Christy Ring/Nicky Rackard/Lory Meagher Cups 2013

Kerrydude1981

So the lower tier championships kick off today

Christy Ring

Down V Kerry
Derry V Wicklow
Meath V Armagh
Kildare V Mayo

Nicky Rackard

Tyrone V Louth
Roscommon V Sligo

Lory Meagher

Leitrim V Fermanagh
Warrickshire V Longford

Looking at my own counties Championship the Christy Ring Cup is a competition we should be winning this year,have a tough start away to Down today but we should be good enough to get a win,I think Meath could be the dark horses this year so il say it will be a Kerry and Meath final.

KevIRL

The way the GAA have treated these competitions is nothing short of a disgrace. When the HDC recommended they be set up they included a recommendation that the finals be played as curtain raisers to All Ireland QF's/SF's and have TV exposure. This was done for the first few years and it was great, players got a chance to play on a big day in Croker and the games were televised, fantastic exposure and if continued would have helped grow the game in these counties. Now it seems like the aim is to get them over as quickly and as early as possible with the minimum of fuss and fanfare. There is absolutely no long term thinking within the organisation hierarchy it seems

Had to get that rant off my chest, in terms of the competition, Meath looked strong in the league alright and I think you could be right with your prediction of a Meath Kerry final in the Ring Cup, fancy Roscommon for the Rackard and Longford for the Meagher

Kerrydude1981

KevIRL wrote: »

The way the GAA have treated these competitions is nothing short of a disgrace. When the HDC recommended they be set up they included a recommendation that the finals be played as curtain raisers to All Ireland QF's/SF's and have TV exposure. This was done for the first few years and it was great, players got a chance to play on a big day in Croker and the games were televised, fantastic exposure and if continued would have helped grow the game in these counties. Now it seems like the aim is to get them over as quickly and as early as possible with the minimum of fuss and fanfare. There is absolutely no long term thinking within the organisation hierarchy it seems

Had to get that rant off my chest, in terms of the competition, Meath looked strong in the league alright and I think you could be right with your prediction of a Meath Kerry final in the Ring Cup, fancy Roscommon for the Rackard and Longford for the Meagher

Ya,its pretty sad the way these competitions are treated,no respect to the great men the Cups are named after or the players involved,they train just as hard as the top tier teams.

I remember when they started these competitions I thought it would be great to see Kerry playing in Croke Park before one of the big games and on TV as well,but when we won it, it got a 3 minute report on The Sunday Game and was played in a near empty Croke Park.

Hammer Archer

Ridiculous that they're done with by the end of June. It's disgraceful how poorly teams that aren't in Liam McCarthy are treated by the GAA. It's basically like they're afterthoughts.

Anyway, I'd hope we can put the disappointment of the league behind us and at least make the final. Don;t think we've ever made the Christy Ring final before.
Think Kerry will do it in the Christy Ring. Roscommon for the Nicky Rackard and Fermanagh for the Lory Meagher.

hould on hey

I'm a county man from a lower tier championship aswell And I Will probably play fr My county next year, howevver its pointless putting in The effort To get No reward from or respect from The gaa or media for it.
Give respect get respect is a total joke of a slogan
I Love My county And our football And hurling team but being constantly pshed aside toalet The kilkennys And dublins steal The show in hurling And football really puts a downer on it for a lot of us

Rant over! Good luck To everybody compeeting or going out To support their countyand club in The 13 championship

sataction

Saw two newspapers today, Independent gave decent coverage of the games. Daily Mirror no coverage atall, but then they had to give a page to the match between Wrexham and Newport County.

Kerrydude1981

I think Tom Howard has hit the nail on the head here,re the Christy Ring competition,its supposed to be the second tier competition but its not really I would say the teams playing in it would be 3rd or 4th tier teams.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/hurling/bridging-the-gap-the-crux-for-hurlings-second-tier-teams-230501.html

legendary.xix

From next year, 10 counties will be protected. The next five will go into a provincial qualifying group. This effectively puts the Ring competition third tier below the qualifying group.

As the GAA have moved to protect 10 counties, I think all other counties should enter an All-Ireland B competition. It would be beneficial for the top Christy Ring teams to get some competitive games against the counties just outside the "protected 10".

Kerrydude1981

Semi Final Results

Kerry 1-14 Kildare 1-11

Meath 1-25 Down 2-22 (after extra time)

Our lads had to work hard for the win today and could count themselves lucky to be in the final,Kildare who had put up decent scores in the past few weeks created a pile of scoring chances but missed them,id say they missed 2-10 altogether as they had a penalty in the first minute of the game which was also missed.

Looking at the other semi Kerry will have to tighten up for the final because if they give away the amount of chances they did today then it is really going to be a tough day out in Croke Park

Hammer Archer

Gutted we couldn't get the win in Trim today. Two points up at half time in extra time gave us something to hold on to but two atrocious refereeing decisions early in the second half meant the teams were level again. All through the game the referee made some completely baffling decisions so hopefully it's a different referee next weekend. Even still, should have put the game game to bed but some of our players got a rush of blood to the head when in scoring positions.

Fantastic game though.

legendary.xix

Semi-finals are not easy and Kerry got through it. It's great to be back in another Ring final. Going to be tough against who comes out of the other semi-final. Meath have been going well all year while Down have been their most impressive that I can recall since the Ring Cup begun.

lala88

Not a word on The Sunday about any of the games. Complete joke

Kerrydude1981

lala88 wrote: »

Not a word on The Sunday about any of the games. Complete joke

Ya,cant understand why they don't show any footage from any of the games,its alright to show highlights from first round Leinster Championship games with the likes of Carlow and Westmeath playing in them.

RTE having the wrong scoreline for the Kerry game on their website on Saturday says it all really.

Maybe their trying if we don't report on it the competitions might go away approach.

InchicoreDude

Kerrydude1981 wrote: »

I think Tom Howard has hit the nail on the head here,re the Christy Ring competition,its supposed to be the second tier competition but its not really I would say the teams playing in it would be 3rd or 4th tier teams.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/hurling/bridging-the-gap-the-crux-for-hurlings-second-tier-teams-230501.html

I disagree with the following though:

“They could possibly beef up the Christy Ring, which I think there are plans to do.
“There are four or five teams who are competing in the Leinster championship, whom in my opinion, clearly are not really good enough to compete for honours.

There are very few competitions where every team in it is capable of competing for honours. In the football championship for example, should Leitrim not compete because they wont compete for honours?

Also, a few years back, I think it was Westmeath who won the Christy Ring and the GAA were threatening not to allow them compete in the Leinster championship. I think it was around the time Galway were being proposed being introduced. Well, Westmeath went up in arms over that. And rightly so. They had won the right to compete in the Liam McCarthy.

I just found this link while I was looking up about this:

http://www.westmeathindependent.ie/news/roundup/articles/2008/12/23/34369-westmeath-clubs-call-for-automatic-promotion-for-christy-ring-winners/print

Here, Westmeath say that there should be an incentive to win the Christy Ring and that getting into the Liam McCarthy provides that incentive. I tend to agree with this. I like the current structure where the likes of Westmeths Carlow Antrim etc. are playing each other in preliminary games before they come against the likes of Galway & Kilkenny.

I'd love to see Christy Ring games being played as curtain raisers for bigger provinical matches though. And the finals should absolutely be in Croke Park.

legendary.xix

Antrim, Laois, Westmeath and Carlow agreed to the motion in congress that has protected 10 counties and will see 5 enter a qualifying group. The 5 team group of Antrim, Laois, Westmeath, Carlow and London will only consist of 3 in 2015. 2 teams will have been dropped to the Christy Ring with the Ring winner in '15 taking on the team finishing 3rd in the 3 team group in a promotion/relegation play-off.

In fairness, if any competition has promotion only without relegation, a competition will be weakened. This is what happened in the Christy Ring. Kerry were well aware of the gap between Ring and Munster championship when they won the Ring two years ago. The Ring Cup wasn't as competitive as it had been the few years previous to it when you had Carlow and Westmeath in it.

Stevecw

A place in the qualifiers for Christy Ring winners should def be brought in. CR gets no tv coverage or any notice these days.
Some good games at that level, i'm sure the Meath/Down game wud have given 10 mins good highlights for the Sunday Game last nite, instead of them doing a preview of a championship which started about 3 weeks ago!

legendary.xix

Stevecw wrote: »

A place in the qualifiers for Christy Ring winners should def be brought in. CR gets no tv coverage or any notice these days.
Some good games at that level, i'm sure the Meath/Down game wud have given 10 mins good highlights for the Sunday Game last nite, instead of them doing a preview of a championship which started about 3 weeks ago!

I'd have agreed with that as well. If the GAA felt team's were coming up from the Christy Ring but aren't ready for that level, they could have allowed the Ring Cup winner into the qualifiers. If they got to a certain stage then like the round before the quarter-finals, allow them promotion to a provincial championship.

The provincial qualifier group isn't a bad idea though. It's an acknowledgement that there is a small intermediary group. It's important to have the right balance between the top counties, that group and then the Ring Cup.

Kerrydude1981

So two finals been played this Saturday in Croke Park

Christy Ring

Kerry V Down

Nicky Rackard

Donegal V Roscommon

legendary.xix

Down have been having a good championship since their first round defeat to Kerry. Kerry have been the form team of the non-McCarthy Cup teams all year. Kerry were the best place Ring team in the league. Kerry were the only county in the whole hurling league to win 4 games and not make a divisional final.

It's disappointing that Saturday is the end of the hurling season for lower tier counties. I believe that to be wrong. The better Ring counties, i.e. the 4 Ring Cup semi-finalists, at the very least should enter a competition in June-July including the likes of Antrim, Laois, Carlow and Westmeath, something along the lines of being a B All-Ireland / intermediary competition between the lower McCarthy Cup and higher Ring Cup teams.

Good luck to Kerry on Sunday.

Roscommon, like Down, are having one of their better lower tier seasons. They were brave enough years back to contest Connaught finals and like Down, would've been one of the counties expected to do well in the lower tiers and progress further.

Hammer Archer

I haven't seen Kerry play this year but I wouldn't think they'll have much trouble against Down to be honest.
I was in Ballycran on Saturday and we left the game behind us. In the first half, we played against a strong breeze and up a steep hill. Even with some bad wides we were only 3 points down at half time.
I've no idea what happened in the second half though as we scored one point in the first 20 minutes and Down ran away with it. I didn't think Down were especially good, it's just we didn't come out of the dressing room for the last 35 minutes.

So long as Kerry can put the shackles on Down's giant of a full forward, they should have enough to win. The two week break as opposed to Down's 6th game in 6 weeks should stand to them as well.

legendary.xix

If the break does help, Kerry earned it by winning all games so far. One advantage that is in the CR system when games are played every week, the Round 2A winners benefit from a week off.

DEFTLEFTHAND

The Christy Ring should be held back and played during late summer with the final taking place in CP before the AI final.

Kerrydude1981

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

The Christy Ring should be held back and played during late summer with the final taking place in CP before the AI final.

Or even an All Ireland Semi Final,I think the players would be delighted with that

Former GAA President Sean Kelly had an interview in The Kerryman a few weeks back,he said he would like to see the competitions be run off as they were intended to,like the first few years of the Christy Ring Cup was played during the summer months with the final taking place in August before an All Ireland Semi.

The finals got a mention on Championship Matters,they make out the winners of the Christy Ring should be allowed into the qualifiers,wouldn't be a bad idea,Kerry or Down would relish the chance of a shot at the likes of Carlow,Westmeath and Antrim.

Lome

Whos the 3rd game?

Kerrydude1981

Lome wrote: »

Whos the 3rd game?

It should be the Lory Meagher final,but cant seem to find anything on the GAA website about who is in the final its not on the fixture list for the weekend,which is strange

Didn't know Leitrim pulled out of it to save money

http://www.independent.ie/sport/hurling/leitrim-pull-out-of-warwickshire-trip-to-spend-costs-on-local-hurling-29273767.html

Hammer Archer

Longford and Warwickshire are in the Lory Meagher Cup final. Really shows how much the GAA cares about the competition that they don't even have it in their fixture list.
Leitrim pulled out before their last game to save themselves travelling to Birmingham.

InchicoreDude

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

The Christy Ring should be held back and played during late summer with the final taking place in CP before the AI final.

Why are they played so early now? What is the reasoning behind it?

Kerrydude1981

InchicoreDude wrote: »

Why are they played so early now? What is the reasoning behind it?

Get them out of the way early and free up the fixture list so the big teams can have it all to themselves.

Is all about the teams that bring people in the gates so the GAA haven't much time for the lower tier teams competitions.

homerjay2005

kerry in their 3rd final in 4 years, hopefully we can bring home a second title.

one thing here, i dont think we should be in the Munster Championship, win or lose. however, i do think the winners of the Christy Ring Cup (especially given the fact that it is over so soon), should be allowed to enter the Senior Qualifiers.

that surely offers more incentive for teams. agree about the TV thing though, this game should be played before the Leinster final or a Galway V Kilkenny game for example in Croke Park.

lala88

The GAA dont care about them yet will still charge €25 a ticket! Bit steep i think for what they class as second rate

InchicoreDude

Kerrydude1981 wrote: »

Get them out of the way early and free up the fixture list so the big teams can have it all to themselves.

Is all about the teams that bring people in the gates so the GAA haven't much time for the lower tier teams competitions.

But how do they get in the way of the bigger games???? I doubt anybody going to a Donegal hurling match wont go because they will go to see Kilkenny instead - Am I missing something?