What can non traditional hurling counties do to improve?

Im actually looking at this with view to my own county at present also.

Many many initiatives have taken place down the years, to help these counties, no doubt the christy ring, nicky rackard and lory meagher cups have been evidently successful in bringing on carlow, westmeath, sligo, armagh and possibly tyrone (look like they slipping this year though) but now we find ourselves in a position whereby we are holding up the progression again, one thing for me was the removal of the crc and nrc finals on the telly, a total joke in my eyes as surely the idea was not simply to give the boys from armagh or sligo hurling a run out in croke park, i thought it would have been about showing live pictures back into these counties of their elite hurlers representing them on the biggest stage.

But where now? one would be to fit these games into a proper schedule and get them back on live telly to promote them, and possibly more matches on the telly, ie semi finals. Did the move away from group stages to simply knock out comps help? not in my eyes it didnt, they need to create a sheild or back door for the teams who dont win the first round. The fact that they blocked the promotion of westmeath, carlow and sligo to promotion into the higher tiers as they made them play a play off against a team who spent the year playing higher opposition, ie carlow played laois. They need to look for some form of sponsorship which in turn should be invested into the county hurling set up in these counties. The formation of the minor a,b and c all irelands is coming into good use and will help also, as will the all ireland b u21. But these counties will need developed and croke park need more coaches to coach the coaches in these counties, i believe in football liam bradley is proving in antrim at the minute that the standard of the coach can reflect on the county as a whole.

Please discuss and debate?

Both NRC and CRC and LMC should be rotated and each shouls be played on the AI final day and AI semi final days. Look at croker never full for all ireland semis any more. Agree with you NSG

JimWexford wrote:Both NRC and CRC and LMC should be rotated and each shouls be played on the AI final day and AI semi final days. Look at croker never full for all ireland semis any more. Agree with you NSG

makes a big change jim, wen i seen youd posted i was like ffs here we go lol

I think Derry are doing fairly well in the Hurling, Liam will be hanging from the oak trees in September

up.the.oak.trees wrote:I think Derry are doing fairly well in the Hurling, Liam will be hanging from the oak trees in September

ya mean christy? lol

up.the.oak.trees wrote:I think Derry are doing fairly well in the Hurling, Liam will be hanging from the oak trees in September

must be Liam Hinphey your on about

I posted this a few months ago:

"I think the problems lie with their underage hurling structures and also to do with the fact that there are just not enough children playing hurling in that county to produce a good hurling team.

Just take this for example in Galway this year 46 clubs played minor hurling thats at least 700 players. Then look at Laois just 14 clubs played minor hurling and at least 210 players and then Laois are expected to put it up to the likes of Galway and Kilkenny. There are simply not enough players playing hurling to be able to compete at a high level."

Perhaps the amalgamation of certain county teams into regional sides would be more beneficial for the development of hurling? Many clubs amalgamate across the country for certain competitions, why not counties as well?

Clash points out that Laois have 14 clubs participating at minor level, Westmeath and Offaly have roughly the same amount of clubs participating too, All 3 together
would provide a larger player pool than Galway. A Midlands combination
could prove to be a good team for Hurling, the same goes for a 'rest of
Connacht' team or All Ulster side etc...

Maybe this concept could work as unlike the current system as any good hurler has the motivation of one day the potential to play at the top level.

'Go on the Midlands' would be hard to sell though. Would anyone follow a regional team?

Thoughts?

The Railway Cup would suggest that a team made up of 2 or more counties would attract poor support but if the team was to be fairly succesful I can see people from these counties following them. I'm not sure Offaly would like to be part of it though as they would proabably see themselves as a strong hurling county. County rivalry and stubbornness would more than likely prevent a team like this from ever forming.

clash-of-da-ash wrote:The Railway Cup would suggest that a team made up of 2 or more counties would attract poor support but if the team was to be fairly succesful I can see people from these counties following them. I'm not sure Offaly would like to be part of it though as they would proabably see themselves as a strong hurling county. County rivalry and stubbornness would more than likely prevent a team like this from ever forming.

we beat them well in the minor last year, so they're not too strong!

Its all fair and well saying that we need or westmeath need more minors, how do you promote a game to kids where the seniors win nothing they will be footballers by they are 16.

We need to find a way of sprucing up the senior set up to get counties participating on a level they can, maybe top 16 into knock out stages, with a back door, the losers of the first round of the back door go into a knock out sheild, this would provide the likes of antrim, laois, westmeath, down, carlow with a comp they can win while gaining experience the same year from playing the top dogs.

This would let kids see their county in the big set up, winning rather than getting trounced!

Clubs have a lot of responsibility here too, my club spent years as the laughing stock of Derry hurling, then we got a man from Cushendall in to coach our Seniors, coaches and under 12 and 14 teams. He managed our Seniors until we were out of the Championship (pretty short season for him) then he devoted his time to giving our coaches tips in how to develop youth hurling and mentored them using the U-12 and U-14s.

While he was coaching the Seniors all us coaches picked up some brilliant tips from him, a lot of which i still use today and i've managed some rubbish teams to win Championships (some had no right getting to the final!!)

As a result our club is now one of the strongest in Derry, we won the Ulster Division 2 Hurling League and are a whisker away from being Derry Champions. We are now seen as a yardstick for developing clubs, we had a team but no winning tradition, like Dunloy pre 1990s, and when they eventually do win the Derry Championship we'll be able to say that it can be done, you can develop something from nothing, but you have to spend the money at the right places!

The U-12s and U-14s only had a senior team of pretty weak standard to look up to, but as a Down man once said to me, "it doesn't matter what sort of a team you are, there will always be someone willing to take your place on it".

Development of the less traditional hurling counties can only be done by bringing in coaches to work at youth level and to coach the coaches. Too many hurling teams and counties are throwing money away with big name coaches at Senior level when in reality these players won't develop much more, if at all!