Martin O'Neill and Roy Keane

[paul_oshea]

I think the point is TrapAPony, we all find different things funny. We all find different things not funny. We all find some things offensive, we all find some things insulting. Being aware of those around us, and their feelings for whatever reason - lets remove the sexual preference element - is whats important. If you can destabalise someone with words, then why use them? Being aware and empathetic to those who are offended by certains words is important. Doesn't matter whether its fat, black, darkie, n*, p@ki, pikey etc...

There is still ways to be funny about these things, but without using offensive terms - Delorean kinda hit it with the didn't want people getting the wrong idea, without actually using the word he used.

Anyway I just want to talk about football now and hope O'Neill doesn't let this hold his personality and openeness with the public change in any shape or form. Its probably something his daugthers would be able say and take on board. Men of his generation seem to take this advice best from the females in their lives.

[Gather round]

[tetsujin1979]

I don't get it.

[sadloserkid]

Is it a Dublin = The Pale thing?

[Stuttgart88]

I presume it's just a noted bigot saying that MON is too much of a bigot for her to associate with? Really funny.

[thischarmingman]

And with one post, the entire forum is united once more, albeit in collective cringe.

[tetsujin1979]

oh, it's a joke. I still don't get it.

[Charlie Darwin]

may, or may not, be related that an Irish Times journalist was told he was not allowed to interview players at the weekend after some scathing articles on Delaney in recent times.

Sunday Times actually, Peter Rowan.

[Stuttgart88]

Paul Rowan.

[Charlie Darwin]

No, it's his evil twin Peter.

[tetsujin1979]

contract extended for management team until the 2018 World Cup: http://www.fai.ie/ireland/news/marti...eland-contract

[tricky_colour]

It's marriage made in heaven, but obviously not a gay one.

[paul_oshea]

Are people happy with the extension, I notice it said till after the 2018 world cup. So the feel is qualification and having everything sorted by then. Its quite apparent we have much more pressing and urgent things to be discussing these few weeks.

[DeLorean]

I am. Wales under Coleman and England under Hodgson both improved massively in their second qualification campaigns. O'Neill has really grown into the job but has only really got to grips with it fairly recently I think. Sometimes a change is what's needed (Trap's last campaign) and sometimes continuity seems a better option. I think we'd be taking a couple of steps backwards if we needed to get a new manager in place.

[backstothewall]

I'm also very happy. Even if we don't get a point in France the results in qualifying merit another 2 years in my opinion.

That's all the results in qualifying btw. With the exception of the Scotland games we had some smashing results. The focus will always go on the Germany win, but the draw in the game in Germany are the win in Georgia were very important results.

[paul_oshea]

They were very important, because the easier expected results never materialised. My worry would be that we might not be able pull off those results again this time, but we don't have the big calibre team to run away with things this time either. So the results that didnt go so well are more important this time, as they were against average sides around our level. We have 3 teams around our level this time, and we need to be achieveing the expected results off them.

I hope MON learnt that from the last time out. We need to be getting the odd win away from home against average sides. We still haven't done that. But we also need to ensure the performance is good enough to guarantee at least a draw - last time out it wasn't.

[DeLorean]

Austria might emerge as being significantly above our level in the coming weeks. I don't know much a about them but their Euro qualification results were massively impressive, stuff we could only dream about in all honesty.

[Stuttgart88]

True but didn't they lose 2-0 to Netherlands last week?

[DeLorean]

They did, but I'd take their qualification results far more seriously. Netherlands are always going to be capable of decent results, they won at Wembley too recently. We lost at home to Belarus and Spain lost at home to Georgia so friendlies can throw up strange results too, not that Netherlands beating anybody should be considered all that strange.

[DannyInvincible]

Francis Fitzgibbon, who plays for the Dublin Devils (Ireland's only all-male gay football team), was on Ray D'Arcy (yesterday, I think) and explained his reaction and the problem with O'Neill's comment in his words. The full discussion is here: https://soundcloud.com/rte-radio-1/f...lls-queer-joke

We felt that sinking level of disappointment [when we heard the comment]. Kind of like the "here we go again" feeling. We felt not so much anger, more so disappointment. It's not even the word. You say the word "queers" there. When we're joking among ourselves we occasionally call each other queers. We're having a laugh and we're joking. I don't have such a problem with the word, but it's the sentiment of "we're the lads, and ye are separate or different over there"; that demarcation of "us" from "the gay people". And it's that connotation of, y'know, that "we didn't want to be considered as queers because obviously they're bad things".

He was nevertheless happy with and appreciative of the apology.