2020 Club Championships

Should they be automatically relegated ?.
What happens if they can't field a Team next weekend in the Championship ?.

I see Rheban also gave a W/O.

Confey is a tiny parish . From talking to lads in work they had 18 togged in the QF last year and only 17 when they beat carbury in the championship last year. Heard hugh lynch retired and a few lads at that age went aswell. Probably over achieved for the size of the place. Hard place to play , that narrow pitch beside the liffey. Wonder if they have to pull out of championship

I remember reading on this forum that Confey didn't enter the Aldridge Cup at the beginning of the year as they had no team. I wouldn't be in favour of automatically relegating teams for now fielding a team, they will probably get relegated anyway as you can't compete at that level with a small squad. Lots of clubs struggling at the moment with a higher injury list than normal and maybe a couple who have stepped away due to covid concerns. I believe the punishment is a one point deduction for the first offence. A worrying sign for a club a week before championship.

There are tiny parishes all over Ireland. Confey is not tiny. Not fulfilling a Division One fixture is really poor for a club. I woukd have little sympathy for them if they were demoted. Sounds like the lack of numbers has been an issue for a while. How hard have they tried to get lads in? You would find a few lads in nearby Lucan if you couldnt get them in Leixlip.

How do you know what they have done to get lads in ?
Confey is a very small parish in leixlip. Leixlip would have 3 or 4 times the population of confey yet they are in div 2 and intermediate. Confey are div 1 and got to QF last year with 18 or 19 lads. They have over achieved .
Maynooth would have 5 or 6 times there pick yet have nt won anything in years are div 2 .
If your county man retires , uaually a few lads his vintage go too. Thats what it looks like. Bar celbridge , the likes of leixlip and maynooth are serious under achievers with their population

I guarantee you there are many lads living in Lucan area who are unattached, from other counties, who would love to play senior football. Sorry but you cant have a situation where Division 1 games are cancelled because a club cant get numbers. Perhaps the refixed season and Covid concerns are an additional issue, that would be understandable.

Confey had only 16 players last week against johnstownbridge

55 tickets each club is getting for championship games

@clubfan the population of Leixlip is relatively evenly split between Leixlip and Confey. Indeed confey secondary school would be larger. As mentioned though confey wouldn't have any new estates. Still though they shouldnt be running into this problem there are plenty of smaller clubs out there. If Kildare are to kick on we need more from confey /leixlip / maynooth..

This has the potential to cause chaos in the county championship, albeit it possibly through no fault of their own.

If they play the first and/or second round and pick up injuries and can't play the final game what happens then.

I assume most will say 'void' the games they played but that's not ideal.

This needs to be sorted early this week and the county board should make a statement on it.

What happens if they as GAA1928 mentions if they fulfill the first two fixtures but not the last one, the team that they are playing in relegation semi final gets a couple of injuries/suspensions in the 3rd game. Confey would benefit from not fulfilling the last group game and beat the team that played all 3. Some clarity around the situation this week would be preferable for everyone I think.

If they forfeit any game in championship they should be automatically relegated. You cant have a situation where a team could tactically miss a game to preserve players/ score diff for later games. I'm not saying that this is what the reasons would be here but it would be so unfair on other teams within the same group.

Rheban cannot get relegated from junior championship anyway

Up Rheban

Confey had too many injuries, and little to replace them hence the cancelled game. That was the word coming from a confey man today that I spoke to. As stated in many posts above, Confey's numbers issue has been around for quite some time.

On the point about underachieving in relation to Leixlip, Maynooth, Kilcock etc, as a Leixlip man and active club member, I cannot argue against this point. However, I can identify periods where the population was not harnessed, where there were periods of neglect, where nothing was done to grow the interest and participation levels, and we are seeing the long term effects especially with our Mens Adult Football team. An example of this is the following - our main mens team, have a majority over 30 years of age, only a handful mid to late 20's and a good group of 18/19 year olds. The period of neglect was to the lads in the middle, and we are paying for it dearly.
We have done a huge amount of work with our U16 down to early ages over the past number of years, and we have huge numbers there. But it will take more than numbers to win titles, and retention of players will be our issue especially at the teen age group. Hopefully over the next 10 years we progress at adult level, and get back up to Senior and Division 1 football. That would be my honest target for Leixlip football as current things stand.

Following the 3 minor championships in a row from 99-01. Leixlip probably had a window of 6-7 years to make a breakthrough with those lads and reached a number of semi finals but couldn’t quite get over the line in them and it kind of petered out fairly quickly after that. Intermediate is a very difficult grade to get out of. It is not good for Kildare GAA in general for a big population base like Leixlip not to be strong.

Topcat, population base and underage titles no guarantee of anything. Naas Dominated underage but got whipped and bullied Saturday by Sarsfields playing in 3rd gear.
You can win minors with small fast lads. Won't cut it at senior.

You are completely right Papabear same I suppose could be said of Athy to a certain extent. Won 4 minors between 08 and 13 and reached final in 14 but have so far only added one senior title and in my opinion their window to get another one is closing.

In fairness to Naas, they're a very young team. I wouldn't write them off just yet. Anything from CB on what they plan to do in relation to teams not fulfilling fixtures?

Speaking from Newbridge (Moorefield) perspective, it's a football-mad town & that's not an easy culture to compete with. Having said that, when Athy came along in 2011, I definitely though they had the youth & all-round quality to add another 2/3 titles and have a serious crack off Leinster. Well, it's nearly a decade on & it hasn't happened.

My take is that there is a maximum of five clubs in Kildare who have sufficent quality to, at their best, compet with top club teams around Ireland: Moorefield, Sarsfields, Athy, Celbridge, JTB.

Now, at first glance, five seems a bad number, but outside of Dublin, how many clubs around Leinster would you put in the same category? I would say Portlaoise, Rhode, a handful of Westmeath sides and after that I am running out of clubs. You could argue maybe Eire Og, Mullinaghta but maybe need more sustained achievement before you'd throw them in.

Five clubs is also five more than are in Meath. Definitely, Naas have the quality coming through to seriously compete at some point, but hopefully it's not another Athy scenario. Would be healthy to have another club seriously challenge Newbridge duopoly, which now extends to 16 titles in past 21 seasons.

Actually, was just looking back over that list of 21 finals & it really does starkly illustrate the extent of Newbridge domination.

Only seven other clubs have even made the final in that time: Athy, Allenwood, Larries (three times each); Celbridge, Kilcock, Carbury (twice each); and one appearance from Round Towers.

Towers and Kilcock haven't been in a final in 17 years; Allenwood in 14; Larries in 11. Yikes.

Sarsfields will hard to stop this year in league and championship

Would fear for johnstownbridge against Sarsfields this Sunday , only scoring 0-8 against celbridge not great

Athy looks weak in position 1-8 plus no Feely either also lack discipline And depth in panel

Celbridge just don’t know what team going turn up when pressure is on

Moorefield best of chasing pack

I would say Byrne & McCormack back gives Sash the edge, but definitely not a lot between them & Moorefield.

As you say, chasing pack otherwise pretty erratic.

JTB at their best with Cribbins & D Flynn on form I would be very wary of, but Daniel's injury possibly curtains for them. Celbridge enigmatic as ever. Athy missing Feely and lads seem to want to display MMA skills.

Sunday games in st Conleths will stream live €5 per game or €10 for all three. Money going to Barrettstown

St Laurence’s v Eadestown
Clane v Monasterevan
Sarsfields v Johnstownbridge

Kildare 2000 wrote:

Sunday games in st Conleths will stream live €5 per game or €10 for all three. Money going to Barrettstown

St Laurence’s v Eadestown
Clane v Monasterevan
Sarsfields v Johnstownbridge

What about Saturday ???, any idea.