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Taken from offaly.gaa.ie

The draw for the Tullamore Court Hotel Under 21 Football Championship for 2010 is as follows:

Preliminary Round:

St Broughan's v St Colm's.

First Round:

Preliminary Round winners v Kilcormac/ Killoughey = A
Shannon Gaels v St Manchan's = B
Shamrocks v Wheery = C
St Coleman's v Gracefield - D

Quarter-Finals:

Clara v Tullamore
A v D
St Patrick's v B
C v St Michael's

There will be an open draw for the semi-finals.



I see that they are continuing with the farce of having two teams in the ridiculous situation of having to win twice in order to get to the same stage that four other clubs start at. I've also heard that there is a push on to get ONE round played before the Leinster under 21 starts. If this is the case, then it is a huge advantage to the teams getting the bye - they have a lot more time to get themselves organised and make a decent fist at this. I presume that they will also run it off in the usual semi-blitz format, with teams playing at least every week, under lights, with perhaps two days notice of fixtures. After all, it's only students, they can just down tools any time, right?

Drives me up the wall, this does.

I agree totally with that my friend , how do the county board expect the u21 championship to be taken seriously if they themselves wont even give the competition the respect it deserves.

I presume the draw was all seeded?

I cant belive this championship is not taking more seriously. ..Such a great oppurtunity for county management to get a good look of whats coming through.
I believe players develop or peak at diffrent stages.
Just because a young lad wasn't good enough to be selected for development or minor squads dosnt mean they cant make a break through when they get older.
I often seen lads who were brilliant until the reach 17 or 18 and then football starts to move down their list of priorities while other lads start to become better and more confident but still might never get a chance to make the breahthrough onto a county panal.
If this championship wasn't ran off as quickley as possible and was organised so that students didnt have to try make it home from colleges all over the country mid week without much notice it could be very exciting and would be good for Offaly football.

Word on the street that the county board are trying to get the first round (broughans and colms) played next weekend? Anyone hear anything? The county board treat this championship like a joke

Shamrocks v Wheery
Coleman's v Gracefield
St Broughan's v St Colm's
Shannon Gaels v St Manchan's Gaels

Anyone any predictions dor the weekend games?

theman wrote:Shamrocks v Wheery
Coleman's v Gracefield
St Broughan's v St Colm's
Shannon Gaels v St Manchan's Gaels

Anyone any predictions dor the weekend games?

Well Shamrocks have been training for the last few months and are putting a huge amount of effort into this, while our lads have barely been able to meet up yet so I'd say we'll be hard pressed to keep up with them. There are a lot of good footballers in the Wheery set up, many of the better ones coming from Birr actually, but we needed a lot more time realistically.

Couldn't give a strong prediction on Coleman's vs Gracefield, wouldn't expect either of these to play a big part in the long run, while Colm's will find it very tough going against Broughan's and Manchan's should beat Shannon Gaels handy enough too.

Incidentally should probably add on here that the Wheery vs Shamrocks game is in Rahan instead of Mucklagh. No idea why they wanted to move it to the shortest pitch in Offaly, but just in case anyone wanted to go and didn't hear of the switch.

Probably so they only had to paint 1 '65m' line, instead of 2. not that Mucklagh is that much longer.

Lone Shark wrote:Incidentally should probably add on here that the Wheery vs Shamrocks game is in Rahan instead of Mucklagh. No idea why they wanted to move it to the shortest pitch in Offaly, but just in case anyone wanted to go and didn't hear of the switch.

Plain of the Herbs wrote:Probably so they only had to paint 1 '65m' line, instead of 2. not that Mucklagh is that much longer.

Mucklagh's not too bad for football, though it's a bit short for hurling all right. Rahan is ridiculous though. If you were playing down hill it's very possible to catch the kickout and boot it straight over the bar if you've any kind of power in your kick. I'd say the 65 is a lot closer to being a 55 towards both ends.

Lone Shark wrote:Incidentally should probably add on here that the Wheery vs Shamrocks game is in Rahan instead of Mucklagh. No idea why they wanted to move it to the shortest pitch in Offaly, but just in case anyone wanted to go and didn't hear of the switch.

The Wheery management team should refuse to let that match go ahead in Rahan. It's going to take guts but some team is going to have to make a stand and refuse to play in that utter excuse for a GAA pitch. It's an embarrassment to Offaly GAA. How clubs and the County Board can get away with fixing matches in these tiny fields of pitches is beyond me.

bazza wrote:

Lone Shark wrote:Incidentally should probably add on here that the Wheery vs Shamrocks game is in Rahan instead of Mucklagh. No idea why they wanted to move it to the shortest pitch in Offaly, but just in case anyone wanted to go and didn't hear of the switch.

The Wheery management team should refuse to let that match go ahead in Rahan. It's going to take guts but some team is going to have to make a stand and refuse to play in that utter excuse for a GAA pitch. It's an embarrassment to Offaly GAA. How clubs and the County Board can get away with fixing matches in these tiny fields of pitches is beyond me.

I wouldn't mind it being short but I'd say there's a good twelve feet drop from one end to the other. I'm not sure how much scope there is to switch it though seeing as it is an away fixture and that is one of their pitches. Now if we wanted to be contrary, you could measure it and I'd say there isn't a hope that it would make the 130m minimum length - but we'll keep that in reserve in case we're losing at half time.....

Anyone here any results?
Heard st broughans beat st colms 0-11 to 1-4 in a scrappy match?

shamrocks beat wheery 2-11 to 1-8. like you said colms won. der gaels or whatever there called at u21 level lost to broughans by 5 pionts i think...not sure.tubber/ballycumber play shannon gaels today. offaly u21s out on 21 feb...any ideas on what the team will be? will they flatter to decieve as they do every year...

Anyone at the Shamrocks versus Wheery game at the weekend, Shamrocks played well by all accounts! I believe that Wheery were upset over access to their dressing room at half-time.