Replying To westvoice: "So calry are down to intermediate for 2025, from the outside looking in its hard to see them bouncing straight back up. Castleconnor saved themselves once again. They got all their goals in the first half so the game was as good as over by then.
John's have a few good underage teams coming but they will need to get new blood in quickly to get out of Junior A"
Congrats to Curry and Castleconnor on their respective survival. A drop down for either would have been a hammer blow as they are two young sides. Curry had a tough group but will have been disappointed to end up in a relegation battle in the first place. There are bodies coming through and I expect them to go better in 2025. Likewise, Castleconnor have a lot of youth coming through but need to start fighting at the right side of Intermediate. In the case of Calry, they are fighters and won't stay down in Intermediate without a battle. However, no relatively small club like Calry can lose players of the calibre they have, and not feel the effects eventually. It's hard not to feel for them. St. Johns as you said have youth coming through with some good minor teams, and they will need to start to blood them all. Their drop to Junior was almost inevitable over this transition period, but might be the start of something for them. As I said here before, Sligo football needs a competitive St. Johns side.
Replying To johncreilly: "Congrats to Curry and Castleconnor on their respective survival. A drop down for either would have been a hammer blow as they are two young sides. Curry had a tough group but will have been disappointed to end up in a relegation battle in the first place. There are bodies coming through and I expect them to go better in 2025. Likewise, Castleconnor have a lot of youth coming through but need to start fighting at the right side of Intermediate. In the case of Calry, they are fighters and won't stay down in Intermediate without a battle. However, no relatively small club like Calry can lose players of the calibre they have, and not feel the effects eventually. It's hard not to feel for them. St. Johns as you said have youth coming through with some good minor teams, and they will need to start to blood them all. Their drop to Junior was almost inevitable over this transition period, but might be the start of something for them. As I said here before, Sligo football needs a competitive St. Johns side."
Carly have possibly 3 players on the Sligo senior panel, in any other county having 3 county senior panelists would likely mean competing for senior honors???
We have some really good referee's in the county. There must be 4 that have intercounty experience of refereeing. Behind that there's another 2 or 3 that are quiet good. That's a good base to work off. After that the standard falls off a cliff. Last year one referee, who gets a lot of big games gave a penalty to a team because the opposing defender picked the ball off the ground in big parallelogram. That's not a penalty. It's a free in. The defenders went ballistic because they knew it was a completely incorrect decision. He then gave them yellow cards for dissent. It's a nice little wage earner, a few games a week for maybe 30 weeks. Even challenge games now require an official referee for insurance purposes. Therefore they need to be fit enough to keep up with play and know the rules. Very few players take up referring during or when they finish playing so the candidates for the whistle sometimes never played adult football.
I have some close friends from Calry but I was happy for Curry staying up. They were very competitive all year and deserve to be senior.
I think the refereeing has been decent this year. I thought John Gilmartin did a great job in our semi final with Shamrock Gaels. I don't really mind any referee as long as they treat both teams the same and give fair play.
Michael Duffy is down for the senior final and I'd expect him to referee it well.
Replying To MrUnderhill: "Carly have possibly 3 players on the Sligo senior panel, in any other county having 3 county senior panelists would likely mean competing for senior honors???"
No doubt have quality among their panel but have lost some big players and seem to have quite a small group. I'm not sure they are hitting the heights at underage either. I would still make them favourites for next years Intermediate, but the loss of the Cummins lads has had to have been a huge blow over the last couple of years.
I don't see Calry making a return to senior any time soon tbh. Underage success has been quite modest there and there were times they had to amalgamate with Johns in recent years. Losing the Cummins was a big blow to them. I don't think any of the teams in the upper half of Intermediate will fear them tbh, and it may take them a few years to reset and reorganise.
Similarly I think John's could take a few more years before they reap the rewards of their current underage success. Had Castleconnor gone down I'd rank them favourites for a return straight away as posters mentioned they are a very young outfit but have been hanging around on relegation side of Intermediate for far too long.
But what is not good to see is that among the three clubs picking from Sligo town and its immediate surrounds there is now 1 senior, 1 intermediate and 1 junior. Will we see more border hopping to the remaining senior club as a result?
On to this weekends games. Coolera v St Molaise Gaels....Coolera by 2. Murphy this year has been exceptional for Coolera and Molaise might have to commit too much resources to handle him. Its a difficult one to balance but not expecting a high scoring game.
E.Harps v Owenmore....Harps by 2. The final of the weekend I feel and potential to be good open fast paced football if the officials allow it to be.
Ballymote v Cloonacool....Ballymote by 4. Ballymote fairly took care of St Michaels and I just think they've a better pick of players and will be all the hungrier to make up for last years defeat. Lavin could be the difference here between the teams.
Replying To Sligoman1234: "I don't see Calry making a return to senior any time soon tbh. Underage success has been quite modest there and there were times they had to amalgamate with Johns in recent years. Losing the Cummins was a big blow to them. I don't think any of the teams in the upper half of Intermediate will fear them tbh, and it may take them a few years to reset and reorganise.
Similarly I think John's could take a few more years before they reap the rewards of their current underage success. Had Castleconnor gone down I'd rank them favourites for a return straight away as posters mentioned they are a very young outfit but have been hanging around on relegation side of Intermediate for far too long.
But what is not good to see is that among the three clubs picking from Sligo town and its immediate surrounds there is now 1 senior, 1 intermediate and 1 junior. Will we see more border hopping to the remaining senior club as a result?
On to this weekends games. Coolera v St Molaise Gaels....Coolera by 2. Murphy this year has been exceptional for Coolera and Molaise might have to commit too much resources to handle him. Its a difficult one to balance but not expecting a high scoring game.
E.Harps v Owenmore....Harps by 2. The final of the weekend I feel and potential to be good open fast paced football if the officials allow it to be.
Ballymote v Cloonacool....Ballymote by 4. Ballymote fairly took care of St Michaels and I just think they've a better pick of players and will be all the hungrier to make up for last years defeat. Lavin could be the difference here between the teams."
Very good point on Marys. You'd hope that wouldn't be the case.
Disappointment for Paddy O Connor with Kilmacud Crokes on Sunday. To be honest I wasn't sure if he would get a place on that team but just like Cummins he was able to step up to the much higher standard of Dublin club football. As someone alluded to, it's poor that club football in Sligo town has gotten so bad. Neither Johns nor Calry have anything on the horizon for a few years. You would hope Johns get straight back up from Junior because we need more teams in Sligo town but next year they will be up against Cloonacool or Ballymote plus Michaels and a few very strong B teams. Too early in the week yet for my predictions for the weekend))