The 2021 All Ireland Senior Football Championship

Yes sir you are correct. I know little about Gaelic football. Guilty as charged.

Do you think the three points I made above are reasonable points?

Do you only watch Dublin matches?

Any thoughts on Tadhg Kennelly's assault on Nicholas Murphy at the throw in of the 2009 all Ireland final?

I mean that's a red in any man's language, but because it happened so early in the game it was deemed "too early" to send him off and "ruin the spectacle".

There's myriad of incidences over the last century you could point to.

You seem to be advocating for some sort of "competition committee". Imagine that.

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Far be it from me to tell you what to discuss, but there are 3 teams left in the championship, and surely they're more deserving of discussion than an accidental shoulder to the head from a player on a team that is no longer in the championship after they had lost their first game in 7 years?

At least my example was part of this season. Just point out that other counties carry on is the lowest of the low.

Seems Dublin players are involved in this nasty stuff more, though.

This was classy from Connolly.

Hes always been at that craic. He approached the mayo player from behind , wrapped his right arm around him and pinched him in the stomach, the mayo player turned around and pinched him back and laughed. Then philly put his 2 hand in the air turning around to remonstrate to the officials. Hand bags stuff really but not something I would be proud of see any of the kerry players doing.

On the Lane thing, I've never been a fan of his as a ref, but the calls for him to never ref another game are way ott. Obviously he missed the head contact and tried to let the game go. I wouldn't blame small either, for anyone who's played the game, they'll understand that nailing one of those strong shoulder to shoulder challenges can be a real momentum shifter and get the lads around you going, he wasn't far off getting it right, due to my own lack of footballing ability back in the day, those type of very hard shoulders and tackles were bread and butter, but in a high speed one we were always told to error on the side of caution and if your going to miss, miss on the back not the front of a player. All the same Small got it wrong and in hindsight it was a straight red. If he landed the shoulder and few inches to his right, and Dublin score the goal (like they would have in the past), we would be singing his praises. I even hear some plp calling for the shoulder to be banned from the game. God damn it the game already looks enough like basketball.

The Ref had a bad game but the result was a fair one in the end, hoped all the injured players make speedy recovery and we have 2 more matches to look forward to. Hopefully they'll be entertaining and may the best team Win😉

I think there was only one lad that suggested that the shoulder should be removed. Even Titanium made the point that he was coached to ere on the side of caution for high speed shoulder's. The onus is on Small to make sure he makes the eight contact. In this case McLaughlin was wide open so the onus was completely on Small to adjust his position coming in as McLaughlin was not aware of the incoming contact.

You have this on a lot of sports where the player planning contact is responsible for the safety of the player he is tackling. In Rugby they stopped spearing tackling and tackling in the air. It the responsibility of the a rugby player that if he put a player up into the air in a tackle that he brings him back to ground safely.

Smalls challenge was reckless in that he had no control of the contact he planned

I thought the standard on Saturday was dreadful myself.

For excitement it was 8/10, but for football it was about a 2/10.

Ger Gilroy was on other morning saying how football is about to bust open and become a super game. I want what whatever he is smoking.

I know where you are coming from, but I would say it's the spectacle as opposed to the standard that is the issue.

I would argue the standards have never been higher with the amount of time modern Gaa players are putting in to it. However higher standards don't mean better spectacles.

Dublins possession game isn't riveting and when Mayo sat back in the first half it made for poor viewing. When Mayo played with more abandon later in the game the spectacle improved slightly but it was really the fact that it was a close game that made it edge of the seat stuff rather than high skill levels.

All field sports are like this as far as I'm concerned. The majority of soccer and rugby games are borefests. In Inter County hurling you have the same few teams playing each other who are evenly matched and they produce close games which are lauded as being great spectacles whereas they are only interesting because the result is in doubt up to the end.

Gaelic Football gets slated as a spectacle, but it is what it is, don't like it then don't watch it.

So true. I was at the game with friends and we discussed how it really didn't feel like an AI semi final at half time. The excitement built as Mayo got back into it second half, but don't know if the slippy conditions made it look poor. Football was not the winner on the night!

Tadhg Kennelly's tackle was disgraceful. Of course it was a red.

I think one of the main reasons why the Small incident and others keep getting discussed is because of the ridiculous defense of them. A number of Dubs in the media have really damaged their credibility.

They're acting as if pointing out a shoulder to the jaw, a punch to the jaw, an elbow to the throat etc are somehow an attack on Dublin! I believe Paul Flynn got called out on the victim complex he was showing.

That's what worries me: a significant portion of the contest was of a very poor standard.

No, live it looked like a frontal charge but on the replay it was clear straight away that it was a shoulder to the jaw. Obviously, the ref missed it at the time but there's no reason why Small shouldn't receive a lengthy ban now. Like I've said, these sort of challenges are not wanted on a football pitch, either is punching, elbowing etc, no matter what counties are involved. It's just a pity that high profile Dublin figures are coming out defending this stuff instead of calling it out. It's not the message we should be getting across to our young Gaels.

Yeah, Flynn thought there was an anti Dublin bias in the media of all places and then McConville ripped him apart:

"When he hit Ryan O'Donoghue a punch in the stomach in the corner of the field - that wasn't genuine. When McCarthy hit O'Connor, that's not genuine. You think that people shouldn't report on that? Anti-Dublin bias? Anti-Dublin bias is the biggest load of bollocks, that is pure, total, and utter dung, that's what that is."