Kildare Ladies to Intermediate Championship for 2015

Well lads what your thoughts on the decision to go drop to Intermediate for next year?

It's a tough one. I've never been in favour of choosing to drop down - not because of any pride aspect, but because I firmly believe that you find a level you deserve to be in and not every team can have a chance of winning at that level.

The one difference to my mind is if there is no relegation. And I'm not sure if you can be relegated from senior in inter-county ladies? If there is a relegation process every year, I wouldn't allow Kildare to make the drop by their own choice. As it is, they're not the worst senior inter-county team, are they? Well, they're obviously not if there IS a relegation process.

Currently there is no "relegation" in playing terms. There was but it seems to have been dropped.

I have never been in favour of choosing to either move up or down but its a bit pointless having the Junior & Intermedita winners automatically promoted without a similar relegation process as it would end with everybody Senior !!!!

Difficult to comment on how it will work for Kildare until we see the player reaction. Who will join & who will not,,,,,,,,,

Agreed, you can't have promotion and not have relegation.

It will be beneficial in terms of optics and thus in terms of feelgood factor - Kildare will be more competitive. It is an excellent opportunity to blood new players. It's probably ideal for the new management.

Probably a good idea to get more players involved and be more competitive. Although many are putting in great effort in ladies football I really do feel it is struggling in this county at senior level. Seems to have a good following at underage level but once you go senior seems to be a massive drop off in players and support at games. From what I have seen over the years. I have been to some senior games and to tell you the truth there was not more than 30 supporters there

Botch

So any ideas on how to reverse the trend.

I have seen quite a few excellent young players break into the County Senior squad at 17. Then they drop off the following year, citing Leaving Cert, and many never return although most continue playing club and even with 3rd Level teams,,,,,,,,,,,,

Social life has become more attractive ??

Then you can have situation where a team plays for a few years towards a goal, like winning a junior or inter All Ireland and when they do some push on but others (Down after winning Inter) see a lot of players "retire" and face into a higher grade with a new look inexperienced team.

Whoever finds the solution will replace Cork at the op !!!!

I agree kelf.

I don't really have a solution to be honest.

We notice the same in our club with girls stopping playing in their early 20's if they last that long.

It probably does go down to social life and college although I notice the colleges now have their own ladies comps which can only help.

Colleges comps are big & have been for 15 years

I have only become aware of the ladies comps in colleges this year !
Maybe its because a girl from our club is playing.

I never see anything about them anywhere?

O'Connor Cupwould be the Ladies equilivent of Sigerson and has been played since 1987

History on WWW.Ladiesgaelic.ie my source. It was around 1999/2000 I first saw a colleges game.

Local media would not have much interest as they dont sell many Leaders or Champions in Colleges and they get a minor 2 or 3 lines at the bottom of a page for the Finals on Indo/Times.

As for TV I go back to the infamous words of then RTE Head of Sport , M Cogley, that "hell will freexe over before a Ladies Football game is shown live on telly" and of course RTE never have !!!! Then its up to the PRO's for those college teams to supply copy & I'm not sure if they ever have.

I think it's something ladies football needs to look at, we are losing too many from minor to senior level, do we need to bring a grade in between minor and Snr football to encourage our ladies or up the age to u19 and get rid of minor. This way we may hold players for another year. They settle into college and takes the fear factor away from playing with older players at Snr competition level also, especially if a player is on the bridge of trying to cross over to Snr. It's something that Cork have in place and it has reduced the drop off of players into Snr level. As not all players want to be playing adult and underage. Do we need the protect the likes?? I think the grading at club level is having a huge impact at Cty level. Too many grades at adult level. Let's get more clubs playing Snr football, why the fear factor of playing Snr grade football?? Is it not where we shld all aim to be at??