@formertownie - your post above wasn't there when I started writing my last one, but was there by the time I'd finished. Anyway....
Yeah, the change from U18 to U17, or back again, creates a different situation from normal in the year the change takes effect.
When Wexford voted to go to U17, the main reason was so that minor (U17) and adult could be completely decoupled - i.e. nobody had an issue with somebody who was only 16 at the start of the year not being allowed to play adult in that year. It was also felt that lads in their 18th year would be mostly ready for the adult grades and would have ample opportunity to play them.
Last year, when the decision was made to go back to U18, the main feeling was it was necessary because too many were drifting away after U17, as it turned out they weren't yet ready for adult level after all.
The real situation of course is that some lads are ready for adult grades in the year that they're 17 going on 18, but many are not. And the big question now is whether we allow the closing stages of the entire U18 championships to be affected for the sake of these some lads.
I still maintain that the greater good and the lesser of two evils is to keep things such that minors can't also play adult.
Monaghan ran an U18 competition this year with poor up take from clubs.. The U18 comp was finished before May!
U17 comp then ran from June to October!
For me the issue with drop off is not the amount of games it's the amount of sacrifice players are making to play GAA… even at U17 level it's got very serious