There are some clubs in Down that are focusing on their underage hurlers and pulling in great attendances such as Bredagh (who apparently have huge turnouts but due to location), Castlewellan are steadily increasing in underage players, Downpatrick have started the hurling recently, a few clubs in Mourne have pulled together their own hurling club and Carryduffs underage is strong. Other clubs are struggling for underage however and hopefully can get more young players involved. Its good to see for the future

BarrackBuster (Down) - Posts: 525 - 26/10/2011 13:25:45    1058842

If downpatrick got a hurling team sorted out theyd be a force to be reckoned with. Big catchment , like you could get lads interested even now in there and enter a team in a few years at senior level. Theyd be bad but couldnt be much worse than the rabble that plays div2.

Underage theyd have the same effect as say bredagh. One hurling club for a town the size of dpk? youd get some numbers.

DownAndOut (Down) - Posts: 344 - 27/10/2011 09:38:31    1059305

Galgets were to play Leitriom in Joe Mc Crickard but Leitriom couldnt field they join Bredagh the biggest club in Ulster Carryduff and Castlewellan who have all failed to field in a week.Your all going on about the state of hurling hows it gonna improve if yous are not gonna play in case yous get beat

jeremiah (Down) - Posts: 322 - 29/10/2011 16:28:10    1060294

crans mauled warrenpoint by 40pts. Pointless match.

DownAndOut (Down) - Posts: 344 - 30/10/2011 14:53:34    1060542

absolute waste of time playing. fair play to warrenpoint for putting a team out to play! county board needs to take a good look at themselves!

ianog (Down) - Posts: 416 - 30/10/2011 16:48:57    1060609

was hell of an intermediate side that the crann had out in the point

gerryc (Down) - Posts: 135 - 30/10/2011 18:37:49    1060683

Fair play to Warrenpoint for playing the crans even though they were well beat in the end at least their willing to compete unlike some clubs i could mention,good on yous

jeremiah (Down) - Posts: 322 - 30/10/2011 21:14:07    1060801

not their fault , thats like saying to anyone playing 2nds hurley they have to be intentionally *****.
Warrenpoint had a poor team out though , needs to be looked at where this championship is going like......
The arguement of a hell of a team and we cant compete with them doesnt work. Named 2nds lads played that day and thats that.

DownAndOut (Down) - Posts: 344 - 01/11/2011 16:39:42    1061501

didnt say they were not seconds but would explain why ballycrann got such a tanking against loughgiel. Would go a long way to explain why Ards Hurling going down hill when six of this years senior Championship winners are not good enough to be on the first thirteen, Makes you wonder who is on the first thirteen and where are they playing hurling .
And before you start only ten players who were named for the senior final were actually classed as the firsts out of the twenty seven panel and eight classed, as the ards would say "the rabble of the thirds",. Oddly Portaferry had eleven of their firsts out for the Senior Final which doesnt bode well when they got beat by a team made up of seconds and even at least one thirds player from the mighty crann. Ards wonder why Hurling on way downhill has to be the standard that the ards are now playing.

gerryc (Down) - Posts: 135 - 01/11/2011 18:19:17    1061585

gerryc wot are u on about? canny understand wot ur trying to say?

cahill (None) - Posts: 2567 - 01/11/2011 20:15:14    1061651

in reply to down and out on" cranns mauling of point". message edited so the part which should read six of the championship winning side were part of the team that mauled what could only be classed as warrenpoint reserves. no wonder nobody interested in this farcial competition.

gerryc (Down) - Posts: 135 - 01/11/2011 20:40:56    1061672

standard you talk about isnt helped havin ta play againist very very poor teams in the down leagues better off training most nights

ianog (Down) - Posts: 416 - 02/11/2011 16:52:17    1062134

Gerry C heres the way it works each Ards club will probably have about 23 or 24 players on their senior panel,they have to name 12 of those players as senior only that means the remainder of the senior panel plus the rest of the players at the club can be named as 2nds and 3rds.So what is it you want do the Ards teams to put out their under 16s in division 1 and 2 to make it easier for you

jeremiah (Down) - Posts: 322 - 02/11/2011 20:04:03    1062272

Iknow how it works. but to state that a team made up of seconds who won down senior championship mauled a reserve team from warrenpoint is just laughable. goes to show why ards teams arent in junior or intermediate championships . yous dont have the numbers any more. as i said it not about the first or second twelve .its about the standard of ards hurling when six seconds players and thirds make up the bulk of the best team in down.IN CASE YOUR MATHS NOT THAT GOOD thats almost half the team.

gerryc (Down) - Posts: 135 - 02/11/2011 21:37:23    1062348

fair point gerry c i understand like but theres no way round it like , some lads need 3rds for to keep interest in the club alive, ards try and blood youngsters along with the old dads army in the 3rds to see what theyre made of.

Bad when usually these teams win the league or the champ.
BUT anyways , hopefully warrenpoint can get more lads coming through , would like to see the return of them fielding 2 sides.
More hurlers out playing is better than no hurlers at all.

Ards are completely done , getting a victory in antrim league is a tough task , no longer does the ards sit proudly near the top of antrim league anymore. All in danger of being relegated past few seasons

DownAndOut (Down) - Posts: 344 - 03/11/2011 11:28:52    1062477

down and out then rest of the county would be better looking at were they are realistically rather than worring about the ards teams in the antrim league well be back up there bloodin new players at that standard takes a while but well be back up there

ianog (Down) - Posts: 416 - 03/11/2011 19:47:33    1062835

GerryC,
There's no doubt that the senior clubs in Down are losing ground to the likes of Loughgiel, Dunloy and Cushendall. We used to be able to give them tough enough games in the league and then a good rattle in the championship but its looks like they've pulled away on us. The big question is how and why?

In all fairness they're generally bigger clubs than ourselves and Ballygalget, but on a similar size (parish/town wise) as Portaferry.

Loughgiel have been there or there abouts in U-14, U-16, minor and U-21 pretty much constant for the last 10 years or more and that's feeding into a strong senior set up and their reserves team would probably beat most senior teams. Cushendall have had good minor and U-16 teams recently. Dunloy in their pomp dominated underage hurling in Antrim and have probably fallen back a bit compared to the other two.
These three clubs (including St Johns) are feeding into strong county juvenile teams winning Ulster at a canter and then going onto compete down south, exposing them to a higher level of hurling. The North Antrim HURLING (and I mean a true hurling) board have devised some of the best coaching courses going and regularly hold their own development squads. The other beacon of improvement is St Johns in Belfast and the amount of effort and resources they've put into juvenile hurling recently has to seen to be believed.

None of the Ards clubs can compete either in numbers or resources and the Down county board send out some coach with a clipboard under his arm once in a blue moon, set up token U-17 development squads so late in the year that its futile, restrict adult club hurlers to 14 to 16(if they are lucky) games in the year when a footballing counterpart will play over 20 league games guaranteed, and a championship worthy of the name.

The Ards clubs need help too as much as those in Newry, Warrenpoint and Liatroim.

bricktop (Down) - Posts: 2503 - 03/11/2011 21:43:28    1062913

The only reason Jerry that the Ards clubs arent in the junior and intermediate is because the county board changed the rules yous need to improve the standard of hurling in your own clubs and stop worrying about us

jeremiah (Down) - Posts: 322 - 03/11/2011 21:52:23    1062921

Nail on the head Bricktop

weepats5 (Down) - Posts: 295 - 04/11/2011 08:55:44    1062934

Anyword on the relegation/promotion in the Down leagues for next year!? Also when is the Ulster league fixtures out? Fair play to the clubs that fielded for Betsy and Joe at such short notice. More notice should be given in future that's why some clubs couldn't field! But then some clubs didn't even enter the tournaments! Move the competitions between Ulster and Down leagues were it'll be appreciated and played by all

BarrackBuster (Down) - Posts: 525 - 04/11/2011 10:35:35    1062996