The North Tipp Board just run a competition , that's all they care about . I was our captain for the Youths this year and when I was handed the trophy after we won the league guess what ?...........they had given me the Youths Cup instead of the League trophy
. We decided to keep it anyway , what was the league trophy was broken and I believe Blackcastle got a new trophy when they won the cup .
The guy from South Tipp who said that was absolutely right about what they'd do down South and in pretty much any of the better leagues . We've been looking for North Tipp to put in tougher restrictions and punishments for things like not having a full team but their not interested in the slightest . They feel if they made restrictions tougher less teams could enter and thus they'd get less money . Arra Rovers pitch is a disgrace and the thought that they're allowed play in the league at all never mind premier division is shocking .
I think tougher penalties and more restrictions would force smaller clubs into amalgamating and creating some decent sides . I think cutting it down to anywhere between 12-16 clubs would be reasonable but last season there was 39 clubs and that would be a lot less players playing . So I believe a reserve league should be set up to cater for the excess amount of players .
In the Joe Delaney Cup this year(an all-Tipp youth competition) it was shown that the gap between North and South still isn't too big up to youth level .
Clonmel Town v Borrisoleigh-Borrisoleigh who finished second in N.Tipp withdraw due to lack of players as GAA had started up again .
St.Michaels 3-1 Blackcastle- 1-1 in Templemore and 2 late goals in Tipp Town sees Michaels threw .
Clonmel Celtic 3-3 Nenagh Celtic-Clonmel go through on penalties , 3-2 Nenagh.C in Nenagh and 1-0 Clonmel Celtic in Clonmel .
Nenagh AFC 8-2 Moyglass- 4-2 in Nenagh , 4-0 in Moyglass and should have been more .
Nenagh AFC 2-1 Clonmel Celtic- 2-1 to Nenagh in Clonmel and Celtic fail to turn up for second leg due to lack of players . Possibly due to 2 of their players being sent off in the first leg for violent conduct(throwing and connecting with punches) .
Clonmel Town v St.Michaels- something like 6-1 to Clonmel I think , it was 1-1 after the first leg and then Clonmel destroyed them in the second .
Clonmel Town 5-1 Nenagh AFC- we were **** , they were spectacular , end result was that scoreline . Embarrassing seeing as we beat them in the U17 national cup the year before .
That shows at youth level the standard isn't that different and that it's just Clonmel Town who are head and shoulders above the rest .
It's worth noting that I felt Moyglass(who were their first division champions as there is only 3 teams in their premier) were weaker than any of the North Tipperary youth sides and that Clonmore , Arra(before they pulled out due to not being able to field a team) Rearcross and the North Tipp sides in this comp would have beaten them .
Borrisoleigh beat Moyglass in either the Munster/FAI and we beat 2 mile Borris 11-0 in the FAI .
But yet again when all is said and done by the time all of us players are at Junior level it will be the South sides who have developed much further(well at least the bigger ones anyway) and us in the North will be left behind .
My final piece of evidence to the talent is there but the infrastructure isn't is in schools football . I go to Borrisokane CC myself and we reached the semi-final of the Munster Senior Cup , losing to eventual Munster and All-Ireland winner Sexton Street CBS 1-0 .
They had 3 Irish youth internationals and 1 Irish u16 international and most of the rest of their team was made up of Wembley Rovers players(who as you probably know are always winning U17 and U18 national cups) .
Our starting line up comprised of 4 players who don't play for any club(one player never has) 2 Nenagh AFC players and 5 Cloughjordan FC players(they don't even have a youth team) .
Despite this the game was completely even , they had their spells we had ours , we hit the woodwork had several shots cleared off the line and for long periods of the game we outplayed them by knocking the ball around and outfought them for possession , it took an Irish youth international to get the only goal for them . Pretty much the whole game other than that moment he was in the pocket of our centre half who guess what , was the one player who has never played club football .
CBS won the rest of their games comfortably including the All-Ireland final 4-1 and they will probably have a couple of players who we will be watching on tv in the future . As for our team you'll probably see a couple of them on tv too , playing hurling and Gaelic though(there's a couple of them that have been on Minor hurling and football sides and they look set to make it at senior level) .
Not one member of our team will go on to even play semi-professional and with the players we had it seems like such a waste of talent .
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