Imalgimating Junior and Intermediate teams in Kildare to compete in the Senior Championship

Seen this from the Official Forum, in the chairmans questions section, what is peoples opinions on the points raised in
the question?



Mr chairman,

Firstly can i say great job on the website,well worth the wait,very modern and up to date so far.

I just wanted to get your opinion on imalgimating junior and intermediate teams in kildare to compete in the senior championship,ie 'parish teams'...St Edwards(Straffan.Ardclough,Rathcoffey).Geraldines(Rheban,Castlemitchell,Grange) etc.
With the current championship format this could be done with minimal distruption.Once an even number of teams were enterered 2/4/6.
I've seen it been done in other counties and it has worked pretty well for a number of reasons.

1.It gives clubs and players who may never get the chance to play senior football the opportunity to play at the top level within our county.
2.It generates interest from people that may not have been there before,such as supporters interested in seeing new teams therefore creating more money for kildare gaa teams.Possibly a more viable solution in these recessionary times than playing 4 champ rounds.
3.It makes our championships more competitive,and possibly improves the standard of club football within the county which is quiet poor at the moment(with the exception of 2 good years for Moorefield)
4.It may improve individual players,players would improve if they play with better players and against better teams etc.
5. It would given Tony Kelly and Martin Tobin a chance to see more players,on a more regular basis and a higher level who may be additions to the junior squad and even the senior team down the line.Possibly unearthing the next peter kelly .

The negatives would be
1. Fixture congestion,I feel the best way to deal with that is in the event of fixture clashes,imalgimated teams must play the same weekend as their original or first team do....ie if it was st edwards,and ardclough were playing satuday then st edwards must play sunday.
2.Immalgamated teams cannot enter leinster championship so possibly the losing county finalist would have to represent kildare.
3.If any the individual original teams won their champ...ie straffan,then the team would have to pull out or play with Just Ardclough and Rathcoffey alone.

There is i'm sure more negatives but i would be a bit biased as i play on a junior team and can only dream of playing senior at the moment.
I personally would love to see some of the junior/inter players like Rob kelly,Austin Allen,Tadhg Fennin,Peter Kelly,Colm Fagan etc play senior against moorefield,or to see St Edwards play against Celbridge,Oliver Plunketts play against Naas Or Geraldines play against Athy.
In my opinion anythin that improves football standards in Kildare is a good thing.

Just and idea and i welcome yours or anyones feedback.

Regards

mosaic

what's this imalgimating he/she talks of?????

It happens around the country. Small junior and intermdiate clubs amalgamate to take part in the senior championship. They still play in their respective championships but come together for the senior. It works well in other counties but the junior and intermediate championships would need to be run off either early or late in the year....

a load of bull if ya ask me!!!!!!!!!!!

Sure wouldn't it be good for a few junior or intermediate players to have the chance of playing against senior clubs in the championship. There's always people giving out that the Senior Championship is weak.... Well wouldn't it strengthen it up. More competition for the big clubs and gives the smaller clubs a chance to field a senior team.

I dont see why it couldnt be run as a trial for a year fi there is enough interest...its bound to have a lot of critics and problems in its own right though and definitely their own clubs will suffer if they want to compete in their own championships also...they wont be training together etc...

you seem to be talking about amalgamation or amalgamating

It works in other counties to varying degrees of success.... Ballyroan and Abbeyleix did it in Laois to form Ballyroan-Abbey in Senior and were able to compete in their other grades at the same time, with no hold-ups....

Although, considering how poor the amalgamated clubs have been in the U21 championship in Kildare, I'm not too sure.... I heard only 10 turned up for training with Na Fianna.... That is poor with the size of that parish....

i think its a great idea it only makes players stronger in my opinion the stronger lads in junior and inter get put up against the senior ranks and if they struggle they train harder i think it brings on players a fierce amount

what bout teams that arnt to strong at senior,some sides got big loss's in senior this year,does that mean there made struggle against 2 or 3 teams??
also hard wen teams close to them are rivals.....and are then asked to pair together?management and training comes into it to!!!!worth trying in alridge cup or something though

I suppose you would have people from strong intermediate clubs that aren't amalgamated at any level arguing that should they not be allowed the opportunity to play at Senior level.

I think its a very good idea in principle, but it would need to be organised properly.
I dont think the Kildare county board would be up to the task however

thats exactly where it should be tried walsheman but the only problems i see is between the clubs like which manager gets to train them and pick the team i could see alot of arguements between rival clubs

i dont think they would either fionn think they'd make a mess of the fixtures and all sorts but it does bring on the good players not getting to play senior and i agree as well centre back the rows going on in the clubs would be cat especailly everyone out for there own club when it comes to team selection how many teams do you reckon there would be i'll throw a few names if you can add or take away

na fianna
st edwards
balyna
geraldines
oliver plunketts

na fianna minus allenwood not sure about the rest

There are numerous issues here. I don't think it would work in Kildare. GAA Head mentioned Ballyroan Abbey... the enthusiasm for that venture died fairly quickly, despite their initial success. Unless there are obvious geographical divides, it will be hard to work.

In Kildare, at underage level, there is a north board and a south board... In Cork, at all levels, there is mid Cork (Muskerry), north Cork (Duhallow), city (Seandun), east Cork (Imokilly), there is a north west type of division (Avondhue) and a south-ish division (Carrigdhoun) and probably more.

In kerry there is mid, east, south, is there a north and west as well?

I don't know too many other counties where the divisional system works well at senior level.

It does play havoc with the junior clubs and intermediate clubs... we had the Flynn, Whyte scenario with Moorefield - well it would be similar, with top junior and intermediate clubs without two, three, four, five players for training. It is also difficult to engender a spirit out of nowhere for an entity that in Kildare would be absolutely new... it would be artificial. It has been tried off and on and failed miserably. The big issue for me is the fact that there is no region, no flag, no division that already exists that you'd be buying into. All it would be is a higher level for a player to test himself - a good thing - and maybe get noticed - a good thing - but 15 individuals won't make a team, as anyone involved in winning teams will tell you. It's an absolute non-runner in Kildare I think.

For most/all players there priority would be training and playing with their own clubs and winning their own championship,

I think most ambitious players would like the opportunity to play against the senior teams, but realistically there would be no collective training and teams would just be put together to play the match, so i don't see any amalgamated team having a serious impact on the championship

Mosaic's suggestion of playing in your own club championship on the saturday and senior championship on the sunday isn't realistic

Maybe a separate parish competition would be an idea if it could be squeezed into the calendar ( possibly on a knock out basis when all championship finals have been played )

The idea seems good if it is kept simple.I don't think a separate competition would work as there just wouldn't be time or interest.
The only teams who i think might enter would be saint edwards and geraldines.Neither will have a senior team anytime soon,straffan are building but are a bit of winning intermediate yet.
Ballymore are now senior so oliver plunketts wouldn't enter with just eadestown and tmh.
JTB will be a good senior team in the not too distant future so couldn't see balina doing it.
Ballyteague are close to senior level too so na fianna unlikely.

I think try those two teams in aldridge cup and see how it goes.don't think either would challenge for senior but would improve the players and teams probably.They wouldn't be training or anything together so i wouldnt be too worried about weaker senior teams.An outside manager with no loyalties should solve the manager problem.
It would create something new and exciting,maybe better players and teams.Cannot see it happening in kildare however.

good points supersub but plunketts might work with tmh and eadsetown think of the quailty players put together browne,p.kelly, m.kelly, aidan casey, willie casey, paul hyland, emmet bolton, cian bolton, barry lawlor they might be decent team in the aldridge cup.

also grange would be good team with tadhg fennin and alan harris on board playing with timmy doyle tom nolan paddy o`brein and red farrell

This did happen in Kildare at one point - I remember it in the late 70's (showing my age now) and supporting an amalgamation between JTB and Cloghs called St. Johns and I *think* they reached either the semi-final or quarter-final in 78 but beat by an excellent Raheens team.. The venture ended in 1978 because we won the intermediate final to become senior.

I don't know why it (amalgamations between inter/junior teams) died out in Kildare, or what the rules were in those days to allow these teams to play in the senior championship... (too young to remember those details )

Shortgrass

I also remember a St Wolstans team ( Celbridge and Straffan ) who went very well one year.I think it gives everyone a chance to see what non-senior players stand out.I think the Geezer would be interested in same.

In my opinion , in the last few years far too many players from the top senior clubs have been given their chance to prove themselves at senior inter-county level and also played in the championship when they were clearly not good enough.

Shortgrass

I also remember a St Wolstans team ( Celbridge and Straffan ) who went very well one year.I think it gives everyone a chance to see what non-senior players stand out.I think the Geezer would be interested in same.

In my opinion , in the last few years far too many players from the top senior clubs have been given their chance to prove themselves at senior inter-county level and also played in the championship when they were clearly not good enough.

I must admit I am not against idea, especially when it did happen in the past in Kildare. I wonder why it is not the practice now?? Forgive my ignorance but is it specifically banned by the county board? Also, there must be guidelines/rules in place (or used to be in place) governing this like teams must be in same parish? on what levels the teams are at (like can two intermediate teams join together?) ...

Tom I don't remember St Wolstans, but maybe walsheman can help me on this one, did St. Kevins amalgamate with anyone in the 70's/80's??? I thought they did?

And I agree with you Tom, I think Geezer would be interested in this..... But also I think the clubs involved would benefit also, mixing and competing with senior teams - to get a taste of the higher level as it were... I heard it said in our parts that during this amalgamation the lads enjoyed beating Carbury - in a reply as far as I know

But yeah, I can't see the harm in it, if only the county board could run it properly?

Its about 12-14 years since amalgamated teams played in the senior championship in Kildare, it was stopped because it as a pointless excercise, once in the blue moon you would get a game that was competitive but generaly it was a farce. There was a few other examples Ballykelly-Nurney was together one year as Eire nua, a couple of years later year Ballykelly-Monasterevin-Ellistown went together as, Knoic rice, think thats the right spelling. It was stopped around 99-00 and the clubs introduced a county by-law to prevent it happening again, suppose it can be changed but I think it would be a waste of time.

As for Geezer being interested, I think he would rather the likely lads join the reserve panel (juniors if you prefer) after all this is where Peter Kelly came from and a ''junior club'' player as well, to win his all star

Im not so sure this would ever work.I am completly against amalgamated teams after my experience of being involved in the Na Fianna set up, having played and been involved in management teams for the parish side..
first problem is, you join a team where you have to be team mates with players who are effectively arch enemies, i have seen players end up in full scale melees AT TRAINING. its hard to be team mates with someone you effectively dislike.ive even seen lads in games ONLY pass to their own club mate
second problem being,in the Na Fianna set up, a person from each of the four clubs form the management, therefore 4 managers each wanting their fellow club member on the team, ive seen excellent players left on the line because a certain club had enough players starting or another club not enough..
even for training there are problems, i know for fact that there where only 9 players at the 1 training session Na Fianna had before their u/21 defeat last weekend to Athy.even some players didnt know other players names for the first game...
Now last but not least , i see people say it give players the chance from smaller clubs to play at a better level, maybe for some but what about the lads who dont get picked for the amalgamated panel ? being from the Ballyteague club i have definatly seen our decision to join forces with Na Fianna at underage a massive mistake, my case example being, in 1999 Ballyteague u/14 played in the Feile A final v Moorefield , while taking a considerable hammering that day from a Moorefield team containing players such as Daryl Flynn , Ross Glavin , Kevin Murnaghan, Ger Naughton and the twins Paddy and Frostie Tracey,it was a massive feat for our club to get this far, it really should have laid the foundations for a hugely successful future, the next stage for this group of players was to join the Na Fianna set up at u/16 level , while 3 members off that team where successfull in getting on the Na Fianna team others became frustrated at lack of oppertunities and missed playing with their childhood mates.NOW only 2 off the panel of 20 who played in that feile final of 1999 remain playing for the club at this moment, 9 of them currently play for the local soccer team. im not saying that the team would of stayed together but surely its better to keep a team of friends together and build a team ,no matter whether is be at junior or intermediate, just like the current Moorefields or Sarsfields panels who are mostly lads who have played ball together since u/8s.......
I know that in years to come Ballyteague wont make the same mistake and in the not too distant future will field minor and u/21 teams on thier own...
thats my reasons to be completly against amalgamated teams

Fair play to you HOA for posting an inside view of what goes on inside amalgamated teams, my own club had a brief flirtation with a one and our experience would be the same. Now for underage purposes it may be necessary for some clubs it wasn't for us and should have been be avoided because the problem is, its a pick the best and f--k the rest mentality, you just loose to many players. The reason we pulled out of it was our players refused to play, the reason being they felt that to many of their friends who they had played with from u8 to u14 would be cast aside to appease the politics of an amalgamated team..........

They were right!!

I admire your optimism, HoA. The reality is that very few rural clubs are able to have a completely independent underage setup, or if they do, they are playing at a very low level.

Don't forget that Ballyteague (same as the other three clubs in Na Fianna) is a quarter of a rural parish and they might not have the numbers to compete independently over a long period of time.

Anyway, Na Fianna have won a minor and u21 in recent years, so they ain't exactly disastrous either. Admittedly, they might have won more.

Great post there HoA.. Very insightful.