U-21 Hurling Club Championship

[Treasurer]

The fact that it costs a grand to enter a team is a big drawback. This is what I mean about participation being incentivised rather than discouraged. If they need to replace the funds, then have a club levy based loosely around the population in your catchment area. (I'm not trying to suggest Birr should pay 20 times what Clareen does but maybe different brackets - ABCD, paying €5k, €3k, €2k and €1k respectively). That way the funds are still collected but clubs don't have a disincentive to field teams - which is one of the most bizarre anomalies ever.

I think maybe there should be a way of paying per number of playing members. As it is If you pay 1,000 each for say an u-21 hurling team, an adult hurling team and a football team, there will be a considerable amount of crossover, which effectively means some players get covered three times, with even more getting covered at least on the double.

[Lone Shark]

The fact that it costs a grand to enter a team is a big drawback. This is what I mean about participation being incentivised rather than discouraged. If they need to replace the funds, then have a club levy based loosely around the population in your catchment area. (I'm not trying to suggest Birr should pay 20 times what Clareen does but maybe different brackets - ABCD, paying €5k, €3k, €2k and €1k respectively). That way the funds are still collected but clubs don't have a disincentive to field teams - which is one of the most bizarre anomalies ever.

I think maybe there should be a way of paying per number of playing members. As it is If you pay 1,000 each for say an u-21 hurling team, an adult hurling team and a football team, there will be a considerable amount of crossover, which effectively means some players get covered three times, with even more getting covered at least on the double.

That's a halfway house suggestion I'll grant you, but then what you are doing is penalising clubs for having members, when surely we should be incentivising membership instead? Why would a GAA club go out and recruit playing members who aren't going to be the difference makers in a team if they're going to be penalised for doing so?

If a club, be it as big as Tullamore or as small as Lusmagh or Ballyskenach, has to pay a fixed amount per year irrespective of teams fielded, then there is encouragement to field plenty of teams, as long as it is viable. (I wouldn't like teams to be entered on spec, so you'd have to retain penalties for conceding walkovers or for pulling out of leagues/championships before fulfilling all fixtures, that way teams would enter more junior B/C sides as long as they had numbers)


I understand that obviously smaller clubs will always get a much higher percentage of locals than clubs like Tullamore or Edenderry will get, so that's why I'm not talking about a direct ratio, but no matter how many members you have, you should always be encouraged to get more. If it takes a little proactive recruitment for a club to go out and get the five or six extra bodies that would make a Junior B/C/U21 team viable, then that's what they should do and that's what they should be encouraged to do.

[Plain of the Herbs]

I had a look at some figures from the 2006 census last night. The population for the Drumcullen catchment area is listed as:-
Drumcullen 334
Eglish 165
Killyon 255

That gives a total of 754.

On reflection, while the parish covers a big area, much of it is bog, for example along the back road from Rath church to Birr, and there aren't many houses along the N52 either.

Not being too au fait with the general geography around Fivealley/Rath/Eglish I'll backttrack on this one, though it is utterly remarkable that an area that big is so sparse that there aren't fifteen bodies of that age group.

[Aweflee]

I had a look at some figures from the 2006 census last night. The population for the Drumcullen catchment area is listed as:-
Drumcullen 334
Eglish 165
Killyon 255

You beat me to it POTH, I was going to look that up this morning. I knew the poulation of that club was only in the 700s.

And as for you LS I make the population of the Ferbane area to be over 3,000. Jaysus, with that amount of people ye should be winning senior county titles every second year.

[Over The Black Spot]

I had a look at some figures from the 2006 census last night. The population for the Drumcullen catchment area is listed as:-
Drumcullen 334
Eglish 165
Killyon 255

That gives a total of 754.

That's a very small population for a parish the size of Drumcullen. Maybe the club officials will have to tamper with the contraceptives after all LS!!!
Not being from the Drumcullen parish, I can only offer my opinion without any great certainty but it appears to me that any time I pass the field in Rath, the gates are always locked and youngsters can't get in to hurl. This is something that has been done in the bigger towns to the detriment of the games and this may be part of the problem in Drumcullen. While there are plenty of places for kids to hurl, a pitch that's locked up sends a bad message to the kids and doesn't encourage mass participation. It may also be symptomatic of the attitude of the club, more concerned with hosting fixtures and pulling in big gates than developing the youth of the area??
The fact that they had minors hurling with 3 different clubs last year is a poor reflection on the unity within the club but that seems to have been sorted this year with the U-21 amalgimation although, I believe St.Rynaghs have lodged an objection to Dermot Gath playing minor with KK because he played with them last year.

On the topic of participation levels, I can only speak on behalf of my own club but getting numbers together when they are actually physically there has never been a problem but there have been years when the children just weren't born and it became a major struggle to field. Rural community spirit being what it is, we always managed to field and continue to do so albeit with even more difficulty after the implimentation of the two-grade rule. While it's never good to throw youngsters in way over their heads, it has to be done to keep going in rural clubs and is something smaller clubs feel very hand done over. People from larger 'parishes' don't seem to understand the pride which each small club takes in fielding teams alone at underage and while some have the 'parish' rule to fall back on to form strong underage teams. A bit of rant there but you can see where I'm coming from.

Slightly off the topic but, I have always had a big problem with the whole 'parish' thing. For me, a parish was somewhere like Clareen, Lusmagh, Ballyskenagh. It grated me to here of (for example, not picking on them) Killeigh, Killurin & Raheen playing junior hurling last year on the same day in Tullamore and people speaking of three teams from the one 'parish'. Surely it's about time the GAA drew their own parish boundaries and not be depending on the ones that were drawn by a different authority.

[beirut]

So let me get this straight... ye all want me to go around the parish, break into houses and steal contraceptives? Fair enough, will do!

I think the 2 big gates are always locked because they don't want people driving in when there's no one there (probably down to the bus incident 3-4 years back) but there's the ticket booth gate which there is no lock on. Just to note the parish name is Eglish and Drumcullen.

[royalblue]

As a Rynaghs man this is a very bad result for us this team has won everything from u14 to Minor also contested the All Ireland Feile u14 A final which no Offaly team acjieved before. I would question players attitudes there is a few with a wrong attitude and pity Aidan Fogarty who is training them at Senior level. I would like to pass my Congrats to Seir Kieran

[Lone Shark]

And as for you LS I make the population of the Ferbane area to be over 3,000. Jaysus, with that amount of people ye should be winning senior county titles every second year.

Yeah, cause we're way smaller than Tullamore, or Clara, or Edenderry....

I'll be the first to admit than Ferbane is down the list when it comes to getting teams out - there is hurling as well which does cut in, very few Belmont lads play football these days, but even so personally I believe there should be a junior C team there. I'm only transferred back in a few months now though, so I'll leave it a while before causing ructions!!


As an aside, is there anywhere to access these census figures? It would be interesting to tabulate is all. Do ye have hard copies or is it online somewhere?

[Aweflee]

As an aside, is there anywhere to access these census figures? It would be interesting to tabulate is all. Do ye have hard copies or is it online somewhere?

It's available on the CSO website in PDF format. Go to cso.ie/census. Click on census reports published to date. Next click Volume 1 - Population Classified by Area and then Volume 1 - Population Classified by Area - Entire Volume

This is the link to get you in that far but I don't know if it'll work as I'm no expert.
http://www.cso.ie/census/census2006_volume_1.htm

[Treasurer]

That's a halfway house suggestion I'll grant you, but then what you are doing is penalising clubs for having members, when surely we should be incentivising membership instead? Why would a GAA club go out and recruit playing members who aren't going to be the difference makers in a team if they're going to be penalised for doing so?

Fair point, perhaps a compromise of some sort of per head charge, with a cap. Under the current sytem, in our own club at the moment, we would have about 6 players covered in triplicate, with a very small number playing on only one team, and the rest covered on the double.

As for the whole entering a team "for the craic", we have no problem with that if lads really want it, but too many years you fork out for a team and end up tearing your hair out making 20 phone calls the day of a game to see if you have 15.

[Lone Shark]

Great stuff - I must play with that a bit and see what I come up with.

Cheers.

[midfield]

Final Score Clareen 1-12 Kilcormac 0-14

Congrats Clareen- i presume they are joined up with Kinnity for the U21? In any case all their underage work is beginning to pay off..

[baz]

no they aren`t jointed by kinnitty .this team won the minor b 2 or 3 years ago and are relatively a very young under 21 team .they will win a senior county campionship within 3 years .their stricking of a ball was very good and were a throw back to previous clareen teams( granted at senior level ) as they were willing to put bodies on the line to win .murphy at center back was excellant given that he`s still a minor .k/k mindset on day of final proved to be suspect again .

[Lone Shark]

Thoroughly enjoyable day yesterday. Very good all round team display from Clareen, though it could very easily have been a draw at the end.

I'd say most neutrals were delighted anyway - I can't see anyone begrudging Clareen that win.

[Lone Shark]

That's a halfway house suggestion I'll grant you, but then what you are doing is penalising clubs for having members, when surely we should be incentivising membership instead? Why would a GAA club go out and recruit playing members who aren't going to be the difference makers in a team if they're going to be penalised for doing so?

Fair point, perhaps a compromise of some sort of per head charge, with a cap. Under the current sytem, in our own club at the moment, we would have about 6 players covered in triplicate, with a very small number playing on only one team, and the rest covered on the double.

As for the whole entering a team "for the craic", we have no problem with that if lads really want it, but too many years you fork out for a team and end up tearing your hair out making 20 phone calls the day of a game to see if you have 15.

I'd prefer not to see a club have to pay more for the more members they have. To take an area like Birr or Edenderry - two clubs that could go on a big membership drive to try and recruit enough bodies to make a junior B/C football team viable. (Before True Red chips in here, I'm not saying the numbers are there - merely that based on demographics they are two obvious examples of clubs where they could be). I'd prefer to see the club made pay the same levy whether they field two or ten adult teams. After all, the inherent potential of the club is the same. That way there would be a very strong incentive to get bodies in the door, interested bodies who would play games and keep the club vibrant. As it is there is a disincentive to do that. Again I'm not saying for a minute that they or indeed any other clubs in Offaly are refusing to field an extra football or hurling team, but even so they should be encouraged rather than punished financially for doing just that.

The situation where the lads involved aren't interested and have to be rounded up for games is another matter. Lads like that I wouldn't be too worried about.