[quote=“myboyblue”]What ye make of this?
Speaking at the launch of the tournament last night, Gilroy said the six-team competition was designed with a view to unearthing players who had yet to play for Dublin and who the new management feel would increase their options in their squad for the forthcoming year.
“We’re not having trials and we have no plans to have trials,” Gilroy told the Evening Herald.
"This gives us a great opportunity to see a lot of players playing at a certain level. It will be a blitz-type tournament and if a guy shows up well in that, it gives us a good opportunity to have a look at him seriously.
Top level
“It’s like any of the club championship matches. We’ll have guys going to league matches and this is just another opportunity for people to show that they’re capable of playing at the top level.”
The competition will be run over two days - Saturday, November 8 and Sunday November 9 at Innisfails ground in Balgriffin. For the purposes of the competition, Dublin will be broken into six regional teams: Fingal, Dublin Central, Dublin North-East, Dublin North-West, Dublin South-West and Dublin South-East.
Most of the current Dublin squad will be involved with their respective regional sides and specially-appointed selectors will be tasked with gathering a panel of 20 for each regional team.
“The current panelists are all allocated teams but after that, the selectors will be talking to different club managers and using their own knowledge to come up with players and make up a panel of twenty,” Gilroy said.
The novel initiative has also attracted the support of some of Dublin’s top former players. People such as Mick Deegan, Mick Galvin, Eamon Heery, Joe McNally and Senan Connell are already on board to act as selectors for the teams.
"People liked the idea, in fairness. The initiative is a good one. When people were contacted they seemed to be keen. It should give us a good trawl of the county and see players.
“Most of the current panel will be playing in the tournament so the standard should be quite high. All the teams look quite strong.”
Matches on the Saturday will be 20-minutes per half in a blitz-style format with the finals played off on the Sunday.
"I’ve been at all the senior championship matches anyway myself and so have the other guys. But this is a county board initiative to do something a little bit different and to give guys a chance to put themselves in there who weren’t involved previously. It’s a good idea and it’s a good way to finish the year.
“I think the standard is good in club football. There are good players at all levels so hopefully, we’ll see something that will add to last year’s squad.”
Regional Tournament
Saturday, Nov 8
11.0am Dublin Central v Dublin North East
12.0 Fingal v Dublin North West
1.0pm Dublin Central v Dublin South East
2.0 Dublin South West v Dublin North West.
3.0 Dublin North East v Dublin South East
4.0 Fingal v Dublin North West
Sunday, Nov 9
Final: 2.0pm
Management teams
Dublin Central: Declan Mc Grath, Eamon Heery, Ciarn O’Hare.
Fingal: Niall Guiden, Mick Kennedy, Mick Deegan.
Dublin North East: Tony Diamond, Neil Curley, Paul Kelly.
Dublin North West: Senan Connell, Mick Galvin, Jim Brogan, Mick Bohan.
Dublin South East: Pat Burke snr, Pauric Monahan, Declan O’Boyle.
Dublin South West: Brendan Moran, Brendan Murray, Joe McNally.
cracking idea…a chance to weed out a few current members of the panel and bring in a few new faces…doubt there will be any real super stars unearthed but defo a few who can do a job at intercounty level better than others currently there…I like what I’ve seen of Gilroy as far as structure and ideas go…also seems to be surrounding himself with a lot of lads who know dublin club football…seems to be a man who sees the bigger picture…straight away he has told the county board that he wants county players playing league matches with their clubs as at the end of the day he believes this is who they are representing when they are playing for Dublin…Pillar rarely allowed this…tyrone do and if its good enough for them…