Junior Football League 2020

Eireogatron

Well-Known Member
To be fair @Eireogatron the senior and intermediate only have 14 rounds so there's not a massive difference based on what @The Sideline Eye has posted. I was actually concerned that it was maybe half the way you were describing it and the sympathy levels were up. Even considered a boycott. Wasn't gonna go to half the games!!
12 games is bullshit. 14 games isn't enough either, how do you promote the games when most teams preseason training lasts LONGER than the league?!.

You say it's not much of a difference, it's 15% between junior and sen/inter. It's a 30+% difference on last year's junior League and if you go back 7 years it's a 46% reduction on the number of games in the 3 leagues. So yes, it is significant. Additionally some junior matches could be 13 a side this year.

HereWeGoAgain also raises a great point, the u19 games are all Fri/Sat/Sun now whereas minor was Mondays. So not only is it going to put a strain on them with senior commitments, they are also competing with soccer, weekend work etc as well. We are actively hamstringing ourselves here.

IMO of course..
 
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12 games is bullshit. 14 games isn't enough either, how do you promote the games when most teams preseason training lasts LONGER than the league?!.

You say it's not much of a difference, it's 15% between junior and sen/inter. It's a 30+% difference on last year's junior League and if you go back 7 years it's a 46% reduction on the number of games in the 3 leagues. So yes, it is significant. Additionally some junior matches could be 13 a side this year.

HereWeGoAgain also raises a great point, the u19 games are all Friday and Saturday now whereas minor was Mondays. So not only is it going to put a strain on them with senior commitments, they are also competing with soccer, weekend work etc as well. We are actively hamstringing ourselves here.

IMO of course..
Good point about the u19 fixtures. By playing those on a friday or a Saturday it gives less flexibility to clubs who may try to reschedule games to a different day that weekend.

What age grade now plays on a monday?
 

armaghlad

Active Member
Maybe I’m old fashioned and stuck in my ways but Gaelic football has changed dramatically in the last lock of years in terms of rules and age grades. Turning to shite if you ask me
 
Complaining about the amount of games is a pointless road to go down really. The only time to change anything is at the county convention and your club submitting a motion or recommendation. I for one welcome this change, each game is like a championship game for a start and there are no dead rubber games at the end of the year due to league positions being paramount to championship group draws. Just get on with it Eireogatron if you are a player, coach or spectator. By the way this is also IMO.
 

lumpitin

Active Member
Some clubs are more fortunate than others in terms of numbers. You will see yourself this year that many junior clubs are just about surviving at senior level with few if any subs on the bench. I feel the desire isn’t there in many areas to play Gaelic football in today’s society. Fixture list was far too congested in previous years with teams sometimes playing 4 games in 7 days. You might say ‘sure you would be training anyway’ - you wouldn’t be trying to get to a pitch up the county for 6pm for a 7pm throw in on a Wednesday evening and not getting home until after 10pm. Take a team with 3/4 games in 7 days who have a panel or 17 players. One or 2 get injured, one is on holidays. Your soon struggling to field. It’s the sad reality of it. The worst thing that would happen to the junior league is for more teams to fold resulting in even less fixtures
 
Some clubs are more fortunate than others in terms of numbers. You will see yourself this year that many junior clubs are just about surviving at senior level with few if any subs on the bench. I feel the desire isn’t there in many areas to play Gaelic football in today’s society. Fixture list was far too congested in previous years with teams sometimes playing 4 games in 7 days. You might say ‘sure you would be training anyway’ - you wouldn’t be trying to get to a pitch up the county for 6pm for a 7pm throw in on a Wednesday evening and not getting home until after 10pm. Take a team with 3/4 games in 7 days who have a panel or 17 players. One or 2 get injured, one is on holidays. Your soon struggling to field. It’s the sad reality of it. The worst thing that would happen to the junior league is for more teams to fold resulting in even less fixtures
I agree with this in the past but this isn't the case this year. There are just 12 games, no team has 2 fixtures in a week.
 

ShiftYa

Well-Known Member
While there may be issues with 3 games in one week, and clubs playing each other from across the county on a Wednesday night this is more down to planning than anything. I’ve yet to come across a player who’s said there is too many games in the season, the main complaint seems to be there’s not enough games.
 
While there may be issues with 3 games in one week, and clubs playing each other from across the county on a Wednesday night this is more down to planning than anything. I’ve yet to come across a player who’s said there is too many games in the season, the main complaint seems to be there’s not enough games.
There is no junior team with 3 fixtures in a week this year or a single junior game on a Wednesday night bar dual clubs or teams with reserve teams who know what they are getting into before a ball is kicked. Has anyone actually looked at the fixtures? They seem well spread out to me and just 2 games less than any other league. Clubs in the past complained about too many games in a short space of time, there will be games not played due to one reason or another but there are dates set aside for them refixtures when/if they arrive. Complaining just to complain.
 
I would imagine at this stage the league will not happen this year due to Coronavirus.

If a championship were to happen the following would make sense in terms of promotion and relegation.

There are 16 teams in senior and intermediate, 13 in junior.
4 groups of 4 in senior and intermediate as we have done the last 2 years, the 4 teams that finish bottom of their groups are drawn against each other for relegation play offs. 2 losers go down to intermediate and junior respectively for 2021. Junior championship runs as normal, same format as last 2 years but he finalists both get promoted to intermediate B, Same goes with the Intermediate finalists they would both get promoted to Senior B for 2021.

I know that it is early days but this could be a solution if it comes to it.
 

Eireogatron

Well-Known Member
Interesting idea.

While it certainly does look unlikely that the league will go ahead we do have a bit of time to play with, we could end up with a August/sept league with a couple of double weekends and straight into championship Oct/Nov.

Optimistic but you never know!
 
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TDgael

New Member
Only 12 league matches this year. What a shambles
Completely agree. Ever since they scrapped 4 divisions in 2012 and started to link the league with championship it's become more and more of a shambles.
Have 4 divisions, home and away fixtures, and if they really want to link it to the championship then add a Junior B if necessary for division 4. And of course have championship as straight knock out, played at neutral venues. Can't help but feel it's gone backwards over the past decade.
 

armaghlad

Active Member
Completely agree. Ever since they scrapped 4 divisions in 2012 and started to link the league with championship it's become more and more of a shambles.
Have 4 divisions, home and away fixtures, and if they really want to link it to the championship then add a Junior B if necessary for division 4. And of course have championship as straight knock out, played at neutral venues. Can't help but feel it's gone backwards over the past decade.
Nah. Ask annaghmore or forkhill. The sideline eye did two features on these clubs and their rise to division 1 football. For that alone I will always support the leagues as they are.
Agree with straight knockout.
 

TDgael

New Member
Nah. Ask annaghmore or forkhill. The sideline eye did two features on these clubs and their rise to division 1 football. For that alone I will always support the leagues as they are.
Agree with straight knockout.
I get what you're saying but the leagues were different when Forkhill made their jump up the divisions. They won Junior A in 2013 and got promoted to senior a year later. In the current set up that wouldn't be possible with the intermediate divisions now split. Also, they were denied a crack at winning the junior championship despite not having won it. The same goes for the intermediate the following year. They found themselves playing senior championship in 2015 even though they weren't able to win the junior 2 years beforehand. I don't like that system. Championships mean a lot to clubs and I've no doubt that a lot of the lads involved with Forkhill at the time would swap climbing the divisions for a championship medal, whether it be junior or intermediate. Yes, they managed to play a couple of years in division 1 but the only medal they have from that time is the Junior A league.
Annaghmore won a Junior championship in 2013 but they hadn't been in the bottom division of the league for years before that. The issue there is that they had been allowed to re grade in 2010 as they were a division 3 team.
 
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ShiftYa

Well-Known Member
I get what you're saying but the leagues were different when Forkhill made their jump up the divisions. They won Junior A in 2013 and got promoted to senior a year later. In the current set up that wouldn't be possible with the intermediate divisions now split. Also, they were denied a crack at winning the junior championship despite not winning it. Annaghmore won a Junior championship in 2013 but they hadn't been in the bottom division of the league for years before that.
The year annaghmore won the junior they also got promoted to division 1.
 
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