The 2015 All Ireland Senior Football Championship

Stoner

Nidgeweasel wrote:

There'd be no more antipathy towards Dublin from Donegal than there would be in most other counties really. It's always nice to bring the Jacks down a peg or two and on the flip side Dublin might be abit arsey because the 'culchies' spoiled their procession last summer and feel like they have to prove a point but hey ho.

Nidgeweasel, since 1992, I've called you guys plenty of things, but never culchies, it shows how we need to get over these things and talk more. Deep down us Dubs refer all of our Ulster friends collectively.

It's true though you get the feeling that the teams don't like each other. But we have many such enemies, yet so have Donegal, you really get the feeling that Mayo and Donegal have a dysfunctional relationship too..

Stoner

I think an important point is that Kerry are the current champions and they are better this year with more options than they were/had last year.

Donegal seem to have continued on, they have the ability to beat Mayo, Kerry and Dublin but I don't think Monaghan do, they'd need Owen Lennon at his best to have a chance but I don't see it.
I know Roscommon have good forwards and looked good to date but at full flight I think Mayo will beat them, on a path to an AI they might have to meet twice, a Kerry and Cork special but I think Mayo are better conditioned, jury's out on the management though.
Can't see Cork doing much this year still have some great players but their setup looks to be at the wrong level, I can't believe that there is not a more firey Cork man around to do the job. They lack mobility in the middle of the field, but have strong options everywhere else excluding the keeper it seems. It's a pity that the invincible aura they had in 2010 / 2011 has vanished as they had a unique set up with huge men, they made the championship very interesting as you wanted to watch them and how teams would set up against them, I still maintain that if Dublin met Cork in 2011 that Cork would have had two in a row, they had Dublins number four years ago.

Donegal Dublin would be a good game this year and something to look forward to if it happened.
There is a surprise in Mayo, they are in the long grass IMHO, have not seen enough of their management to judge them but I've seen enough of them at full flight to respect them. They need a natural fullback, I know everyone talks about their forwards but Kilbride, Donaghy, Brogan, Murphy would /will all ask serious question for them this year.

I'm at the following levels
Kerry/Dublin
Mayo/Donegal
Tyrone /Monaghan /roscommon/ Cork
Armagh /Galway

All IMHO

Nidgeweasel

Stoner wrote: »

Nidgeweasel, since 1992, I've called you guys plenty of things, but never culchies, it shows how we need to get over these things and talk more. Deep down us Dubs refer all of our Ulster friends collectively.

It's true though you get the feeling that the teams don't like each other. But we have many such enemies, yet so have Donegal, you really get the feeling that Mayo and Donegal have a dysfunctional relationship too..

See if he had have said Mayo I'd have agreed. There's definitely an underlying issue there.I really don't think there's any big problem towards the Dubs from ourselves other than the fact it's Dublin and everything that entails.

Are we boggers or nordies? I'm not au fait with distinctions for people from counties outside the capital. I had typed boggers initially but changed it to culchies last minute.

Red Kev

I think Mayo will lose to either Galway or Roscommon. That has the advantage that they get a better run in the Quali's and make things easier for a SF/Final place.

As others have said, it's hard to know with the new management team.

iDave

So Louth will get an injection of the Micko factor this year it seems.

Fr Tod Umptious

Red Kev wrote: »

I think Mayo will lose to either Galway or Roscommon. That has the advantage that they get a better run in the Quali's and make things easier for a SF/Final place.

As others have said, it's hard to know with the new management team.

The idea that the back door is an advantage because it gives a team some sort of a "run" is no longer valid.

Since 2010, when all semi finalists came from the back door, there has been only one team to make it to a SF via the back door, Tyrone 2013.

Right now teams that are serious about winning an AI value the ability to prepare that you get from winning your province.
You do not have to worry about who, where and when you are playing next, which is the case with the back door.

Jampip

Nidgeweasel wrote: »

Are we boggers or nordies? I'm not au fait with distinctions for people from counties outside the capital. I had typed boggers initially but changed it to culchies last minute.

You must have missed the "Mullagh" phase of the noughties. We were all "bleeding Mullaghs".

I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the fact that the town bordering Meath in my own blessed county has pretty much become a satelitte area of Dublin.

Nidgeweasel

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

The idea that the back door is an advantage because it gives a team some sort of a "run" is no longer valid.

Since 2010, when all semi finalists came from the back door, there has been only one team to make it to a SF via the back door, Tyrone 2013.

Right now teams that are serious about winning an AI value the ability to prepare that you get from winning your province.
You do not have to worry about who, where and when you are playing next, which is the case with the back door.

A great post.

Jim had said as much on numerous occasions, particularly in advance of the Derry game in the championship last year. A win against Derry would give Donegal a clear run of some 3/4 weeks before a semi final, and the same thereafter. Much better for training and preparation.

It used to be the opposite for counties like Donegal though. We made a semi on a run in 2003, Fermanagh 2004 that was real crest of a wave stuff. Not the case anymore.

Barrysplague

Lads / Lassies, hopefully this post makes it up here, there is a great event to get a good discussion going on the 2015 All-Ireland Championship and is being held in the Hotel Kilmore in Cavan on Friday week (8 May 2015).

The Ballybay Senior team (Monaghan) are hosting an All Ireland preview night and have secured a very interesting panel - Declan O'Sullivan (Kerry), Michael Meehan (Galway), Anthony Moyles (Meath) and Kevin Cassidy (Donegal). Declan Bogue (Author and journalist) will MC the event and should ensure an interesting debate between the panel.

Four course meal, wine and other entertainment on the night also, all for €50!! Promises to be brilliant!

Tickets can be bought online. I know that I can't post a link for it but if you search 'Ballybay All-Ireland Preview'. you will find the link to buy tickets and more information.

Stoner

Nidgeweasel wrote:

Are we boggers or nordies? I'm not au fait with distinctions for people from counties outside the capital. I had typed boggers initially but changed it to culchies last minute.

Northies, although I heard a debate last year that some had Donegal occupying the intersection.
That said with your excellent execution of the blanket defence it has IMHO placed you firmly as a Northie County.

Ollieboy

DoctaDee wrote: »

Yeah this pretty much sums up my own opinion too. While Dublin may not win the AI, to suggest journo/ media commentary as over hype is to overlook the fact that they've been the best team in the country for a good 2 years and would stand alone as the only team capable of putting any of the others to the sword. That said I would hasten to add that I think it will be an extremely tight affair with no team offering Dublin the opportunity to play expansive football at the business end of the championship.

Jim Gavin did extremely well to deflect the defeat to Donegal on himself, but in reality he didn't instruct them to play with only 2 defenders. Having spoken to 2 lads that played that day they know that ultimately the downfall was in trying to beat Donegal into the ground. The fact that they couldn't and then weren't even in a position then to consolidate their lead was their ultimate demise.

If Dublin avoid another potential slip up to Donegal I'd expect them once again to win the AI at Kerrys expense.

But I think the above comment states how much the media/fans do play a part in Dublin's downfall. Nobody in their right mind would think Dublin were going to walk all over Donegal (beat them yes), but the media and some Dublin fans thought it would be a walk-over. Bookies were given Donegal crazy odds. So it does get into the players head.

Living in Dublin for 30 years I feel sorry for the Dublin players in relation to fans/media as it's always pressure and they can't stop going to work and not hearing about it. Also if you play bad in a Dublin jersey it gets notice even more due to media.

I know a lot of ex-Dublin players and even 30 years later people keep talking to them about a or b game.

blowitupref

Is this right the Connacht,Munster finalists on the A side of the draw?

http://www.gaa.ie/fixtures-and-results/championship-wall-charts/

Fr Tod Umptious

blowitupref wrote: »

Is this right the Connacht,Munster finalists on the A side of the draw?

http://www.gaa.ie/fixtures-and-results/championship-wall-charts/

Well it's not right if you look at the GAA website fixture list

https://www.gaa.ie/fixtures-and-results/national-fixtures/gaa-football-all-ireland-senior-championship/

They need to get stuff like this right, seriously

corny

Ollieboy wrote: »

But I think the above comment states how much the media/fans do play a part in Dublin's downfall.

No it doesn't. You have no idea if that mindset was created internally by the management and players or was manifest of media hype.

Its entirely plausible, and what i think is most likely the case, the Dublin players thought ..... they think they're the immovable object, well we're the unstoppable force.

That proves they were tactically naive but it doesn't prove they were victims of media pressure.

Fireball07

The football Championship also starts tonight, with Galway facing New York in Gaelic Park. NY are actually winning at the moment, but it's still in the first half.

While some (including me) are saying the hurling championship is more open than ever, the football championship doesn't seem to be the same. Most people are pointing at Dublin after they romped to a 3rd league in a row; you'll always have Kerry there or thereabouts and with the Gooch and Tommy Walsh back on board, could be even stronger this year. And Donegal & Mayo are still worth mentions, both came close last year. It's hard to see who else though- Monaghan are good but not All-Ireland class, Cork don't seem to have what it takes to match the top teams and the likes of Tyrone aren't quite there either.

However, I would a team like Roscommon to have an impressive campaign; possibly Tipperary too and Galway will be hoping to build on a good qualifier run last year; and then the likes of Armagh, Cavan, Down, Fermanagh, Derry will be formidable opponents for most teams.


Again, Paddy Power odds for Sam:

6/4- Dublin
11/4- Kerry
8/1- Mayo
10/1- Donegal
12/1- Cork
20/1- Galway
25/1- Armagh, Monaghan & Tyrone
33/1- Roscommon
40/1- Meath
50/1- Derry


Again, seems fair enough. They possibly overrate Galway, possible based upon Corofin's performance this season and maybe underrate Monaghan.


And the provincial titles:

Leinster
1/6- Dublin
13/2- Meath
14/1- Kildare
33/1- Laois
50/1- Westmeath
80/1- Wexford
150/1- Louth
200/1- Wicklow
250/1- Longford & Offaly
1000/1- Carlow

No arguments here, impossible to see past Dublin winning again. Some diabolical league campaigns for Leinster teams- both Kildare & Westmeath are relegated for the 2nd year in a row and Kildare particularly will be disappointed at playing Division 3 next year, when it's not so long ago when they would have felt they had the beating of a lot of the top teams. Louth have also faced consecutive relegations and will play in Division 4 next year, as will Wexford. Obviously Longford & Offaly did get promoted and Dublin won the league but if Meath & Laois are the closest contenders, they are way off.


Munster
1/2- Kerry
15/8- Cork
16/1- Tipperary
40/1- Clare
250/1- Waterford
300/1- Limerick

Sad to see that, only 5 years ago, Limerick ran Kerry all the way in a Munster final, now they are the least fancied team in the province. However, they had a decent league campaign, all things considered and beat Clare who are their opening opponents so I hope they can do so again, even down in Cusack Park. But it is Tipperary who now pose the biggest threat to the big two and I would give them a chance against Cork but their backline is still probably a bit leaky despite having serious firepower in the likes of Sweeney & Quinlivan inside and Acheson, O'Brien, Fox & O'Riordan bombing on from out the field. Still, it's Kerry's to lose again and that's why they are odds on. They absolutely demolished Cork in the final last year and it's hard to see them not doing the same.


Ulster
9/4- Monaghan
7/2- Donegal
9/2- Armagh
15/2- Cavan & Down
8/1- Derry
9/1- Tyrone
20/1- Fermanagh
40/1- Antrim

The most competitive province by a mile, the intensity in the matches tends to be huge. Very hard to call but the odds are probably justified but realistically, early in the Championship, most of those teams could beat each other although I think Donegal and Monaghan are the strongest overall. Bit surprised to see Tyrone at 9/1.


Connacht
4/5- Mayo
11/4- Galway
3/1- Roscommon
14/1- Sligo
150/1- Leitrim & London
500/1- New York


Again, it is expected; Mayo are definitely the strongest team in the province but Galway & Roscommon are both on the right path. In fact, with Mayo having new management, maybe there is some value in Roscommon at 3/1; they had a very good league and I rate them quite highly. Galway have some fine players too but Roscommon did get promoted ahead of them so I'd have them as slightly better at the moment.



After Galway/New York tonight, this kicks off in proper next weekend with 3 Leinster preliminary round fixtures (Carlow/Laois, Offaly/Longford, Louth/Westmeath) as well as Donegal versus Tyrone, which is a great opening round fixture.

Fireball07

In the time I took to write the post, Galway scored 7 points in 12 minutes and are no longer losing; 0-9 to 0-4 at the break. Ex-Wexford player PJ Banville has hit 0-3 for NY.

Hammer Archer

Threads merged

Fireball07

Hammer Archer wrote: »

Threads merged

Cheers, forgot this had been made!

blowitupref

A good read from Malachy Clerkin on the Irish Times.

GAA grounds grind into gear as football roadshow begins

On a bright May morning over a decade ago, your correspondent sat across a rickety table in the Paragon Bar in Clones town chewing the fat with the proprietor, one Paddy Freeman. The championship was around the corner and the spirits were high and the idea was to do a piece on people at the periphery of the whole show.
Freeman was a perfect candidate – loud, garrulous, full of chat and mad for the summer to get here. Ulster teams were winning All-Irelands at the time and somewhere along the way to doing so, they generally had to pass through Clones.
In the Paragon, all comers were made welcome. The walls were red, with murals drawn of players from all over, some of whom had never set foot in Clones in their lives. Cormac McAnallen wasn’t long gone and took pride of place on one wall, with Michael Donnellan an altogether more esoteric choice on the one adjacent. The point wasn’t subtle – this was a GAA bar. More to the point, this was a football bar. In a football town.

“This town has nothing,” Freeman piped up at one stage. “Clones isn’t a bad town but it has nothing. The jobs are gone, the young people are gone. If it wasn’t for that football field up over the hill there, there’d be nothing in the town at all. But the football field keeps us going. The summer is mighty.”

Unique
Clones was and is its own unique little corner of the landscape but there are towns like it and Paddy Freemans like it all over the place, each of them waiting for the championship to bowl through over the coming months. We like to think of the championship as a caravan that wends its leisurely way through the country, but the truth is that it comes and goes in a flash.
Eleven weeks from now, everything moves to Croke Park for the various endgames. Most towns see a couple of games at most and the jamboree heads off somewhere else. Last year, for instance, 27 towns and cities hosted championship games (25 if we take out New York and London).
Dublin had 14 separate days of it between football and hurling, Thurles had seven, Portlaoise had six. Next on the list, maybe surprisingly, was Carlow with five. On down through Clones, Mullingar, Limerick and Ennis with four each and a multitude of twos and threes and ones. That’s 25 towns in 24 counties – the Waterford footballers played a Munster championship game in Dungarvan, the Waterford hurlers played a qualifier in Waterford.

Some towns are made for championship hosting. Some can take it or leave it. One Sunday the spotlight could fall on the sort of place where farmers have “PARKING €5” signs stuck to the gates of fields a good three miles from the ground. The next you could be lost on a side street somewhere asking for directions, only to be met with a grudging: “Is there a game on?”

Take Omagh, for instance. You will travel many miles across this fair land without encountering more fervent and committed supporters of their county than Tyrone people. They were long and loud in affirmation of their faith long before they won anything and the years of plenty haven’t diluted their appetite for worship. Yet it’s entirely possible to be on Market Street on a championship Sunday and only barely feel the pulse of it.
The reason is simple. Healy Park is a good mile-and-a-half out the road from the town centre. It’s up a hill and down a dale, out past a park and a school and a housing estate and the Silver Birch hotel. That holy grail of a summer Sunday – a pre-match pint out in the fresh air – isn’t impossible but it’s a big ask.

Something on
On the flipside, you go to somewhere like Tullamore and there’s no escaping the fact that There’s Something On. Offaly folk may have had nothing to shout about these many years; enthusiasm for the prospects of their hurlers and footballers could sink to unplumbed depths, and still the layout of Tullamore and the siting of O’Connor Park at the top of the town make it a grand place to take in a championship day out.
Last summer, Galway and Kilkenny met for a two-game mini-epic in Tullamore. From the Bridge House carvery up as far as O’Connor’s and Kelly’s on the bridge, the streets teemed with devotees. When Henry Shefflin and Joe Canning traded matching points from the ends of the earth to draw the first game, the traffic chugged for an hour afterwards as radio pundits broke it all down.
Proximity to the town attached to the ground is key to a good championship day out. The old reliables like Thurles, Clones, Killarney and Kilkenny don’t work solely for this reason but it’s a damn good start. The square in Thurles to the Town End in Semple Stadium is a 10-minute walk. Ditto Main Street in Killarney to the Lewis Road entrance of Fitzgerald Stadium.

It would be a lazy stroller who needed more than a quarter of an hour between leaving Langtons in Kilkenny and taking a seat in Nowlan Park. And generations of Ulstermen have refined the art of ordering a last one in the Creighton at the bottom of Fermanagh Street in Clones and still being on the Hill for the end of Amhrán na bhFiann.
Location, location, location. Pearse Stadium in Salthill is damned twice – too far out of the city to make it a focal point, far too open to the vagaries of the wind coming in off the Atlantic. O’Moore Park in Portlaoise has always felt a bit soulless, stuck to the side of the M7 with a vast bank of apartments overlooking the pitch.
In Mullingar, any potential majesty of a day in Cusack Park can’t but be undermined by the feeling the game is being played in the car park of the Dunnes Stores that backs onto the pitch.

Wexford Park is so far out of the town centre that you sometimes worry about a game getting too interesting, for fear that any over-eager boisterousness could wake sleeping kids in the quiet neighbourhood nearby.
Some grounds have character. Pearse Park in Longford is a handsome little music box of a stadium. Dr Cullen Park in Carlow is the only ground in the country where the players have to go through an underground tunnel to make it from the dressing rooms to the pitch. Celtic Park in Derry is dug into the side of a hill, Hillary Step-style, with the Brandywell below it and the city graveyard sprawling away up across the Lone Moor Road.
Some grounds do not have character. For all of Clones’s attributes as a hosting town, St Tiernach’s Park itself is a hotchpotch of half-carried-out ideas and well-intentioned plans.

Páirc Uí Chaoimh’s reputation as a desperate old kip should have been dealt with long ago, but it has taken until now for the diggers to move in. Cusack Park in Ennis has been rusting at the edges for years, its main distinguishing feature being the country’s most battered and tattered old scoreboard.
Scoreboards make for a fun case study, as it happens. This being the GAA, there is obviously no consistency from one ground to the next. The one in Ennis would shame the lowliest junior club – wooden slats that haven’t changed in decades, chalkboard-style numbers faded from the rain. Roscommon’s Hyde Park scoreboard is a huge green galvanised edifice that doubles as a shelter from the rain.
In Ballycastle, it’s a matter of two stakes in the ground, two stakes supporting them and a ladder up the back with a hassled scoreboard operator hoping to God that the free-takers are having an off day.

Elsewhere, modernity’s creeping advance reveals itself in different ways. In Castlebar, the digitised scoreboard is striped across the main security control centre. In forward-thinking Tullamore, they flash up the name of the scorer after every point – something not even the bells-and-whistles merchants in Croke Park have ever seen fit to match.
Some grounds have clocks. Some even have clocks that work. Some, like the one in Portlaoise, go up to 35:00 before being reset to 00:00 for the second half. If you see furrowed brows up in the press box there some days, it’s because cloth-brained hacks are trying to add 35 to 17 while noting down a sub and keeping an eye on the kick-out. We were never warned that a facility for numbers would be part of the job spec.
Yet for all the variations from ground to ground, certain things are the same no matter where you go. From MacCumhaill Park in Ballybofey to Fraher Field in Dungarvan, you will still run afoul of yellow-bibbed stewards who guard the entrance to the Árd Comhairle with their lives. You will still pay €2 for your choice of warm Coke or cold tea and your chances of eating anything that isn’t a crisp or chocolate are slim to none.

Best fed ground
Oddly enough, if we take Croker out of the equation, the best championship ground in which to get fed is Ruislip in northwest London. They get one big day out a year – the Connacht championship opener at the end of May. To their immense credit, they hang up their brightest colours.
There might only be a crowd of around 3,000 through the gates, but it’s a proper day out when you get there. The guardians of London GAA throw up a couple of marquees and proceed to make merry. They sling burgers and fire out pints and bottles to beat the band. They stick the other game of the day up on the big screen in the clubhouse while the crowd flows in. It can feel like the one place anywhere all summer that the actual championship is being celebrated.
By the end of July, it all gets funnelled down into a series of weekends in Croke Park. Much and all as supporters and teams are desperate to make it to the All-Ireland series, there’s no doubt that a little of the character gets soaked up in the sponge of Dublin 3.

The various pubs of lore around Croke Park haven’t had a good recent run of it. Quinn’s in Drumcondra has fallen foul of the food safety laws. The Hideout on Campbell’s Row is sadly no longer with us. Gaffney’s in Fairview is still going strong but it’s a bit out of the way and in the wrong direction if you’re coming from or heading to the city.
For all that, Croke Park is still the solitary modern, well-appointed GAA ground in the country. The one place you can be assured that there are enough toilets (not to mention enough clean ones). The rare place you can grab a beer. The only ground with a functioning corporate element, where you can eat properly and comfortably and at your leisure.

Everything ends in Croke Park. For an 83,000-ish seater stadium, there’s barely a bad vantage point. The lower-stand corners where the Hogan and Cusack meet the Canal End aren’t great and if you get stuck right at the end line at pitch level, you’re sometimes better watching on the big screen.
If that ever happens, here’s a tip. On all but the very biggest days in Croke Park, there is always room on the upper level. And there isn’t a single bad seat up there either, assuming you don’t suffer from vertigo.
The key is to walk to your seat like you personally bought it and donated it to Michael Cusack himself. Stroll into the Upper Cusack – making sure to breeze past the security lads without catching their eye – pick a seat a few rows away and go and plonk yourself down. Nobody will question you.

Microclimates
The other tip is to bring both suncream and a heavy coat. No place in Ireland has more microclimates than Croke Park. Even as the summer sun blazes into the Upper Cusack, it can be perishing in the Upper Hogan. Prepare for all eventualities.
Most of all, though, make sure you go. Go anywhere. Go to Thurles or Longford or Castlebar. Go to Killarney for the Munster final and pick out the Reeks in the distance. Go to Breffni Park in a couple of weeks and watch Cavan and Monaghan wrestle away down in the bowl. Go to Limerick next month and use the match programme to shield your eyes from the sun.
And whether your team is there or not, go to Croke Park sometime in August. Take your seat high up on the upper level and feel the place shake as the anthem finishes and the ball is thrown in. For an hour-and-a- half, you are where something matters. The summer is mighty, as Paddy Freeman said.
Where else would you be?

iDave

Depressing times in Offaly. 8 years without a win in Leinster

Dirty Dingus McGee

Longford 0-16 Offaly 0-13

Dreadful first 15 minutes and last 15 minutes in the middle Offaly played well, we didn't take advantage of the wind enough in the first half.We nearly snatched a draw at the end but Longford's keeper made a brilliant save.

Longford came from 7 ppoints down with 15 minuites left to win the game and they also missed a penalty just before half time so Offaly can't have any complaints about the result Longford were deserving winners.


John Maloney was Offaly's best player tonight, he drove out of defence well and really gave us some impetus from those runs.The 2 Darby's played well also.

Niall McNamee was quiet (although he scored one brilliant point)and we should have played him at full forward and played lots of direct ball into him in the first half when we had the wind.

Offaly's obsession with running the ball cost us.For most of the game there was acres of space unoccupied and rarely did any of the players think of pulling off into the space and being available for a simple foot pass to get the team moving forward quickly.

Although the standard wasn't high at times (although there were some brilliant points kicked) pretty much what you'd expect from 2 Division 4 teams it was an exciting game of course this will be ignored by the media and we will be treated to more and more whinging about football by the likes of Spillane, Brolly and Martin Breheny if the televised game tomorrow happens to be poor.

Borders no.2

As a manager Pat Flanagan has a good league record but in the championship his record in the main isn't great. This is one Offaly had to win to back up their league run. They exited the Leinster championship narrowly to Longford last year, to lose on home soil this year will be hard to stomach. Longford have the dubious honour of being roadkill for Dublin but tonight is a significant win for them. Promotion from division 4 and a championship win away from home over one of their midland rivals, another win or two in the qualifiers and it'll have been a good year for them.

Steven81

Disaster first 15 but when they got going Offaly played well, they were 6 points up with 15 minutes left, it was a strong wind but i think hammering them 3 weeks ago didnt help the cause today, last win in the Leinster championship was 2007. When the Longford keeper kicks out the ball and Kavanagh can pick up the ball on the 45 and put it over tells you it all.

iDave

Leitrim flew the kite of dropping down to junior last year. After Carlows result you'd wonder if their far behind them. Hammered by average Laois and conceded 7 goals to Meath last year.

Dirty Dingus McGee

iDave wrote: »

Leitrim flew the kite of dropping down to junior last year. After Carlows result you'd wonder if their far behind them. Hammered by average Laois and conceded 7 goals to Meath last year.

They need to have different tiers to the championships like it is in hurling, then the problem would be solved.

Longford had a great win yesterday but it was a completely pointless win (apart from boosting morale) as they are going to get destroyed by Dublin in the quarter final.

If you have a couple of different tiers it gives all the teams something legitimate to aim for an you'll get less one sided games.

iDave

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

They need to have different tiers to the championships like it is in hurling, then the problem would be solved.

Longford had a great win yesterday but it was a completely pointless win (apart from boosting morale) as they are going to get destroyed by Dublin in the quarter final.

If you have a couple of different tiers it gives all the teams something legitimate to aim for an you'll get less one sided games.

There's a man and his dog at lower tier hurling matches. And no county has ever used them to become competitive. I'd be worried about games promotion if we relegated teams to a lower competition. Some counties could potentially have zero involvement in the main championship in both codes. Imagine telling Wicklow next year your in the Christy Ring and Tommy Murphy but no actual All Ireland.

Dirty Dingus McGee

iDave wrote: »

There's a man and his dog at lower tier hurling matches. And no county has ever used them to become competitive. I'd be worried about games promotion if we relegated teams to a lower competition. Some counties could potentially have zero involvement in the main championship in both codes. Imagine telling Wicklow next year your in the Christy Ring and Tommy Murphy but no actual All Ireland.

I'd get rid of the league though and have one competition with 2/3 different tiers and play them out like the league with playoffs at the end and promotion and relegation.Season would be from Mid April onwards.

The reason there is nobody attending the lower tier hurling competitions is because there is no great interest in hurling in those counties and there never has been.There is a good interest in football in most counties.

Fans want to go to matches in the summer time and if you could guarantee fans competitive matches in the summer time with a chance of winning something and the GAA insisted that the media had to promote the lower tier competition then I think it would work and the attendances would be good.

Which is more appealing.Smaller counties being thrown in to play against big counties and continually get annihilated or looking forward to a match you have a genuine chance of winning.

I was looking forward to the match yesterday as I though it would be competitive I'd only be going to the match against Dublin (if Offaly won) out of loyalty which is not what you want as a fan.

fermanagh_man

Summer starts at 3.15 when that Sunday Games music hits

Hopefully it will be a good game, over the last few years Ulster Football has got slated for negative defensive football, just can't see it being any different today

Wouldn't be surprised if this goes to a replay

Euphoriasean

Is the Galway leitrim game not on tv?

Fireball07

Euphoriasean wrote: »

Is the Galway leitrim game not on tv?

No, Donegal-Tyrone only, I believe.