Conway is a hypocrite. He talks about 50 strong clubs making a tyrone county team when the reality is that itâs taken 50 weak clubs and a decision to pool resources, to make a county team. Ironically itâs weakened an already weak club scene.
club football is a fair indicator of the strength of the gaa in a county, certainly a better one than county success where population and finances play a far bigger role.
Iâll end the discussion with a couple of questions:
1.How many senior all Ireland club championships have tyrone clubs won?
2. How many final appearances have they made in the same competition?
Weâll not mention hurling
The real strength in depth of club football in a county is shown by the intermediate and junior championships.
Tyrone teams have an outstanding record in this regard, winning three of the last nine All-Ireland intermediate championships, including the current champions Moy.
Tyrone teams have made the All-Ireland junior club final five times since the inaugural competition in 2002. The only other Ulster county to have a team make the final is Cavan, twice.
Tyrone have by far the best record of any Ulster county in each of these championships and taken together they have a massively superior record to any other Ulster county and are one of the top two or three counties in Ireland at those grades.
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Theyâre not weak clubs. We have a senior championship where there are 7 or 8 sides capable of winning it every year. We have junior and intermediate clubs who are the strongest in Ulster. The last two Ulster intermediate champions have been Tyrone clubs, teams move up the grades and are competitive. Trillick lost an intermediate final in 2015 and won a senior championship the year after. They narrowly lost out to Scotstown after beating the Donegal Champions in the preceding round.
Meanwhile Slaughtneil chase 5 in a row this year after Ballinderry did three in a row before that. Now thatâs a farce of a senior championship.
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Good post.
I note Monaghan clubs never get anywhere in the Senior Club Championship but have won the All Ireland twice at intermediate level since it was started in 2004.
Kerry clubs have only won the Senior AI once in the past 20 years but dominate the AI Junior competition.
So theyâre not weak within tyrone, only when they face other ulster teams.
Thatâs brilliant logic there.
No theyâre strong when they face other clubs. Derry clubs are weak. 2 different Championship winners in the past 8 years. Pathetic.
Introspection is lost on you.
Why canât you focus on the mess Derry Club football is in?
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Interesting comparison/contrast here with Crossmaglenâs dominance in Armagh.
During the period of Crossâs dominance the Armagh county team gradually grew very strong and eventually won an AI. Crossâs decline more or less coincided with Armaghâs decline.
Slaughtneilâs dominance wonât last forever. Iâd like to think their decline will help make Derry stronger again but realistically it will just make them more shit.
You didnât answer the 2 questions⌠Go on and give everyone a laugh
You didnât ask a question.
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Thatâs great sid. Maybe theyâll be able to step up a grade soon.
Here you go @Cicero_Dandi
Give us a laugh
Those question bear relevance to the best club team in the country, not the strength of club competition in a county.
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Sure go on and d answer them anyway, even if you donât want to.
Thereâs no hard and fast rule as regards whether having one dominant club or strength spread more evenly throughout club football benefits a county team more, but in general the latter tends to be more important.
That isnât to say having one dominant club canât raise the standard of the county team. Corofin have been completely dominant in Galway in this decade and the Galway team has gradually worked its way back to strength. Castlebar have become dominant in Mayo. Underneath those though you have a decent spread of strength at junior and intermediate levels in both counties.
Crossmaglen were an outlier in that they were exceptionally dominant not just at Armagh level but at Ulster and All-Ireland level, so dominant that they could backbone an inter-county All-Ireland-winning team. There have been very few teams like that in history in either football or hurling, maybe Birr were another but I donât think even they backboned the Offaly hurling team to quite the same extent.
Given your ability to pontificate Iâm surprised youâre not a bigger fan of the pontiff.
Different counties structures means the measuring of a counties strength by their second and third tier representatives is skewed. Some counties have larger number of clubs in their senior and intermediate championships than others, thereby meaning their lower competitions may not be as strongly represented as a county with fewer number of clubs in the top tiers.
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So tyrone have fewer clubs?
How many teams are in the Derry Senior Championship? There are 16 teams in Tyroneâs Senior Championship, it has yielded 7 different Champions in the past 8 years.
There are 16 teams in the Intermediate Championship, weâve produced the last two Ulster Champions and Moy are the current All Ireland Intermediate Champions.
I think itâs 16 in the Junior as well. As far as Iâm aware itâs only Errigal who field a seconds team in any of these Championships.
Itâs a very healthy state of affairs.
In contrast to Derry where one club is in great shape and the rest are in need of life support.
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You still havenât answered the questions
@Cicero_Dandi cleaning house here, a master debater
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