Second Captains Part II

The Davestator

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123260837#Comment_123260837

Exactly. Dion mentioned that they won't get their Aguero moment and whilst most don't, a tight race is ultimately more exciting and engaging than what's happening this season. Still a good season, but it's petering out with plenty of time to spare due to the ineptitude of the rest of the teams

Say Your Number

Donald McCrae interview was very good.

Tucker.Tim

As a lifelong boxing fan (watch Lisa O’Rourke’s world semi-final at 7:30pm), I enjoy Donald’s writing but he’s become so sour and so fixated on the sportswashing aspect of what was always a dirty sport at the best of times that he’s become a bit of a caricature in his old age. Saudi money has meant we’ve got the actual huge fights and cards anyone who follows boxing has wanted for a very long time. Just as it’s easy enough to still enjoy the Premier League knowing who owns City and Newcastle it’s easy to still enjoy boxing very much.

When you see the insanity that America is enabling worldwide in many places besides Gaza and the upcoming soccer, rugby and Olympics in the States it really feels like a quaint idea that sportwashing is a thing exclusive to countries that are not supposedly liberal democracies. The difference is the crimes Saudi commits are easier for a Guardian reader to see and be appalled by than America or the West’s where it’s usually hidden behind fifteen shell organisations and twenty different paramilitary groups and happening to people in other countries.

Donald’s outlook seems trapped in what could be best described as the pre-2016 center-left mindset where a lot of people convinced themselves progress was being made.

Xavi6

”Where do you start with this?”, you know Ken goodness is following 🤣

Hotblack Desiato

FWIW oor Ken is on t'Irish Times podcast:

https://www.irishtimes.com/podcasts/in-the-news/how-losing-became-a-habit-at-manchester-united/

Getting paid from another source to get some more ABU kicks in 😁

Say Your Number

Ken going old man yells at cloud about AI was funny (and right)

The new hurling development man is a good talker, see what comes of it.

Ol' Donie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123266513#Comment_123266513

My God he was so right!

siblers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123266513#Comment_123266513

The issue with non hurling clubs not being able to make teams due to not having hurling coaches, I'm not sure that's as black and white as Jamie made it out to be. Obviously it is an excuse but hurling does require a certain level of expertise to coach it correctly

My son plays U8s and they do a lot of work on grip, stance and striking techniques, even stuff like getting the right hurley size is somewhat technical.

Then when they get older, they'll need even more technical coaching. They'd get blown out of it going against teams with coaches from hurling backgrounds

Tucker.Tim

Keno on tour alert

Cienciano

The podcast talking about Conor McGregor seems a bit of microcosm of what's happening in the country. Mcgregor is a dick, but he's talking about immigration which is literally effecting people around the country in a negative way. People can see it around the country, hotels being taken over, office blocks, apartment blocks taken over to house asylum seekers. But they pretty much don't talk about it or don't admit it's a problem. It's skipped over. The only reason McGregor has a platform is because no one will address this issue and people will turn to the likes of McGregor.

Did you smash it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123281200#Comment_123281200

second captains avoid culture war issues as far as I know now. Probably for the best. Any debate on immigration would be conducted within an echo chamber so they just avoid it and such issues.

Cienciano

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123281239#Comment_123281239

Difficult to have a balanced debate on it. People on both sides are too partisan. Which is another big problem.

Island Voter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123281358#Comment_123281358

It was interesting how they focussed on the image of McGregor being in the White House and said zero about the immigration problem. You wont get saturday afternoon magazine programming on RTE Radio 1 if you're talking about that type of stuff.

dog_pig

Their coverage of Eddie Jordan's death wasn't great. Eoin spoofing again as well.

cheese sandwich

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123281200#Comment_123281200

I’m sorry but this is total bullshit. McGregor is not the only one talking about immigration. A raft of right wing, anti-immigration candidates ran in the last general election, and they all got their asses handed to them. So it turns out that the vast majority of the Irish people are much less exercised by immigration than the permanently online right wing culture warriors think must be the case.

Cienciano

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123282487#Comment_123282487

Because there's lots of reasons people vote for someone. Most of the right wing guys are single issue. It doesn't mean the vast majority of Irish people don't care about it. It means we're lucky that our right wing "politicians" are idiots.

It's obviously an issue, maybe not the biggest, but pretending no one cares is more putting your fingers in your ears.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1452199/ireland-most-important-issues/

cheese sandwich

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123282645#Comment_123282645

I didn’t say nobody cares about the issue. You claimed that only McGregor was talking about it, and as a result people were ‘turning’ to him. But lots of candidates in the recent election were campaigning against immigration, and none of them got close to being elected. Which strongly suggests that McGregor isn’t nearly as popular or influential as the MAGA crowd thinks

Arghus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123282082#Comment_123282082

Tbh I didn't think it was that bad. Bearing in mind that they've never covered F1 and have never professed to be even interested in it - Eoghan's intentionally stilted delivery of the latest F1 News was completely intentional - at least they payed tribute to the man in, I felt, a genuine way. Also you have to take into account that the news was only announced suddenly hours earlier, so I think, by and large, they did fine.

Though I think a segment on Jordan's achievements at some point in the future would be a good idea.

dog_pig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123282680#Comment_123282680

They talked more about Peter Collins than they did Eddie Jordan and gave no context to Eddie's death or what he'd been up to in recent years. To me, it would have come across more genuine if they'd done some research beforehand. In terms of it being announced hours earlier, that's the case for many topics and they still manage better. Jordan was iconic in Irish sport and they have discussed Formula 1 enough to expect a bit more here.

Eoin doesn't need to pretend he was listening to music that wasn't used in the years he's referencing, or was that intentional too?

Tucker.Tim

One of Heimir’s Bastárds needs to step up and put a reducer in on the Bulgarian who tried to atomise Evan’s standing leg at the end of the match.

jaykay74

Is Ken travelling home via Heathrow. Maybe I misremember! Disaster if so

Jack Daw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123282487#Comment_123282487

Because those candidates are completely inept, opinion polls consistently show that 75-80% of people think we aren't handling immigration correctly and there is too much of it.

Carol Nolan has a fairly sensible stance on immigration and is opposed to the path the country has been on in the last decade regarding immigration and she topped the polls in Offaly. The reason she got voted in though is though is she's a very competent individual which doesn't apply to most of the other candidates who want something done about immigration.

humberklog

I thought Delaney was so funny today. Just the uplift I needed.

I don't care if I agreed with him or not. He was happy and he made me happy.

Arghus

I think Ken needs to let the Stephen Kenny thing go. Evoking his name again in the context of the chat with Damien Delaney felt like the death rattle of the dream that died of the Kenny years.

Found it amazing that no-one among them thought of beating Wales away or even Austria away as good results in the last ten years of ROI football.

al87987

Yeah my mind went right to the two McClean 1-0 wins too. Much bigger results.

Scotland jumps to the fore for them because we scored 3 goals against a half decent side and I would say that is the only time in the last 10 years that has happened.

Raoul

I don't get why they are so delerious about the results. Bulgaria are terrible and we just about beat them. Delaney really does hate Stephen Kenny though. I find his commentary genuinely strange around Heimer compared to Kenny.

As Eoin said Cullen, Knight and Collins gave the ball away lots against Bulgaria but Delaney was happy to just fob that off. That cost us big time under Kenny. We let in goals against the run of play the past two games. That cost us big time during the Kenny era where we kept conceding long range goals which had really low xG. However, now that doesn't matter.

I was happy we won but you would swear we were perfect and we had beaten a very good side. I find it an overreaction.

I really can't have Damien Delaney anymore. The shite about Ferguson too, parking the car like he means it. It's casting aspersions on what Ferguson is doing without knowing what Ferguson is like in training.

al87987

Also, now I have to watch Good Will Hunting again.

Did you smash it

it was fairly simplistic analysis that maybe would be bought by people with only a passing interest in the team.

the whole idea that Ireland are in a good place except for their midfield is not likely to hold up against Hungary in my view. Bulgaria just didn’t go after us on the wings because they were plain bad.

boccy23

But Delaney's point was that under Kenny, these types of teams ran us over. Whereas in these last 2 games, we were clearly better, gave away 2 soft goals, but we reset and came back to win twice, which is not something we have done much over the last years. There is a mental resiliency showing that was not there before. Guys know their jobs, they are starting to express themselves and yes, we are winning. I don't think either him or Richie were saying we will beat Portugal, but we can at least hope to be more competitive. We will be better organised, more clarity in system and an ability to react to what we are seeing.

Did you smash it

I would agree with Delaney that Finn Azaz was the MOTM in the second game though.

The concentration on Ferguson’s missed chance over Parrott hitting the post and Nathan Collins air kick was kind of missing the really big chances we had that could have made it a rout.