Ye were moaning about losing players and say the GAA is suffering due to emigration. I was saying thats a lame excuse. Everyone else is the same and its happened 3 or 4 times in recent history.
The GAA is failing. Because of itself, not because of any socio-demographic reasons.
Rugby has same player numbers falling issue
Lots of people are turning away from competitive sport and going to gyms, running etc as can work their working and family schedules around it. More and more people training for aesthetics rather than performance
Athletics has always had huge fall in numbers at around 16 when you need to commit to it more or less full time in terms of training schedules and it impacts social life
Swimming I think is the same and always was
Sport for most people is a pastime and a good teacher of life lessons for kids but beyond mid to late teens life gets in the way, study, relationships, social life and life generally. Compounded if not getting regular games or if you break your bollox to get to a game and then sit on a bench so numbers decline. Also hard to take a step down and play at a lower level at that age so a lot of lads throw it in
I would counter that social reasons are a massive factor in it. How do you explain the massive fall off in the standard at junior soccer clubs too in recent years?
Young lads want the soft option. If thereās a B team they will play with the B team. Im not in any way saying GAA couldnāt do more to help themselves, they obviously could, but I think itās wrong to completely ignore the social reasons.
But thats my entire point. The gaa are completely ignoring modern life. But using emigration as an excuse in 2016 is absolutely laughable.
Its also very typical of older guys to say the young lads are soft. My auld lad goes on about that forever, thinks its hilarious. Older guys think young guys are soft since the day dot. Thats the way it is. It doesnāt actually make it true.
Maybe they are smarter? Not to be wasting their time with a totally farically disorganised sport? Did that not occur to ye?
Soccer and rugby are experiencing similar issues and you hold rugby up as the organisation the GAA should strive to be.
Everything could always be done better.
Rugby have issues in one division. They are still growing though. And they are always willing to take 1 step back to go forward.
But the main difference between GAA and Rugby (of course there are exceptions) is they are all about people. GAA is all about egos and personalities and winning. In rugby clubs the vast majority of the time the 2nd and 3rd teams get treated the wxact same way as the first team. And they will play close on the same amount of games too. Their coaching is better, their refereeing is fucking miles ahead. They pay their bills. Thwy look after local business. They are progressive.
Soccer is equally a mess. What i say about soccer though is if thsy made a small few changes they could destroy the GAA.
What I said was that fun is a misnomer. If we have a good session, with plenty of ball and done at a high pace, the lads will tell me straight after whether it was a good session (or not). Thatās the feedback we get anyway. It might be hard work but they will have enjoyed it. Maybe weāre all a bunch of dinosaurs but we havenāt had lads dying or puking their guts up at any stage
Then your doing it wrong
We have different opinions on fun.
It is fun to be challenged. It is fun to feel you gave it everything.
Its about balance i suppose.
Well done on not having guys puking 
Could be here all day over and back on this.
The only place I blamed emigration was for the lack of players between 25-30 not players in general. And it was a fact for our particular club.
But thats what we did. The age group 25-30 was specifically mentioned, we have fuck all players of that age currently playing. The vast majority of the team is under 25, barely anyone around over 30. Numbers for the senior and junior teams are fine, the seniors is mainly young, and the junior is a good mix between the very old and young. No one is complaining, just stating facts. You said clubs lost players from that age group because they arent catered for, but the reality was the vast majority were lost to emigration. The club survived and rebuilt on the back of 2 separate good minor teams. And a third good minor team is coming up now again.
You seem to take everything out of context and start a whole new and separate point.
Who was talking to you in this regard?
you! I said we lost 7 players, your next post went on about if you lose 7 players you rebuild! who else were you responding to?
And using the collective āyeā about losing players to emigration and going on about it after. there was no one moaning about losing players in that age bracket, just that a number of clubs throughout have lost players at that age due to different circumstances than you were saying.
and dont worry, I certainly dont get offended by anything you say even if it seems like we may differ in opinion, which if you actually settled down for a minute you might realise people are in agreement.
Its 2016. The point being emigration happened, get over it. Its a lame excuse at this stage and certainly shouldnāt be an excise for a team not having a 2nd team.
I even ised my own club, who lost 2 teams and we onky had about 3 people leave.
Of all the discussion you pick up on that. Its mad.
Your club is in arsehole of nowhere as well compared to others. A fella living or studying in Cork has a woeful trek
Again, who is using it as an excuse for not having a second team? Or what has that point you just quoted me on have anything to do with the point I made?
Here kev lots of people emigrated over the last several years. Co-incidently the majority of those lads would be mid to late twenties at this stage. Hence clubs have a shortage of players in that age group. Itās hardly outrageous to point out that has impacted clubs. If you think critically about it you would realise it is relevant to playing numbers.
Emigration has been most damaging for the now 28-34 year old group of lads particularly in rural communities across the whole country. Tradesmen, Engineers, Quantity Surveyors etc who have suffered the most with the construction bust and had no choice but to leave.
It left a massive gap in leadership in smaller clubs across the country which is actually more material then playing numbers.
I never argued it. Ever.
Just think its ab easy excuse for āsomeā people use it as an excuse when thing go to shit.
Iām sure there are clubs where some things were just totally unavoidable. But i donāt think i am talking to anyone like that here.
Over several posts seceral people have indicated that or similar.