Minor Championship 2022

Armaghball

Well-Known Member
Was talking to a young lad recently who would be a serious footballer, he reckoned part of the reason some of those schools had fallen back was that young lads would rather go and do a trade with the money on offer in the likes of Dublin than waste 2 years in school getting a qualification that is of no use to them.
 

Throwball

Well-Known Member
How can 2 schools be cyclical and 1 not? All these 3 schools have huge catchments areas but aren't performing at all! St Pats do seem to have a big problem though, dont seem to be competitive at any year group and havent been for some time, and there used to be 3 secondary schools in Armagh town!
Are you not answering your own question though.
I maybe more critical of St Pat's as I have watched them more often as they are my local school.
 

JoeH

Well-Known Member
Was talking to a young lad recently who would be a serious footballer, he reckoned part of the reason some of those schools had fallen back was that young lads would rather go and do a trade with the money on offer in the likes of Dublin than waste 2 years in school getting a qualification that is of no use to them.
Can't do a trade without going to school somewhere, Armagh Tec for example, and apprentices are not well paid.
So if they're going to get a trade fair play to them but the monies doesn't come on for at least 5-6 yrs.
Then they'll make the money.

The problem is at both levels, club and school.
Clubs are mostly interested in playing at lower levels to try and not lose games and schools don't have as many male teachers or the support coming to them from clubs or elsewhere to push them on
 

h754136

Active Member
Young lads preferring to do trades and the gender imbalances of school staff bodies are surely universal issues, so can't really be used to explain the specific issues in Armagh. In any case, St. Ronan's won an All Ireland four years ago and St. Paul's have made a couple of MacRory finals in the last decade, so maybe the performances of Armagh schools haven't been all that below par.

The county is also clearly still producing quality footballers. Our current senior panel is the most talented that has been assembled for about 15 years, and almost all of those lads have come through our clubs, schools, and development squads over the last decade or so.

I would suggest our terrible record at underage level since the turn of the 2010s has perhaps more to do with sub-standard management of teams at minor and U21/U20 throughout those years. We haven't had golden crops every year, but there's no doubt some very talented year groups passed through the system without making the impression that their abilities merited. Were the right men always in charge?
 

Rigby77

New Member
As I said on other page, time to get out and support these young lads on Saturday! Hopefully we can get a run in some of these underage competitions, it has been a while!
 

thecritic

Well-Known Member
That's a bit of a hiding alright. We just can't compete at underage level!! Fair play to the lads though - I'm sure they worked hard for the game and a great experience to represent their county at the top level.
 

Throwball

Well-Known Member
Black card in first half didn't help. Think Derry scored 3 goals during the sin bin period. Derry were the stronger team throughout in any case
 
Do we continue to pump serious money into this academy BS? Hughes needs to have a word with himself. His antics were nothing short of embarrassing.
 

Rigby77

New Member
Antics? What did he do?
Tbh the ref didn't do the lads any favours in 1st half. Gave 6 a very soft yellow which left him on edge marking their main man 11, and the black card had massive effect, but also didn't give frees which were obvious fouls on Armagh men. But overall Derry were still best team.
 
Antics? What did he do?
Tbh the ref didn't do the lads any favours in 1st half. Gave 6 a very soft yellow which left him on edge marking their main man 11, and the black card had massive effect, but also didn't give frees which were obvious fouls on Armagh men. But overall Derry were still best team.
Had the displeasure of sitting behind him most of game. Abuse he was giving officials was shocking. Embarrassing stuff.
 

Ard Mhacha 13

Well-Known Member
Antics? What did he do?
Tbh the ref didn't do the lads any favours in 1st half. Gave 6 a very soft yellow which left him on edge marking their main man 11, and the black card had massive effect, but also didn't give frees which were obvious fouls on Armagh men. But overall Derry were still best team.

There was also a blatant black card which should have been given to a Derry player but wasn't. I thought the referee was extremely poor, (he wasn't what lost us the match though) to me he looked off the pace of the game & at times he was running with his back to play. He gave us a lot of yellow cards which in truth I thought were harsh, a foul & a free yes but a card!! The standard of officials hasn't improved.
 

Rigby77

New Member
There was also a blatant black card which should have been given to a Derry player but wasn't. I thought the referee was extremely poor, (he wasn't what lost us the match though) to me he looked off the pace of the game & at times he was running with his back to play. He gave us a lot of yellow cards which in truth I thought were harsh, a foul & a free yes but a card!! The standard of officials hasn't improved.
He was very harsh on our boys in 1st half, most of the cards were farcical, and may not have affected the score they did affect how some lads cud tackle etc. Really poor. But again Derry were at a higher level
 

Rigby77

New Member
There was also a blatant black card which should have been given to a Derry player but wasn't. I thought the referee was extremely poor, (he wasn't what lost us the match though) to me he looked off the pace of the game & at times he was running with his back to play. He gave us a lot of yellow cards which in truth I thought were harsh, a foul & a free yes but a card!! The standard of officials hasn't improved.
I thought after the Armagh black he cud have easily given Derry 1 if not 2 blacks, but didn't even give frees. He was miles off the pace
 

Armagh52

Member
He was very harsh on our boys in 1st half, most of the cards were farcical, and may not have affected the score they did affect how some lads cud tackle etc. Really poor. But again Derry were at a higher level
Is this now our default position as a county? The referee was against us? Think we need we need to start looking inwards!
Derry were vastly superior to Armagh tonight in all the basics of the game. Very disappointing for those young lads, definitely deserve better.
 
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