I was flicking through the Irish News while eating the spuds when i spotted an article on the Donegal Club Championship. To my surprise I noticed Kilcar took an 4-10 - 11 beating over the weekend. The more i thought about it the more shocked I was. Both Mchugh brothers and both McBrearty brothers play on that Kilcar side. Thats a considerable number of good intercounty players for any club.
It got me thinking of other clubs throughout the country who have struggled despite having a number of excellent intercounty players. The Moy had the two Cavanaghs and Philip Jordan and i don't think they ever had any impact at senior level. Clann NaGael had Dooher and O'Neill and in the mid noughties (when those two were at their peak) they never made it out of the Intermediate championship. Parnells in Dublin is effectively an intercounty side yet I can't remember them ever winning a club championship. I'm sure there are other sides throughout the country who have county stars yet can't have any sort of meaningful impact in the club championship.

Why is this? Is it that the other players are a lot poorer than their county clubmates or is it a case that the county players don't worry about their clubs to much?

gotmilk (Fermanagh) - Posts: 4971 - 28/09/2015 20:13:19    1793306

Could have 3/4 county players but v average rest of team - you would expect a team with this to win junior at a canter and should be winning intermediate also at least. 1/2 county men mightened be enough to win any championship - it gives a focus to the opposition teams as to who to pick up. Dick Clerkin played for years with Currin in Monaghan and they were whipping boys in junior. Teams just stopped Dick and that was it. (In fairness to Currin they went right to senior over last few years but due to a very good all round team!)

Brolly (Monaghan) - Posts: 4472 - 28/09/2015 20:41:42    1793324

Could be a case of the inter-county lads dragging a poor enough side up through the ranks?

Parnell's brought in a load of country lads to the detriment of the lads they'd trained up since they were 6 years of age. The country lads just don't have the same commitment to trying to win a Dublin Championship then they'd have if they were at home. Regularly beaten by clubs that were weaker on paper but all committed to the cause and playing together for years from underage up. I remember listening to Colm Parkinson on Off the Ball talking about it and he essentially said that he didn't commit at all to Parnell's properly and he wasn't the only one. They've become a joke at senior level, so much so that Stephen Cluxton hasn't lined out for the seniors for a few years. I believe he's playing centre forward for the intermediates!

MesAmis (Dublin) - Posts: 13707 - 29/09/2015 08:31:27    1793365

It obviously depends on the quality of the other players.

However, we hated having anyone from our club picked for the county teams as you then had to do without them for league games quite a lot. If you were a team struggling to keep their heads above water in Division 1 then losing your best player/s was a nightmare.

bumpernut (Antrim) - Posts: 1852 - 29/09/2015 10:42:40    1793431

I suppose the same question could apply to some All Ireland youth winning teams. Some teams go on and provide several seniors. Other underage teams provide no seniors e.g Westmeath won the U-21 All Ireland in (1999 I think ) provided no seniors to the Leinster winning senior team in 2004. While the Tyrone 1998 minor team provided 7 or 8 players to the All Ireland senior winning teams. Maybe some minor/U21 teams are full of 15 good players while other teams might have 3 or 4 stars. My own county of Laois have only the goalkeeper and one forward on the county team and cant be beaten ( in Laois anyway) while other club teams have 2 or 3 players on the panel.

crikey (Australia) - Posts: 355 - 29/09/2015 11:46:58    1793500

I played on a star studded (relatively speaking) minor side that won county leagues and championships all the way through the age brackets, but we failed to win a minor county championship. Why? Because we had 5 players on the Mayo minor side that reached the All-Ireland final that year. Those fellas were away training with the county side the whole time, and in truth a few of them became a bit cocky, which really split the group and it told in a couple of crucial matches. Having county men can be a double edged sword sometimes.

Gleebo (Mayo) - Posts: 2208 - 29/09/2015 18:53:39    1793871