Itās just another move towards professionalism. Iām sure a handful of counties can come up with lucrative offers while the rest get behind.
Agree
Thatās excellent. Rural clubs need 18 year olds playing with their adult teams.
Thatās a ridiculous mindset. To even be competing in senior in Dublin they must be a good club team. All middle of the road senior teams, intermediate and junior teams may as well forget about it by your logic. Would Raheny be much different from Thomas Davis who reached the final a couple of years ago? A huge number of club players spend their career longing for that one day in the sun, or one special season where it all comes together. Doesnāt mean their all playing for ācrapā teams.
The issue is the 19s isnāt working and 17s is a little young to finish up underage. Places will be lost quicker.
No they donāt. They want the best ones playing with them. But they donāt need them.
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Whatās excellent about it? The GAA have tied one ridiculous rule to another ridiculous rule.
Itās ridiculous that under 18 and under 21 have been dumbed down to under 17 and under 19 and under 20. Itās even more ridiculous that the GAA have tied the prospect of what would be a sensible reversion to under 18 and under 21 to another ridiculous idea - that you can only have it if you ban participants at those grades from playing senior.
The point is these dumbed down under-17 and under-19 and under-20 grades are pushing players away from the game because these grades leave them undercooked and unprepared for senior club or senior county.
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A second or third team could need the extra two or three players from U18 to field a team.
The bottom paragraph just isnāt true.
Itās almost like the strongest opinions advocating a return to the old dates and structures arenāt actually involved with teams at all.
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Iād guarantee you they would if u18s were allowed to play.
Thatās like giving @briantinnion 6 hours to do a 3 hour job.
Heāll definitely take 6 hours. And bill you for 10.
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Itās a function of what the top counties do as regards management and backroom teams.
Prospective managers of Monaghan or Roscommon or Donegal look at the process Mayo had. Mayo have one goal - to win an All-Ireland. They are prepared to spend big to achieve this. To put a massive backroom team in place, an almost industrial operation.
Prospective managers of other counties know that those county boards are not going to put in place what Mayo are putting in place. Thus they donāt apply, or drop out of the running, because whatās the point in taking a job when the elite few are moving to professionalism and the county boards in the other counties are not prepared to go with that.
With Monaghan, there is also the issue that everybody knows that team is on its last legs. With Roscommon, everybody knows they have a ceiling. Roscommon themselves are happy with that ceiling. They donāt have any real ambition beyond an occasional Connacht title.
Monaghan have Vinny Corey now because blackmailing āa true Monaghan football manā was the only way they could get a manager at all.
Donegal are the real headscratchers. They have a team which is capable of challenging at the business end but the county board seems to be unilaterally taking a decision they will not do so.
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Explain why the amount of young players at inter-county level has dropped off alarmingly, so.
The reason is that under-21 prepared players for senior in a much superior fashion to under-20 because years matter when youāre young. Thus you get players coming out of that grade going into a limbo.
Itās the exact same principle with under-17.
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Because every year matters at that age and players are much better developed at 22 and 23.
What was working so badly with Minor at U18 and U21 that they shelved them?
You say every year matters and at the same time, by opposing a reversion to under-21 as opposed to under-20, you are saying the exact opposite.
Under-21 was the key bridge grade to senior. Under-20 does not function nearly as effectively as such.
You are saying that the function of having a genuine bridge grade should basically be entirely outsourced to third level colleges. But not everybody goes to college.
Iām saying nothing about bridging to senior.
Iām ultimately saying that u18 (underage) and adult need to be decoupled.
I think u17 works best but wouldnāt mind If it was u18 as long as it was decoupled from adult teams.
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As far as I can see it all started from yearsā worth of columns by Colm OāRourke about burnout for young players, which permeated into a general narrative of āwe need to do somethingā.
This something became the brainwave to scrap under-18 and under-21, and to ban players at age grades from senior.
When what was needed was just a little bit more understanding on the part of various managers.
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How would a little more understanding work in practice?
Be a bit like self regulation I suspect.
Arsenal have a 15 year old playing for them.
In my world he canāt play minor hurling so.