If we are serious with progression at Inter County level, you would need to enact a 20/30 year plan.

You would need buy in from non traditional hurling areas, i.e North Meath. It would have to start with designated dual coaches I'd say being appointed to certain areas and building from the ground up.

It would have to start with schools coaching and work its way into the clubs. Why I say dual coaches is because I believe up until maybe u10's trainings should be 1 night football, 1 night hurling under the umbrella of "GAA" training.

Children will develop a sort of ambidexterity between the 2 codes and then be able to potentially take up both when moving towards more organised games at u12 level etc.

You would probably need the formation of amalgamations at underage level to give smaller clubs a chance at surviving as I feel football will always still be the biggest puller in these areas. I would push towards regional level centres of excellence up until maybe u15's.

Specialist coaches brought in to do particular skills based training, strength and conditioning etc. Ideally these would be ex inter county hurlers from successful counties that would get buy in from players.

On the coaching end of things it would take a lot of buy in from parents and club members to be trained up to a standard where they could take on some of the more nuanced facets of the game.

There would also have to be a push for equal opportunity of resources that football development squads get. To be honest I really could see some of these strategies working in the long term but it would take time, investment and a lot of buy in from people all over the county.

3rdmanin (Meath) - Posts: 18 - 08/11/2024 10:44:18    2578902

Let's focus on improving the football first, never mind hurling!

BigJoe14 (Meath) - Posts: 997 - 08/11/2024 12:25:53    2578925

allroyal (Meath) - Posts: 5 - 08/11/2024 15:04:26    2578950

Stiofan (Meath) - Posts: 67 - 08/11/2024 15:41:28    2578961

Joe_soap1 (Meath) - Posts: 83 - 09/11/2024 00:21:24    2579007

lost too many big hurling clubs in the heartland and gained very few, even before we start talking of spreading hurling to north and east meath. Rathmolyon, Athboy, Killyon and Boardsmill all have 25 senior titles between them i think. we need to get all of those clubs competeing for senior semi finals again. Ratoath and Kildalkey have been the only clubs to breakthrough in last 20 years from winning nothing before. Kilskyre/Moylagh and Clan na Gael has great potential as theiir in hurling area and people in the areas already are very interested in it. very hard to compete for interest in hurling north of kells or east of navan. Vast majority of GAA people in those regions will probabaly never have been to a hurling game in their lives, thats almost 50% of the landmass of the county. Navan and Dunboyne need huge resources put in as well they have population to have seperate players playiing football and hurling.

dickie10 (UK) - Posts: 767 - 10/11/2024 23:19:14    2579159

Totally unconnected to the topic at hand, but does anyone know what exactly the "constitutional" status of Moylagh/Kilskyre is? I presume they're still counted as 2 separate clubs administratively, especially since Moylagh still field their own football team. Say at county board meetings, do Moylagh get one vote and Kilskyre one vote?

Reason I ask is, if they were to win the IHC, there's a good chance they'd be unable to enter the Leinster JHC since they're a combined team made up of 2 different clubs.

CastleBravo (Meath) - Posts: 1662 - 16/11/2024 10:59:52    2579850

Watched the Ratoath and Bray game at the weekend and I'm not sure what was a worse standard, the hurling, the ref or the commentator on Clubber.

You can slightly forgive Ratoath considering it was their first venture into Leinster and they had such a long break but the fact that Bray played most of the game with 14 men means you should be beating them. 3-4 of their stronger players just didn't turn up unfortunately.

I am sick of looking at ref's in the weaker county's and the Ratoath Bray game was no different. It is like they are looking at a totally different game to the top tier teams. Everything is a free, why is that?? Is there are any ref's on here that could explain the taught process or are we dealing with people who are not capable or do not understand the game?

I watched the Ulster semi finals at the weekend as well and not only is that how hurling should be played but also how a game should be refereed. Stay out of the game unless its blatant and any 50/50 free should be play on.

How has Antrim and Derry club teams gone so far ahead of us? The Westmeath champions beating Thomastown as well, i know that was a freak result and Thomastown are just worn out and would normally win that game by 15 points but its still an incredible result for Westmeath hurling.

Is our county board holding hurling back? probably.
Will our new football manager be in any way accommodating to dual players? I am hearing he wont.
Are our clubs doing enough? Absolutely not.
What will be done about it? Nothing.. The county board are happy with where the County hurling team is at the minute, out of the way and not causing a fuss.

We as a hurling community are just gone too soft and accepting being the poor relation.

Tobefair80 (Meath) - Posts: 70 - 21/11/2024 13:16:13    2580569

Unless the game is played in every school in the big towns in the county or at least every second level then its a waiste of time asking where its going wrong , its clear.
I would think the secondary school in trim is the only one playing and its not exactly st kierans kilkenny at that.

hurlit (Meath) - Posts: 424 - 21/11/2024 16:56:30    2580621

hard to know why we are so poor in leinster and why westmeath clubs are so far ahead in both hurling and football. Personally thought ratoath would go well and seemed to be doing alright but then just died.

Id be of the opinion that Football will rule the roost this year on the county front and likely they'll be no apatite for players to join the hurling panel. Im already hearing that numbers are poor for the initial squads called in.

Rickoshay (Meath) - Posts: 30 - 21/11/2024 17:52:30    2580629

CrookedSticks (Fermanagh) - Posts: 3 - 21/11/2024 17:54:31    2580631

Hard to know but id agree on the schools Trima and Athboy would be the only ones driving it and Athboy would have at least half their players from westmeath clubs. Navan, Kells and Dunboyne it plays second fiddle in those schools. badly need to get the traditional clubs back firing again though before trying to spread it to other areas. Kilskyre need plenty of resources put into them they can pick from oldcastle town and have great potential.

dickie10 (UK) - Posts: 767 - 21/11/2024 21:01:02    2580652