Huh? Youâd still rather win the club championship every year
Crossmoline gave a firm answer to that at the weekend.
Iâd like my county team to win something.
Every club is proud to have players represent the county team, but if it comes down to a choice in which arena they are more successful in, club wins every time.
And its now borderline impossible to do both.
You saw it this year with the Brigidâs lads unable to wag a leg for Roscommon while the Dingle lads hit the wall for Kerry as the year went on.
Con OâCallaghan and the Canavan boys have been crippled ever since the Club run in 2024/25. Conor Glass and Glen before that. Shane Walsh too.
In Hurling, the BG lads have nothing left to give for Waterford when the Club is over, while the Loughrea lads seem completely broke up since too.
Meanwhile the lads flying at the business end of the I/C season arenât worth a fuck when they come back to the clubs.
Its definitely much more pronounced now than it was 10-15 years ago.
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Tbf itâs an approach the Tyrone County Board have undertaken to maximise revenue. Youâll have a massive crowd in Healy Park tonight, probably a bigger crowd than any Tyrone league game there this year. Then youâll have score of people paying ÂŁ12 to watch the stream online. People come from all over to watch the Tyrone Championship, itâs the competitive nature of it and the fact its all knock out that draws the crowds.
The county board sense this and try and maximise as much as they can out of it in monetary terms which is why they stagger games so that there are no clashes that will prevent people from attending or streaming them. They seem to have tightened up on dodgy box streams this year too.
Crossmolina who got an in contract professional athlete to play for them?
A lot of these lads just arenât good enough at the same time. If Portumna or Ballyhale were still in their pomp theyâd still win these championships. Ballygunner didnât have anyone that could get near Jamie Barron in the county final
I doubt there is a single player that has an All-Ireland senior inter-county medal but not won an All-Ireland senior club medal who would reverse the past and reverse the medals they won if they had the choice.
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Maybe, maybe not.
When Portumna were winning Club All Irelandâs, their I/C contingent would miss the entitre League bar maybe a League Final, and then play 2-3 Championship games per year with Galway.
The Ballyhale lads were playing no NHL either bar the odd League Final and then only 4x I/C Championship games per year. It was set up for players to do both and worked well.
Nowadays, if you win a Club All Ireland, you are still expected to play most of the NHL/NFL plus all these Championship round robin games.
Its worlds apart from where it was.
The flip side of this of course then is lads involved with these Club teams going on long journeyâs dont get to do the ânormalâ I/C pre season that allows them to flourish in that environment. Take someone like Patrick Fitzgerald for example - if he was from a ânormalâ club, heâd be finished his club season in September every year, could take 6 weeks off to recharge/rest and then be back in for full I/C pre season in November every year. Would he be of more use to Waterford if that was the case? Most definitely I would say.
After the 2024 AI win, the vast majority of Clare lads who played the full final, or had to be taken off due to cramp, were noticeably flat in the club championship. They went all the way into the red and were constantly getting injured all through the league.
There is a lot of merit in your point.
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A lot of the Tipp team in 2025 like Jake Morris/Ronan Maher and a few more limped on through the club season in '25 and carried it into League '26 and were never right all year.
Limerick donât take their club championship seriously at all and play it off at teatime on Thursday evenings which is absurd but of benefit to the County team.
Intercounty managers need to manage the players workloads a lot better. Thereâs no point dogging these lads in league games for no reason.
Two consecutive HotYs had shortened leagues prior to winning the individual gong: Gillane and SOD.
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As big as it gets cc @Aloysius @MogwaiC86
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Thatâs a fairly wake excuse for the shambles that was Liam Cahill setup
Its scraping of the barrel stuff to think club câship games in 2025 excuse the 15 and 17 point drubbings Tipp took off limerick
Aodhan Quinn and Shea McDermott are two huge additions for Errigal from 2 years ago.
Errigal bossing it so far. Peter Harte bossing it. Shea McDermott looking very dangerous with 1-02.
Darragh Canavan very quiet. Mattie Donnelly being well marshalled by the evergreen Aidan McCrory who must be 40 now.
Trillick very wasteful so far. Errigal have a very formidable bench with R Canavan, T Canavan, Oguz, Mark Kavanagh etc to call on.
Rathmore beat Dr Crokes yesterday. What was this game? I saw online Rathmore denied Dr. Crokes a 3 in a row which means its not the proper county final as Dingle won last year?
It was the Kerry Senior Swan Diving Championship
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Club final. If a divisional team wins the county championship then the winner of the club will go forward to the Munster Senior club championship. As almost happened with Legion in 2014 and did happen with Kerins Oâ Rahillyâs a few years ago (2022ish). No divisional teams in the club champ.
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Does it also have an impact on the county championship for seedings?