Is Hurling the greatest game ever?

K-9

anncoates wrote: »

The amount of times a team ends up with no (or one or two) points would suggest otherwise.

Well I thought it was obvious I was talking about individual players, not whole teams!

stanley1

great game, demanding very fast reaction both physical and mental, leaves football way behind.

Fratton Fred

stanley1 wrote: »

great game, demanding very fast reaction both physical and mental, leaves football way behind.

I watched Chelsea v Portsmouth a few years back and that's exactly how I would describe the Drogba v Campbell contest.

Henlars67

Given the extent of Irish emigration to almost every corner of the world it really is amazing that hurling isn't the most popular sport in the world.........

Mountainlad

Henlars67 wrote: »

Given the extent of Irish emigration to almost every corner of the world it really is amazing that hurling isn't the most popular sport in the world.........

I'd say there is more Chinese around the world than Irish people abroad, and yet we don't all go around with table tennis rackets in our back pocket, now do we?

DEFTLEFTHAND

Video of Tipperary v a selection of All Stars from other counties played in Toronto in 1990 . Funny seeing hurling with the North American sports presentation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ2AtMW835w

Sir Arthur Daley

Henlars67 wrote: »

Given the extent of Irish emigration to almost every corner of the world it really is amazing that hurling isn't the most popular sport in the world.........

It might be but they forgot to take a Hurley and Slioter with them.

The Aussie

WikiHow wrote: »

It might be but they forgot to take a Hurley and Slioter with them.

But not the Jersery, not in Northbridge, St Kilda or Bondi anyway :pac:....

thecatspjs

Henlars67 wrote: »

Given the extent of Irish emigration to almost every corner of the world it really is amazing that hurling isn't the most popular sport in the world.........

Given the extent of Irish people in Ireland, it really is amazing that hurling isn't the most popular sport in Ireland.

deseil

SimonQuinlank wrote: »

Nah its played by a tiny amount of people in the world in comparison to football,rugby,tennis,basketball etc.If it was the greatest game ever a lot more folk would play it.

Plus the GAA are in charge of it.

It would take the rest of the world 100s of years to get to the competition level of the irish who play hurling!!"You can keep your sissy pansy sports" Hurling is in our blood its by far the best game in the world

Henlars67

deseil wrote: »

It would take the rest of the world 100s of years to get to the competition level of the irish who play hurling!!"You can keep your sissy pansy sports" Hurling is in our blood its by far the best game in the world

If the best argument you can make for hurling is that it's a game for hard men then it doesn't say much for the sport.

And it isn't in my blood.

stretchdoe

Henlars67 wrote: »

That just means that you prefer it to rugby and football.

No sport is 'superior' to any other.

It's just about personal preference and individual perceptions on what a great sport is.

Personally I don't particularly like field games where scores regularly come from 60 or 70 yards.

I prefer games where it is harder to score and the opposition needs to be broken down as in football.
But that's just my own point of view. I don't like basketball as scores are too plentiful, others love the excitement that that brings.

But those are just my perceptions of what a good game is.
I'd never claim that it makes any sport superior or inferior to another, because that's just nonsense.

I did find the 2 All-Ireland hurling finals exciting and enjoyed watching them, but it's just not a sport that particularly interests me and there's any amount of appallingly bad games in it too.


One thing I will say, which is unrelated to what is being discussed here, is that actually attending any match, in any sport, regardless of the level and quality is much much better than watching any match on TV.

As someone who attends over 50 matches a year and probably watches twice as much as that on TV I'm speaking with a lot of experience on that one.

Regarding the point i bolded, those who understand and like the game of basketball don't like it because they are excited by score after score but understand that it's about each team finding ways to get those scores and to stop the other team from scoring and the intricacies and shifts in momentum involved. Anyone watching it from the point of view of 'there's a score, oh great there's another score, doesn't understand the game.

Other than that, i agree with everything you've written about personal preference, live v Tv etc.

COYW

deseil wrote: »

It would take the rest of the world 100s of years to get to the competition level of the irish who play hurling!!

Ah stop. The likes of the MLB pros, hockey pros or cricket pros have incredible hand-eye co-ordination and power. They would adapt to the game in no time and dominate lads who play the game part time. The other countries would plough money into analysing the skills required to play the game and any professional set up would overtake players who play the game part time in a very short space of time.

Oakboy

Timothy Bryce wrote: »

I've really tried to get into the hurling over the last few years but really struggle to get excited about it. Granted it's a very impressive game, with tremendous levels of skill required, from players who are amateurs by all accounts.

What grinds my gears is the airtime the sport gets especially on radio.

I listen to Off the Ball most nights and you can guarantee, a huge chunk of coverage will be given to GAA - I feel like it gets more coverage than more mainstream sports which may have a larger following.

e.g. more often than not you'll hear one of the lads waffling on about Jimmy McGee stepping down from the Ballyhale Shamrocks panel for 45 mins, or an hour spent discussing the GAA All Star Awards, after briefly touching on the Irish rugby victory at the weekend - a game in which 50k+ people attended.

I don't follow it, nor do many people I know. I don't want to hear about it every time I switch on the radio.

This has to be a joke? If any sport is grossly over represented in the media it is Rugby which of course is no surprise given that it's the south dublin clique which controls RTE and the papers

Jimoslimos

deseil wrote: »

It would take the rest of the world 100s of years to get to the competition level of the irish who play hurling!!

I wouldn't be so sure. After all the British were overtaken very quickly in pretty much every sport they invented!

kupus

Ive noticed the rugby creeping in very much over the last few years, amazing when only a handful of people play it in a handful of countries. When i played a bit, there was only a page or two a week now its 2 pages a day at least in the indo.
Well done rugby, even with all the infighting and bickering that goes on there, it can still grow. (maybe till next year anyway) unless the unions can get a grip of teh owner teams.

on a side note imagine, if usa took hurling on, in a big way and started a state v state championship. And the winners play the liam mccarthy champions in the world series.

So if Florida meet clare in the final and florida annihilate and humilate clare, just imagine the uproar, gnashing and wailing of all the hurling boyos up and down the country.

Itd be great fun to listen to liveline the next day!!!

why would you ask a question and then absolutely refuse to listen to anyone else's reasoning but your own . i love hurling as a sport but gaa heads can be worse than any other sports fan bases most of the time when it comes to a trying to have a reasonable unbiased argument

WesternZulu

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

I love hurling and I attend most of my county's matches and go to the latter stages of the club championship in Offaly which means I probably go to more matches than 90% of the country's population.

However it is overhyped on occassions.Its a great sport but there seem to be a camaign by the media saying everything is great in hurling while at the same time Gaelic Football is subject to ridiculous levels of criticism and nonsense nostaligia about how superior the game was in the past (which is clearly wasn't).Last years hurling championship was brilliant but for the 6 or 7 years before that it was quite uncompetitive and one briliant game per year seem to be enough to ignore the rest of the championship.There are bucket loads of matches that are dire but they get overlooked by the media, when they portray hurling.

There is no such thing as the greatest sport as it is a completly subjective and down to personal preference.My favourite sport is Gaelic Football and nothing is as good as a great football match in my opinion.

All sports when played well are great to watch and should be enjoyed for this not demeaned by comparisions to other sports.

Agree with everything in this post!!!

Especially the way you never hear the media say there was a bad game of hurling, whereas gaelic football is unfairly treated as some sort of b**stard child that cannot do anything right.

Boskowski

Football is the greatest game ever, no contest, case closed.

Distant second is golf.

Oh you dont agree? You think its a matter of personal opinion? Exactly, so is every other post in this thread. So its a bit pointless really.

But if you go by worlwide popularity, revenues, attendences, people playing it etc yadayada it has to be football.

deseil

Boskowski wrote: »

Football is the greatest game ever, no contest, case closed.

Distant second is golf.

Oh you dont agree? You think its a matter of personal opinion? Exactly, so is every other post in this thread. So its a bit pointless really.

But if you go by worlwide popularity, revenues, attendences, people playing it etc yadayada it has to be football.

Football "gaa,american,aussie rules" or soccer? I ll think you ll find soccer is the word your looking

Henlars67

deseil wrote: »

Football "gaa,american,aussie rules" or soccer? I ll think you ll find soccer is the word your looking

eh, you don't get to decide what the sport is called

deseil

eh, why did I invent a new name for football which one was it?