club championship

[theman]

Does antone Know when the next round of the football championship is. Its ridiculas we have to wait this long. We played 1st round at the start of may and now were told the next round is not till the end of july/early august. Thats 3 months between each round,a DISGRACE.
The county board should be sacked,they are a shambles. the same old crew knocking around for the last few years,get some one new in!

[Archangel]

The fixtures committee/secretary is a disgrace. We are the same, played one c'ship game and then get a few days notice of our next one.

Just look at the tables, some teams will have played 5 league games and some only 2. Some teams in the championships(junior) will have two games played while some clubs are waiting on their first fixture. Trying to keep players interested in training and getting your team to peak for championship is impossible, especially for the smaller clubs(the bigger clubs will always have something going on)
Suddenly we will have games running into holidays etc... it's all b*ll*x

[TheManFromFerbane]

To be fair as far as the senior is concerned I think this year they made an attempt to rectify the situation where players didn't know when they were out. They have created this master fixture list which all things going well means that barring Offaly get to the Quarters in either county code then they should be able to stick to it.

I think the reason the Juniors can go ahead is because there are no junior players playing with the county.

I think the big fault here is that they decided to play the first round of the seniors at all. The reason we're all guessing they did this was to stop senior players from playing a full junior championship group stage and then going onto play senior championship.

While this is a good reason its bad execution. Surely there is some way that they could solve this issue without creating this ridiculous gap.

[Archangel]

Maybe they should run the League completely first. Then run the Championships, as most teams will get only 3 games.
Start the C'ships in the mid of June, college & Leaving Cert are over. Then you have 6 or so weeks to August/builders holidays etc when most are away. So you surely would get teams to play 3 games in 6 weeks. Then you have the playoffs starting Mid-august.

[duckdiggler]

The usual reason one senior round is played is indeed to mark players as senior status before the intermediate / junior c'ships commence.

The County Board are to be commended this year for trying to map out the season. However with the advent of the whole qualifiers series of games / under acheiving senior inter county teams I think that the gap in the season is too large and that they should review our club processes again for 2009.

As I said on another thread , we are not as strong as we once were, and are not going to win the All-Ireland based on current performances. we need to work on our competitiveness and endurance in hurling , ( and getting 6 forwards in the opposition half in football - don't get me started !)

Therefore Ithink that it would help our county teams if the players were released more regularly and more rounds of the club championship were played , even in tandem with the LHC / LFC if necessary or at least when the teams are in the qualifying process. I also think that up and coming players can only improve by playing regularly during the summer months with and against the county players at their peak fitness.

My own personal belief is that playing competitive games is better than training any day of the week. Contesting serious club c'ship matches in tandem with intercounty meaningless "friendlies" I think can only help. E.g. You'd earn a c'ship win over Birr in hurling or Rhode in football a lot harder than a friendly inter county win over Clare or Derry.

I also think we need to get bigger groups and have teams playing more group games i.e. 2 groups of 6 , not 3 groups of 4 , but playing more regularly

There is a balance that needs to be struck i think, to ensure good young players don't drift off to other sports go abroad (or drinking !) and not come back as a result of time delays.

[Archangel]

It's a bit like the 'waiting for a bus' analogy... you wait for ages then several come at once.

Just compare like with like, Rhode & Tullamore etc have played just 5 competitive games this year so far (4 lg 1 cship)

Kildare champs Moorefield have played 11, Sarsfields 13 games.????? Their senior county team are in the same boat as Offaly's but at least they get on with playing matches. How do Offaly fotballer's & hurler's expect to competitive when all they do is train and play challenge matches.????

Someone needs to make bold moves, and take their head out of the sand and save the sport in this county.

Give it back to the players.... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Blue and White]

I think, and I've said this before, that the fixtures committee in this county are a disgrace. Players are forced to start training in January or early February for a game in April. Then peak again for a game......when....they don't tell you when?! 6 - 10 week breaks are the norm. They do this presumable for the county but this is clearly having NO effect on the performances of our Senior football team. I have this master fixture list but its a load of rubbish and changed already. We were due to play a championship match tomorrow and for some reason (please someone explain it to me) it has been called off. It can't be to rest county players, they aren't playing for a month.
Instead we played a league game tonight with a county player on either side. We can't get 12 players up training because they are disillusioned and disinterested. I've played senior football in this county for 10 years, never complained about doing training (well maybe a little), gone to Offaly matches and had some great days watching them but the one bitterness I have had towards the sport is that we can't get a strategy for improving football for the clubs in the summer. I look at my soccer counterparts. Training Tuesday, Thursday, game Sunday. Week in week out they know the score. They do a preseason training and then matches keep them fit for the year. I know it's a slightly different system based more on the league but with is its play Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday, games cancelled, changed, 8 week break. If a lad knows there is no game for 8 weeks what is the management meant to do to keep them interested. They are leaving our sport. They might not be county men but the more players the better pick. Better pick the better competition, the more competitive the championship will be, the better prepared future Offaly players will be.
I have friends in Kerry too and it runs like clockwork. A county player is fitter than all of us, better able to take knocks so why wrap them in cotton wool and treat us so badly. I'll soldier on because I love the game but it stinks and my kids won't be pressured into this sport where there is better treatment and opportunities for them in rugby and soccer.

[True Red]

Saturday 19 July

Football Qualifier Round 1

Tullamore, Offaly v Down, 7.00

This sickens me.On the 3rd of May 2008 my club played Gracefield in the first round of the Senior football Championship. It ended in a draw.A good tussle that could have went either way and a positive result for both sides.

This qualifier game will be 11 weeks after that match and if Offaly manage to win who knows when the next round of the club championship will be? The players in my club and indeed the county have been training since the start of the year. For what? 1 poxy match??!! and no guarantee of when the next one will be!

And why are the majority of football players in this county been forced to endure this wait? There are 30 panelists on the Senior Football squad. There are 12 senior football teams. Each team can only play 20 players so thats 240 players. Hence, 12.5 % of that figure are dictating to the rest that they should wait for competitive action.

I wouldnt mind if that 12.5 % were any good. At the moment from my reading of it, Offaly have 2,maybe 3 inter county players. Niall McNamee, Karol Slattery and McManus on a good day. The rest are above average club players. They went out against Westmeath on the 7th of June 2008 with a hames of gameplan that was designed to contain a defensive Westmeath team instead of going out and trying to beat them. And the expenses for that team will come to a staggering 250-300k this year? Value for money? Hardly.

And all the while the club player is left kicking his heels throughout the fine weekends of June, July and into August before a serious match comes up.Why would ye bother training in January and february in the muck and shi*e. It beggars belief that there wasnt at least one round of club matches in late June after the Leaving Cert exams were over.What were the fixtures committee waiting for?

Its a shambles.

[beirut]

Lads Wexford played a round of Club Hurling Championship games at the weekend, a week before they are due to play Kilkenny in the Leinster Final, do they have more depth in their squad that they can afford to do so, I don't think so?

[the rat]

Clara beat Brosna Gaels last night in the Intermediate champ, was a lively encounter. I didnt get a programme, so didnt know most of the Clara line up, but Chris Flanagan played socred some nice points.

[Lone Shark]

Saturday 19 July

Football Qualifier Round 1

Tullamore, Offaly v Down, 7.00

This sickens me.On the 3rd of May 2008 my club played Gracefield in the first round of the Senior football Championship. It ended in a draw.A good tussle that could have went either way and a positive result for both sides.

This qualifier game will be 11 weeks after that match and if Offaly manage to win who knows when the next round of the club championship will be? The players in my club and indeed the county have been training since the start of the year. For what? 1 poxy match??!! and no guarantee of when the next one will be!

And why are the majority of football players in this county been forced to endure this wait? There are 30 panelists on the Senior Football squad. There are 12 senior football teams. Each team can only play 20 players so thats 240 players. Hence, 12.5 % of that figure are dictating to the rest that they should wait for competitive action.

I wouldnt mind if that 12.5 % were any good. At the moment from my reading of it, Offaly have 2,maybe 3 inter county players. Niall McNamee, Karol Slattery and McManus on a good day. The rest are above average club players. They went out against Westmeath on the 7th of June 2008 with a hames of gameplan that was designed to contain a defensive Westmeath team instead of going out and trying to beat them. And the expenses for that team will come to a staggering 250-300k this year? Value for money? Hardly.

And all the while the club player is left kicking his heels throughout the fine weekends of June, July and into August before a serious match comes up.Why would ye bother training in January and february in the muck and shi*e. It beggars belief that there wasnt at least one round of club matches in late June after the Leaving Cert exams were over.What were the fixtures committee waiting for?

Its a shambles.

You're the voice of pretty much everyone there TR I'd say. However being realistic, as long as we continue to be a dual county, this will be the way of it - there's no point "presuming" that free weekends between May 1st and July 1st will just crop up. My own personal solution would be to lobby to get the intercounty championship run off that bit quicker so the club championships can start in mid july on an average year and give the clubs three months of good summer from then. Cut out this need for club players to be championship ready in april, and thus the need to resume training in November. Have longer leagues and play them from March as before, but teams are to get used to playing without county players for the bulk of them - not ideal, but you have to have a trade off somewhere. Have eight teams rather than four qualify for the league knockouts if that's what it takes.

I wouldn't go introducing the red herring about the county players being no good though - that's hardly the issue here and will only take the thing off on a tangent.

It's all very well to say a round of games could have been fitted in, but would you want to play a senior championship match only five or six days after one of your players had just played an intercounty championship game? Is it fair to fix them as such?

[Treasurer]

It beggars belief that there wasnt at least one round of club matches in late June after the Leaving Cert exams were over.What were the fixtures committee waiting for?

Not disagreeing at all that fixtures need a major overhaul all across the country, but in fairness if a second round was played at that point, some team's championships would be over and the remainder of the championship could become an even bigger shambles.

[Over The Black Spot]

Something serious need to be done in order to save the games in Offaly from complete oblivion (slight exaggeration but you get the message) and it needs to be start with the clubs.

I’ll take senior as an example and explain the format I would put in place.

The league would consist of one group of 12 with each team playing each other starting in early March and running every week. Run off hurling league on a Saturday (players will have to put up with early Saturday throw-ins for a while until the evenings brighten up) and then football on a Sunday and reverse every second week in order to give teams every second Sunday free (it being a family day and all that). The hurling fixtures this year would have been on the 8th, 16th, 22nd & 30th of March, the 5th, 13th, 19th & 27th of April, the 3rd, 11th& 17th May. That’s eleven competitive games for each club which they must play without their county players unless the county management specifically release them. It would mean teams wouldn’t be able to compete in the Leinster League but given eleven competitive games close to home, I think most clubs would be satisfied. 8 teams would qualify for the ¼ finals which would be run off on a Friday evening/Saturday and Sunday, a la Fitzgibbon Cup with clubs allowed access to county players. This year they could have run it off on the June bank-holiday weekend, two weeks after the finish of the group stages and a week after the Laois game, allowing inter-county management two weeks at least to any further fixture and allowing clubs to field their strongest team for the knockout stages which should keep everyone happy and also include the 4 teams who failed to qualify in a mini tournament to keep them ticking over. The football could have started a week after the hurling and played the final group game on the weekend of the Laois game with three weeks to the finals weekend on the 13th, 14th & 15th June, a week after the Westmeath game. The issue of dual players missing for finals weekends would have to be suffered by the clubs in order to keep things on schedule and the prospect of a potential 14 games in 3 to 3½ months would surely act as a sweetener for the clubs to get them on board with the concept. The county board could also organise some kind of festival of underage games around the finals weekends and have one big presentation to all the winning teams from senior down on the Sunday night with all teams competing in the competitions invited to attend (a sort of get together for all people interested in hurling/football with finger food or something served, nothing too formal)

For championship, the teams would be divided into 2 groups of 6. Matches would start on the first weekend of July and run off on alternating weekends with top four into ¼ finals and knockout games every two weeks with the whole thing wrapped up by mid October at the latest. Again that’s 3 to 3½ months of constant championship action to win it out. The system would be adopted at all adult levels.

While this may all sound quite fanciful, I fully believe it can be adopted without major fuss and as long as clubs are given a master fixture list and it is adhered to, there will be no qualms. Obviously, if the county teams progress then championship fixtures will need to be altered but again, the end of October is an acceptable enough time of year for championships to finish so there are a few weeks to play with schedule wise.

Feel free to disect this lads and even rubbish it but I feel something needs to be done & something these lines may work.

[TheManFromFerbane]

Obviously, if the county teams progress then championship fixtures will need to be altered but again...

As a player I really hated this. If I had a choice of being told the first round is definitely on the May bank holiday and the second round is definitely on the August bank holiday Vs trying to stay physically and mentally ready while being told maybe next week, maybe next week. I would definitely take the first option.

Ideally you shorten up the inter-county season and start the club one earlier but the GAA suits wouldn't like that as it shortens the exposure the GAA has on the general sporting community.

[True Red]

I wouldn't go introducing the red herring about the county players being no good though

I aint saying the players are no good. If you look back i said that they are all above average Club players. Its just that at the moment the inter County standard is higher than that.

would you want to play a senior championship match only five or six days after one of your players had just played an intercounty championship game? Is it fair to fix them as such?

Its been done before.Isnt there a 7 day rule in place where county managers have to release the players back to the clubs 7 days prior to the championship match. Even when Offaly were moderately successful, that was the system in operation.

if a second round was played at that point, some team's championships would be over and the remainder of the championship could become an even bigger shambles.

This may be the case but at least clubs could plan training schedules accordingly. If you knew that your championship matches were going to be in a block between July-September you could then structure training around that. Premiership soccer teams undertake a 6 week pre-season and then play a series of friendly matches prior to the beginning of the season to gain match sharpness. Amateur Offaly club sides start hard training for 4 months,Jan-April, for one competitive match in May and then are left in limbo during the core summer months when lads actually want to be playing.

ITS MADNESS.

And its leading to players gettind pi**ed off with our national games. The club scene in offaly is dieing on its feet at the minute and something needs to be done sharpish. If the club scene was improved, the standard would be upped and consquently the Offaly teams performance would have to improve as panelists would be getting exposed to a better standard of football.