Ulster Championship 2023

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Wide ball

Well-Known Member
Peter grimes said:
Constructive.

Underage success is completely overrated. That said the natural order of things would be that we should have a moderately successful team now and again. I accept that we do seem to be operating below average for a while now but imho the measure of underage structures is not in silverware.

You could harvest silverware with a Jim McGuinness style set up. You wouldn’t develop any footballers though and many of the lads would be disillusioned with the game by the time they were in their projected prime.

Our underage structures are not achieving wins. Our club game is as poor as it’s been in a long time. Yet in all our senior panel is as deep as it probably ever been (our very best players may not be as strong as our greatest ever sides but our panel depth is the best I have seen).

I would like more underage success.

I would like a stronger club game up to and including more/some/any Ulster club victories but not at all cost. It’s more important that we produce footballers than winners. You can make a winner out of a footballer a lot easier that trying to make a footballer out of pre-programmed winner.
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I do get your point but a winning mentality is important too and getting slapped the whole way through underage is hardly helpful, when you see Sligo, rosscommon, Offaly, Monaghan, down all doing stuff at underage while we do very little, I dunno what has changed because up until 2015 we did ok underage, although I think having the senior team playing better and doing well will obviously inspire more young ones to play, I do notice more ones round our way playing since last year
 
T

thecritic

Well-Known Member
Peter grimes said:
Constructive.

Underage success is completely overrated. That said the natural order of things would be that we should have a moderately successful team now and again. I accept that we do seem to be operating below average for a while now but imho the measure of underage structures is not in silverware.

You could harvest silverware with a Jim McGuinness style set up. You wouldn’t develop any footballers though and many of the lads would be disillusioned with the game by the time they were in their projected prime.

Our underage structures are not achieving wins. Our club game is as poor as it’s been in a long time. Yet in all our senior panel is as deep as it probably ever been (our very best players may not be as strong as our greatest ever sides but our panel depth is the best I have seen).

I would like more underage success.

I would like a stronger club game up to and including more/some/any Ulster club victories but not at all cost. It’s more important that we produce footballers than winners. You can make a winner out of a footballer a lot easier that trying to make a footballer out of pre-programmed winner.
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Our underage results have been abysmal over the last 10-15 years. Look at the success Tyrone and Monaghan seniors have had in that time with strong underage set-ups.
 
S

Smallball

Active Member
Are we actually getting our best underage players playing for the county teams or are we too focused on those took into the orchard academy at 14s and 16s and making a team from them boys rather than actually watching our clubs play and looking for the best players that particular year?
 
T

thecritic

Well-Known Member
Smallball said:
Are we actually getting our best underage players playing for the county teams or are we too focused on those took into the orchard academy at 14s and 16s and making a team from them boys rather than actually watching our clubs play and looking for the best players that particular year?
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Surely that cannot be the case??
 
A

Armamike

Active Member
Peter grimes said:
Constructive.

Underage success is completely overrated. That said the natural order of things would be that we should have a moderately successful team now and again. I accept that we do seem to be operating below average for a while now but imho the measure of underage structures is not in silverware.

You could harvest silverware with a Jim McGuinness style set up. You wouldn’t develop any footballers though and many of the lads would be disillusioned with the game by the time they were in their projected prime.

Our underage structures are not achieving wins. Our club game is as poor as it’s been in a long time. Yet in all our senior panel is as deep as it probably ever been (our very best players may not be as strong as our greatest ever sides but our panel depth is the best I have seen).

I would like more underage success.

I would like a stronger club game up to and including more/some/any Ulster club victories but not at all cost. It’s more important that we produce footballers than winners. You can make a winner out of a footballer a lot easier that trying to make a footballer out of pre-programmed winner.
Click to expand...
There's a lot in what you say about developing footballers rather than robots, but in general success at senior level is connected to underage performance. Think of any successful senior team and I'd think there's one or two successful underage teams (provincial or AI level) in the previous decade that produced a number of the team. For me the interesting question is why there has been such a drop off at underage in the past 10 years. Things were looking good up to the early noughties, then a massive drop off. We were producing quality footballers too, not robots. Regardless of getting to Div 1 and producing some great footballing displays in patches over the past couple of years, Armagh haven't made any progress in the Ulster championship (maybe that will change this year) and I wouldn't be surprised by that given the lack of underage success.
 
W

Wide ball

Well-Known Member
Armamike said:
There's a lot in what you say about developing footballers rather than robots, but in general success at senior level is connected to underage performance. Think of any successful senior team and I'd think there's one or two successful underage teams (provincial or AI level) in the previous decade that produced a number of the team. For me the interesting question is why there has been such a drop off at underage in the past 10 years. Things were looking good up to the early noughties, then a massive drop off. We were producing quality footballers too, not robots. Regardless of getting to Div 1 and producing some great footballing displays in patches over the past couple of years, Armagh haven't made any progress in the Ulster championship (maybe that will change this year) and I wouldn't be surprised by that given the lack of underage success.
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100% underage makes a big impact on senior team, under 20 is more important because they are close to senior, are drop off from last 7/8 years is a disgrace, we got to one final in Ulster in this time at under 20 level and where well beaten and we have about 6 or 7 players from that team in our seniors. It really does need a overhaul, when you can't beat Antrim at underage level it isn't good
 
P

Peter grimes

Well-Known Member
Armamike said:
There's a lot in what you say about developing footballers rather than robots, but in general success at senior level is connected to underage performance. Think of any successful senior team and I'd think there's one or two successful underage teams (provincial or AI level) in the previous decade that produced a number of the team. For me the interesting question is why there has been such a drop off at underage in the past 10 years. Things were looking good up to the early noughties, then a massive drop off. We were producing quality footballers too, not robots. Regardless of getting to Div 1 and producing some great footballing displays in patches over the past couple of years, Armagh haven't made any progress in the Ulster championship (maybe that will change this year) and I wouldn't be surprised by that given the lack of underage success.
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If you want to see it that way you can but it could also be the old argument of correlation vs causation.

Counties with large playing populations and a history of success will tend to perpetuate that success. Those natural advantages that apply at senior level also apply at underage level. There is the correlation. That is not the same as causation. Other counties that have produced strong underage teams and sometimes successive strong teams have not had the senior success that they would have enjoyed if it was really causation.

The senior set up needs an intake of 2-3 quality players per year. If your underage system is producing that then it’s working. Whether you are winning things at underage level depends on the supporting cast of players (most of which won’t be remotely close to senior standard) and the tactics deployed (which could actually be counter-productive to senior success).

A county our size needs to focus on producing footballers. It’s then up to the senior set up to mould that into a winning team.
 
A

Armamike

Active Member
Peter grimes said:
If you want to see it that way you can but it could also be the old argument of correlation vs causation.

Counties with large playing populations and a history of success will tend to perpetuate that success. Those natural advantages that apply at senior level also apply at underage level. There is the correlation. That is not the same as causation. Other counties that have produced strong underage teams and sometimes successive strong teams have not had the senior success that they would have enjoyed if it was really causation.

The senior set up needs an intake of 2-3 quality players per year. If your underage system is producing that then it’s working. Whether you are winning things at underage level depends on the supporting cast of players (most of which won’t be remotely close to senior standard) and the tactics deployed (which could actually be counter-productive to senior success).

A county our size needs to focus on producing footballers. It’s then up to the senior set up to mould that into a winning team.
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Correlation, causation or even 'effect' :p Who knows. All I know is I can't think of too many counties who have had senior success without some success at underage. There may be exceptions to that but none spring to mind at the minute.
 
R

Revenge

Member
Brilliant to see young O'Hanlon for Monahan taking on his man and score a goal one way to break the mass defense our boys need to take note.
 
P

Peter grimes

Well-Known Member
2 incredible decisions by Monaghan. The last Tyrone equaliser came from Monaghan conceding the short kick out and running back passively given Tyrone a chance which then ended up in a simple free. Suicidal stuff.

But back they came and the O’Toole’s decision to go goal was death or glory stuff. He misses that more often and not and it’s all regret and recriminations. Not today though
 
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