A B C and D Teams

Gallylayo

Does anyone know if there are guidlines or a code for A, B, C, etc teams. Should the A team be all the strong players then the next strongest in the B team etc. Or as a C or D team develops should you be looking to get rid of the good players to the A and B teams, or retain them so the team remains competitive?

keane2097

Gallylayo wrote: »

Does anyone know if there are guidlines or a code for A, B, C, etc teams. Should the A team be all the strong players then the next strongest in the B team etc. Or as a C or D team develops should you be looking to get rid of the good players to the A and B teams, or retain them so the team remains competitive?

All teams should be feeders into the first team, so if a player on the D team is good enough to be playing C football he should be moved up to get closer to A level imo.

For any club with a senior team, winning a novice competition is pretty much meaningless so I would be extremely reluctant to stunt a player's development by keeping him in the D team to keep that team competitive when he is capable of playing to a higher level.

Floppybits

To me the strongest players should be in the A team and then next in the B team and so on. Also it should be a 2 way street that if a guy on the D is good enough for the C team then he should be promoted and a player demoted. This way you can encourage competition. What I dont like to see and it does happen a bit in the Junior Leagues in Dublin is seeing players from the A or B team dropping down to the C team or D just to win a competition at the expense of players that have been going out week in week out. :mad:

Gallylayo

I agree with all that. I suppose its a matter of balance. I believe, sometimes a strong player in the D team can help boost the confidence and skill of the whole team. A team will quickly be demoralised if they are slaughtered everyweek and players with potential will drift off to other sports. But maybe thats the way it has to be!

Thanks

LeoB

Depends on whether we are talking adult or juvenile.

At adult level my club has 3 teams. As far as possible the best players are on the "A" Senior team. However we have lads on 2nd and 3rd team who just cant or wont give the commitment to training and games others can. Their fitness levels would be quite low and they would be torn apart at Senior level in Dublin they know this so play away with other teams. Quite often their experience can be vital to developing young lads as our club have found out. We aim always to have our top 15 players on Senior panel then we look at who should be on it. Some lads who cant train 3 nights a week due to collage will try and get fixed up with a club to train with. They will be driven to play Senior and we would know this. They are home every weekend to train or play. We have 1 lad on our 3rd team who is so talented very skillful great ability all up through juvenile, but he just very laid back. He is quite happy and enjoys being around the lads. He is good with kids moving into adult teams so in other ways is vital to us.

Agree fully with floppybits about players dropping down just to win and other lads left on the line. That sickens me.

At Juvenile level the most important way to go is have teams of equal strength. It is all about developing skills altough quite a few Dublin clubs only appear interested in winning.

hurler_87

always have and always will agree that the A team should consist of the best 18-20 players available of the club, and B team should have the next best 18-20 players available to them, and so on so forth...

Every club should be aiming to win Senior or Inter Championship (whichever team is the top level)...

In our club, they had a terrible habit of overplaying lads between 16-18 years old lads between the Inter and Junior teams, and this had a knock on affect as these lads would be senior standard (just too young to either put in the hours of senior training (as they'd be play minor club, school and county hurling)), therefore taking the place of an older lad! And then the lads getting pushed aside started to give up and drift away, and the club went from having 5 teams to three teams due to over-reliance in these young lads.

If clubs focused on getting the best players available for the first team, then the second team, third team etc it'd be much better!

And I've seen this sort of things happen in many clubs around dublin!

Deise Tom

Gallylayo wrote: »

Does anyone know if there are guidlines or a code for A, B, C, etc teams. Should the A team be all the strong players then the next strongest in the B team etc. Or as a C or D team develops should you be looking to get rid of the good players to the A and B teams, or retain them so the team remains competitive?

It should be the aim of every player to play as high a grade as possible. Lower grades should be kept for weeker players, for blooding young players and to allow older players an avenue of playing for as long as they want to.

Deise Tom

Floppybits wrote: »

To me the strongest players should be in the A team and then next in the B team and so on. Also it should be a 2 way street that if a guy on the D is good enough for the C team then he should be promoted and a player demoted. This way you can encourage competition. What I dont like to see and it does happen a bit in the Junior Leagues in Dublin is seeing players from the A or B team dropping down to the C team or D just to win a competition at the expense of players that have been going out week in week out. :mad:

Is there a player grading done in every county which stops clubs dropping players down the grades to win a competition. I know down here a club can re-grade i think its seven players that can drop one grade each year, who can be moved up again if needed, but if they play at the higher level they cannot drop down again in a championship, but there would be no such restriction in a league.

Gallylayo

I was talkin about juvenile players! I agree at senior level that the strongest should be on the A team etc. I agree with LeoB that there should be a good mix amongst the teams at juvenile level, but making sure a player is not too strong on a team that they dominate and don't allow the others participate.

Its a pity that some teams view winning as more important than development. As players age they can move away from a club as other sports take their fancy. The challenge for every club is to keep it interesting for as many players as possible. Then there will be a bigger pool of players at senior level and more competition for places.

Deise Tom

If a motion before congress which states that under 12 competitions etc are restricted to teams of 11 a side comes in, then it will make the chopping and changing of players from different grades all the more the norm. The G.A. tell us they want to take the competition out of the games for underage players but this will never happen. If as they want teams are 11 a side and they also want players to get the maximum amout of time on the field in each game it will mean that panels will have 13 or 14 players max, meaning more b,c,d teams will be set up and if these teams are going well, mentors will have no problem pulling a player from the a team to play in the b team etc so that they can win.

keane2097

Gallylayo wrote: »

I was talkin about juvenile players! I agree at senior level that the strongest should be on the A team etc. I agree with LeoB that there should be a good mix amongst the teams at juvenile level, but making sure a player is not too strong on a team that they dominate and don't allow the others participate.

Its a pity that some teams view winning as more important than development. As players age they can move away from a club as other sports take their fancy. The challenge for every club is to keep it interesting for as many players as possible. Then there will be a bigger pool of players at senior level and more competition for places.

At juveile level I think the best bet would to have teams of equal abilities as far as possible.

The worst players are not going to improve by playing amongst themselves -they need to be developed by playing with better players.

Organising blitzes with this type of philosophy as part of the expressed mission statemnt would be a way to develop players outside of traditional competitions where other clubs might be going all out to win...

Floppybits

Deise Tom wrote: »

Is there a player grading done in every county which stops clubs dropping players down the grades to win a competition. I know down here a club can re-grade i think its seven players that can drop one grade each year, who can be moved up again if needed, but if they play at the higher level they cannot drop down again in a championship, but there would be no such restriction in a league.

There is some player grading done but I think this mainly around championship games, like if you play in the senior championship, you cant play in the Inter or Juniour championship, but I maybe wrong on this. This still doesn't stop clubs from lining out players from the A teams on the other teams. I think this only stops the well known players from lining out for lower teams.