Weekend 17th of May to 20th May

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Originally Posted by Shinkicker

This season is on its head. Everybody dropping points. Dundalk beat Bohs and Rovers and remain bottom, as well as others lower down picking up points against teams higher up. The eventual league winners could be a surprise package and the same for the relegated teams.

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Beating Rovers and Bohs and should have beaten Shels in a credible drawn match, but lose to Sligo conceding 5, Waterford conceding 4, Galway etc etc. Bottom having not conceded a goal in 6 at home (obviously scoring ourselves is an issue) but yup the margins are fine and its rivoting or car crash where ye can look away. 10 team league has actually been more a positive than I thought. I wont like it this year if we are victims of the relegation battle. It is really what the league should be without a couple of basement dwelling clubs inadvetantly making the Premier Division relegation a non battle where a bad run and you are worrying, a league where you could never say never in terms of a relegation battle. I never realised how much I appreciated UCD and Finn Harps and what they offered until now!!:)

Shels are just well coached and shows what can be done by a good coaching setup. They are grinding out points and picking off wins and doing it consistantly when others are dropping points - its actually quite Mourhino Chelsea like where you have to presume Duffer has taken his coaching lead from. He would be the top target in the league for an English club looking for a coach on a budget that could improve any squad with a bit of spit and polish. Whats a bit mad too is that he didnt want to be anything more than a coach, his foray in to LoI wasnt a platform or means to an end trying to get out and up asap. You wouldnt be convinced that he'd have his head turned that easily by a bigger hitter in the UK. There has been stability in that Shels squad where they have obviously been worked on rather than just raid say Dundalk for a bunch of their former league winners and top goal scorer assuming that thats all the fix thats needed. Duff is a litle more sophisticated in what he is achieving than the Caulfield/Horgan axis of anti-football, he would od more with better quality, JC would sign a fit Jack Byrne and bench him for daring not to hoof - Charlton and Brady of LoI stuff...

Dont see Duff going to England although you can never say never i suppose.
Left a better paying job in Celtic to rear his famlly in Ireland.
Wouldnt be surprised to see him ending up managing Ireland or buying a stake in an Irish club

Or both!! Keep his Shels projeCt on the rails while bailing out the FAI.

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

They certainly seem to have that knack of snatching a narrow defeat from the jaws of an arguably deserved draw. Kenny must be cursing his luck already.

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The peformances and results already remind me of Ireland. I have a lot of time for Kenny but for some reason he is like the Cooler nowadays. If he didn’t have bad luck he would have no luck. Close your eyes during his 2 Pat’s post match interviews and you think it was an Ireland game the way he is talking.

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Originally Posted by ger121

The peformances and results already remind me of Ireland. I have a lot of time for Kenny but for some reason he is like the Cooler nowadays. If he didn’t have bad luck he would have no luck. Close your eyes during his 2 Pat’s post match interviews and you think it was an Ireland game the way he is talking.

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In fairness you’re probably overestimating how much influence any manager in the world can have on a teams performance in 2 games which he had 1 training session to prepare for each game

I dont think anyone seriously thinks that SK wont do well at St Pats, how long it takes form him to break this run really depends on how quickly the squad buys in to his ways. If its a Rovers like reaction then it'll be a tough season until he can drop the dead weight. Ifs its Dundalk like (blank canvas basically) he'd a challenging team built of unknowns and journeymen - few Dundalk fans could believe he held on to Chris Shields after that McCaffrey season, Mountney also. His forté is man management and getting players believinng they are good enough so depends on how battered the St Pats squad confidence or how much battering some egos need. Higgins is an example of how a bottomless pit of money to bring in top players isnt enough, Doolin took an eternity and broke Drogheda with his similar effort. Kenny with the resources of Kelleher will have St Pats always in the hunt for as long as people have patience during transitional times.

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Originally Posted by Nesta99

I dont think anyone seriously thinks that SK wont do well at St Pats, how long it takes form him to break this run really depends on how quickly the squad buys in to his ways. If its a Rovers like reaction then it'll be a tough season until he can drop the dead weight. Ifs its Dundalk like (blank canvas basically) he'd a challenging team built of unknowns and journeymen - few Dundalk fans could believe he held on to Chris Shields after that McCaffrey season, Mountney also. His forté is man management and getting players believinng they are good enough so depends on how battered the St Pats squad confidence or how much battering some egos need. Higgins is an example of how a bottomless pit of money to bring in top players isnt enough, Doolin took an eternity and broke Drogheda with his similar effort. Kenny with the resources of Kelleher will have St Pats always in the hunt for as long as people have patience during transitional times.

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The challenge is distinctly different for SK this time around. More players are in longer contracts than when he joined Dundalk back in the day. The likelihood of even building a team of LOI journeymen is very slim. Now that's not to say he isn't up to it but more so that he won't have a blank slate like he did in Dundalk. A turn around may take longer than it did in Dundalk and that's probably why he liked the idea of the 5 year contract because it's probably year 3 when the rubber really hits the road in terms of results.

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Originally Posted by ger121

The peformances and results already remind me of Ireland. I have a lot of time for Kenny but for some reason he is like the Cooler nowadays. If he didn’t have bad luck he would have no luck. Close your eyes during his 2 Pat’s post match interviews and you think it was an Ireland game the way he is talking.

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If you’re talking about pedestrian possession across the back four and a lack of penetration once it gets to the final third, only for the ball to go backwards more often than not, then Pats have been playing like that all year so I don’t think it can be laid at Kennys door. Patience in possession is all well and good, and I’m all for it, but there has been a lack of urgency about Pats attacking all season. The last 15 or 20 minutes the other night once we equalised was more like it from that point of view. I honestly thought if anyone was going to nick the win it would be us. Last season we wouldn’t have conceded that Shels winner, as defenders were throwing themselves in the way of those sort of situations in the box.

Stephen Kenny is not going to turn us around that quickly, and we have to be prepared to give him time. One of the reservations I would have had about him taking over is how often the Ireland stuff was going to be thrown in his face (which we can see the beginning of already.) It’s incredibly unhelpful from a Pats point of view, but probably inevitable until he starts winning games. If he doesn’t, well then we have much more serious concerns.

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Originally Posted by total hoofball

Also does Rob Hennessy have vision impairments? After his horrorshow in the last minute of our away match in Drogheda where he placed Keith Ward's stoppage time free kick outside of the box backwards by 5-6 yards he did the opposite tonight for Pats prior to the brilliantly executed Mulraney free kick giving Mulraney a bonus 3-4 yards advance/2 yards inside

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I think Hennessey is a clown also but in fairness you can see from the clip below that the free kick was taken from pretty much the exact place Melia was fouled.

https://x.com/iandunney/status/1793296313896828969?s=46

It wasn't I took screenshots from LOITV of the spot of the foul and Mulraney's spot for the free-kick which was 3-4 yards forward and 2 yards inside lines on Pat's pitch made it easy to see

The free was given where melia landed rather than where he was tripped but there was a couple of yards in it at most I'd say.

I see Shels could be facing a full stadium closure and points deduction according to their SLO, for throwing the flare at Jake Mulraney on Monday (on top of their previous incidents)

https://x.com/ShelbourneFCSLO/status...30757774434560

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Originally Posted by 2 Year Contract

I see Shels could be facing a full stadium closure and points deduction according to their SLO, for throwing the flare at Jake Mulraney on Monday (on top of their previous incidents)

https://x.com/ShelbourneFCSLO/status...30757774434560

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Deleted already. Someone not happy.

9 point deduction would seem fair

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Originally Posted by 2 Year Contract

I see Shels could be facing a full stadium closure and points deduction according to their SLO, for throwing the flare at Jake Mulraney on Monday (on top of their previous incidents)

https://x.com/ShelbourneFCSLO/status...30757774434560

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That is stupidity at its finest. The League seems to be clamping down on most things now and have issued warnings about flares multiple times. You would be fuming as an average match going Shels fan and if the points deduction goes through as a member of the management team and playing staff.

I'd say these idiots won't even regret their actions and simply increase the number of **** the FAI chants during a game. The FAI have their problems and plenty of them but it's hard to disagree with them when they have been vocal about this needing to stop for a while

Yet they were using images of pyro until fairly recently to promote the league

Fine, maybe partial ground closure and suspended points deduction likely, if they go straight to a points deducion there is a good chnce of it being appealed effectig a title run in. Threre is little point appealing a final shot across the bow + the precedence then for other clubs could get messy quickly. Points deduction would give Rover a lifeline if needed, if Shels were deducted 9 Derry would lose the next 3 games.

Maybe there a chance to engage with supporters groups and nominate/formalise those with pyro? Individuals then get lifetime bans.

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Originally Posted by Nesta99

Fine, maybe partial ground closure and suspended points deduction likely, if they go straight to a points deducion there is a good chnce of it being appealed effectig a title run in. Threre is little point appealing a final shot across the bow + the precedence then for other clubs could get messy quickly. Points deduction would give Rover a lifeline if needed, if Shels were deducted 9 Derry would lose the next 3 games.

Maybe there a chance to engage with supporters groups and nominate/formalise those with pyro? Individuals then get lifetime bans.

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Isn't pyro use in this way illegal in Ireland? So there is no way to formalize or organise this through the clubs/league. I remember LOI central had the league director on a few months back, I want to say it was after the Bohs flare issue in Inchicore where Cian Byrne was hit by our own fans, and he said something to that effect. The directive they give ground staff now is not to put it in a bucket of sand even because you can't know what it is and if it explodes in the bucket it becomes even more dangerous. The visuals of pyro are always great but in a practical sense there's no way they should be in grounds anymore.

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Originally Posted by Another Bohemia

Isn't pyro use in this way illegal in Ireland? So there is no way to formalize or organise this through the clubs/league. I remember LOI central had the league director on a few months back, I want to say it was after the Bohs flare issue in Inchicore where Cian Byrne was hit by our own fans, and he said something to that effect. The directive they give ground staff now is not to put it in a bucket of sand even because you can't know what it is and if it explodes in the bucket it becomes even more dangerous. The visuals of pyro are always great but in a practical sense there's no way they should be in grounds anymore.

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A lot of drugs are illegal in Ireland also but there is still safe drug testing facilities at music festivals for example. The idea behind that is, although it’s illegal, people will still find a way to bring it in, so it’s better that they’re as safe as possible while using it.

It’d be good if there was some sort of effort made towards safer pyro usage but I’d imagine it’s unlikely and the attempts to clamp down will continue to fail and there will be continued ‘incidents’ as a result

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Originally Posted by 2 Year Contract

A lot of drugs are illegal in Ireland also but there is still safe drug testing facilities at music festivals for example. The idea behind that is, although it’s illegal, people will still find a way to bring it in, so it’s better that they’re as safe as possible while using it.

It’d be good if there was some sort of effort made towards safer pyro usage but I’d imagine it’s unlikely and the attempts to clamp down will continue to fail and there will be continued ‘incidents’ as a result

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The distinct difference is that drug use of that type will generally only harm the drug user. Use of pyrotechnics can and has harmed players and bystanders this year. I wish there was some easy solution because as I said they generally look fantastic & add to the atmosphere but if you want to use them safely they are going to need to be used in a controlled environment with plenty of space around them so other fans aren't burned and they are disposed of correctly. The fact that they are being thrown onto pitches & at players/officials shows that those using them don't want to use them responsibly so even if there was the ideal place to use them the people causing the issue are the exact ones who would ignore the protocols.

Isn't there some sort of "cold pyro", maybe it could be used instead. I don't know a whole lot about pyro but I love seeing it, really adds to an atmosphere

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Originally Posted by Buckett

Isn't there some sort of "cold pyro", maybe it could be used instead. I don't know a whole lot about pyro but I love seeing it, really adds to an atmosphere

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Did a quick bit of googling and there appears to be systems alright for cold pyro. I wouldn't say they are cheap , it could be beneficial if clubs engaged with fan groups. If these systems could be installed in certain parts of the ground for atmosphere it could help cut out the flares.

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Originally Posted by Buckett

Isn't there some sort of "cold pyro", maybe it could be used instead. I don't know a whole lot about pyro but I love seeing it, really adds to an atmosphere

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Big in Scandinavia, Martin Connolly said last year he had been looking into it at dundalk but not sure how far that went.