U20 hurling 2026

[ruletheroost]

The biggest problem in Offaly at the moment, across both codes, is that too many players are being brought into development squads.

There are far too many young lads not actually playing games because all they are doing is training. Once upon a time, it was the very best players who were called into a county panel, and it was a huge honour. Now, at the development squad level, it often feels almost like an open invitation.

The knock-on effect is serious. Too many players are missing club football and hurling, and not being released back to play with their clubs is the biggest killer. Some lads can go seven or eight months without playing a proper competitive game.

That lack of games is, in my view, the number one reason we are falling behind. Young players develop by playing, making decisions, competing, and learning in real match situations — not just by training for months on end.

[faithfulfanatic]

I think mgt just hanging around waiting to see what JK does.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Johnny P left, Hughie Hannon left and is with Kilcormac and Tony Gleeson is with Kilcormac/Offaly seniors?

That doesn’t leave too many of the management who are waiting around except one man…

[faithfulfanatic]

The biggest problem in Offaly at the moment, across both codes, is that too many players are being brought into development squads.

There are far too many young lads not actually playing games because all they are doing is training. Once upon a time, it was the very best players who were called into a county panel, and it was a huge honour. Now, at the development squad level, it often feels almost like an open invitation.

The knock-on effect is serious. Too many players are missing club football and hurling, and not being released back to play with their clubs is the biggest killer. Some lads can go seven or eight months without playing a proper competitive game.

That lack of games is, in my view, the number one reason we are falling behind. Young players develop by playing, making decisions, competing, and learning in real match situations — not just by training for months on end.

They are playing a massive amount of games at a higher level when with development squads

[Lone Shark]

I'm not involved in the county on the ground to say what it's like at that underage club/development squad level, but I do remember talking to Michael Duignan in advance of his election when we did interviews with both him and Tommy Byrne, and he was strongly against that exact development squad culture of too many players in with the county and not playing enough games with their clubs, so it's surprising that this is where we are seven or so years later on that basis.

That's particularly relevant in a county like Offaly where if there are upwards of 60 players on hurling and football development squads at a certain age, then a dual club like Tullamore, Clara, Shamrocks, Ferbane/Belmont etc could well be short anything up to 8 or 10 players. The games that are played by what's left over wouldn't be up to much if that was the case.

I made the point earlier in the thread that the clubs need to take a lot of responsibility themselves, but if it is as described above, then that's completely backwards and their hands are tied.

I've been involved with development squads before where the idea was you had one evening per week and at most three or four weekends in the Summer where you had priority, and for the rest of it, you had to work around the club fixtures, they didn't work around you. Any more than that is not fair to clubs, IMO.

[private joker]

I think mgt just hanging around waiting to see what JK does.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Johnny P left, Hughie Hannon left and is with Kilcormac and Tony Gleeson is with Kilcormac/Offaly seniors?

That doesn’t leave too many of the management who are waiting around except one man…

Hughie with kilcormac, he'll go in with Offaly if LOC gets job. Tony glesson already is with Offaly seniors as assistant coach.

[private joker]

The biggest problem in Offaly at the moment, across both codes, is that too many players are being brought into development squads.

There are far too many young lads not actually playing games because all they are doing is training. Once upon a time, it was the very best players who were called into a county panel, and it was a huge honour. Now, at the development squad level, it often feels almost like an open invitation.

The knock-on effect is serious. Too many players are missing club football and hurling, and not being released back to play with their clubs is the biggest killer. Some lads can go seven or eight months without playing a proper competitive game.

That lack of games is, in my view, the number one reason we are falling behind. Young players develop by playing, making decisions, competing, and learning in real match situations — not just by training for months on end.

This is almost entirely inaccurate. For the last number of years squads have been kept small. This has a knock on effect to development squad training and matches when 4-5 lads are missing. No squad bar one exceeds 30 players as far as I know. It could be low 30s but you'll never get everyone at the same time.
You can't be on a squad if you don't train and play with your club. That's a rule.
Squads train one hour on the field, 45 minutes in gym 4 times a month. No midweek sessions. No sessions during feile and reduced massively when championship is on. Some squads can go weeks without training and just play other counties depending on fixtures.

The standard at club level........ tullamore at u16 level have scored 25 goals in two matches? There are some woefully one sided games been played.

When things were going well, you have big squads, good training and matches. That has changed in the last 5-6 years with the arrival of new chairman who was against squads in the first place from what I can gather.

[Anon444]

I think we are doing a lot wrong at the minute despite what public perception might be about our underage. It’s quite clear that we have been fortunate with our recent success with the 20s, but for every really good year, there has been almost the same or more really bad years. Think of last year’s minors and this year’s U20s, we needed to maintain some level of competitiveness, not taking absolute hammerings like we have. I’m thinking across both codes too, the bare minimum we need to maintain is to be somewhat competitive.

From talking to a few people in the know of what goes on behind the scenes, it’s clear that all is not well. Development squads need to carry a full squad of 30 for training, if they were smaller you wouldn’t be able to run any form of game or do anything that’s meaningful. But then from what I hear, there are far too many games, so out of a panel of 25-30, there are bound to be numerous players who aren’t getting any meaningful minutes and they would be better off just training as a squad. I see on the county’s website that our U16s played Kerry and Antrim away, imagine being a child on that squad and travelling up for even just 20 minutes? If that was my child, I would be thinking maybe this isn’t the best way of making sure they are enjoying their sport.

Finally, this group would have been one of the first to be exposed to the new regime’s policy of S & C that I presume other counties are also committed to. Why did they look so far off athletically? Maybe this policy of essentially banning development squad children from playing other sports on Saturdays needs to be reviewed.

[Asiseeit]

The biggest problem in Offaly at the moment, across both codes, is that too many players are being brought into development squads.

There are far too many young lads not actually playing games because all they are doing is training. Once upon a time, it was the very best players who were called into a county panel, and it was a huge honour. Now, at the development squad level, it often feels almost like an open invitation.

The knock-on effect is serious. Too many players are missing club football and hurling, and not being released back to play with their clubs is the biggest killer. Some lads can go seven or eight months without playing a proper competitive game.

That lack of games is, in my view, the number one reason we are falling behind. Young players develop by playing, making decisions, competing, and learning in real match situations — not just by training for months on end.

They are playing a massive amount of games at a higher level when with development squads

and fair enough but iit appears these games ar higher level aren't exactly doing much for them from what I can see..3/4 players yesterday with any sort of natural ability and effort, rest big names but touch and timing way way off, if they got the ball, disposessed in a heartbeat..I am beginning to wonder what these "standards" are in development squads and FF training etc...something isnt right..we are flat out living in the past excuse my words..honouring this one and that one from almost 50 years ago now.. lads youngsters now never heard of..we need to park our past heroes, and fx the now..

[ruletheroost]

The biggest problem in Offaly at the moment, across both codes, is that too many players are being brought into development squads.

There are far too many young lads not actually playing games because all they are doing is training. Once upon a time, it was the very best players who were called into a county panel, and it was a huge honour. Now, at the development squad level, it often feels almost like an open invitation.

The knock-on effect is serious. Too many players are missing club football and hurling, and not being released back to play with their clubs is the biggest killer. Some lads can go seven or eight months without playing a proper competitive game.

That lack of games is, in my view, the number one reason we are falling behind. Young players develop by playing, making decisions, competing, and learning in real match situations — not just by training for months on end.

They are playing a massive amount of games at a higher level when with development squads

I mean the lads outside the 18 or 19 who play regularly.,

[private joker]

To state again. You don't miss any club hurling or football if you are on a development squad. Only from minor up would you not be playing club.

[Tar Man]

The setup of the Development Squads is not the issue - they are keeping us relevant. Without them we'd be in a very bad state. At the moment we can still knock off the odd title which we were not able to do for a long time. The issue we have is one of Demographics. Our playing numbers are dwindling at a rapid pace and if we think there's an issue now, in the next 10-20 years we're in for a serious wakeup call with the declining birth rates in the country. My own young lad has been part of the Faithful OG program for the past few week where the County Board brought in all the kids aged 13 for some development work. All kids could sign up. 230 kids signed up - split that between Football & Hurling and then reduce the number for some kids that unfortunately won't ever make it (It's a great program where at the end the Kids get to play for Offaly in a match against another county - thereby fostering a tangible link with Offaly and hopefully a life long association with GAA) and now you're down to picking a 30 man squad from a very low number. Eventually with such a low birth rate it'll be harder not to make the squad than make it.

Whilst our population has never been higher (in the history of GAA) the shift from Rural to Urban has had serious ramifications for us - more so than nearly every other county. Our underage setup with just 16 underage teams (from 41 Senior Clubs) leaves us in a vulnerable state. There are 2 aspects to this - the underage amalgamations - whether all are needed - IMO there shouldn't be a divine right every year for an amalgamation - this should be granted as an accommodation for years that numbers are low - these should be determined from School Numbers.

The other side of this is the larger clubs - this will be much harder to fix - I have been on the record here before with regards to Tullamore and their size. Taking them as an example (and they are not the only ones) they now hold about 25% of our population and are still just one Club. In the past let's say 40 years ago when we were at our height they were less than half that size and held maybe 10% of our population. How do we fix this - that's a very hard question. Firstly we need a surgical review of the County and our school numbers to see if what I say above actually holds true. From that we will have a better idea of what the issues are and hopefully some fixes can be identified. It's not as simple to say to split some of these larger clubs - where do they play - it would need a serious investment in grounds and facilities not to mention a whole host of new volunteers (which is another very serious issue facing any organisation not just the GAA with the lack of people volunteering). There are no easy fixes to any of this. Imaginative solutions will have found.

[Doon Exile]

Just a few points on this one and coming from a place of being heavily involved in both hurling and football from go games over the past few years up to currently u14. Also have a peripheral involvement with the Faithful Academy set up.

I’m also equally passionate about hurling and football with zero bias for one over the other and actively encourage both codes.

1. I do think that the dual county is hampering us and I’m saying that without any solution as I have my own lad that is actively playing both codes.
2. He currently trains/plays 6 days per week over the two codes and different age groups. That’s a factor of playing both codes but also dwindling numbers as he’s playing 2 age groups up.
3. Is the excessive amount of games hampering us a little in that we have little time for training - he will play 4 games this week as an example (not including a school game so 5 actually).
4. He doesn’t actually train at all with 2 of the teams he plays with as they clash with training for his actual age group.
5. Even the faithful academy is week on/week off. It’s a 6 week program so if you’re all football then you’ll play football for the 6 weeks, but if you’re dual, you’ll probably choose 3 weeks of each thus missing 3 weeks of training at both codes. Contrast this to the bigger single code counties e.g. Kerry, Kilkenny etc.
6. No dual players facilitated at county minor level upwards. Are we limiting ourselves in that we might have talent available (not sure what other counties do here??)
7. Recent dropping of the best player (by a mile) off u14 football squad as he played soccer before one of the games. I had hoped we had moved on a bit from this.

The above is not intended to be a criticism of the work of Offaly county board as I would be hugely complimentary and appreciative of the work across the county. I dont think without it we would have had the same recent success with winning 2 u20 all Irelands and Leinster minor championship.

[frankthetank]

Just a few points on this one and coming from a place of being heavily involved in both hurling and football from go games over the past few years up to currently u14. Also have a peripheral involvement with the Faithful Academy set up.

I’m also equally passionate about hurling and football with zero bias for one over the other and actively encourage both codes.

1. I do think that the dual county is hampering us and I’m saying that without any solution as I have my own lad that is actively playing both codes.
2. He currently trains/plays 6 days per week over the two codes and different age groups. That’s a factor of playing both codes but also dwindling numbers as he’s playing 2 age groups up.
3. Is the excessive amount of games hampering us a little in that we have little time for training - he will play 4 games this week as an example (not including a school game so 5 actually).
4. He doesn’t actually train at all with 2 of the teams he plays with as they clash with training for his actual age group.
5. Even the faithful academy is week on/week off. It’s a 6 week program so if you’re all football then you’ll play football for the 6 weeks, but if you’re dual, you’ll probably choose 3 weeks of each thus missing 3 weeks of training at both codes. Contrast this to the bigger single code counties e.g. Kerry, Kilkenny etc.
6. No dual players facilitated at county minor level upwards. Are we limiting ourselves in that we might have talent available (not sure what other counties do here??)
7. Recent dropping of the best player (by a mile) off u14 football squad as he played soccer before one of the games. I had hoped we had moved on a bit from this.

The above is not intended to be a criticism of the work of Offaly county board as I would be hugely complimentary and appreciative of the work across the county. I dont think without it we would have had the same recent success with winning 2 u20 all Irelands and Leinster minor championship.

Point 6 - Declan Kelly

Point 7 - Declan Kelly again.

Also Joe Furey from Edenderry has played minor hurling and football this year for Offaly.

[Doon Exile]

Think Joe Furey only joined the football panel after the hurlers were out of the championship

Similar to Marcus dalton - think he joined the u20 hurlers a couple of years ago after the footballers went out.

A couple of the minor hurlers joined the football squad last year after the hurlers went out.

[private joker]

Personally I think it does no good to either code to have duals. Your getting an average version of the potential player they could be. Trying to do both at underage for clubs is perfectly fine and I would say benefit s the player. At County level, it needs to be knocked on the head. It's quite simply too difficult to make training and matches and be at your best, you missing matches/training and all the extras that go with county when you are a dual.