Kerry clubs grading system

Utopia Parkway

bruschi wrote: »

couple of points on this.

If Mayo play 16 in senior and 16 in intermediate, thats their structure. What do you want Kerry to do about it? Other counties have 12 and 12 set ups. If Mayo cant compete at Junior with their 33rd best team against another counties 25th best team, should all the other counties change their structure to suit Mayo? Yeah it may not equate to being as fair as can be, but everyone knows the format.

"the Kerry players play senior championship".
Some do, most dont. If they all did, then it wouldnt be a divisional side. Again, this promotes football in Kerry and allows junior players play at a higher grade. Kerry get the best out of every corner in the county. Sean O Sullivan and Donncadh Walsh play for Cromane in the lowest level of Kerry football, but yet both got to be regulars and multiple all ireland winners. Are there many other counties who have junior B players being mainstays on their county teams?

" The Kerry players are probably in Division 1 of their league (as Kilcummin are)"
I'm not sure why this makes any difference. There are senior teams in Kerry in Division 2. League and championship dont intertwine like the vast majority of counties. League is a means to keep players playing, mostly without county players being present, hence why some clubs do better as they wouldnt be missing their top men if they arent on county teams.


3. The Kerry Intermediate Champions are the 9th best "club" team in Kerry.
Thats true. And they could be up against another counties 13th best team. Not exactly the fairest set up, but again, should Kerry be penalised for it?

Kilcummin would basically be a mid level senior team in most if not all other similar sized counties to Kerry. They are not really an intermediate side. Mayo have 16 senior clubs. Until last year Galway had 20. That's a huge difference.

I don't think anyone is asking for Kerry to change their own internal system but when they play outside Kerry in Munster and the All-Ireland series they have a big advantage as they are often playing sides that in reality are a level below them. How this is fixed? I'm not really sure.

Boom__Boom

easy peasy wrote: »

Its not just club, Kerry have won the last 4 Junior All Irelands too.

This is a bit of a red herring as regards the Junior Intercounty All-Ireland.

All counties bar a handful can pick players from Senior Clubs to play Junior Intercounty (as long as the players in question haven't played senior intercounty in the current or previous year) so the fact that there is a smaller number of clubs at senior only gives the Kerry advantage over 4 counties (Cork, Mayo, Galway and Meath) [The rule applies to Dublin too but they stopped competing a few years back]

The reason that Kerry have won the last 4 Junior All-Ireland is that the county board said they would be using it partly as a development squad for lads who might be potential seniors in the future. Looking at the squad list for the Dublin game I make it 7 out of the 26 who have lined out for the Kerry Juniors previously. Looking at the lads in the 26 who have never lined out with the seniors, it was the case that a) they were prevented by doing so because of their club's status or b) they were pretty much called into the seniors straight away (the likes of Dara Moynihan)

Over the last few years I would say that there is probably somewhere of the order of 20 players from the 4 Junior winning teams who have had some involvement with the Kerry seniors.

Also given the the age profile of these 4 in a row winning Junior teams I would be very surprised if a few more don't go on to have some involvement with the seniors before long.

The county board have treated the competition seriously and put decent management teams in place. Players have definitely come on board in terms of seeing it as a possible pathway to the seniors (a serious chunk of the eligible All-Ireland minor winning players have been involved with these teams) and Kerry have been rewarded with silverware and in terms of player development.

Anyone who think that the grading of clubs is the main reason Kerry have won 4 Junior All-Irelands in a row is well wide of the mark imo. The reason is that Kerry have been taking the competition more serious than they ever did (going back a few years, it wasn't taken as seriously and the home clubs of selectors definitely were over-represented), while at the same time a whole swathe of counties are taking it less seriously than they ever had.