Dublin County FC

[pineapple stu]

Yeah, I saw that in the Examiner just now. So did they apply to join the LoI without having anything in place regarding a ground to play in? That's amateur hour if so, especially as Morton specifically featured on their website

I also don't understand how they can have met the underage criteria

[John83]

Is there any reason to oppose Shams B playing other than pride? I find it incredible that we're starved for teams, and a club wants to field one and are not allowed to. It's not like it's so weird. The big teams in Spain field C teams, for Pete's sake. And if Rovers get an advantage from it, good for them. There's little enough quality in the league that there's nothing to be gained holding back a club.

[Nesta99]

The contrast from last season -

Rovers II in, devaluing the 1st division outrage.
Rovers II out, poor Rovers.

It does cause questions, like as mentioned having to jump through hoops (ugh!) that are going to be the same as the 1st team. Were they just a safety net until there were other options. Where's the inside man has gone - a home town ref can be harshest!!? As for the Irish Sea mob, is there some issue with Motrten itself or was it not formally agreed to use it. If its the latter then they should be banned permanently - weeks out from KO and not to have a place to play in an application? Doesnt bode well for ever getting things fully in order.

[Trainee]

This is a mess all caused by FAI. Treaty told by FAI they were number 1st club to in & were told to make sure license application was perfect. Dublin county were encouraged to pull out process & fai hoped rovers would accept they wouldn't be in 1st division.

When rovers said they expect to be in 1st division, FAI had to go back to Dublin county to submit their licence application, & they ran out time.


Pat o Sullivan stating that limerick FC will be back in league next year, surly FAI wont allow him to apply & enter league as limerick isn't big enough for 2 clubs

[EatYerGreens]

The League of Ireland shouldn't need a Rovers B Team - or any B Teams - to make up the numbers in a 10 team second tier. The fact that it did is recognition of the utter failure in how domestic football has been managed in the country for years. It is a symptom of a much deeper problem.

Anyone who thinks that having B teams playing in the second tier of our 20 club 2 tier system is either a) A good thing, or b) Something to lament when it ends, is frankly deluded.

Rovers have undeniably been messed about here by the FAI. But they should've learned after the first time this happened to them.

Unfortunately nothing I have heard from the FAI so far gives me hope that there will be a change in how Domestic Football is run for the foreseeable future.

[DCWA]

Surely there has to be a policy re B teams. Either they cannot be entered into the league system or they can and their application is treated same as any other.

[EatYerGreens]

Surely there has to be a policy re B teams. Either they cannot be entered into the league system or they can and their application is treated same as any other.

There is an inherent licensing issues with B Teams. They don't have their won youth system - it's effectively the system of another club already in the league.

The extension of that is that you could have multiple teams in the league all fed into by just one youth structure, which would enable them all to tick that box for a license without having to pay for their own individual structures.

Is that a good thing ? Is it really n the spirit of the license stipulation about a conveyor belt of talent from youth upwards ?

[sbgawa]

Given the express reason srfc wanted a sexond team was to continue the development of the kids in the academy i think its completly in the spirit

[EatYerGreens]

Given the express reason srfc wanted a sexond team was to continue the development of the kids in the academy i think its completly in the spirit

So if the kids from Rovers Academy feed into Rovers B like you're stating, then what youth structure feeds into the Rover's A Team to enable it to get a license ? Two licensed clubs using just one youth system between them.

[Dr. football]

Any chance Rovers 'B' would be admitted to LSL?

[MKMK]

Was it not Rovers who pulled out the first time. I thought that this time they were allowed in for a year and if a suitable replacement came into the league they were out. Hard on the people who put so much work into their team. This just reflects where the league and FAI are at. It needs a whole new review and what comes out of it has to be properly promoted and resourced. There has to be strict criteria for licences and it should not run until a couple of weeks before the season starts.

[Nesta99]

So if the kids from Rovers Academy feed into Rovers B like you're stating, then what youth structure feeds into the Rover's A Team to enable it to get a license ? Two licensed clubs using just one youth system between them.

Thats a very good point and would be interesting to hear detail how it works!

[sbgawa]

I think the fact that we have clubs who do not have a youth set up at all but merely nominate a local junior club to do it for them kind of shows the underage set up to be a mix of standards across the division that is not properly implemented at all.
I hope they dont but Rovers if they start to lose their best Academy prospects because of this (to other clubs offering first division football or less strong Premier clubs where they might have more chance of more first team games) might question the worth of doing things properly as they are at the moment, just nominate Cherry orchard to be the youth wing and concentrate on the First team.
Very regressive move by the FAI , they allowed all clubs to apply for entry and the fact that Rovers were the only one that did has led to them accepting the lowest common denominator.
Anyway it is what it is now, maybe in these covid strapped times missing out this year and perhaps the FAI copping on by next year might not be a such bad thing timing wise.

[littlebray]

Any chance Rovers 'B' would be admitted to LSL?

Used to be the standard deployment for all Leinster senior teams, until the B Division was invented in 1964. Can't see it returning with U19. U17, U15 all playing regularly (in a normal season). The various Cork and Limerick clubs' second teams played in the MSL - with Waterford, who sometimes played in both - and as far as I know still do.

[pineapple stu]

I thought Rovers B were still in the LSL?

UCD B are - although the catch is that for transfer purposes, they count as two different clubs, so you can't move between them as easily as with a B team in the LoI. Because Irish football is bizarre like that.

[Burnsie]

There's no Rovers team in the LSL.

Cabinteely have a team playing at a modest level (just been relegated from the sixth tier) but I doubt they have anything to do with the LOI set-up and like UCD, they're treated as separate clubs for purposes of transfers etc.

There was also a Shelbourne Academy team playing in the LSL's under 19 division

[EatYerGreens]

I think the fact that we have clubs who do not have a youth set up at all but merely nominate a local junior club to do it for them kind of shows the underage set up to be a mix of standards across the division that is not properly implemented at all.
I hope they dont but Rovers if they start to lose their best Academy prospects because of this (to other clubs offering first division football or less strong Premier clubs where they might have more chance of more first team games) might question the worth of doing things properly as they are at the moment, just nominate Cherry orchard to be the youth wing and concentrate on the First team.
Very regressive move by the FAI , they allowed all clubs to apply for entry and the fact that Rovers were the only one that did has led to them accepting the lowest common denominator.
Anyway it is what it is now, maybe in these covid strapped times missing out this year and perhaps the FAI copping on by next year might not be a such bad thing timing wise.

It's a fair point, but not the same as two clubs claiming the same youth set up feeds into them.

So in your analogy it would be more like Rovers and Cabinteely both claiming that Cherry Orchard is their youth set up.

[redobit]

Rovers II refused entry , so new regime in place in Abbotstown but same old small minded back woods mentality prevails as progressive club is made suffer to placate the small minded begrudgers - same thing happened all those years ago when Giles came back and here we are 40 years later and seems nothing has changed

In fairness there is another side to the coin on that argument. Not having a pop its just there is usually more going on.

The old regime didnt listen to the FD clubs last year, when most clubs didnt want Shamrock B in the division. Maybe the new regime are actually listening to clubs this time, so that could be considered progress.

Interesting that you say 'progressive club is made suffer'. At the end of the day if there are limited spaces in FD then a new club entering the league will always be more the more progressive option than putting a 'B' team into the division. Any new club omitted instead of a any B team would not be progressive.

[sbgawa]

It's a fair point, but not the same as two clubs claiming the same youth set up feeds into them.

So in your analogy it would be more like Rovers and Cabinteely both claiming that Cherry Orchard is their youth set up.

My point is that which is more honest having a Rovers B team which everyone knows is the Academy for the Senior team or having clubs with no set up at all who just call a junior club their academy as currently is allowed to happen.

If it was just a case of 1 youth set up feeding into two teams that needed solving then SRFC ii could nominate Cherry orchard...

The FAI just appointed a guy to oversee a raising of the standards in the Academies within the league....great start, beginning to think FAI Nua is just same old same old

[GUFCghost]

We're going to have B teams making up numbers every few years, as long as we don't have a proper junior to senior pyramid. Which would take a decade of work, money and diplomacy to build. So lest you are an optimist, they'll be around for a while.

Having Rovers B in the second tier isn't great. They don't bring away fans, it's an odd sell to potential fans and they can never actually win the thing. If Rovers B had made their way from junior football to the top tier, it would be very different. They would have atleast earned their place, and they probably wouldn't last that long.I think it's also worth remembering that the comparison to Barcelona B is a bit mute,cos yanno, one's Barcelona and the other is just Shamrock Rovers, a very different sell to new supporters.

[passinginterest]

I think the argument with Rovers B would be that they effectively are a part of the Rovers youth academy. They don't need a separate one, particularly if they're bound by rules of no more than one or two first team or over 21/23 or whatever. While there's no under 21/23 or reserve league, it would seem that the next logical thing is to allow those B teams to enter the league structure if clubs can establish them and they're sustainable. It shouldn't be at the expense of new clubs, but they can complement each other too, it's probably a better prospect for a new senior club to come in and know they'll have very winnable games against largely youth teams, even if that's in a third level of the league of Ireland, "ah God be with the days of the A league", it gives them a prospect of an early promotion too.

[EatYerGreens]

Dublin County have stated that the only reason they didn't get a license was because Sport Ireland screwed them over on Morton. Apparently contacted them at 2:43pm on Friday - with the Licensing Committee die to meet at 4:30pm that day to issues licenses - to say Morton wouldn't be available to them. DC claim they said it was because of pressure from "the Athletic Community".

So it may well have been that the Licensing Committee intended to give out 12 FD licenses on Friday ? But once Dublin County were homeless that killed their application off - and Rovers B with it, to keep the numbers even ?

[pineapple stu]

All on their Twitter here (https://twitter.com/dublincountyfc1?lang=en).

Just highlights once again that we badly need a proper pyramid system in Ireland - not a pick and choose one, not a "let's see who applies" one, not anything like that. Get rid of all the daft District Leagues and the idiotic separate seasons for LoI/non-league, and give whatever progressive-minded clubs are out there a clear path to aim for. You know, like in practically literally every other country in Europe. Dublin County should never have been near the FD in the first place.

[Bucket]

On their Twitter page, there's a cover photo of a clubs ground. Which club is it?

[ForzaForth]

Subject to correction, it looks like the AUL in Clonshaugh.

[WeAreRovers]

My point is that which is more honest having a Rovers B team which everyone knows is the Academy for the Senior team or having clubs with no set up at all who just call a junior club their academy as currently is allowed to happen.

If it was just a case of 1 youth set up feeding into two teams that needed solving then SRFC ii could nominate Cherry orchard...

The FAI just appointed a guy to oversee a raising of the standards in the Academies within the league....great start, beginning to think FAI Nua is just same old same old

Exactly, flies in the face of the Will Clarke appointment as well as the work Rovers are doing. It will change but the dinosaurs in both senior and schoolboy football will have to be moved on. For the long term health of Irish football player development and pathways are more important than the disfunctional 1st Division.

Penalising the one club making positive strides is the weak pulling down the strong rather than getting their own houses in order. For example I'm very reliably informed that the main voice against Rovers II was a PD club with no schoolboy or academy set up of their own. Pathetic.

[nigel-harps1954]

The thing this whole charade shows is that we desperately need an under-23 or reserve league brought back in.

[D24Saint]

A reserve league is badly needed , has been for years.

[pineapple stu]

I don't know how desperate that need is tbh.

If UCD could drop players down to the existing LSL team at periods other than in the transfer window, then we'd have no need of a reserve league. That's how it worked for decades, AFAIK

Most of the First Division has no real need of an U23 league either; most of their first-team squads are probably U23 anyway.

[El-Pietro]

Did they have players signed up?

[Bucket]

What this shows is that we need a pyramid! There's no point re-creating the Connacht Senior League, so lump them in with Ulster. MSL needs to be expanded to cover all of Munster. The existing Junior Leagues can feed into these.
Is there currently prize money on offer in the LSL or MSL?
As regards B teams playing in a pyramid system, maybe allow them play up as far as the third tier. U-23 leagues are a waste of time imo, loan younger lads to teams further down the pyramid and at least they'll have experience of playing mens competitive football.

[pineapple stu]

Sport Ireland have commented (https://www.extratime.com/articles/26675/sport-ireland-confirm-athletic-demands-meant-they-could-not-offer-denied-league-of-ireland-applicants-dublin-county-regular-use-of-morton-stadium/) - they say the decision was taken "due to a combination of Covid-19 and requirements for the Olympic Games". They also deny that they had a legally-binding lease with Dublin County; they say they had an agreement subject to availability.

[Seagull]

So are we likely to see Dublin County reapply next season I wonder?

[D24Saint]

Sport Ireland have commented (https://www.extratime.com/articles/26675/sport-ireland-confirm-athletic-demands-meant-they-could-not-offer-denied-league-of-ireland-applicants-dublin-county-regular-use-of-morton-stadium/) - they say the decision was taken "due to a combination of Covid-19 and requirements for the Olympic Games". They also deny that they had a legally-binding lease with Dublin County; they say they had an agreement subject to availability.

So now covid gets added to the big book of Irish excuses that cover anything , in there with such favourites as Insurance & GDPR.

[EatYerGreens]

So now covid gets added to the big book of Irish excuses that cover anything , in there with such favourites as Insurance & GDPR.

You can add 'Health and Safety' and 'De Crash' to that list too.

[Burnsie]

The definitive list is available here, and is still one of the greatest newspaper columns in Irish history:

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-irishman-s-diary-1.460146

With a view to keeping somewhat on topic, does anyone know if any actual LOI players were courted or provisionally signed by this shower? Or was it just going to be a mad last-minute scramble to pick up a few LSL players, Rovers II loanees and whoever else might be going?

[pineapple stu]

It wouldn't have surprised me to have seen a lot of foreign players at the club tbh.

[EatYerGreens]

It wouldn't have surprised me to have seen a lot of foreign players at the club tbh.

Presumably a Ukranian goalkeeper, with a habit of inexplicably failing to save shots at key points in the game.

[Nesta99]

and that clubs (not looking at Sligo at all) still struggle to beat.