All Ireland Senior Hurling Championship 2024 (Munster And Leinster Championships,Liam McCarthy Cup)

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121965327#Comment_121965327

It's rarely about measurements. It's not to be taken literally. Anyone who has played soccer, rugby, or gaa at a decent level will be familiar with the phrase, the pitch plays (insert here - small, tight, wide, big). Often this relates to surroundings, or even the grass, and the impact it has on your mind. And that's all that matters - doesn't matter how it measures after that. How close are the crowd to the pitch, is there a pattern on the pitch, is the grass long/pitch bad enough to slow down the ball and everyone's on top of you before you can get the ball away, do the noise levels generated by the stand make the crowd feel on top of you, is there construction work going on, is there a big crane catching your eye every time you look up, is there a mountain in the background… How close is the sideline to the seats? How often have you played there? Is there a glare from the sun at one end? Any end? How close is the goals to the terrace? Is there a terrace? Is there a load of huge trees behind the goals? All these things play into it. The surroundings around a pitch make a difference to how the pitch feels/plays. Páirc Uí Rinn just feels and plays small. I don't know if its because the crowd is close and the place itself is small or because the trees crowd the goal at one end. It just feels and plays small. I love Cusack Park because you can get so close to the game as a spectator it almost feels like your playing. And the pitch plays tight because the place feels crowded, especially on a championship day. Thurles and Croke Park is the opposite, like the pitch is on a removed stage.

I remember playing on a pitch at underage level and one side of the field was near a stream. Not super close but just enough to be in your mind for all sorts of reasons, and that just made that wing tight.

Just because a hurley measures the same as another one, doesn't mean the weight or just the feel is the same. Or maybe the hurley is even the same measurement and weight but it will still feel different for all kinds of reasons, from grain to give. Every pitch is different.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121968180#Comment_121968180

Except for the fact that pundits (wrongly) say the supposed tight pitch will affect tactics because there is less room to move the ball so yes they are very much talking about the literal size of the pitch.

You are right about the pitch quality though and I suspect this is the real reason some teams play better in the likes of Croke Park because the ground under foot is better. And obviously you also have the psychological factor of the big days in the big stadiums.

randd1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121968168#Comment_121968168

You must never have heard of the World Cup or the Euro's. Or the midweek European soccer fixtures. Or major soccer leagues, or European Cup rugby matches. Quite literally big games on top of each other or even at the same time. Hurling has three or four games of quality over a weekend (at the absolute maximum) a week for 6 weeks is hardly games on top of each other.

Even if they were, the problem isn't that games are on top of each other, which I don't think any fan mind at all. I'm all for a festival of weekend hurling.

it's shockingly poor promotion of the games.

Promotion in the GAA is abysmal in general. We have the hurling league final this weekend, we had the football equivalents last week. Not once in any of the weeks this year or in previous years have I seen anything on social media regarding the best goals of the weekend, the best saves, the best tackles, the best points, the best bits of skill. Soccer, Rugby flood social media with the same, yet the GAA are living in the 90's when it come to it.

The only thing you have to on is TG4 (thank God for them) showing some live games, and a highly compressed Sunday night programme that spend more time getting pundits opinions. Where's the social media feeds for match highlights for every game? They can show 30/40 seconds of highlight in a roundup so the camera's are there, why can't see all scores/penalties/cards on a 5/6 minute highlight reel on YouTube emerging during the week? Would that not get the juices flowing for more action as it show the best of the action and none of the occasional dross?

Same with managers/players giving interviews. Would a one hour mid-week press conference with a manager where they're asked all sorts of questions go astray? Would taped interviews of players be ignored on social media? I can't help think that these things would put the games into public consciousness a bit more, at least give the fans something to go on. Instead we have near total paranoia in managers and players scared to talk in case they give the opposition "an edge" (never understood that, what edge do you need that's greater than just actually winning the game?).

Or insisting on a magazine show/midweek review show as part of TV package to screen games to help make stars of our players and give people some light-hearted engagement with the games?

Where's the TV/social media ads promoting the games? Actual ads worth watching, like the Guinness ads a few years ago, not a 10 second flash of "Watch Clare v Limerick this Saturday at 7:00pm" in the middle of the ads during the 6/1 news.

Proper advertising of the games, significant media/social media presence, and a proper chance to catch up on what you missed out on if you go to a match, all would go a significantly long way to promote the games.

As for the calendar, of course they could come up with a less convoluted system, but it would likely see the provincials set aside for that to happen, so that won't happen. So while we have what we have, let's promote them properly. And if we do, then the more games and more involved we get, and the merrier we'll be.

Asdfgh2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121968278#Comment_121968278

pundits are forever romanticising about the wide expanses of semple stadium and croke park etc and how it suits / doesn’t suit certain teams when they have to play on a ‘tight pitches ’ and they actually mean narrower physical width…such as Cusack park in Ennis……over the years I’ve also heard guys ‘pedal shite’ such as cork hurling teams don’t like playing/play poorly in wet conditions….😡😡

Asdfgh2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121935021#Comment_121935021

not sure what odds are on a cork victory but if they don’t win by ten pts plus in their first game v waterford I think a lot of people will be surprised……league was poor for waterford these next four games will be even worse……4 losses in Munster and that should be the end of Davy…..it’s fairly galling and sole destroying to have to say it but it’s the only positive thing that the season can give…… davy and his massive back room team eff’d out.

PTH2009

If only the Munster and Leinster councils would get there heads out of there arses and do an open style draw for the Championship

Use the provincials as seeding for the group stages. Knockout like 2020/2021

It's a joke how unbalanced the Munster and Leinster Championship is

Mad about baa baas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121985964#Comment_121985964

I know. Limerick/ clare/cork guaranteed to get through

In Leinster it could be either Dublin or wexford in third place.

Seriously though its Munster teams who always vote against an open draw..

ShamoBuc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121986017#Comment_121986017

How are Limerick/Clare/Cork guaranteed to get through?

Charlie69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121986038#Comment_121986038

Pretty sure he was joking….

ShamoBuc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121986044#Comment_121986044

I'd be happy if it was true nonetheless.

Mad about baa baas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121986038#Comment_121986038

Read the second half of my post. I was being sarcastic. I was implying that both Waterford and tipperary are poor .

Although if I was a gambling man I do think Limerick /clare/cork will get through

Davys Fits

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121986017#Comment_121986017

I dont ever remember a vote on an open draw. Did I miss it?

breezy1985

Who fuking cares. It's tedious the way every GAA thread becomes a whine about formats.

2024 isn't open draw. Should be nothing more to say about it on the 2024 thread really.

Freneys Treasure

The whining from Tipp people in particular about the state of the Leinster Championship is off the charts this year. Almost every podcast comment section, social media post, forum thread about hurling contains moaning about how tough it is in Munster and how easy Kilkenny (and very occasionally Galway are mentioned too) have it in Leinster. Why the huge increase in whining this year? Outside of suggesting that Kilkenny develop more love for Gaelic football, what solutions are being proposed by the whiners?

newhouse87

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121987330#Comment_121987330

Online you tend to find most moaners about everything, in everyday life i haven't encountered many people here in tipp go on about the leinster championship. The general whinging is that we are not in great fettle and bemusement at our tactics. Sorry to disappoint but anybody i know has zero reason to mention kilkenny or any leinster counties as we are very unlikely to get out of munster and meet any of them.

Mad about baa baas

There will never be a format to suit everyone..for most of the existence of the gaa half the counties had 1 game a year.

In my opinion limerick would have.won the last number of all Irelands regardless of the format..also I believe some of the weaker teams would not have won an all Ireland recently regardless of the format..the cream will come to the top..if you objectivily look back at any year its hard to argue that the team that won the all Ireland was not the best team that year..

evolvingtipperary101

It's an awful pity there's no trust between players and media and we don't get more interviews, nevermind player's personalities:
https://x.com/offtheball/status/1777748308246552983

Pint man Paddy Losty would have been lost to the world if Eanna Ryan's whatsapp to Skehill had never been leaked…

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121998626#Comment_121998626

All that Netflix stuff he is talking about is fake as fuk. You are not seeing the real personalities of players on that stuff either. Same with many of the more "controversial" pundits. It's all a persona.

And so what to be honest. They are sports people and should be enjoyed and judged for what they do on the pitch.

PTH2009

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121998819#Comment_121998819

True

Reckon it's hard to be 'yourself' when there's a camera crew following you around constantly

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121998819#Comment_121998819

I don't think Pintman is netflix stuff now.

But I don't agree. Don't know anything about Netflix to be honest but the likes of Marooned, Blowing The Whistle, and A Year til Sunday were all fantastic behind the scenes GAA documentaries that there should be more of.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121998842#Comment_121998842

The video you linked talks quite a bit about Netflix sports documentaries so not sure why you seem surprised by me bringing it up.

And then you go on to list a bunch of documentaries which are only a small number of the many out there and kinda disproves your own point.

No sports people are really themselves these days (or in most eras) on front of camera or to the media so your are just being sensational.

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121998876#Comment_121998876

Surprised? Sensational? I've no idea what you're on about.

I wrote in the original post - 'It's an awful pity there's no trust between players and media and we don't get more interviews, never mind player's personalities.' I'm not Conor Whelan talking about Neflix which was just a throwaway line in response to her question about building trust between media and players in interviews.

You brought up Netflix. I declared an interest in GAA docs over Netflix on a GAA thread… but yeah sensational…

breezy1985

"It's an awful pity there's no trust between players and media"

That is being sensational. There are interviews with GAA players in the media all the time. It's constant.

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121998994#Comment_121998994

The player himself agreed that players don't show their personalities out of fear of saying the wrong thing. That's the scourge of the GAA interview. The Shane O'Donnell interview was the first real long interview I've seen with a player in a long time. Plenty of interviews and no personality outside of clichés. Nothing sensational about it.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121999040#Comment_121999040

Its not a GAA thing. It's a sports thing.

PTH2009

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121999058#Comment_121999058

Probably get 'inside the fly on the wall Documentarys' series soon

As i siad how the feck can anyone in a workplace/pub etc act 'themselves' when a big camera crew are there

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121999079#Comment_121999079

Most docs start in pre-season, put the cameras up everywhere, sometimes they're not even on, it's just to get the players and everyone used to them. So that when the real things happen, they're just part of the furniture at that stage. There's no big crew.

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121999058#Comment_121999058

Oh yeah, all sports are the same. Boxers and MMA stars the exact same as chess players in interviews. Conor McGregor and Ronnie O'Sullivan just throwing out all the cliches… no personalities whatsoever.

In other sensational news, my pet mouse Elvis just died. He was caught in a trap. I'm all shook up.

evolvingtipperary101

Colm Lyons to ref Clare v Limerick, Michael Kennedy reffing Waterford v Cork

C4000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122019845#Comment_122019845

Hegarty already on a yellow so.......