fellas and club bord na ógs a false picture of where they are. If you want evidence have a look at the Galway GAA website and see the teams playing in B1, they should be embarrassed, I don't buy the numbers argument either, Mullagh/Kiltormer and Skehana/Mountbellew are trying to compete at Minor A standard. B1 is a 13 a side, with non traditional clubs needing 15,16 and 17 year olds to field, they then have to compete with so called traditional clubs landing to B1 games with a full team of 17 year olds. These are the same clubs who refused to accept been Intermediate or Junior so we created a Senior B."

Replying To fishpond:  "LAST year he cost us an under 20 all Ireland by taking two lads of the roster. they havent been heard from since . all right they are on the 26 roster but havent played a MINUTE. THe first sub he brought on was CONOR COONEY at 58 minutes against Limerick. GIMME A BREAK. If thats not closing the stable door after the horse is gone I dont know what is"

Replying To fishpond:  "LAST year he cost us an under 20 all Ireland by taking two lads of the roster. they havent been heard from since . all right they are on the 26 roster but havent played a MINUTE. THe first sub he brought on was CONOR COONEY at 58 minutes against Limerick. GIMME A BREAK. If thats not closing the stable door after the horse is gone I dont know what is"

Replying To galway19:  "I would say that at minor level I wouldn't begrudge anyone who decided not to play in the A championship. That Clarinbridge team is the majority of their team that hammered everyone in the national feile."

Replying To Viking66:  "Not sure he cost you an u20 AI exactly but playing Gavin Lee, who is good but not great yet btw, definitely didn't help your u20s. Who else did he take?"

Replying To galway19:  "I would say that at minor level I wouldn't begrudge anyone who decided not to play in the A championship. That Clarinbridge team is the majority of their team that hammered everyone in the national feile."

Replying To BostonGuy:  "You are 100% right they are not the same thing at all, COE and structures is a commitment to excellence, COE-like "system" is an excuse to say we have something in place that can hide behind it.

The comparison to Blanco etc are simple there are players in the GAA of recent years that have the flex time to train as professionals with jobs like teachers, students, sales reps and brand ambassadors. Yes they HAVE jobs, but lets just say many have a lot of flexibility in schedules. I have worked with US college and semi professional teams (ice hockey) and the big difference between GAA and professional sport players today is not the training and S&C, its the recovery time and the other areas of attention to detail. The top IC setups are professional run (Dublin has a CEO and commercial manager) and will continue to do so as commercials grow but yeah keep believing that the GAA is an amatuer sport.

Do I think the players should be paid? todays top GAA players would pulverize the players from any previous generation, including the 2000's, they train like professionals, are dope tested like professionals and have the expectations to live (diet, booze etc), train and behave as professionals, I absolutely believe they should be compensated. If managers, medical staff, S&C and the back room team are getting paid, even the person selling choc ices at games gets paid then why not?

I guess your and my expectations are different here, I never said Galway was like the 1950's, although the way we handle land purchases, credit card fraud and sponsorships is closer to the 50's. But since you brought it up we have won 5 AIs in 140 years, 3 in the 80's so basically 2 in 130 years, where is that success? Success is NOT relative, its measurable based on a long term goal or vision just like anything else. Here's is how I measure it , I believe that a county like Galway should be winning at least 1 AL a decade anything less is a failure. Now from there decompose it as to how we can get to achieve this goal, I personally do not believe that the current structures COE like "systems" will support that goal, its going to take a fundamental change and planning for the professional era of GAA that we are transitioning towards.

Brentford and Spurs are BOTH failures, both teams are a player or two away from dropping down the table. The team I respect is Brighton they are in Europe, they have lost/sold their best players, lost their manager but they have a system in place with recruitment, academy, succession planning, forefront on analytics in all areas to sustain their success and this was not built over night, it took time, but it started with a goal and a well thought out plan.

Successful teams in my book outside the last decade dominated by Limerick, I would say Cork, Tipp and KK. Donal O Grady was ahead of his time with Cork, BTW he was also was a huge contributor to Limerick (JK was a selector under him). Sheedy took it to a higher with Tipp and of course KK is always going to be there. Each has one two or more AI's in a decade and when the Limerick dominance drops they are the ones I see closest to winning an AI

Again my view is the GAA is moving towards a professional body, yours seems to be more amatuer continuation and the love of the game, I'm not going to attempt to change your view nor will you change mine, I guess time will tell."

Replying To GDL:  "Rubbish, look at the B1 groups, there are senior clubs who are playing their minors in division 5 and 6, trying to win a soft title and stop the lad who wants to hurl and play ball, they will never win a senior title or be competitive with that outlook. They could play in Division 2 or 3 if they are afraid of Turloughmore, Athenry, Craughwell, Mullagh/Kiltormer, Clarinbridge or Skehana/Mountbellew. Ballygar and Tynagh/Abbey/Duniry are playing division 2 minor hurling and fair play to them trying to improve themselves and not fool themselves in division 5 and 6. The sooner the Senior hurling board call the vested underage agenda to attention the better and name the competitions Division 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 or A,B,C,D,E and F. We could have 10 teams in each division and play 9 games with the top 4 playing off and the bottom 4 going into a relegation with 2 up and 2 down. Could you imagine Moycullen, Corofin, Salthill-Knocknacarra, Claregalway or Annaghdown playing their minors footballers in division 6 against teams from traditional hurling areas, they would be laughed at."

Replying To PoolSturgeon:  "Tiernan Killeen from Loughrea I think it was."

Replying To Stool Pigeon:  "Why would you automatically assume the senior clubs' minor sides should be playing in a higher division than they are?

Where is the link between the two? Why would you assume a 'strong senior club' automatically has a 'strong minor club'?

What the competitions are called is irrelevant also. Who cares?

They could call them pink, green, blue, yellow, brown and purple for all the difference it makes."

Replying To Viking66:  "Again like Lee he's a good Senior prospect but wasn't outstanding this year at u20. Shefflin didn't play them again."

Replying To PoolSturgeon:  "Which actually backs up the point of the poster who raised it. They weren't good enough for senior this year and most certainly weren't good enough for senior the previous year (both only got cameo appearances, but enough to rule them out playing for the U20's). It would have served their development far better , as well as bolstered the chances of the U20 team actually winning the All Ireland had they been left to play with their own age group last year."

Replying To PoolSturgeon:  "Which actually backs up the point of the poster who raised it. They weren't good enough for senior this year and most certainly weren't good enough for senior the previous year (both only got cameo appearances, but enough to rule them out playing for the U20's). It would have served their development far better , as well as bolstered the chances of the U20 team actually winning the All Ireland had they been left to play with their own age group last year."

Replying To Kinvara:  "Training 3 times a week with the seniors probably helped their development a lot more than playing against 18 year olds

Who cares about u20 AI's apart from the player and families themselves? I know I don't stroll into work with pride talking about my counties u20/minor All Irelands when I see the lads from Kilkenny/Limerick/Tipp

Another couple of lads now got to play u20 that otherwise might not have, the two boys got invaluable experience against the seniors, and Henry named the strongest panel he had to try and win the AI SHC (The ultimate goal and the reason there are underage squads in the first place)"

Replying To Stool Pigeon:  "Matter of opinion, most of this, neither right or wrong.

I don't have an issue with players being compensated as such, given what they produce and the commitment they make, but it would be the beginning of the end of the GAA as an entity if it ever does happen that they are paid outright to play, if you think it through, players being paid would be the end of clubs bothering to produce players of the standard to play IC because what would they gain by losing their best players, I assume you're not suggesting club players will be compensated. The financial infrastructure is not there and it would take a Saudi Arabian style cash injection to sustain it, people would have to be willing to plough money in on a massive scale for little or no return. It seems unlikely to me.

If it's going even semi professional then from the age of about 15 up players would no longer be able to play club hurling as the IC academies would have to protect their investment, I think you'd find the takeup of players chucking in club hurling with their friends at that age to pursue the goal of playing what would amount to semi professional hurling would be rather limited.

TBH while you do make your points coherently I don't think you've thought through the consequences of professionalism fully. I'm not against it, I just don't believe it would have a hope of being sustainable.

Particularly when, if everyone has the same approach, we are all going to be back where we started anyway. Right here.

BTW the idea that Cork are a 'successful county' in the modern era is flat out laughable.

They have not won a Senior hurling All Ireland since 2005 or a Senior Football All Ireland since 2010.

Given the size of the county and the resources they ought to be able to call upon that is just cosmic level failure. Which doesn't make us successful, of course, but still."

Replying To Kinvara:  "Training 3 times a week with the seniors probably helped their development a lot more than playing against 18 year olds

Who cares about u20 AI's apart from the player and families themselves? I know I don't stroll into work with pride talking about my counties u20/minor All Irelands when I see the lads from Kilkenny/Limerick/Tipp

Another couple of lads now got to play u20 that otherwise might not have, the two boys got invaluable experience against the seniors, and Henry named the strongest panel he had to try and win the AI SHC (The ultimate goal and the reason there are underage squads in the first place)"