Dublin GAA Discussion Thread MOD WARNING POST #2944

Godge wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/cost-of-running-county-teams-at-record-levels-34513426.html

Except that it wasn't €2m, it was €1.57m in 2015, and that didn't cover 33 players, it covered the senior hurling and football teams, the U-21s and minors as well and the Ladies teams.

So the spend per senior football player in Dublin is much much lower than 60k. I would also expect that given the success at all levels and the size of panels in both hurling and football, that the spending per player per month in Dublin is much lower than other counties.

That's fair, I'm guessing from what you are saying is that the spend per annum for the football squad is probably €20k-€25k; which is in line with the figures for most of the Olympic athletes. I've no problem with that, fair play to them, they play the game to a very high standard.

I actually went to watch the hurlers train a few times this year with the kids. Great thing to do. Similarly, you can go out to Santry most evenings and watch Olympians train; if you are into sports at all, its very interesting to see.

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Jerry Kiernan was 9th in an Olympic marathon. As a runner myself, I know what an incredible achievement that is.

I have huge respect for the guy, as an athlete and also as a coach who has trained Ciara Mageean to be one of the Top 3 in 1500m in Europe.

As for 'funny walkers' - there is an article in Irish Runner last month that does a day in the life of Rob Heffernan. I would like to see any Irish GAA player that trains harder than that guy. He's won an World Championship gold medal and an Olympics bronze for Ireland, and that deserves huge respect also.

Tomas O'Se had an article at the weekend going on about GAA players, and how much they train, and saying its comparable to what our Olympic athletes do. And he might be right.

And then he finishes up by saying 'how these players are considered amateur is beyond me'....

He obviously doesn't know much about our Olympic athletes if he thinks they are rolling in Cash.

Thomas Barr has just come from a fourth place in an Olympic Sprint event. He's never received a grant as far as I know. The likes of Fionnuala or Derval were looking at normally €20k grants over their career. Out of that they are paying for physio, track use, nutrition, travel, equipment....

Compare that to the Dublin GAA team, budget €2mn. That's €60k per player - spent on exactly the same things - physio, equipment, coaching, travel......but just more of it and better. And on top of that, there is a spnsorhip piece, Toyota, etc.

Very few elite sports people earn anything from the sport, especially not those living in Ireland. Michael Carruth ended up selling insurance door to door. GAA players are looked after extremely well, this stuff about them being amateurs gets on my wick no end.

So should GAA players be looked after less so everything is balanced up?
It shouldn't be about GAA vs Olympians. If Olympians aren't being looked after then that is a completely seperate area and has very little to do with the GAA.

But to contradict myself, I will compare both and say that I would much prefer the relative anonymity that Olympians enjoy for 3-4 year periods. Some of the top GAA players live their lives under the watchful eye of the media/everyone in their county. Some of the abuse they get at times is disgusting.

But it shouldn't be about one group vs another.

ProudDUB wrote: »

That's a great post. God knows, I'm the last person to question Jim Gavin judgement, but I really don't get where he was coming from, in deciding to use Kilkenny the way that he did, in such a conserative way. I get that with Rory being gone & two rookie backs replacing him and Jack Flash, Philly and James Mc had to stay at home and mind the house more. No problem with their curtialing their bombing runs forward. So that definitley played a role there. Jack being gone deprived us of so many attacking chances and so much momentum. Malachy Clerkin (I think) did a great statistical breakdown of just how important a role he played in all the goals we scored last year. Going into the AI final, it made for some pretty scary reading. So I get why we are missing the fireworks he played such a big role in producing.

So given how much we were missing in attack, why curtial our ability to put scores on the board even more, by all that slow, lateral handpassing, especially from Kilkenny? Where were all the fabulous kick passes from Dermo, Flynner and Fenton into the full forward line, that resulted in so many scores last year? Where were all the off the shoulder runs? Our speed and pace has been our greatest asset these past couple of years, so slowing the game down to the snails pace that CK slows it down to, just hands our opponents an advantage that they didn't have to begin with. That's nuts imo.

I really hope we do away with it next year. On Sunday, we looked petrifed to kick a point (before BB and CC came on) and that's just not the Dublin way. Taking your time to move the ball and being patient is all well and good, when you are facing a 13 man blanket. I can also see its merits considering how much more defensive Kerry and Mayo are these days, but Jesus, it was hard to watch at times, on Saturday. The Mick Fitz hesitancy when he was clear in front of goal, without a sinner around him, was symtomatic of the rot. Hopefully next year, we get our pep back in our step.

Yup excellent - pretty much everything I wanted to say on the matter. I got the feeling that there was a large degree of overthinking the task from management this year, and our style of football regressed somewhat. It's hard not to over-emphasise the effect the unbeaten run/defending the title played in the whole strategy - but I for one wouldn't see the harm in losing to Cavan 1st day out in the league and get that unbeaten monkey off our back, continual winning at the expense of refocusing on the positive aspects of our attacking play is not a outcome that will serve us well in the long run. This team won't be defined by a 5th league title - a 3rd AI is another matter.

ProudDUB wrote: »

Taking your time to move the ball and being patient is all well and good, when you are facing a 13 man blanket. I can also see its merits considering how much more defensive Kerry and Mayo are these days, but Jesus, it was hard to watch at times, on Saturday. The Mick Fitz hesitancy when he was clear in front of goal, without a sinner around him, was symtomatic of the rot. Hopefully next year, we get our pep back in our step.

Yeah. I'd say Gavin sat down at the start of the year and genuinely feared each team we came up against would play blanket defence stuff and force lots of turnovers out of us. Its an attempt at evolution against that style more than anything else. Its not the first time he's tried something against teams who get numbers back either. Flynn and Connolly used to hug the touchlines in an attempt to stretch the play for example.

Having players questioning their instincts against a game plan is not on though. Especially when said players have proven there's nothing wrong with their instincts. You could see Kev Mc with the ball and almost palpably feel the dilemma he had when space opened up in front of him! I'd say he still recognises the opportunity but the black mark for running down a blind alley holds him back.

The challenge for Gavin is finding a balance if he wants to persist playing possession football.

I guess with going for two in a row he needed a drastic change of direction. It was proven to not be enough for Mayo, but in fairness to Kerry they got to be the ones to show Mayo that side of Dublin this year. He was dealing with a different set of motivations this time. It was possibly more to counter the oppositions expectations of Dublins play.

It's an interesting dynamic. The plan for Barry Moran was well established too. O'Sullivan went back on him straight away a great move similar to the big midfielder breakup role he played a couple of years ago. When he was injured McCarthy dropped back to help. I thought that was a handy free Barry Moran won too.

The thing I like about McCarthy is how he divides his shifts up. He'll watch his man, wrestle etc but he'll leave him to if he sees a bigger danger. He randomly alters this attacks too, and usually breaks a tackle with the unusual way he holds the ball. He'll leave his man to set up a tackle, let them know he's in the game. I think he's a great halfback who doesn't forget the core of his game, injury aside he kept his style while others changed theirs.
I'm delighted he had a good final. That tackle on Griffin messed him up more than anything and lads slipped him a couple of times.

I don't like the Kilkenny role either. For many reasons, he's needed kicking points (2012)
I've never seen a Dublin player dictate more play than him. I've seen Tyrone and Donegal lads do it, he should reestablish himself as a forward imo.

Concerned about Davy Byrne, seems to suffer a little with pace sometimes and he was caught out against kerry in the air.

There's more to come into that team, particularly from the forwards.

O'Callaghan, McHugh, Basquel are more traditional forwards, they'd need a different style again.

I'd expect to see Niall Scully feature in the league too I think he is a natural.

I don't see the work rate of Andrews , Flynn, Connelly etc in many new players so it's going to have to alter at some stage.
But Connelly and Flynn have been playing their best football in the closing stages of games. Fielding etc what's Connellys average two points a game? Flynns less again, but being more important than them is not outscoring them as a forward but matching their overall game and Connellys game was good I thought, keegan stuck a great goal on him but he was involved in lots of positive moves. He turned over and won kickouts.

Overall I'm expecting a new style again for next year, something different enough to keep lads focused. With a splash of new players.

Bastic will go I think. The team can handle it now too. The rest will stay i think. I don't expect to see Cluxton in the league.

CurryFlavoured wrote: »

Honestly I don't think Keegan is as bad as they make out, and I think that all great defenders need a bit of a nasty streak in them anyway. Fabulous player who I'd take in our team in the blink of an eye.

Oh I agree and as I said I think he's a quality footballer. However, he does get involved in a lot of the pulling and the dragging that in all honesty he doesn't need to. He has the ability to mark a man without it and is a nightmare for any half forward when he's attacking.

ProudDUB wrote: »

Ok, any talk of Cluxton retiring should be a bannable offence. Let me enjoy the week FFS ! :mad: :mad: :mad:



Will it though? Will we really see any thing conclusive as to how we are going to set up in next years championship? League games tend to be 'in one ear and out the other' for me, so I am totally open to correction on this...but did we get an indication in last years league, that Ciaran Kilkenny's posession football and all the slow, lateral hand passes that resulted from it, was going to be such a massive feature of our summer? Jim Gavin kept his hands fairly close to his chest on that one. It's gas, coz what won us the AI? MDMA rampaging up the middle & laying off tasty ball to the nippy corner forwards, who promptly bang it over the bar. T'was 2013 all over again. That is probaby a bit of an over simplification, but ye know what I mean.

I looked through a couple of national league games programmes from last year (yeah I am that sad..). I was going to say costello scored 9 points v Cork so it shows that the league is a good indicator of the heat of championship battle later in the season. But then I realised that only one of these from play and the rest were from frees!

I will enjoy the league more if Jim Gavin manages to blood a few more youngsters and they stand out as good performers whether they win or lose.
I am convinced that Jim has stats, graphs and veen diagrams of potential players for next year, kept in his "The Dublin Process" blue book.

copacetic wrote: »

He indicated a few times to Paul Flynn that it was Kilkenny being down that added on more time again. He gave Mayo much more than fair chance, the last free was fair enough but the one on Barry Moran can be replayed again and again without seeing any sign of a foul. Even Martin Carney thought it was soft!

Having had a chance to watch back again I still can't believe all the media are going on about Small getting away with a black card and hardly a mention of the assault on Cooper after the goal. Doherty runs 5 yards after the goal is scored and throws a high arm cheap shot to the back of his neck/head when his back is turned. Right in front of both umpires. How on earth Deegan could talk to both umpires, write something in his notebook and take no action is incredible. It was the worst decision of the day in my opinion, a clear red card.

Even the incredibly biased Fogarty finally had to add a note to his article in examiner after a couple of days of pretending it hadn't happened to peddle the lie that Mayo were hard done by. Mc'Loughlin similarly was the clearest getting away with it of the day re black cards but mostly hardly commented on by media, he was the Mayo danger man at all times, without him they would have been in serious trouble

You can add Vaughn's blatant foot trip on Dermo just before half time right in front of Deegan to that list.

That just doesn't fit the narrative some in the media are trying to peddle. Despite the near constant cynical fouling Mayo were doing out the field it is the Dubs who were the bad boys.

As someone pointed out earlier, once they got they're second black card gaps suddenly opened up for us because they couldn't risk getting another one and the pulling and dragging magically eased off.

JRant wrote: »

You can add Vaughn's blatant foot trip on Dermo just before half time right in front of Deegan to that list.

That just doesn't fit the narrative some in the media are trying to peddle. Despite the near constant cynical fouling Mayo were doing out the field it is the Dubs who were the bad boys.

As someone pointed out earlier, once they got they're second black card gaps suddenly opened up for us because they couldn't risk getting another one and the pulling and dragging magically eased off.

I seen the connolly incident with Vaughan and it was Connolly that tangled with Vaughan first, a blatant black card for me. Small should have got black early in the match and should have seen a red for trying to punch one of the O'connor brothers, if I were a jack I definitely wouldn't be complaining about the ref,

RoscommonTom wrote: »

I seen the connolly incident with Vaughan and it was Connolly that tangled with Vaughan first, a blatant black card for me. Small should have got black early in the match and should have seen a red for trying to punch one of the O'connor brothers, if I were a jack I definitely wouldn't be complaining about the ref,

Not complaining, merely pointing out some of the hypocrisy being spouted especially from some in the media.

Vaughan tried to hit Dermo a shoulder and was put on his arse. He then tripped him while on the ground and started the pulling and the dragging when he got up.

Both O'Connor's must have a genetic disposition to falling over, poor sods. Seems that if a butterfly flaps it's wings in Japan an O'Connor will fall over Croke Park. COC would be my nomination for biggest whinger of the year.