The Dominance of Dublin GAA Mod warning post#1

Bridge93 wrote: »

So do we force dublin to train in mullingar? or the players to work in munster? Or accept that some things are just economic and social realities/neccessities of the modern world and nothing can be done about them?
Some things can just never be equal. There are intrinsic advantages and there always has been in every sport

Jack Mccaffrey was working on drogheda, O'Gara lives in Wexford.

gaffer91 wrote: »

Look, Dublin will have to be split. They have unfair funding, population and de facto home pitch advantages on every other county. These advantages help them to win more games and titles than they otherwise would.

Gormdubhgorm and Gachla have posted some charts showing the explosion in titles won by teams from Dublin since the financial doping in the early 2000s started. It's gone on for so long now the advantages will probably last for decades if concentrated in a single team. A split will help to manage these advantages fairly.

And Kerry and also Mayo and Galway

[Deleted User]

Look, Dublin will have to be split. They have unfair funding, population and de facto home pitch advantages on every other county. These advantages help them to win more games and titles than they otherwise would.

Gormdubhgorm and Gachla have posted some charts showing the explosion in titles won by teams from Dublin since the financial doping in the early 2000s started. It's gone on for so long now the advantages will probably last for decades if concentrated in a single team. A split will help to manage these advantages fairly.

Bridge93

jmayo wrote: »

But this leads me to point that the inter-county model for top tier football and probably eventually hurling is unsustainable.

Even if you were to remove the in-balance created in development funding, you cannot remove the in-balance in player numbers, rich successful growing clubs, the proximity of players and the sheer financial clout in terms of attracting high level sponsorship.

It is a totally un-level playing field to use a hackneyed expression.

And you can tinker all you want, including splitting Dublin/amalgamating others, but Dublin and other richer areas will always have an advantage.

Perhaps. It may well be that modern economic realities and the population shifts theybring, and amateurism sadly just dont work together.

jmayo

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Nobody is saying that or has said that or has even insinuated that.

There is constructive debate, and then there is just arguing for the sake of it.

Actually some have said that Dublin's success is down to how great the unpaid volunteers are i.e. meaning the rest of the country's volunteers are shyte. :mad:

Bridge93 wrote: »

So do we force dublin to train in mullingar? or the players to work in munster? Or accept that some things are just economic and social realities/neccessities of the modern world and nothing can be done about them?
Some things can just never be equal. There are intrinsic advantages and there always has been in every sport

But this leads me to point that the inter-county model for top tier football and probably eventually hurling is unsustainable.

Even if you were to remove the in-balance created in development funding, you cannot remove the in-balance in player numbers, rich successful growing clubs, the proximity of players and the sheer financial clout in terms of attracting high level sponsorship.

It is a totally un-level playing field to use a hackneyed expression.

And you can tinker all you want, including splitting Dublin/amalgamating others, but Dublin and other richer areas will always have an advantage.

BonnieSituation

Gael85 wrote: »

Tallaght West, Ballyfermot, Walkinstown, Drimnagh, Crumlin, Kingswood and Kilnamanagh wouldn't be strong at underage.

Sure look at my Alma Maters, Liffey Gaels and Good Counsel.

Bridge93

So do we force dublin to train in mullingar? or the players to work in munster? Or accept that some things are just economic and social realities/neccessities of the modern world and nothing can be done about them?
Some things can just never be equal. There are intrinsic advantages and there always has been in every sport

jmayo wrote: »

Yes there are lot of protestants historically in likes of Wicklow, but it also has the old garrison town mentality as well.
Bray a town of over 32,000 has one senior club Bray Emmets.

Arklow with population of around 14,000 has two clubs: Geraldines and Rock.
Rock only play hurling as far as I know.

Greystones with population of around 18,000 has one club: Eire og.

Tralee with population of around 23,000 has 3 senior clubs: Austin Stacks, Kerins O'Rahillys and John Mitchels.

Castlebar with population of around 12,000 has Mitchels and Breaffy is only just over a mile out the road.

It is just not counties with tradition of some success but the likes of Carlow with population of around 24,000 has 4 clubs: Eire Og, O'Hanrahans, Carlow Town hurling, Graiguecullen (yes I know they compete in Laois but they are as good as Carlow town).

As someone said GAA is strong in pockets of Wicklow, but it is particular to more rural areas.
And also as someone else said a huge fecking chunk of the population think they are dubs.

The youth soccer clubs all try gravitate towards Dublin leagues and hell it looks like Emmets have been trying to get into Dublin as well.

Pardon the pun, but I think they may have grounds for that as I think their ground is technically in Dublin.

Ah so not alone have they best volunteers it seems, but not they have the hardest working most dedicated players.

We are all just lazy and that is why everyone else loses to the lads and now lassies from Dublin, right :rolleyes:

PS one could argue "buying into a squad" is probably much easier when you don't have to travel upto 3 hours to and form the squad training a few times a week.

Nobody is saying that or has said that or has even insinuated that.

There is constructive debate, and then there is just arguing for the sake of it.

jmayo

aodomhnaill wrote: »

Wicklow is full of "prods" and they've very few GAA clubs in comparison to the rest of the country for the size and population of the county. Your protestant pals that play in Cavan are in the minority, plus Cavan are also sh*te at both sports so I'm not sure what your point is.

By the way, was that 200 more presbyterian stat a typo? Or an attempt at some kind of meaningful relevant stat in relation to playing numbers? 200 people.

Yes there are lot of protestants historically in likes of Wicklow, but it also has the old garrison town mentality as well.
Bray a town of over 32,000 has one senior club Bray Emmets.

Arklow with population of around 14,000 has two clubs: Geraldines and Rock.
Rock only play hurling as far as I know.

Greystones with population of around 18,000 has one club: Eire og.

Tralee with population of around 23,000 has 3 senior clubs: Austin Stacks, Kerins O'Rahillys and John Mitchels.

Castlebar with population of around 12,000 has Mitchels and Breaffy is only just over a mile out the road.

It is just not counties with tradition of some success but the likes of Carlow with population of around 24,000 has 4 clubs: Eire Og, O'Hanrahans, Carlow Town hurling, Graiguecullen (yes I know they compete in Laois but they are as good as Carlow town).

As someone said GAA is strong in pockets of Wicklow, but it is particular to more rural areas.
And also as someone else said a huge fecking chunk of the population think they are dubs.

The youth soccer clubs all try gravitate towards Dublin leagues and hell it looks like Emmets have been trying to get into Dublin as well.

Pardon the pun, but I think they may have grounds for that as I think their ground is technically in Dublin.

shockframe wrote: »

...
I don't equate Dublin's success to money all that much. The will to succeed has to be there first and foremost. It's apparent in teams like Kerry, Mayo, Tyrone and the Dubs.

Gavin has said it himself that players like Cluxton go through everything in great detail like the last day and prepared accordingly. That's your base level, build from there.

Financial Doping has become a cliche at this stage. It ignores the culture change set about by Gilroy and Gavin and total buy in from the squad that's really important here.

Ah so not alone have they best volunteers it seems, but not they have the hardest working most dedicated players.

We are all just lazy and that is why everyone else loses to the lads and now lassies from Dublin, right :rolleyes:

PS one could argue "buying into a squad" is probably much easier when you don't have to travel upto 3 hours to and form the squad training a few times a week.

rm75 wrote: »

It's spread, Crokes, Ballyboden and Cuala coming from nowhere.

5 of the starting team are from southside clubs that wouldnt have contributed any players prior to the early 1990's. Rather than looking at financial reasons you'd be better off looking at the impact Crokes wins in the early 1990's had on kids in the area. Given the success of Boden and Cuala that's likely to increase.

The recent record of All Ireland club finals is interesting. Dublin had 4 different clubs in a final from 09-16. Other counties had 1 dominant team and almost nothing else a la Corofin, Crossmaglen, Dr Crokes, Nemo.

Thats a danger in the likes of Brolly making heroes out of the likes of Corofin and their 'style' of play and slagging off Galway. Can say as much of their own county rivals as much as it does them.

maestroamado

blanch152 wrote: »

If you were really interested in competitiveness, it would be something like this:

Munster:

Kerry East
Kerry West
Cork
Limerick/Clare
Tipperary/Waterford

Connacht:

Galway
Mayo
Roscommon
Sligo/Leitrim
London

Ulster:

Donegal
Derry/Antrim
Down/Armagh
Fermanagh/Tyrone
Cavan
Monaghan

Leinster:

Dublin North
Dublin South
Kildare
Laois/Offaly
Carlow/Kilkenny
Wexford/Wicklow
Longford/Westmeath
Louth/Meath

Not wedded to those particular combinations, and someone may have a better one, but 24 is a nice round number.

Thats exactly what we have in politics and look at the mess they have made of it.
Unfortunately i think it may be too late but i hope i am wrong.
It will be interesting to see what the new (2nd) championship is made of if it happens.
There are loads of things that can be done but a clear out of current administration system is first thing needs doing in my opinion.
I caught on to what was happening 10/12 years ago and basically if i said anything i was told i was silly, these very people told me later that my radical views at the time were proven correct...

shockframe wrote: »

People gloss over the fact that Dublin's cub scene is pretty competitive.,There has been quite a spread of winners at Senior since St Vincents decline in the early 80s.

Add in the fact that there's clubs in recent years like Oliver Plunketts, St Judes and Castleknock who came close to winning it and this all helps in building a good scene for the county.

It's spread, Crokes, Ballyboden and Cuala coming from nowhere.

5 of the starting team are from southside clubs that wouldnt have contributed any players prior to the early 1990's. Rather than looking at financial reasons you'd be better off looking at the impact Crokes wins in the early 1990's had on kids in the area. Given the success of Boden and Cuala that's likely to increase.

elefant

threeball wrote: »

It also conveniently ignores the fact that Galway has always been effectively two counties under one umbrella. One half played hurling, the other football. So effective playing numbers for football would probably be about 13000 and hurling about 8000. Far below the level implied above and more in line with average playing numbers and zero all Irelands. We've the 3rd most in football and 7th in hurling. Within 5yrs I believe we'll be 4th. For the numbers available we punch well above our weight.

Do you think Cork are going to win 3 football championships in 5 years, or Galway will win 4 hurling championships!

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Its a fair point -

The other thing is that the debate about 'financial doping' is intrinsically tied into the success of the county team as if that is the be all and end all of GAA in the county, without which the game is stagnant.

To go back to discussion on Meath football earlier - when I was a kid, there was virtually no gaelic football in Ashbourne, and not much more in Ratoath. At the time, Ashbourne was as big as Trim or Kells - one of the largest towns in Meath. Meath were winning all irelands left right and centre, but it had no impact on kids living there beyond watching it on the telly. The local games were soccer, rugby and athletics.

Whereas now - Ashbourne and Ratoath both have really strong clubs, loads of kids are playing - but Meath are nowhere in the senior county championship.....

As a local person I would think having a strong local club is much more important than having a county that is winning regularly.

People gloss over the fact that Dublin's cub scene is pretty competitive.,There has been quite a spread of winners at Senior since St Vincents decline in the early 80s.

Add in the fact that there's clubs in recent years like Oliver Plunketts, St Judes and Castleknock who came close to winning it and this all helps in building a good scene for the county.

blanch152 wrote: »

If you were really interested in competitiveness, it would be something like this:

Munster:

Kerry East
Kerry West
Cork
Limerick/Clare
Tipperary/Waterford

Connacht:

Galway
Mayo
Roscommon
Sligo/Leitrim
London

Ulster:

Donegal
Derry/Antrim
Down/Armagh
Fermanagh/Tyrone
Cavan
Monaghan

Leinster:

Dublin North
Dublin South
Kildare
Laois/Offaly
Carlow/Kilkenny
Wexford/Wicklow
Longford/Westmeath
Louth/Meath

Not wedded to those particular combinations, and someone may have a better one, but 24 is a nice round number.

Fair enough, at least that would be an honest approach for this thread to have taken. Kerry are by some distance the most dominant county provincially , focusing on Dublin whilst ignoring that reality comes across as simply anti Dublin bias.

Simply splitting based on population is a a crude method in my opinion as evidenced by the fact that Kerry top the roll of honour. Still you've gone to the trouble of at least focusing on all counties population rather than simply ones so an improvement.

beggars_bush wrote: »

Westmeath and Laois have the same number of Leinster titles in the last 20 years as Kildare

Offaly have twice as many Leinster titles in the past 50 years as Kildare, Westmeath, Laois, Wicklow, Louth, Wexford, Longford, Carlow and Kilkenny combined

maestroamado

shockframe wrote: »

The GAA gets a lot of stick but people fail to realise that it has to cater for quite a lot.

Football, Hurling, ladies games, underage and a lot more besides.

All this in a very small country with a small population trying to juggle a unique case with 2 ultra intense indigenous sports.No other country has 2 native games only played on one island.

The GAA is not perfect but it does quite well for itself considering the constraints.

I be very pro gaa but unfortunately they marketed the game to a wider audiance when only a very small number in either codes were ready and had a realistic chance of fulfilling the dream.
People use comparasion of other sports which is nonsense as most success in other codes is bought.
Part of the problem in my opinion is that it is too parochial, Dublin is the capital city but when it comes to gaa they bitch as if they were in rural Ireland.
Its even noticable on this thread, personally i be concerned where the game going forward as without the marketing/sponcorship money the game would not survive in its present state.
The revenue has being great for gaa but this could be its undoing.

blanch152

beggars_bush wrote: »

Westmeath and Laois have the same number of Leinster titles in the last 20 years as Kildare

Fair enough, but there would have to be an element of looking forward.

beggars_bush

blanch152 wrote: »

If you were really interested in competitiveness, it would be something like this:

Munster:

Kerry East
Kerry West
Cork
Limerick/Clare
Tipperary/Waterford

Connacht:

Galway
Mayo
Roscommon
Sligo/Leitrim
London

Ulster:

Donegal
Derry/Antrim
Down/Armagh
Fermanagh/Tyrone
Cavan
Monaghan

Leinster:

Dublin North
Dublin South
Kildare
Laois/Offaly
Carlow/Kilkenny
Wexford/Wicklow
Longford/Westmeath
Louth/Meath

Not wedded to those particular combinations, and someone may have a better one, but 24 is a nice round number.

Westmeath and Laois have the same number of Leinster titles in the last 20 years as Kildare

blanch152

rm75 wrote: »

Why nots thats exactly what you have been doing the entire thread!
Kerry have 81 provincial titles dublin have 58. Their dominance of Munster has been near total and for far longer than Dublins of Leinster.

How many counties would you split Kerry into?

Mayo have almost double the number of Connacht titles as Roscommon but over 15 times the number of Sligo so what changes would you make there?

If you were really interested in competitiveness, it would be something like this:

Munster:

Kerry East
Kerry West
Cork
Limerick/Clare
Tipperary/Waterford

Connacht:

Galway
Mayo
Roscommon
Sligo/Leitrim
London

Ulster:

Donegal
Derry/Antrim
Down/Armagh
Fermanagh/Tyrone
Cavan
Monaghan

Leinster:

Dublin North
Dublin South
Kildare
Laois/Offaly
Carlow/Kilkenny
Wexford/Wicklow
Longford/Westmeath
Louth/Meath

Not wedded to those particular combinations, and someone may have a better one, but 24 is a nice round number.

Happyilylost wrote: »

The whole point of this initial funding was to put GAA in areas in Dublin where it wasn't been played!! Your saying its ok to try and do it in Dublin but not Limerick? How does that make sense?

Dublin is a football county first and foremost. It's not as if the game was/is non existent up there.

There was a study done by an ex limerick Footballer and now schools officer who said that before he got involved that Limerick had no schools football development officer at Second Level. The end result was that almost no one got through secondary school with any Football games or development.

We played Clare in the 2016 Championship with only 1 outfield player between the age of 25-30. That lack of schools activity was no doubt a primary factor in such a situation coming to pass.

You're being fairly naive with the presence of Rugby and Hurling that there wouldnt be any hostility towards a plan of action in Limerick.

shockframe wrote: »

Limerick city wouldn't entertain any Gaelic Football related initiative any way seriously. You could present it to schools like St Munchins or Crescent Comp via A4 and it would be thrown in the fire/dustbin seconds later.

I don't equate Dublin's success to money all that much. The will to succeed has to be there first and foremost. It's apparent in teams like Kerry, Mayo, Tyrone and the Dubs.

Gavin has said it himself that players like Cluxton go through everything in great detail like the last day and prepared accordingly. That's your base level, build from there.

Financial Doping has become a cliche at this stage. It ignores the culture change set about by Gilroy and Gavin and total buy in from the squad that's really important here.

Its a fair point -

The other thing is that the debate about 'financial doping' is intrinsically tied into the success of the county team as if that is the be all and end all of GAA in the county, without which the game is stagnant.

To go back to discussion on Meath football earlier - when I was a kid, there was virtually no gaelic football in Ashbourne, and not much more in Ratoath. At the time, Ashbourne was as big as Trim or Kells - one of the largest towns in Meath. Meath were winning all irelands left right and centre, but it had no impact on kids living there beyond watching it on the telly. The local games were soccer, rugby and athletics.

Whereas now - Ashbourne and Ratoath both have really strong clubs, loads of kids are playing - but Meath are nowhere in the senior county championship.....

As a local person I would think having a strong local club is much more important than having a county that is winning regularly.

Happyilylost

shockframe wrote: »

Limerick city wouldn't entertain any Gaelic Football related initiative any way seriously. You could present it to schools like St Munchins or Crescent Comp via A4 and it would be thrown in the fire/dustbin seconds later.

I don't equate Dublin's success to money all that much. The will to succeed has to be there first and foremost. It's apparent in teams like Kerry, Mayo, Tyrone and the Dubs.

Gavin has said it himself that players like Cluxton go through everything in great detail like the last day and prepared accordingly. That's your base level, build from there.

Financial Doping has become a cliche at this stage. It ignores the culture change set about by Gilroy and Gavin and total buy in from the squad that's really important here.

The whole point of this initial funding was to put GAA in areas in Dublin where it wasn't been played!! Your saying its ok to try and do it in Dublin but not Limerick? How does that make sense?

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Look - its a fair argument to say - if the GAA is prepared to invest a disproportionate amount in Dublin GAA in order to 'revive' the sport in the city, then why not do the same in say Belfast, Cork or Limerick. Because I'd say the same argument could be made for all of the above.

I'd say part of the problem is that what this money pays for is Games Development Officers, who aren't necessarily club members but will work closely with clubs as well as with schools.

And these are people - you cant just move them from Dublin to Cork like chess pieces.

On the other hand - competing counties shouldn't lose sight of the fact that even if spending in Dublin dropped dramatically - there is such an infrastructure now of underage players, teams and in particular volunteers - that Dublin will continue to produce really strong teams in hurling and football, men and women, for the foreseeable future.

So the question I'd be asking really is - forget about the spending for a minute - if you go into a primary school in Newbridge or Kells or Mallow or Newry - how many of the kids there are playing gaelic football or hurling. And are there sufficient community structures around this. Because that's where you really compete.

Limerick city wouldn't entertain any Gaelic Football related initiative any way seriously. You could present it to schools like St Munchins or Crescent Comp via A4 and it would be thrown in the fire/dustbin seconds later.

I don't equate Dublin's success to money all that much. The will to succeed has to be there first and foremost. It's apparent in teams like Kerry, Mayo, Tyrone and the Dubs.

Gavin has said it himself that players like Cluxton go through everything in great detail like the last day and prepared accordingly. That's your base level, build from there.

Financial Doping has become a cliche at this stage. It ignores the culture change set about by Gilroy and Gavin and total buy in from the squad that's really important here.

Look - its a fair argument to say - if the GAA is prepared to invest a disproportionate amount in Dublin GAA in order to 'revive' the sport in the city, then why not turn off the tap now in Dublin and instead put the money in say Belfast, Cork or Limerick. Because I'd say the same argument could be made for all of the above.

I'd say part of the problem is that what this money pays for is Games Development Officers, who aren't necessarily club members but will work closely with clubs as well as with schools.

And these are people - you cant just move them from Dublin to Cork like chess pieces.

On the other hand - competing counties shouldn't lose sight of the fact that even if spending in Dublin dropped dramatically - there is such an infrastructure now of underage players, teams and in particular volunteers - that Dublin will continue to produce really strong teams in hurling and football, men and women, for the foreseeable future.

So the question I'd be asking really is - forget about the spending for a minute - if you go into a primary school in Newbridge or Kells or Mallow or Newry - how many of the kids there are playing gaelic football or hurling. And are there sufficient community structures around this. Because that's where you really compete.

jacool wrote: »

Roscommon won more Connacht Finals in this decade than Galway.

So you'd suggest splitting Roscommon to allow Sligo and Leitrim to compete?

jacool

rm75 wrote: »

The fact that you have nothing to say about Kerrys domination of Munster ( which is significantly more than dublins of leinster) or Galway and Mayos of Connacht indicates this is simply anti dublin bias on your part.

Roscommon won more Connacht Finals in this decade than Galway.

TrueGael wrote: »

Attack the man not the ball as per usual

Why nots thats exactly what you have been doing the entire thread!
Kerry have 81 provincial titles dublin have 58. Their dominance of Munster has been near total and for far longer than Dublins of Leinster.

How many counties would you split Kerry into?

Mayo have almost double the number of Connacht titles as Roscommon but over 15 times the number of Sligo so what changes would you make there?

TrueGael

rm75 wrote: »

The fact that you have nothing to say about Kerrys domination of Munster ( which is significantly more than dublins of leinster) or Galway and Mayos of Connacht indicates this is simply anti dublin bias on your part.

Attack the man not the ball as per usual