How does it all go wrong for such powerhouse clubs?
Caltra and Crossmolina losing their senior status this month has sparked the question - how does it all go wrong for such powerhouse clubs? went in search of answers.
LAUNE RANGERS
It’s three years now since Laune Rangers were relegated from the Kerry senior football championship. It’s a far cry from the 1990s when a team backboned by the Hassett brothers, John Sheehan, Pa O’Sullivan and Mike Frank Russell claimed three senior titles, two Munster championships and that All-Ireland success of 1996. According to their then manager John Evans, the eye was taken off the ball.
“The reason for Laune Rangers’ success was the development of underage, no doubt. You are just thinking it’s going to keep happening. The follow-through from minor to senior has been absolutely decimated; that’s where their downfall is. I think it’s to do with the value in the jersey; I think it’s to do with your identity and definitely over the last 15 years we’ve dropped way off where we should be.
“There is no set excuse because Killorglin has been thriving these last 15 years. It has Fexaco, Astellas (Pharmaceuticals), it has Fujisawa and these are massive employers. It has two huge schools. I know things are cyclical but we have gone from Division 1 to Division 4 and avoiding going to junior by a play-off. It has happened to other clubs as well, of course.
“Some people have said it has to do with the legacy of the great team we had and the high expectation of players following them. I saw that with (John) Mitchels but they’ve returned to a higher division. Simply put not everybody was putting their shoulder to the wheel on the playing field or in administration with Laune Rangers. They weren’t signing off the same hymn-sheet and maybe a lack of experience in certain areas, not necessarily on the field.
“I just think we lost our identity in those years and it has to be won back. Peter Crowley is a good leader now and there are a few more young lads coming in and they’re getting traction.”
CROSSMOLINA
Earlier this month, Crossmolina were relegated after losing their play-off to Davitts by a point. It’s the end of a proud era for Deel Rovers who were senior since 1981 but it came as no surprise to Michael Moyles, a member of the 2001 All-Ireland winning team.
“It was always going to be difficult to maintain the level that was there. A lot of work has been done at under-age but not a lot of it has come to fruition. We’ve been floating just above relegation these last few years and while it’s disappointing you could say it was coming. There has been a change in attitude too. When I was involved in managing a few years back the players didn’t want the successful team to be mentioned because they felt there was too much pressure attached to it. They had their own ideas. You’d scratch your head but that was the way they wanted things and that was fine. Before that successful team came around (in 1995), we had won one county title (they claimed six between ‘95 and 2006).
“We were lucky a group of players all came through at the same time and we got as much success out of it as we could have. We might have won another All-Ireland club but it has come full circle for us now. There’s a good bunch of under-age players coming through now from U10 to U14 and it’s very hard to put pressure on them to bring success but they’re promising. It’s difficult for young people nowadays to commit because it does ask a lot and if you don’t have a big grá for it it’s hard to give up 21st birthdays and weddings to concentrate on football. The club year is nine months now.
When we were playing a league game, you might stop off in three or four towns on the way home with a designated driver and the rest would have a few drinks. Everybody just goes home after a game now and that changes the culture. There will be nothing easy in intermediate football for us but sometimes you need to take a step back to go forward
BUFFERS ALLEY
For the second time this decade, Buffers Alley were demoted to intermediate hurling. It was a bittersweet experience for Tom Dempsey whose son Ger, lining out for Glynn-Barntown, scored a late goal to help consign his father’s home club to relegation. The storied club of Tony Doran and Dempsey which claimed an All-Ireland in 1989, last contested a senior county final in 2009.
“Oulart-the-Ballagh went on a prolonged run of wins, Rathnure did too and going back to the 1950s so did St Aidan’s and the good days don’t last forever. In Wexford, they’ve reduced the senior championship to 12 teams, which leaves little margin for error. You’ve new teams now like Gorey and Oylgate coming up and it’s making less room for other clubs. Win a couple of early games and you could be in a quarter-final but any slip at all and you’re in relegation bother. With the Alley, we had a great run but we haven’t had the underage success of say a club like St Martin’s have had over the last 10 years.
“I wouldn’t say there is any less effort going on in Alley. They had a very professional set-up this year — my best man Aidan O’Connor was over them. Just illustrating how narrow the margins are, the Alley were beaten in a quarter-final last year when they should have beaten St Martin’s and could have ended up in a county final. “This year it’s relegation and it also shows how the standard has evened off between the clubs in Wexford. No team is really safe. It’s led to a very competitive senior championship but what a lot of intermediate teams are saying is the team going down is going straight back up the following year. Buffers Alley went down in 2013 and came straight back and they will be one of the strong intermediate teams in 2019 but they just haven’t had a consistent number of players coming through in recent years. One of the big backbones for Buffers Alley was families and when things were good we had three or four Butlers, four Dorans, Whelans, Donoghues, O’Learys. I doubt there is a club that has a big passion for hurling than Buffers Alley. They eat, drink, and sleep it and I think it’s one of the things that will get them out of trouble in the long run.”
CALTRA
After 21 years at senior level, Caltra bowed out of Galway senior football last weekend when they lost to Tuam Stars, another once-great outfit. Noel Meehan, captain of the team that beat An Ghaeltacht in the 2004 All-Ireland final, pinpoints a certain neglect of nurturing under-age talent at senior level and emigration as the main reasons for their changed fortunes.
“From early on in the year, it was obvious that we were in trouble. This is my own opinion and other people mightn’t agree with me but we had that success and probably took our eye off the ball at under-age level to a certain degree. There were lads coming through but because we had such a strong team they weren’t getting into the side and drifted off.
“We weren’t as anxious as we should have been to get them in. I want to be careful here because there were plenty of lads doing great work at under-age level and I don’t want to be disrespectful of them but we probably weren’t as concerned about it as we should have been. The other thing is — and we didn’t realise it at the time as being an issue — like every other club 10 years ago we lost five or six lads who emigrated and they would be in their late 20s now and the backbone of the team. So at the moment we have guys in their 30s and guys in their early 20s but we don’t really have anything in the middle because they’re in England, America, or Australia. The older guys were carrying the can back then but now they’re too old or retired. They would be the two main factors.
“Young lads these days also have more options available and that’s not a problem exclusive to us . There are more weekends away for young fellas now like festivals and what not and you can’t blame them for that. That’s just life. We just ran out of bodies. Five years ago, we opened up a new community centre and new GAA grounds and we refocused on under-age and we’re competitive again and we’re picking up the odd under-age title where we wouldn’t have been for the last number of years. It’ll take time and there’s no guarantee they’ll turn into a good adult team but they’re there. So it’s not all doom and gloom. These things happen to rural teams and we have to rebuild again.”
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