It's exactly the point that Ken is making though. We were lucky last night to get a draw. Unlucky to draw against Azerbaijan. People will see the result last night as a good one and the Azerbaijan one as a bad one. When in fact, if you look at the performances, we should be happier with the performance against Azerbaijan.
Ken's acknowledging Ireland's good fortune in the IT, so he's not just the one-eyed Kenny fanboy he's been posing as in the podcast...
Ken reminds me of my old man. Takes positions he doesn't really hold and argues like a cnut until everyone is pissed off! Of course the longer the argument goes on the harder he digs in. Makes it worse that nearly all of us will know that he doesn't really hold such a position.
Just being an old contrarian.
I don't think we were that unlucky against Azerbaijan to be honest. A draw kinda felt like the right result.
Enjoyed the Ellen Keane interview, comes across well and liked her honesty
Yeah, seems like a really nice person. It is pretty crappy that they can't get lanes for swimming and sometimes have to rely on the charity of the Olympians.
I actually didn't realise myself that Paralympians like to be referred to as Paralympians and not Olympians. Good to know.
I see Oisin McConville was on The Saturday Game review show last night. He’ll be on the the Irish Examiner podcast tomorrow and the Second Captains review (presumably) on Tuesday. Nice earner getting paid three times to say the same thing! Maybe Second Captains should look at getting someone on an exclusive basis.
Why would they need someone on an exclusive basis?
Well do you want to listen to re-heated analysis? Maybe McConville will come out with something fresh but I doubt it. He mentioned last night that stat about Tyrone only converting 40% of their frees a few years ago and how they have improved their conversion rate significantly since then. That was the third time I heard him say it this week.
Isn't most of Ken's chat on a Monday re-hashed from his Irish Times column.
Article in the Sindo as well today
I don't get this at all, they're never, ever going to have exclusives guests. Theres no such thing aside from the lads themselves, every single contributor they have is on multiple podcasts, websites, newspapers and betting sites in some cases. The Athletic is the only place operating that model and not a hope there's either an appetite or a market for exclusive GAA contributors. I've zero issue with McConville being on RTE, the examiner or wherever else he wants to be because I don't listen or watch them but as someone who listens to plenty of football podcasts you get used to Wilson, Brewin, Liew etc. repeating themselves if they are on more than one. Its not like they will change their opinions to suit the podcast.
This is it exactly. If you don't want to hear people repeating opinions then maybe avoid listening to multiple shows where they appear.
Was car crash stuff, that lad is so far up his own hole it's unreal.
There’s a fairly small pool of GAA media output and Oisin McConville seems to pop up on half of the shows. I don’t think it’s equivalent to listening to soccer coverage.
Ken really not taking that Liverpool injury well ….
I think in your haste to reply, you've missed the point.
You'd wonder if the whole pod plus his Irish times column would have been dedicated to that topic if say.... a Norwich player, had been the one on the end of Struijk's tackle ...
Probably not, but it would still if it was a United player taken out? News relating to the big 4, and in particular Liverpool or United (given they probably account for 80%+ of Irish prem fans) will always garner way more attention than anything related to mid to bottom teams.
Do enlighten me so.
What if it was Nemanja Matic for example? I'm pretty sure Ken would have focussed on something else...
No-one likes seeing young players get injured but I'm not sure this "let it flow" style of officiating (if it even exists) can be linked to that challenge at all, injuries happen unfortunately
The let it flow argument made no sense for this injury. It wasn't like the injury came resulting from an advantage or the ref failing to blow a free leading up to the challenge.
As Ken pointed out though (as did a fair few people in the soccer forum in the immediate aftermath), it's a type of tackle that until recently had become a rarity - from behind, stretching a leg around the player. It was largely stamped out because it's high risk. Your leg is wrapped around them so you're almost certainly tripping the player, and you're almost certainly clattering right in behind them. It's not hard to see that it's a high risk move.
As for the Matic point, if the outcome was the same, I think it still probably would have been the focal point. Even moreso if it was a closer comparison like Mason Greenwood. Add in the fact that Klopp had already this season called this out as an inevitability, and it becomes a pretty easy story to give some attention to.
The point is that the more you let go, the more players can get away with, and the heavier the tackles will be.
I thought his Elliott points were pretty good. As he said lighting struck the back of players leg as it shattered.
You have very young next generation of players who have never played football where tackles from behind that are we are now seeing are being policed lightly to "let it flow".
This happened to arsenal a lot, no coincidence. Wenger used rightly point out the harsh treatment his players got and lack of protection from the ref. He called it out....he was laughed at. Diaby, Eduardo and Ramsey all with terrible injuries. Again not that sort of player blah blah blah at the end of the day it came because of the culture of going out there to clatter people. Same is now happening to Liverpool.
Ken was close to hysterical today… it was one very subjective tackle… nothing more
Murph gave Ken a serious "talk to the hand" during the GAA pod when he asked what was in Joe Brolly's column.
"Ah go and read it yourself!"
Did anyone feel there may have been some editing done of what happened just after that.
Still a bad atmosphere between Ken and Murph.
I didn't get that at all from the exchange. It felt much more like not wanting to give Joe Brolly oxygen, as seems to be a running theme on the show for some time now.
Didn't think it was like that, more a case of Murph not wanting to repeat any of Brolly's words
