Games weekend 12th to 16th April

[Kingswood Rover]

Despite missing the usual quality players , vintage performance from us this evening ( married to a good few unenforceable errors by Pico) led by Burke who was unplayable and Greene who chipped in with two goals and shows why( again) he’s still such an asset…. Could have easily of been 6-0 … Sligo had one chance late on from a poor back pass by Cleary who was saved by a brilliant recovery tackle by Pico ; aside from that they were very poor with McGinty and luck saving them from a hiding

1st game where we kept going from start to finish. Aarron Greene was outstanding, that last goal when he ran onto a ball down the wing and bore down on goal often can be shot hit wide or straight at the keeper but looking at him last night you knew he was going to blem it into the onion sack. Dont really agree when we get all our players back stuff we still should be improving without them. The subs that came on last night were excellent. Richie Towell should had had a couple as well and the way he was looking for the ball all the time to get on it. Yes could of been more, couple of wayward passes from Pico and Cleary but with our passing game thats going to happen. Rovers really pressed well and you have to think the Fortnite is critical, away to Derry next Fri and then away to Shels on the Monday followed by 2 winnable homes v Galway and Drogs, 8/9 pts from 12 would not be detrimental to moving back towards top spot.

[The Bowler]

Consistent theme that the standards/quality of both divisions are on a rapid decline recent years. I'm not sure there is a single team in the country that would finish top half in the 6th tier of English football. The 1st Division is utterly awful fare, and as a product, has little to offer either players or fans. Prem teams full of loanees which kills talent progression for a lot of lads. Definitley the worst year in a long time. On the plus side, a poor UCD outfit will comfortably get a play off spot and blood lots of fresh talent between now and then, but can't see any scenario where the 1st Div play off winners this year beats the prem 9th, whoever that is.

[2 Year Contract]

I'm not sure there is a single team in the country that would finish top half in the 6th tier of English football.

Easily one of the funniest things I’ve ever read on here

[sbgawa]

Fair summary. I'd caveat that when we get byrne, Farrugia, Mcaneff, Grace, Hoare, kavanagh and Gaffney back all of whom were out tonight we have a team.that could compete above 6th tier in England easily. Kenny and poom are technically on loan I suppose buy I don't see either going anywhere fairly obvious their clubs are seeing their contracts down by allowing them to stay for a second year. Not to mention a fully fit Clarke rather than at the moment coming on for 10 mins.

[sbgawa]

Rovers first 11 if fit is imo
Pohls, farrugia. Cleary, pico, Grace, clarke, O'Neil, byrne, mcaneff, Burke, gaffney. That is as good a team as has played in ireland in last ten years. Getting them on the pitch is the challenge

[Jd2793]

Consistent theme that the standards/quality of both divisions are on a rapid decline recent years. I'm not sure there is a single team in the country that would finish top half in the 6th tier of English football. The 1st Division is utterly awful fare, and as a product, has little to offer either players or fans. Prem teams full of loanees which kills talent progression for a lot of lads. Definitley the worst year in a long time. On the plus side, a poor UCD outfit will comfortably get a play off spot and blood lots of fresh talent between now and then, but can't see any scenario where the 1st Div play off winners this year beats the prem 9th, whoever that is.

worst first division season for 5 or 6 years for sure. absolutely dog awful standard every week. city are favs for the league but look like they can only win a game by the odd goal, awful stuff. some of it on player quality but starting to think more of it is on managers idea on how to play. if this is how we are playing as resounding favs for the title then next season will be very grim under clancy in the PD (provided we actually get up. we dont look a lot better than any side)

[Dermobohs]

I agree on the Jekyll and Hyde comments and I think that's down to fitness. Look at the first half vs Rovers compared to the 2nd half. Bohs just completely ran out of steam. I think the plan is to focus on getting them up to speed on fitness as well as tactics because the players are certainly putting in a fair shift in Reynolds first few games and long may it continue.

On the game tonight I think Bohs were well drilled and tried to make Shels push the ball back to Kearns as much as possible since his distribution can be a touch erratic. They also used the keeper injury/motivational chat tactic that has become common very well. Each time they regrouped and got back on the front foot. Lastly ref was terrible all game. Bohs players were getting yellows for every infraction while he wouldn't give blatant fouls to Bohs. I'll have to watch it back but from where I was standing Rooney Clearly won the ball and it was never a peno.

Never a pen but the way he flew into the challenge was offering the ref a choice, bad decision from young Rooney.
Thought the ref was ok , could have kept his cards in the pocket though.

[nigel-harps1954]

Standard in the First Division is very poor this season indeed.

Harps sitting in second despite only really playing two or three decent games. We were very poor last night, Athlone weren't any better but took their chance to score when they got it.

I hate astro pitches. They should be banned.

Standard of refereeing is atrocious.

But the only thing Harps can blame is themselves. It was a poor performance, but that happens in football.

[listowelceltic]

Why is this season always worse than previous seasons. Fellas are saying it on here for as long as i can remember. Surely we're not regressing that much or are supporters basing it on their own teams performance.

[Another Bohemia]

Never a pen but the way he flew into the challenge was offering the ref a choice, bad decision from young Rooney.
Thought the ref was ok , could have kept his cards in the pocket though.

I suppose my biggest issue with the ref was the inconsistency when giving cards. He booked Mills for pulling down Martin and stopping a Shels counter but when Gannon dragged down McDaid it's just a free. Very similar positions as well near the half way line so it's not like one was straight through on goal or something. Reynolds was booked for mouthing to the 4th official and Duff was doing the same all night but got nothing. It's hugely frustrating to watch and with the dodgy peno given I think it was just a poor performance from the ref.

[The Bowler]

Easily one of the funniest things I’ve ever read on here

Maybe when Rovers have all their best players fit and well they finish top half of the 5th tier ?, but to be less dramatic about it, you simply have to look at the facts, for the last 7 or 8 years, our very best young talent gets picked up by League 1 or League 2 teams, and with a only a few exceptions, they struggle to make any meaningful impact at all across the pond at that level. So if our very best can't impact at that level where is the evidence that a squad of 22 of generally older (and less room for improvement players) could achieve more. Just posing the question

[pineapple stu]

Why is this season always worse than previous seasons. Fellas are saying it on here for as long as i can remember. Surely we're not regressing that much or are supporters basing it on their own teams performance.

There's less money among the lower clubs (First Division and even the bottom couple of PD teams) because of the academies. These must cost upwards of €100k to run (though in some cases I guess the cost is shared with a partner club) but that's a lot of money taken away from the first team wages budget, so less wages to go around and the league is probably less enticing for part-timers. It's a very young league which I don't think helps, and signing random loan players just before the season can't help with squad continuity/understanding.

Plus kids these days (*shakes fist at cloud*) are more likely to play FIFA or watch Netflix or scroll on their phone, whereas before they'd be playing street soccer and honing their skills. As societies get richer too, there's more emphasis on education and the idea football is a serious career option from a young age becomes less strong.

I think they're a couple of general reasons why the LoI might be weaker now than, say, 10 years ago. We feel a long way off getting draws with Hertha/PSG/Depor in Europe now for example (though that's also because those leagues have streaked ahead with their cash)

[sbgawa]

Academies can't be viewed simply as a cost. Rovers have taken in 6 million plus for sales of players from the academy. We couldn't have won the last 4 leagues without that money. Naj Razi the most recent for 500k but there are more in the funnnel

[listowelceltic]

Yea agree with all that but I'm going to first division games for over 20 years and the standard is as good or bad as then. In my opinion of course.

[nigel-harps1954]

Why is this season always worse than previous seasons. Fellas are saying it on here for as long as i can remember. Surely we're not regressing that much or are supporters basing it on their own teams performance.

I don't subscribe to this view. I think you'll find plenty of occasion of me scoffing at the suggestion of same.

What I have made an observation of though, is that the First Division is very poor this season. Because it is.

[pineapple stu]

Academies can't be viewed simply as a cost.

Completely agree. It's ridiculous that we didn't have academies before they were foisted on us. Rovers are an exception in fairness (and that academy costs a bit more than €100k a year to run I'd say!), and of course there's a plus side in terms of the suggested link between academies and increased gates. But I think for most FD clubs they're cost negative. (And most clubs, including Rovers, are showing a strange reluctance to move players from the academy to the first team)

Yea agree with all that but I'm going to first division games for over 20 years and the standard is as good or bad as then. In my opinion of course.

I don't know. If you go back over the UCD First Division teams (being all I'd really have looked at) -

2004 we had Tony McDonnell, Alan Mahon, Alan McNally, Rob McAuley and Mick O'Donnell - a spine of seasoned players with close on 200 games each. Then we also had new players - future title winners in Pat Sullivan and Conor Kenna, plus Gary Dicker who had a long career cross-channel. We still didn't win the title that year.
2009 we only had two players with more than 30 games for us at the start of the season - Brian Shortall and Ronan Finn. But we also had future title winners in Evan McMillan, Dave McMillan, Ciarán Kilduff, Keith Ward, Andy Boyle, Greg Bolger, Paul Corry. That's often described as one of the best First Division teams ever, though it only won the league by one point.
By 2015 Robbie Benson and Chris Mulhall were our experienced players (around 120 games each). We had some good young players - Gary O'Neill, Dylan Watts, Greg Sloggett - but nothing like the 2009 squad. We probably still would have won the division had we not been in Europe.
2018 was a good team - O'Neill, Sloggett, Liam Scales, Georgie Kelly, Jay McClelland. Won the league by three points.
But by 2021 - when we were still promoted - we really only had Liam Kerrigan and Colm Whelan as stand-out players, and no real experience (80 games was the most at the start of the season). The likes of Sam Todd, Evan Weir, Paul Doyle, Dara Keane have moved on but haven't really made a mark in the Premier.
And this year we have experience in Finn, but to be honest I'm not seeing who across the rest of the squad might go on to win the Premier. Seán Brennan is our best player but a move to Drogheda didn't work out for whatever reason, so he came back.

So I think from UCD's point of view, our squad has been getting weaker down the years, but every year we're there or thereabouts in the run for the top spots. That to me points to the FD weakening too.

[dansultheman]

Kerry will once again be kicking themselves for not picking up 3 points here! You do get the feeling that the days that Kerry leaving teams off the hook and being an easy target is most definitely coming to an end.

2023 after 10 Games

Points - 2
Goals For - 6
Goals Against - 26
Clean Sheets - 0

2024 after 10 games

Points - 10
Goals For - 9
Goals Against - 10
Clean Sheets - 3

That's some going for the club and going in the right direction. Dennehy moving to his Sporting Directors Role was definitely the right role for him!

Ainscough must be scratching his head!!!!!

[sbgawa]

Be hilarious if ainscough was playing kerry next year in division 1....or if kerry made the playoffs and got promoted.

[holidaysong]

Kerry vs Dundalk in the playoff final. Narrative.

[legendz]

Last year Kerry were letting teams off the hook with an easy 3 points. Apart from the Longford game, Kerry have been letting a few teams off the hook in taking a share of the spoils. Last night was Kerry's first time securing back to back clean sheets in the league. Should have won then with the chances created. Cork, UCD, Wexford and Kerry are unbeaten in their last 5.