Club football 2025

[private joker]

Don't think there is 30 k members in ballyboden gaa.

[DurrowBoy17]

My apologies. I got very wrong information.
Google says there is 5,246 at the minute.

[ah lethimoutwithit]

I think the truth lies somewhere in between in relation to Tullamore as regards progression.

Someone commented that they would have won the Offaly champioship with just Paul Mc in charge.
No, Rochford has helped adjust their style of play. They have tried to evolve from the ultra defensive style of the last few years. Now to be fair they appeared to have turned a corner and whilst they almost threw away the lead against the Downs, for most of that game they played really good football.
They actually started well on Saturday and won a couple of breaks early on. But that first goal was a disaster, they almost forced a turnover and only great hands after a free out should have been given opened up the space, Lost John Furlong at that point also. a huge loss defensively. Kick out completely malfunctioned and from there Ballyboden kicked on once they sensed blood. So overall it was more of a collective collapse. Up front limitations were exposed early in the second half when the gap could have been brought back to 5 or so, but the floodgates opened after that.

I'm not here saying Tullamore are better than last year but they are trying to evolve their game and an overall poor performance Saturday was disappointing. Its back to the drawing board and no doubt they are a weaker side without Cillian Bourke and despite all the underage success, they may struggle if Dec Hogan and Brazil and the like are not the same forces. Leavy had no impact on Saturday. Be an anxious wait to see how John Furling is as he is a crucial player to them and Offaly.


So whats my point? I think that they would have been beaten in Offaly without the influence of Rochford. And the collective collapse will need examination over the winter.

As for the AGM, Corrigan loves firing everything into the mix, but they had a pretty poor AGM last year from what I can recall or maybe the year before.

[Lone Shark]

In Tullamore's defence, Ballyboden GAA has a population of 30,000. That added in with 3 intercounty players to their team, it's not surprising how strong they looked and the question needs to be asked by Leinster Council about all these inter county transfers playing in the Leinster Campaign. I think fair game in Dublin becasue they're all at it. But how is any normal club supposed to compete against that?

Other than that, sad o see Cillian Bourke go, a massive loss. Any injury update on John Furlong? If both gone from Tullamore next year, that would really open things up for the rest of Offaly clubs. Albeit I hope John is only a minor thing.

Parking the issue about the Ballyboden membership for a minute, I thought it was remarkable that there were four big senior football championship games at the weekend, and imports had a massive part to play in all of them. Boden would have beaten Tullamore either way, but all the same, Céin Darcy was a monster, he dominated the middle. Jack McCarron was comparatively quiet by his high standards but he still kicked a couple of points in a game that went to penalties, with Scotstown eventually winning.

Cathal McCarron had one of his best games for Athy against Portarlington, though there too you would say that the result probably would have been the same without the import, while in the Connacht final, Johnny Moloney put in a solid shift and Niall Walsh was excellent at centre forward for Maigh Cuilinn, but St. Brigid's won the game, in no small way because of a superb one-on-one save from Conor Carroll, who has been excellent for them in the last four or five matches.

I'm a firm believer in the concept of transfers and I'd be a hypocrite to say otherwise, given that I've played Junior ball in five counties now. But the value of being able to move into an area and plug into the community instantly through membership of a GAA club, whether you're active on or off the field, is incredible. It's one of the best things about our association. And naturally, clubs in urban areas will be more likely to bring in imports, since that's where people want to move. Historically, the GAA has always been like that.

However former Offaly manager Paul O'Kelly said something to me once that stuck with me. He said the way you tell if a club is genuinely just open to anyone walking in the door is by comparing their senior team with their weakest adult team. If the seniors had five imports but the Junior F team also had at least three or four lads from elsewhere, then chances are it was just a thriving club in a busy area, who happily welcomed in anyone who came along. The example he gave of this was St. Vincent's, who tended to get stick for bringing in players but who just happened to be the main club in an area where a lot of young people from the country tended to come to as young adults.

In contrast, if a club's senior team had a load of star names from all around the country but once you got below the first team it was all or nearly all local lads, then you can be fairly sure they're actively recruiting, and probably throwing in a few "incentives" to make that happen. I think the most egregious example of this back in the day was Parnells, to the point where Stephen Cluxton at one point refused to play with the senior team and instead went back to play with the club intermediates, because that's where his friends were, while the senior team was nothing only imports.

The irony about that is one of those blow-ins was Colm Parkinson from Laois, yet the same man is now very vocal in his questioning of at least one of the imports I cited above who was involved over the weekend gone by.

I wouldn't like to see a situation where we try to restrict transfers, but I agree that it would be a better world if they only happened for the right reasons, that being that someone has moved into an area and they want to play with the local club to either make friends in the short term and stay active, or even to put down roots in the longer term.

How you enforce that is another matter, and I'm not sure I have the answers on that.

[DurrowBoy17]

I actually agree with Parkinson's idea that a player should have to play 3 seasons with a club before they're allowed to play in Provincial campaign. Because atleast then the player is obviouslty commited to the club and has served his time. This shouldn't be just for Dublin. This should be for all of Ireland.

And yes there are transfers throughout all of Ireland, but none to the degree of Dublin's magnitude. Ballyboden had a Galway intercounty player, an Antrim intercounty player and one other but can't remember which county, maybe Meath? My point is, throw in x3 intercounty standard players into a Tullamore and of course they'd then compete for a Leinster, but only until some rule is introduced, Dublin clubs will always more or less walk Leinsters.

[ah lethimoutwithit]

"I actually agree with Parkinson's idea that a player should have to play 3 seasons with a club before they're allowed to play in Provincial campaign. Because atleast then the player is obviouslty commited to the club and has served his time. This shouldn't be just for Dublin. This should be for all of Ireland."

Definitely could make a difference. Particularly in Dublin.

[Anonymous1]

Extraordinary achievement for Cathal Flynn to have won POTY despite being on the losing side in the final. Fully deserved imo.

That’s the first time I can recall it happening unless anybody else does?

[DurrowBoy17]

Huge achievement for Cathal and well deserved.
First one I think too from a losing finalist.

All that being said. Very hard to believe John Furlong hasn't won the award yet, despite probably being the most consistently best player in Offaly football the last 3 years.

[llkj]

Genuine question here - what happened at the AGM on Friday that was worthy of inclusion in the match report as a possible distraction?
Also, wouldn't it be common enough for a local journalist to attend AGMs if they feel that there might be something in the sporting public interest to report on? As someone not on the ground in the county, I love being able to read the local news online. I read the match report and also went to see if there was an article about the AGM to help clarify the cryptic message from the match report but couldn't find anything.

[Lone Shark]

"I actually agree with Parkinson's idea that a player should have to play 3 seasons with a club before they're allowed to play in Provincial campaign. Because atleast then the player is obviouslty commited to the club and has served his time. This shouldn't be just for Dublin. This should be for all of Ireland."

Definitely could make a difference. Particularly in Dublin.

I don't love this, at all. Firstly, it means that the team that wins the county championship could be very different from the team that goes forward into provincial competition, and secondly, if you've genuinely moved and settled into a place, why should you have to wait three years? I'm 32, I've just got married, I've bought a house, I live in a new community, but I'm not allowed settle in by giving what could well be the last years of my career to my new home?

Or to flip that another way, if the issue is that the transfer is dodgy and the player is "not committed", why is it okay to mess up a senior club championship in a county, but not a club championship in a province? So for example, Shinrone won the 2022 Offaly SHC with Luke Watkins in the team - it's okay that Shinrone edge out Belmont by a point in a semi-final with Watkins hurling well and scoring, but for some reason, him hurling against Naas is a problem? Not trying to be parochial, but the Offaly SHC and Offaly SFC are still the biggest deal of all for all players in this county, so lets put in the right set of rules for those competitions before we go worrying about provincial and All-Ireland games?

And what of intercounty level? So we'd be okay with Niall Walsh playing with Leitrim, but not with him playing with Maigh Cuilinn, even though he's a Cavan man and belongs to neither? Should Aidan O'Halloran give up his All-Ireland medal from 1982?

It seems to me that the problem is dodgy transfers, and coming up with some contrived system like this is a way of saying that we're not able to police dodgy transfers, so we're going to hurt every player that has transferred clubs instead of trying to tighten up our system and make it more robust, while still - and this is the MOST important thing - allowing people to play gaelic games in the place where they live and work. To be honest, give me a choice between one system that sees a couple of unscrupulous clubs gain and unfair advantage and another system that locks some people out from going down to kick or hurl a ball with what is now their local club, and I'd say the former of those is the lesser of two evils.

[Lone Shark]

Genuine question here - what happened at the AGM on Friday that was worthy of inclusion in the match report as a possible distraction?
Also, wouldn't it be common enough for a local journalist to attend AGMs if they feel that there might be something in the sporting public interest to report on? As someone not on the ground in the county, I love being able to read the local news online. I read the match report and also went to see if there was an article about the AGM to help clarify the cryptic message from the match report but couldn't find anything.

I'll be honest and say that maybe I'm just lazy, but I've only ever been at AGMs where I was a club member, and I've never been at an AGM where there was a media presence for the sake of media presence - albeit I was only ever at one AGM which was even slightly newsworthy. Reporters would have gone home empty handed at every other AGM I was at.

But I do take the point that if you're going to mention something like Kevin did in his Tullamore report, then you probably should have some detail on what actually went down. I mean, I've often heard stories about AGMs that descended into war and/or chaos, but unless I was either there to record the facts myself, or I had people who were willing to go on the record and give a firsthand account of things, I certainly wouldn't be a fan of putting anything into print about it.

As a novice reporter I got burned once when I trusted someone who was feeding me nonsense and that's the type of mistake you don't make a second time.

[DurrowBoy17]

I'd have to disagree with you there Kevin. However, I do agree with you it needs to be tightened up, the transfer system that is.
But every county board is different. In Dublin and Westmeath for example there is no parish rule. So basically anyone in Westmeath can play for Lomans and anyone in Dublin can play for Ballyboden GAA for example. How is that fair??

I think that's fair enough in each county championship. If that's what your county has decided then fair ball. But why should the rest of the clubs in a Leinster campaign suffer. I get this is a separate issue in ways, but that being said the same principle applies. If you want to have 4/5 All star clubs in your county championship, then thats your county boards decision and let ye play out yer championship. But once ye get into Leinster a player JUST HAS TO be committed for atleast 3 years in my opinion.

In your case, you could play in your Roscommon championship, but if ye won the Roscommon, you couldn't play in Connaght until you've done the 3 years. It's just fairness Kevin, and it's lacking big time in the provincial club campaigns at the minute.

[bracknaghboy]

Speaking of poaching lads.......has Sean Hurley (currently the best mid fielder in the county in my opinion)been approached to join the county panel for 2026?
Madness if he hasn't.

[Lone Shark]

I'd have to disagree with you there Kevin. However, I do agree with you it needs to be tightened up, the transfer system that is.
But every county board is different. In Dublin and Westmeath for example there is no parish rule. So basically anyone in Westmeath can play for Lomans and anyone in Dublin can play for Ballyboden GAA for example. How is that fair??

I think that's fair enough in each county championship. If that's what your county has decided then fair ball. But why should the rest of the clubs in a Leinster campaign suffer. I get this is a separate issue in ways, but that being said the same principle applies. If you want to have 4/5 All star clubs in your county championship, then thats your county boards decision and let ye play out yer championship. But once ye get into Leinster a player JUST HAS TO be committed for atleast 3 years in my opinion.

In your case, you could play in your Roscommon championship, but if ye won the Roscommon, you couldn't play in Connaght until you've done the 3 years. It's just fairness Kevin, and it's lacking big time in the provincial club campaigns at the minute.

That's a different thing though - if you want to say that parish rule has to apply nationally to stop a Loman's/Ballyboden/Ballygunner scenario, then that would be one thing. I just don't like the idea that we're saying to a player that you can be a member of a club and eligible for some games, but not others. If you're a full member of a club, you should be a member, I don't think there should be levels of membership. And I certainly don't like the idea that we hold provincial games to a higher bar of eligibility. If there's dubious eligibility, we should want to address it, even if it's just the first round of the Offaly junior championship.

In saying that, I'm not for a minute saying that your point of view wouldn't have a lot of support, and possibly much more than mine. It's a tricky situation all round, and I go back to it, if we tightened up the transfer situation and found some mechanism for determining residence that was a lot harder to outmanoeuvre, that would be the ideal way to deal with the issue while still not punishing people who genuinely live in the catchment area of a club and they want to play ball.

[Lone Shark]

Speaking of poaching lads.......has Sean Hurley (currently the best mid fielder in the county in my opinion)been approached to join the county panel for 2026?
Madness if he hasn't.

At 33 years of age with a long injury track record, nearly a decade since he played intercounty, I can see the case for not calling him in.