The Official Cavan GAA Discussion thread.

Do Ramor keep within their own club area for their players!? Are there players in their immediate area would improve them if there was less clubs? Of course there is.

Also, if the competition from other clubs was better because they’d have a better pick, would Ramor or Crosserlough be winning the championship? The point is it’d raise the standard across the board to have the amount of clubs we should actually have.

The obvious thing (in my opinion) is to go to a more streamlined championship structure. 10 senior, 10 intermediate, 10 junior and the remaining 8 in a junior shield.

There are too many teams in Senior and their sole annual aim is to win one game to stay up. I don't think they would even compete in intermediate to be honest. There are better teams in intermediate who are stuck (Cucus for example) on the basis that they meet a strong team and don't win intermediate. Ballyhaise a good example of that- easily a top 8 senior team but took years to get out of intermediate.

A 10 team intermediate would be brutually competitive and a team 10 junior equally so.

It's not that we have too many teams, it is how they are distributed to make for really competitive championship structures. Too many senior games allow the bigger teams to coast until they hit the knock out stages which means they are playing close to meaningless games.

Mullahoran took a tight clipping of Errigal Ciaran at home in 2012. 11 or 12 points if i recall.

All grades are knockout in Tyrone. It takes 4 games to win a Junior Championship in Tyrone. Their League starts later so players aren't sitting around all year. Cavan league is rushed off and about 6 week break until championship .Are players not sitting around then, since you are up in arms about it?

It would obviously be hard to combine with having a Divisonal set up. But when the League starts at the end of March there must be some room.

I wasn't knocking the clubs in West Cavan just would be good if they if the likes of Caoimhin McGovern or the likes could get a chance to play Senior. They are annoyed in Kerry that so few clubs get to play but they increased it to 10 clubs. I think they will get to 12 and cut down the number of divisional teams.

And how would having a Junior Shield work. That would really get the interest telling players you are not playing Junior A but Junior B. Maghera and Corlough had no option as the numbers were gone.

I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it again - any club needing to amalgamate at all competitive juvenile levels should be amalgamating at adult too. So you’re looking at losing Kill/Drung (St Finbarrs), Maghera/Munterconnaught (Blackwater Gaels), Redhills/Drumalee (Naomh Brid) and then how many clubs make up Dernacrieve Gaels? They’re struggling to even field as an amalgamation at some levels as Corlough and Kildallan have bolted. Those are just the immediate ones I can think of.

That should trim the fat. The community do fine supporting the juvenile teams of these clubs so why should adult be different!?

Saying that any club that amalgamates at juvenile should automatically amalgamate at adult is a bad argument, because juvenile and adult football operate on completely different realities.

Underage teams require far more players across multiple age brackets — U13, U15, U17 — and even one weak age group forces a club into amalgamation. Adult football draws from 10-15 years of players, so numbers are far more stable. A club might need help at juvenile simply because two or three small birth years came through, but still have 25–30 committed adults.

Underage amalgamations are about giving kids games, not about determining whether a club is viable. I see the argument with West Cavan amalgamations, as numbers do seem to be declining. But how can you ask Munchies to amalgamate after winning junior?

Everything comes in waves child births and the amount of lads born bla bla we can go on.

Your last point- "The community do fine supporting the juvenile teams of these clubs so why should adult be different!?"

Supporting a temporary juvenile blend for young lads to get games does not mean a community is willing to abandon its adult club identity.

This is not the root cause of Cavan footballs problem - this is you just having an open sneer at the smaller clubs in the county

Fair play to Killian, some service.

I always felt he never got enough credit from Cavan supporters due to his versatility. Probably played every position at county level, and for many a year was our best midfielder even though I felt he would have been better as a full back. He did a job regardless of where ever he played since he made his debut at senior level 12 years ago. Delighted he ended up with a well-deserved Ulster medal.

I think Clarke might have been brought in too soon. He was involved in 2012 the year after Minor. He still had good longevity. McBrearty was brought into Donegal panel as a Minor and has had lots of injuries.

Best wishes to Killian Clarke on his retirement

As said above he probably never got the credit he deserved in the Cavan jersey

A great career !!!!

On a side note we'll done to young Sherlock playing for Ireland u17 at the world cup today

Never saw him playing Gaa but I had heard he was a special talent

A real gentleman and as you said, always decent to spend time posing for kids, signing autographs. God knows how many times my ones pestered him for an autograph!