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Replying To sponger: "Would not be blaming the players really. Jobs College Going Abroad Injuries Women. The conditions have to be there for these lads as well." There's lots of teams that have nothing really to play for who don't conceed matches. It might be time to ask serious questions of this management team. If the players didn't want to conceed what does that say about Poacher & Co? Square_B (Leitrim) - Posts: 1231 - 18/03/2025 10:17:15 2596985 Link
Replying To anon3: "Did they not try that before?? If memory serves me, former GAA President Liam O Neill was appointed to conduct a review of everything from top to bottom after Mayo gave Leitrim a serious clipping in the Connacht championship during the Covid years." Liam O' Neill was appointed to conduct a review. I don't recall it's conclusions or whether it was ever published. Regardless, if there were recommendations made they appear to have been implemented at a snails pace or most likely they were ignored. The evidence on the ground is that very little if anything has changed. We have entered a combined team in the schools A competition and reduced the number of adult senior teams. Other than that I cannot see any other changes. If that's the extent of the proposed changes then it's obviously not enough! The number of clubs in the county has been trotted out again in recent days. We have more than enough clubs. We are able to produce good players. The problem is that the standard of club football is very very poor. It is slow, laborious stuff. This standard embeds itself from u13 onwards. When lads play inter county they are not used to the pace, the fitness, the speed of thought required. It doesn't mean they're not good footballers, it means they're expected to go from playing at 20mph to 50mph when they've never done it. I am not proposing getting rid of clubs. What we need are competitions set up at underage level where regional teams made up of the best players become used to playing against players as good as them. This was done about 5 or 6 years ago at u13 level but died out after a year or two. I was at lots of those matches and the standard was really good. This needs to be brought back in ASAP and continued all the way through. By all means keep the separate club competitions but make it clear that if you want to be playing inter county you need to be making your regional team. There was no problem with buy in from players and parents when it was in place before. ThePowerhouse (Leitrim) - Posts: 203 - 18/03/2025 10:17:19 2596986 Link
Replying To Square_B: "There's lots of teams that have nothing really to play for who don't conceed matches. It might be time to ask serious questions of this management team. If the players didn't want to conceed what does that say about Poacher & Co?" This point exactly. Writing was on the wall from early on with them. The raft of players and coaches leaving should have been a signal to the CB to step in and ask questions. Willies24 (Leitrim) - Posts: 45 - 18/03/2025 11:01:17 2596996 Link
Ah sure is this really a surprise to anyone, the club scene has been crumbling for years. Cora Staunton mentioned on RTE that most counties league campaigns are well on the way at this stage and sure they could have picked players who are at least taking part in active club games and training. A valid point but someone care to tell her that the leitrim club league doesn't start for another 3 months! laughable. Sacrificing the many for the few as they say. A league so important to postpone until the end of the county season, until it starts of course, then the priority is to get it over as fast as possible before the championship. The term walk-over has been creeping into the club scene for many years now. At underage level ridiculous amalgamations and terrible coaching (I say couching more like running lads into the ground and ****** them out of it to "toughen" them up) have seen many a young lad step away to soccer, which is now being seen as the fun more enjoyable sport around the county. Yet the answer (Every year) to fix these problems is to pump more money into the senior county squad. Leitrim football is built on Shakey foundations, and when the foundations being to sink the roof tends to pop off. straightred (Leitrim)** - Posts: 57 - 18/03/2025 11:22:43 2597001 Link
This is a terrible mess now. It's a terrible look and an awful message to our younger players too. Heaps unnecessary pressure on our under 20s for wednesday too. I assume we won't be fielding in sligo next Sunday either as we will still have the same numbers available and we're hardly going to call anyone in now and we can't play our under 20s either after taking this stance. If we get the book thrown at us by the Gaa we can have no complaints in my opinion. A very embarrassing and sad place we find ourselves in now. JimmyNail (Leitrim) - Posts: 277 - 18/03/2025 11:44:23 2597014 Link
County Board in my opinion have been very weak here. The game should have been played. 3rdmidfielder (Australia) - Posts: 393 - 18/03/2025 11:45:47 2597016 Link
Have been watching this unfold since the start of the year as I would have a previous interest where poacher would have been coaching. All in all an incredible set of circumstances. Conceding a game is the worst of the worst as regards integrity of the competition and for the over all appearance for the county. You must ask though, surely even if senior manager wanted to pull the game and the u20 manager refused to let the U20's tog out would the Co board look for possible resolutions? They ultimately have the power to over rule both managements. This is the part I found most unusual. The comments in the statement were clear that the news was late regarding injuries etc. As many have said here it's clear the injuries have been piling up so it can't have been news that it would be an issue around player availabilities. This then points to u20s. Was there an assumption they would be available in some capacity? Whatever way this has worked out it does highlight the plight of smaller counties and having to rely so heavily on u20s who would have colleges and I see from previous posts even leaving cert students. Something the gaa must look at. I see comments on previous management teams staying on with poachers new set up. I was initially surprised to see any previous coaches from Grahams/morans era. So the fact that didn't last long can't be a surprise.I know from seeing poacher in action he is a very unique character and he may not click with everyone. I wish Leitrim all the best and hopefully they can move forward with that group of talented young players. Hometown45 (Carlow) - Posts: 204 - 18/03/2025 11:51:13 2597019 Link
its an all time low, it appears nothing was really done to actually put a team out. i had great hope for Declan Bohan but this has happened on his watch, he should have been strong enough to say no, we're putting a team out, did they say they had 13-14 players available ? so all they needed was another 3-4. really really poor stuff from the county board and the manager. meathbasedfan (Leitrim) - Posts: 158 - 18/03/2025 11:54:24 2597022 Link
Any county that has an U20 manager dictating to a senior managed over players is always going to run in to trouble. How can your county board stand over this and let it happen? Senior team always has to comes first. PeterQ92 (Donegal) - Posts: 145 - 18/03/2025 12:43:24 2597036 Link
Replying To PeterQ92: "Any county that has an U20 manager dictating to a senior managed over players is always going to run in to trouble. How can your county board stand over this and let it happen? Senior team always has to comes first." Ain't that the truth! Let's be honest, Barry was brought in by Andy Moran. Moran brought him in as he played with him in Sligo IT, not based on what coaching experience he had. Now for some reason he's the U20 manager. There's no way the 20s should be dictating to the senior team I remember when Mayo played Leitrim in the 20s in Pairc Sean under Brendan Guckian. Mayo seniors released Donnacha McHugh and Sam Callinan the week of the game. anon3 (Mayo) - Posts: 19 - 18/03/2025 13:07:49 2597050 Link
Replying To anon3: "Ain't that the truth! Let's be honest, Barry was brought in by Andy Moran. Moran brought him in as he played with him in Sligo IT, not based on what coaching experience he had. Now for some reason he's the U20 manager. There's no way the 20s should be dictating to the senior team I remember when Mayo played Leitrim in the 20s in Pairc Sean under Brendan Guckian. Mayo seniors released Donnacha McHugh and Sam Callinan the week of the game." Where has it ever been mentioned that the U20's management pulled the 6 lads. The dog on the street knows that they decided themselves to make that decision and fair play to them for doing it. Moran pulled Barry 2 years ago and they released the U20s last year and was ridiculed for both decisions. McWeeney done 3 years as a selector so why wouldnt he have the experience to be the U20s manager. Your own counties track record of managers isnt one to be shouting about. Im old enough to remember ye were pushing cars around fields! Look at your own U20s management. No coaching or managerial experience. The only one was the advisor James Horan. Didnt your clubs demand a review of this management team and they are back again this year. Stick to your own page and your own problems. The problem is lack of foresight and poor management that the seniors ended up in this situation. Willies24 (Leitrim) - Posts: 45 - 18/03/2025 15:00:32 2597082 Link
Very interesting interview on off the ball with poacher..he blamed a lot on previous set up.. Mentioned they werent happy with attitude of some players no longer on panel. A lot of outside noise. They only knew about all injuries and under 20 situation last Friday.said they will have a team for this weekend,whether it be 16/17 players..he said they are looking 3/4/5 years down the line cos it might take that long. CTGAA10 (Limerick) - Posts: 2486 - 18/03/2025 21:07:58 2597152 Link
Replying To Willies24: "Where has it ever been mentioned that the U20's management pulled the 6 lads. The dog on the street knows that they decided themselves to make that decision and fair play to them for doing it. Moran pulled Barry 2 years ago and they released the U20s last year and was ridiculed for both decisions. McWeeney done 3 years as a selector so why wouldnt he have the experience to be the U20s manager. Your own counties track record of managers isnt one to be shouting about. Im old enough to remember ye were pushing cars around fields! Look at your own U20s management. No coaching or managerial experience. The only one was the advisor James Horan. Didnt your clubs demand a review of this management team and they are back again this year. Stick to your own page and your own problems. The problem is lack of foresight and poor management that the seniors ended up in this situation." if the players decided this themselves, hopefully they produce the goods tonight, all eyes are on this game tonight. meathbasedfan (Leitrim) - Posts: 158 - 19/03/2025 09:26:29 2597193 Link
Hopefully Leitrim won't get hammered this evening, adding more salt to the wounds, but I think they will be beat by 10 p0ints at least Lockerroomboy (Wexford) - Posts: 478 - 19/03/2025 12:03:34 2597231 Link
Replying To CTGAA10: "Very interesting interview on off the ball with poacher..he blamed a lot on previous set up.. Mentioned they werent happy with attitude of some players no longer on panel. A lot of outside noise. They only knew about all injuries and under 20 situation last Friday.said they will have a team for this weekend,whether it be 16/17 players..he said they are looking 3/4/5 years down the line cos it might take that long." I'd be more inclined to listen to Gary Reynolds view on OTB this morning MagnumPIG (Leitrim) - Posts: 149 - 19/03/2025 12:23:07 2597241 Link
https://www.irishnews.com/gaa/gaelic-football/fermanagh-to-ask-croke-park-to-disregard-leitrims-division-three-record-GNX2KSTBKZE7HPKFG4JIASY6GE/ And rightly so. What a mess. Square_B (Leitrim) - Posts: 1231 - 19/03/2025 14:19:07 2597279 Link
This story is not going away. The SHAME this has brought on us as a county in unforgivable. I have heard no-one absolutely no-one agree that this was the right decision. I can't understand how it was let happen. I have never been as disappointed or disgusted by a footballing decision in all my time involved in football between playing and supporting. 3rdmidfielder (Australia) - Posts: 393 - 19/03/2025 16:27:57 2597308 Link
Ah lads. It's a car crash at this stage. williesboy (Leitrim) - Posts: 481 - 19/03/2025 16:37:29 2597312 Link
6 former Leitrim players offered to line out for team to avoid match being conceded says Emlyn Mulligan. [url=]https://www.oceanfm.ie/northwest-today-show/6-former-leitrim-players-offered-to-line-out-for-team-to-avoid-match-being-conceded-says-emlyn-mulligan-427614?utm_campaign=web&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=web&fbclid=IwY2xjawJHwy5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHaaatPXi6TICBxLiclkEBzgpYz20es17vPK8ZNyIE9A_yZCgX8c1z3AJAg_aem_LcRNpc40apjzJk8-t1nUsQ overthebar45 (Leitrim) - Posts: 5 - 19/03/2025 16:51:21 2597314 Link
I'm just hoping the under 20 lads give a good account this evening. Hopefully people will come out and support them. Anything else and we'll be even more depressed, if that's possible. HankAaron (UK) - Posts: 2 - 19/03/2025 16:52:26 2597316 Link