I didn't know they played hurling in Dublin.
Must be one of the effects of migration.
Printable View
I didn't know they played hurling in Dublin.
Must be one of the effects of migration.
You're a bit slow on this one. They've had a handy hurling team for a good few years now.
Anyway on a far more serious point, which eejit signed off this particular sponsorship?
FFS.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...type=1&theater
http://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/hurling/...over-kilkenny/Quote:
Originally Posted by geysir
GTF in...
http://balls.ie/gaa/gallery-the-best...over-kilkenny/
I suppose we'll see how the mega sponsored, big budget, overhyped team, extracted from the vast pool of available players in the metropolis and county area, are shaping up in today's Leinster sf, versus their trendy, muscle enhanced neighbours.
Nothing on London here. I'm shocked. Haven't followed the GAA properly in years, but that's an incredible feat for London to make the Connacht Final.
Yep a fantastic achievement, although I'd imagine they would be as many senior football clubs in London than there would be in Leitrim, but a fantastic achievement all the same. No harm to see the provincial championships get a shake up - although If I had my way id have a two tier championship and get rid of the provinces.Quote:
Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954
Best comment I heard yesterday was:
London - took down the Luftwaffe - now took down Leitrim!
The Hurling Championship is getting just a tad interesting now as in the next two weeks we will have both provincial finals and the small matter of Kilkenny v Tipperary in a knockout match next Saturday night! Not to write Kilkenny off but this is going to be a tough one to turn around. It will be Kilkenny's 3rd week in a row playing and Tipp are bound to be hungry after they threw away the Limerick game. 10/1 the draw with PP - might be worth a tenner.
The campaign has already started to get the floppy-haired one to Castlebar for the final. As for the championship, if you put Carlow, Leitrim etc into their own competition, they'll never improve - I'd have eight groups of four, one team from each League division, before moving to last 16/QFs according to preference, no need for back doors as everyone gets three matches.
Ha, nice one 'Diablo Rouge'...
Phew. We just edged that one.Quote:
Originally Posted by geysir
Must've been all thr hype that got us over the line.
Because the weaker counties have mighty "improvement" in them playing against the big boys every year.Quote:
Originally Posted by culloty82
Offaly 0-8 Tyrone 1-27
Armagh 2-21 Wicklow 0-02
I think that improvement comes by playing teams of similar ability to you. Works in every other sport in the world!
Two championships - 4 groups of 4 in each - top 16 for the all Ireland "Premiership", bottom 16 in the all Ireland "Championship".
Only by winning Championship would you get into the Premiership.
When you think of it - the flagship competition in football is the only GAA competition apart from the colleges Sigerson / Fitzgibbon that is not graded in some way ?
At one point can we expect Tipp, Limerick, Waterford or Clare to win a Munster SFC then?Quote:
Originally Posted by culloty82
The archaic provincial system is a problem (in both codes), but football could do with some tiering and hurling could do with some harsher tiering.
Football teams rankings at present?
1 Dublin. 2 Donegal. 3 Mayo. 4 Kerry. 5 Cork. 6 Tyrone.
That's how i see it at present
Not quite as close as the time ye scraped past Wexford, in extra time.Quote:
Originally Posted by BonnieShels
Considering your opposition in the Leinster Final have been unmercifully tanked twice by Monaghan already this year, the standard in Leinster is evidently woeful.
Kildare were primitive yesterday, lumping ball after ball into the waiting arms of the Dublin full back line. Somehow they scored an early flukey goal and that was that.
The Dubs didn't need decision after decision in their favour from the ref after all. Kildare were like brainless gorillas, their goalkeeper just brainless.
I was quite content with Dublin dispatching Kildare, in the manner they did. :)
They were playing in the Connacht SF actually :)Quote:
Originally Posted by geysir
That was precisely my point, that the provincial championship is doing them little good, but put them in a group against teams they've no negative history, and you've greater potential for upsets.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeverFeltBetter
Like Offaly's lack of negative history with Tyrone helped them on Saturday!?!Quote:
Originally Posted by culloty82
No negative history? Sorry now but that's just twaddle.
By the same token Kildare should be in this lower championship after that tonking? I mean 4-16 to 1-09 is just not good enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Real ale Madrid
I completely disagree with the All-Ireland being 2 tiers in both sports. Hurling has been destroyed somewhat and only made the bigger counties better. Football is on the same trajectory and in fact the change will be quickened by the addition of a second tier. Awful idea.
The provincial championships need changing but until there's something approaching a serious overhaul I would keep it as it is.
Are the provincial championships really that important? I know it's a trophy and all, but outside of Munster is the rivalry between the counties that intense?
Personally, I'd be in favour of splitting into the five historic provinces of Ireland and have Meath play with themselves every year.
Cork Kerry is intense because it's also competitive. Meath v Dublin is an intense rivalry but these days has the magnetic attraction of a limp di*k (not that I know about that one) because Meath are the limp di*k.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
It just so happens that this year there is one competitive game and the other 3 look like strolls for the favoured team.
For the obvious reason, the provincial championship has a bit less value since the back door system was introduced.
On it's own, winning a provincial title still has value, eg that's all Meath have to crow about in the last 20 years.
It has practical value for the Ulster and Connacht champions, they have a 2 week rest until the 1/4 finals but the runners-up have only a 6 day turnaround before they have to face the last round of the qualifiers.
The qualifier's path is a path of penance for losing your provincial championship tie.
We need to stop looking at the qualifiers as qualifiers or the back door.
The provincial championships run in parallel with the All-Ireland Championships.
Your progress in the Provincial championship dictates where you enter the All-Ireland.
If it's looked at like that then you can see how it works objectively.
I really wish though that somehow teams that previously played each other were kept apart for a while.
It is in Leinster & Ulster...Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
Once maybe. Now just better, they're humiliated annually by all & sundry...Quote:
Personally, I'd be in favour of splitting into the five historic provinces of Ireland and have Meath play with themselves every year.
Just because you disagree with it doesn't make it an awful idea. How in the name of God has hurling been destroyed by adding tiers to it? All that has happenened is that your Tyrone's and Mayo's now have a championship to play in. It has made virtually no difference whatsoever to the status quo in hurling. None.Quote:
Originally Posted by BonnieShels
In football 2 tiers would mean that imo all 33 football teams would start each year in with a chance of an all Ireland title or at the very least a good run.
I cannot understand why creating two divisions in the football championship would be bad for the game. It works in virtually every other sport in the world. But it would be awful for GAA ?
Sounds like a runner, for at least a trial period...
In hurling it has allowed the the Big-3 a second bite at the cherry which inevitably means that those once-off shocks will be wiped away come the semi-final stage. That was what I meant about hurling "being destroyed".Quote:
Originally Posted by Real ale Madrid
If hurling had been run with a similar qualifying format to football we would see more teams in the main championship more often and more opportunities for middling teams to face each other.
What has happened is that a clear definable "Top-tier" has formed with a chasm between them and the rest. A chasm that will never be breached with the way hurling is dealt with.
Cork, Tipp and Kilkenny will always be dominant and that will never change. However the chances of a period like the 1990's where we had 6 different winners and 8 different finalists in 10 years ever happening again is impossible to see with the current system in place.
Significant investment in Dublin hurling is what got it to where it is. But no other "weak" county could hope to achieve that sort of result.
In football there's always scope for a county to come good. I mean look at Armagh and Donegal. They would have been conceivably been "weaker counties" at some stage in the fairly recent past.
Also with the uproar of the Offaly and Wicklow defeats at the hands of Tyrone and Armagh respectively why was there no uproar about Kildare playing in the Senior Championship afte Dublin whipped them for the second match in succession?
It's all too easy to complain about having sub-standard teams in the championship and as a Munster man I'm sure you're all too aware at the gash nature of your provincial championship as a result but again the issue at hand here is the investment in the game and what teams want to achieve?
Would Meath (who were Div 3 don't forget this season) who reached the All-Ireland semi in 2009, Wexford (who reached a semi in 2008) or Fermanagh in 2004 prefer that or to have won some lowly lower-tier title that will have no real cache and let's be honest will not help them in the long run.
I had developed a pretty comprehensive championship structure in 2009 but it's hidden deep in the bowels of my gmail. I'll root it out.
As I said how has the introduction of tiers to the hurling championship destroyed it? I think its the back door system you have an issue with.Quote:
Originally Posted by BonnieShels
So the back door is bad because it allows the bigger counties a second bit of the cherry - but it is good because it allows the middling teams to face each other more often ? You can't please everyone but I'm old fashioned - I like teams to EARN the right to play big games. Not just get it handed to them.Quote:
Originally Posted by BonnieShels
The Hurling championship has been pretty good this year it will be interesting to see if it continues. Limerick and Dublin are in provincial finals - both playing in a lower tier of the league - hasn't done them any harm either.
Correct - Under a two tier system they would be 2 years from an all ireland final instead of the one they are now. Does any Div.4 team have a realistic shot at an all ireland in 1 year ? The momentum of winning an important* "championship" could be significant also.Quote:
Originally Posted by BonnieShels
To be fair - comparing Kildare with the Wicklow and Offaly games is not fair surely - there is difference between conceding 15 points in a row and what happened at Croker on Sunday.Quote:
Originally Posted by BonnieShels
The key issue for me is not investment - its making a second tier an "important" competition. That will be a huge challenge.Quote:
Originally Posted by BonnieShels
Does the intermediate hurler or footballer devalue his county medal just because he doesn't play with a senior team. The whole of the GAA is modeled so that teams of comparable ability play against one another - except for the senior championships at inter county level
Nothing rational holds the championship structure together except tradition imo.
*obviously the question is how important is it?
If anything, the problem with hurling is that too many counties have been promoted into the Liam McCarthy in recent years - the Christy Ring Cup was a vibrant competition in the first few years, but now with Westmeath, Carlow, London and Down promoted, the only second-tier county remaining is Kerry, who would be massacred if they returned to Munster. The senior championship should have a base level of ten counties - the five Munster teams plus Kilkenny, Dublin, Galway, Wexford and Offaly - using the qualifiers and relegation playoffs, the bottom side would be replaced by the winners of a new second-tier involving the counties mentioned in the first sentence, along with Laois and Antrim.
When they tried to introduce relegation play-offs to the championship, too many counties, especially Antrim and Clare as I recall, made a stink for it to be palatable to the higher-ups, and it was quietly dropped.
You are talking about football?Quote:
Originally Posted by BonnieShels
I don't remember the time when Donegal or Armagh would have been regarded as a weaker county. Both those teams have been in the top half for decades.
Hurling has a wider chasm in quality than football.
In recent times we saw a mid level div 4 Wicklow beat Kildare in the LSFC and Down in the qualifiers. When in hurling would you ever see a div 4 county beat a top tier team?
I don't mind the football system as it is, provincial championships, open draw qualifiers, all merging at the 1/4 final stage. It has endured a passage of time with just a bit of fine tuning, that's a sign that it's working.
I don't care that much about hurling to have an opinion about the set up.
Football Qualifier Round 3 and 4 Draws
Galway / Armagh v Cork
Wexford / Laois v Loser Donegal / Monaghan
Kildare / Tyrone v Meath
Derry / Cavan v Loser London / Mayo
If Derry play London in the 4th round will it be known as the London/Derry game or just the Derry game?
That was gonna be my joke. Boo.Quote:
Originally Posted by Real ale Madrid
Hmmm... Although that game is going to be away for London as that's how it was drawn, if they had been drawn first (and assuming thye lose to Mayo) would it have been played in Ruislip as this is the All-Ireland Series and not the Connacht Championship which is what prevented them from playing Leitrim in Ruislip in the last round?
4th round games are at neutral venues.Quote:
Originally Posted by BonnieShels
Duh. Dang. Cheers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Real ale Madrid
But either way does anyone know the answer say if they were drawn at home in the 3rd round where they would play or does the Connacht rule continue?
Tyrone-Meath will be tasty.
AS it stands I can see the following happen:
Galway v Armagh
Wexford v Laois
Kildare v Tyrone
Derry v Cavan
Armagh v Cork
Wexford v Monaghan
Tyrone v Meath
Derry v London
QF1: Armagh v Kerry
QF2: Wexford v Dublin
QF3: Tyrone v Donegal
QF4: Derry v Mayo
SF1: Mayo v Donegal
SF2: Dublin v Armagh
F: Dublin v Mayo
W: Dublin
Its an open draw for the QF's anyway so its impossible to know who from the qualifiers will play whom.
But if you think Armagh will beat Cork and then Kerry I want some of what you are smoking.
As it stands I expect the 4 to emerge from the qualifiers to be Cork, Monaghan, Tyrone, and Derry and I don't expect any of that 4 to trouble the 4 expected provincial champions so Dubin v Kerry and Donegal v Mayo in the semis. Latest odds:
Dublin 15/8
Kerry 7/2
Donegal 4/1
Mayo 4/1
Cork 10/1
Tyrone 25/1
From a punting perspective Donegal at 4/1 to retain the all Ireland seems a little on the long side.
I know it's open draw. But I was guessing. Guessing I say.
Armagh and Kerry have previous so I reckon that that's how it would transpire should they meet. I have an inkling. An inking I say.
Stop getting all serious.
I think no matter who comes through the Qualifiers and into the QF it's gonna be a serious end to this championship.
Sorry! London for the AI!Quote:
Originally Posted by BonnieShels
Better!Quote:
Originally Posted by Real ale Madrid
Actually would you have said that Donegal would beat Cork and Kerry last year on the way to the AI?Quote:
Originally Posted by Real ale Madrid
I'm not for one second remotely comparing the quality of that Donegal team with Armagh but...