Replying To Afinestick:  "Interesting listening to the Wexford hurling podcast this morning they made two good points about our club championship. Ed Rowsome and Keith Rossiter pointed out a championship played over 6 weeks when there is 52 weeks in a year is simply not enough top hurling for club players in the county. They also pointed out how we are the only county in Ireland where 18 year olds . We are robbing the likes of Cillian Byrne, Sean Rowley and Simon Roche a year where they could develop hugely playing senior and intermediate hurling. We need to rectify both these issues for next year. We need to get the small things right in this county they all add up"

Replying To Viking66:  "That's all fair enough. If you read my posts that's not the only reason I think we are where we are. I'll go again and leave out that point altogether. What we need are answers to the reasons and there's no acceptable answer to that one anyway, being as if we go to a model of hurling and football areas and clubs that's doing a disservice to the games, and our children, as a whole.
1- consistency- I'm following Wexford since the 90s. This post can't be long enough to list the number of good perfomances followed by really bad, or at least indifferent, ones next up. Now this isn't any 1 group of players fault, as we have had numerous groups over the last 30 years. It's not any 1 managements fault either for the same reason. This one has me more baffled than most of the following points. For our only real success since the 60s it took a Wexford man who spent a large chunk of time in Clare as manager, along with some strong on-pitch leaders, to get the team of 96, that at the time wouldn't have been head and shoulders above everyone else in terms of hurling, over the line. Where are we going wrong? Is it because we over emphasise that taking part and enjoyment is more important than actually driving on to win, especially at underage?
2- playing numbers- We have a reasonable population in the county, which has grown hugely in the last 30 years. I know a large chunk of that population growth has occurred in dormitory areas in the North of the county, but what can we do to facilitate these parents, or otherwise encourage them to being their kids to the clubs? This leads on to the next point.
3- urban areas- I'm a member of a largely rural club with a largish village in the middle of the parish. Participation from the village is very low. This year a few kids were looking to join our group, some who were good enough street hurlers, but their parents plain can't afford it as they are on low incomes or social welfare. Theres a perception in these areas county wide that the GAA is a little elitist- you get picked if daddy has enough acres. How do we change this perception? How do we encourage these parents to bring their kids?
4- coaching in clubs- this year we have a new and very passionate manager over our group. He wanted the kids to train twice a week instead of once, and instead of an hour broken down as 40 minutes warming up, fitness and drills followed by 20 minutes of a training match, he wanted to do 15 minutes warming up and fitness, 45 minutes of drills and half hour of a match. An hour and a half. The kids themselves were all delighted. Eventually we got agreement on this but the resistance was eye opening tbh.
5- County Board appointed coaches visiting schools and clubs- JJ Doyles coaching evening has been put back a week. This will be the 1st opportunity I've had at the club to learn things off a well known county board appointed coach. There should be far more coaching training afforded to enthusiastic amateurs like me. Relative to other costs involved in running the GAA in Wexford this surely shouldn't cost too much.
6- length of the underage season- we run an April to September season pretty much. Most other counties seem to run from February til October, at least for training. Why can't we?
7- standard of our club championships- if we improve the underage training, and offer more, and maybe slightly longer, sessions of it over more months of the year, this would surely improve the standard of our club championships, which can be poor enough compared to club games I've seen in other counties. Basic stuff like passing a ball to someone on your own team instead of the other one, picking up the ball first time, and the speed and intensity of the games. If our club championships were of a higher standard then we would have more players better able to step up to intercounty.
8- pathway from underage- would it serve us to have a county board funded u22/3 development squad to provide a pathway to Senior? With an emphasis on skills, speed of hurling and S and C? Maybe meeting up once or twice a week, over winter maybe, and playing in house games as part of it? Several clubs have indoor astros which could hold these.
9- getting the best players to commit to our intercounty teams- obviously Jack Guiney is one of the better known lads that 2 successive managers couldn't get to commit, but there are several others. Part of Limerick's recent hurling success was getting the best underage players to want to play for the county as adults. Where are we going wrong in our approach to this problem? How come AJ Redmond and Cian Molloy, just to name 2 and 2 of the best lads on last years u20 team, don't want to commit? Are the lads being badly treated by the intercounty set ups? It's not a recent phenomenon so it's not like I'm blaming any of the current management teams. How do we get our best lads to want to pull on the Jersey?"

Replying To Viking66:  "That's all fair enough. If you read my posts that's not the only reason I think we are where we are. I'll go again and leave out that point altogether. What we need are answers to the reasons and there's no acceptable answer to that one anyway, being as if we go to a model of hurling and football areas and clubs that's doing a disservice to the games, and our children, as a whole.
1- consistency- I'm following Wexford since the 90s. This post can't be long enough to list the number of good perfomances followed by really bad, or at least indifferent, ones next up. Now this isn't any 1 group of players fault, as we have had numerous groups over the last 30 years. It's not any 1 managements fault either for the same reason. This one has me more baffled than most of the following points. For our only real success since the 60s it took a Wexford man who spent a large chunk of time in Clare as manager, along with some strong on-pitch leaders, to get the team of 96, that at the time wouldn't have been head and shoulders above everyone else in terms of hurling, over the line. Where are we going wrong? Is it because we over emphasise that taking part and enjoyment is more important than actually driving on to win, especially at underage?
2- playing numbers- We have a reasonable population in the county, which has grown hugely in the last 30 years. I know a large chunk of that population growth has occurred in dormitory areas in the North of the county, but what can we do to facilitate these parents, or otherwise encourage them to being their kids to the clubs? This leads on to the next point.
3- urban areas- I'm a member of a largely rural club with a largish village in the middle of the parish. Participation from the village is very low. This year a few kids were looking to join our group, some who were good enough street hurlers, but their parents plain can't afford it as they are on low incomes or social welfare. Theres a perception in these areas county wide that the GAA is a little elitist- you get picked if daddy has enough acres. How do we change this perception? How do we encourage these parents to bring their kids?
4- coaching in clubs- this year we have a new and very passionate manager over our group. He wanted the kids to train twice a week instead of once, and instead of an hour broken down as 40 minutes warming up, fitness and drills followed by 20 minutes of a training match, he wanted to do 15 minutes warming up and fitness, 45 minutes of drills and half hour of a match. An hour and a half. The kids themselves were all delighted. Eventually we got agreement on this but the resistance was eye opening tbh.
5- County Board appointed coaches visiting schools and clubs- JJ Doyles coaching evening has been put back a week. This will be the 1st opportunity I've had at the club to learn things off a well known county board appointed coach. There should be far more coaching training afforded to enthusiastic amateurs like me. Relative to other costs involved in running the GAA in Wexford this surely shouldn't cost too much.
6- length of the underage season- we run an April to September season pretty much. Most other counties seem to run from February til October, at least for training. Why can't we?
7- standard of our club championships- if we improve the underage training, and offer more, and maybe slightly longer, sessions of it over more months of the year, this would surely improve the standard of our club championships, which can be poor enough compared to club games I've seen in other counties. Basic stuff like passing a ball to someone on your own team instead of the other one, picking up the ball first time, and the speed and intensity of the games. If our club championships were of a higher standard then we would have more players better able to step up to intercounty.
8- pathway from underage- would it serve us to have a county board funded u22/3 development squad to provide a pathway to Senior? With an emphasis on skills, speed of hurling and S and C? Maybe meeting up once or twice a week, over winter maybe, and playing in house games as part of it? Several clubs have indoor astros which could hold these.
9- getting the best players to commit to our intercounty teams- obviously Jack Guiney is one of the better known lads that 2 successive managers couldn't get to commit, but there are several others. Part of Limerick's recent hurling success was getting the best underage players to want to play for the county as adults. Where are we going wrong in our approach to this problem? How come AJ Redmond and Cian Molloy, just to name 2 and 2 of the best lads on last years u20 team, don't want to commit? Are the lads being badly treated by the intercounty set ups? It's not a recent phenomenon so it's not like I'm blaming any of the current management teams. How do we get our best lads to want to pull on the Jersey?"

Replying To TerribleFootwork:  "Yeah basically lads off last years u20 who were overage this year didn't commit to Senior in 2023."

Replying To Timbertony:  "The guys know their stuff for sure but the club game was going to die on its a$$ without serious action. Isn't in better to have 6 games in 6 weeks rather than 6 games over maybe 18 weeks? The players much prefer it and it's very competitive. You would be hard pressed to pick the winner or team to be relegated of the senior club.

There are some tweaks that could be introduced, bringing 18 year olds in (theres a valid argument the talented ones play too much but with minor at u17 now that's not the same issue it was). Group/combo teams at senior...mixed enough results Id argue, plus it delays the intermediate/junior comps but could be worth trying again. Extend senior championship to 70mins is a no brainer for me, don't think that requires Croke Pk approval.

To be seen to be doing well in the All Ireland club series isn't the key metric anyway."

Replying To Timbertony:  "The guys know their stuff for sure but the club game was going to die on its a$$ without serious action. Isn't in better to have 6 games in 6 weeks rather than 6 games over maybe 18 weeks? The players much prefer it and it's very competitive. You would be hard pressed to pick the winner or team to be relegated of the senior club.

There are some tweaks that could be introduced, bringing 18 year olds in (theres a valid argument the talented ones play too much but with minor at u17 now that's not the same issue it was). Group/combo teams at senior...mixed enough results Id argue, plus it delays the intermediate/junior comps but could be worth trying again. Extend senior championship to 70mins is a no brainer for me, don't think that requires Croke Pk approval.

To be seen to be doing well in the All Ireland club series isn't the key metric anyway."

Replying To TerribleFootwork:  "Worst case scenario and we go down if we come back and come back up with flying colours akin to Oulart in Intermediate last year then I don't think it will have a lasting impact but the potential of a malaise setting in would be what concerns me. Also for a group of experienced players who have stellar service for over a decade or close a decade depending on the player this would be a awful stain on their legacy. Interesting that Keith Rossiter reckons about 10 or 11 players just over age for u20 were contacted last year about joining the panel this year and reckons about 5 took up the offer."

Replying To MyOhMi:  "How can you say clubs go it wrong - the reality is there is a very small window of time for Club Championship to be played .. Regardless if we play alternative blocks between hurling and football, there is still the same time frame.

This was debated for a long time at county convention - and it was the bigger dual clubs who swung the vote in favor of retaining hurling first and then football .. The can concentrate fully on one code then for a period of time .. Alternative blocks would suit the stronger hurling clubs because they have time off between matches to train / fine tune ..

As for the U18 debacle - the fixtures committee swung that and pleaded for U18s not to play adult as it was very unfair on every other underage player in the county as their championship would be held up with the Leaving Cert first and then adult championships. Clubs would not play underage championship if they had U18s involved with adult teams."

Replying To HurlingBuzz:  "Molloy and Redmond were arguably two of the best players on last years u20 and didn't commit for whatever reason. Will guys commit to joe mcdonagh especially the younger ones who may be away in college? You can have all the talent in the world coming through but there has to be a pathway put in place to bring them into senior especially with all the other distractions that are there. I see it with my own club who won numerous underage titles in recent years with a very talented group. It's scary to see how many aren't hurling today."

Replying To Viking66:  "So Richie Lawlor, Tucker Kinsella, Kyle Scallan, Josh Shiel, and AJ Redmond, who then left again after a couple of months."

Replying To TerribleFootwork:  "On the u18 topic if intercounty and Sigerson/Fitzgibbon managers can cooperate in January/February, there seems a wiliness on both sides for Senior and u20 intercounty players to play both and the 7 day rule be scrapped so everyone is working on the same hymnsheet here, surely senior managers can be adults in the room and let 18 year olds play minor and adult? Not surprised on what you said about the fixtures committee although I know they've an horrendously tough job."

Replying To TerribleFootwork:  "That's the worry I think Molloy would have the potential to lock down centre back for most of the next decade and lads like him is who you would build the team around."

Replying To Afinestick:  "I see there is 500 tickets left for the covered stand. Hopefully the Wexford people are getting the message we need everyone there to back the lads like never before"

Replying To Afinestick:  "I see there is 500 tickets left for the covered stand. Hopefully the Wexford people are getting the message we need everyone there to back the lads like never before"

Replying To Onfor15:  "There is some seriously delusional nonsense about building teams around lads who aren't good enough for the current panel. We have no one under the age of 25 who is good enough to be on our best 15. Therefore we are still relying on much older/tired lads who would be far better off as impact subs, but we cant afford to do the due to the lack of talent from 20 to 25."

Replying To Viking66:  "That's good news. With the weather forecast plenty will prefer the other side and maybe got tickets for it instead. Our club has done its best to get lads motivated to go in there's lads who havent been all year got tickets."