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I see the minor football semi-finals are on this weekend:
Clara v Ballycumber/Tubber, Saturday at 3pm in Durrow
Rhode V Tullamore, Sunday at 1pm in Walsh Island.

Clara started their campaign poorly but have hit form at the right time, this match was a draw when they meet in the 1st round, but I fancy Clara to progress with their 5/6 county minors against a "Panda" inspired B/T.

Rhode have been awesome this year going undefeated through the group stages and averaging 5 goals a game, will the "Blues" be able to live with this Rhode team?

On the Ditch wrote:Rhode have been awesome this year going undefeated through the group stages and averaging 5 goals a game, will the "Blues" be able to live with this Rhode team??

Rhode played Tullamore in the middle of August in a group match in Rhode and it was the only match that Rhode played in that they did not score a goal. The final score was Rhode 0-13 Tullamore 0-07.

Hard one to call. Hopefully Rhode can do it this year.

On this topic i'd like to add whats the point of an open draw for the semi finals in this competition?

http://www.sportsmanager.ie/t3.php?user ... &sportid=1

As you can there was no group 7 games as the last four were decided in group game 6.

How would this setup every improve Offaly football?

The theory is that young players are playing football throughout the summer, getting the chance to improve over time rather than being eliminated after two defeats. This same principle is applied all along the ages and it seems to work well - the trade-off is that round robin structures are often liable to lead to dead games in the final rounds, there's nothing you can do about that. In fairness I don't think anyone can complain, Ferbane/Belmont were the closest to sneaking into the top four and while our lads were very unlucky against Tullamore, heavy defeats to Clara and Rhode (albeit with key lads missing) illustrated that we were a bit off the pace at this grade.

Regarding the semi finals, I'd say that Tullamore would have put Clara under pressure, but Ballycumber/Tubber might struggle to do so. I'd expect Clara and Rhode to win out and set up a very good minor final - which I presume would be put in Tullamore as part of the bill for the senior game?

Lone Shark wrote:I'd expect Clara and Rhode to win out and set up a very good minor final - which I presume would be put in Tullamore as part of the bill for the senior game?

If Rhode beat TULLAMORE, the minor final would have to be played on a different date as Anton Sullivan is in on both minor and senior teams.

naasmanxrhode wrote:

Lone Shark wrote:I'd expect Clara and Rhode to win out and set up a very good minor final - which I presume would be put in Tullamore as part of the bill for the senior game?

If Rhode beat TULLAMORE, the minor final would have to be played on a different date as Anton Sullivan is in on both minor and senior teams.

Not sure why the capitalisation there, my point was just that if the draw was different, Clara might have been hard pressed to beat Tullamore, but as it stands, I#d expect Rhode and Clara to win easily enough. Hadn't thought of Anton though - indeed Graham Guilfoyle would be in a similar situation for Clara.

[quote="Lone Shark"Not sure why the capitalisation there quote]

They are our capital town, no i had the caps button on by mistake.

Anti-Tullamore bias!
Not allowing them lower case letters in their name.

Lone Shark wrote:The theory is that young players are playing football throughout the summer, getting the chance to improve over time rather than being eliminated after two defeats.

Oh yeah i fully agree with that, what i was saying if the group was decided by 1 playing 4 and 2 playing 3 in the semi finals then all games that were called off last week would have been played. The fact that its an open draw meant no one needed to play. So the setup needs to be changed.

Bord na Mona man wrote:Anti-Tullamore bias!
Not allowing them lower case letters in their name.