The 2023 All Ireland Senior Football Championship (Sam Maguire Cup)

"Flukes" are the main excitement part for a neutral. The new format was a load of shite. Endless games just to again have a Dublin Kerry final. They're going to kill off general interest in football with this approach. Group formats only work if there's an actual risk to a contender.

Imo, Cork knocking out Kerry in 2020 and then getting knocked out by Tipp was the kind of excitement that's been missing from football for years. No sense of danger for any big team until the quarter finals. And even there the really big teams will avoid each other

Ya. Agree completely with your last line. It was like as if at half time, Dublin players were revved up to go out and destroy Mayo in 10 minutes. But the Mayo mindset was a nervous hope that they wouldn't get blitzed. I think the Mayo team were more focused on that negative factor, rather than focusing on remaining determined to bring the game to Dublin. If I recall correctly, McCarthy jumped about 20 feet in the second half throw-in to punch the ball towards the Mayo goal side, and Dublin got a point from it. And it was curtains then from Mayo - like as if they were afraid to take up the challenge. The majority of the Mayo players went missing. I was watching to see the off the ball running, and there was none. Many of the players did not want to demand the ball to produce anything useful. At 8 points down, they were still content to be kicking the ball back and forth across their own '45. Didn't have that drive to try to penetrate through the Dublin defense. Of course, that is easier said than done.

"Weeds out the poor sides no flukes."

Which looked at another way is just a mechanism to ensure that none of the 'big counties' get knocked out by a bad day at the office.

No real surprises possible or very unlikely. It's set up to maximise games, revenue and to ensure the cream rise to the top, one way or another.

Most competitions are organised so that the best team wins.

Disappointing weekend of action whereby the scheduling played a big part in making two of the Quarter finals total mis-matches in the 2nd halves and I believe Cork would have received the same trimming had they played Kerry or Dublin instead of Derry as they were totally gassed for the majority of the 2nd half.

The one competitive Quarter final between Armagh and Monaghan will hardly live long in the memory unless from Monaghan. I know some Monaghan supporters don't like this said about them but they are one county punching above their weight. 2nd semi final now in 5 years and nine consecutive years in Div 1.

The semi final v Dublin will be bridge too far for them but hopefully they give a decent account of themselves.

The way Derry set up should make it difficult for Kerry but won't have the scoring power to topple Kerry

Bookies don't ride around on bicycles from the start of the championship they had Kerry and Dublin 1 and 2 in the betting and that's how this championship will likely finish.

What a load of waffle. Just checked our PM history and all I see is a massive message you wrote me 4 years ago. Unless it's bugged.

Mate Meath fan wanted this before your match. We all would prefer Kerry v Derry.

Neither of those fans would cause us hassle on the day and tickets wouldn't be stressful to get as it won't sell out. Absolute joke the fixtures.

There's the died in the wool GAA supporter who'd agree with you. There's also a regular GAA advert that states the GAA is the place for everyone or something like that - this latter is delusional as the sports must compete for interest with other codes and sport.

From the POV of the more average, casual sports fan then the football champ is pretty dire - mostly poor fare and almost no romance or surprise. Only at final and perhaps semis do people perk up and take an interest in the usual suspects. If the GAA want a championship that catches the public imagination more, it needs to deliver on the prospect of upsets and uncertainty. You do this by an open draw, knockout, no back doors and results on the day. Teams live or die from Round 1. That'd shake things up big time but will likely never happen as vested counties with expectations would hate the idea. On other hand the likes of the Wicklows etc would love it as every dog can have it's day and take out a big one.

It is all about money and gates. It's trying to dress up the absolute mess the GAA have made. They tried it with the super 8's, there's this current set up and there will be more. While this is going on, the real elephant in the room has been growing larger. Dublin got a huge level of funding from the GAA and spend vast amounts on many areas. We all know this led to winning bucket loads of provincial and All Ireland titles. Kerry saw this, it took them a while but they got funding from elsewhere and have been pumping it into their development.

Some other counties have been trying to keep up, spending as much as they can but it's not sustainable. Kerry and Dublin have pushed ahead of everyone else with the huge amount of resources available to them. They just destroyed Mayo and Tyrone, look how much they are beating some teams in their Province by. There's no point in coming up with any of these different systems until the inequality in funding is tackled.

Davy Byrne might not have played in the 2018 final but he's certainly not a newcomer and has multiple All Ireland medals, Leinsters and National League titles in his back pocket.

Tickets for 15th available on ticketmaster just now

We've already seen the departure of a lot of great players that helped us dominate 2011-2020. When the likes of James Mc, Kilkenny, Fitz, J Small, Rock, Jack and Cluxton hang up the boots over the next year or two it will be the end of our greatest era. And i dount we'll ever see the likes again. I'm just hoping the lads mentioned can squeeze one more All Ireland before they step away. When they do i think we'll go through a i bit of a barren spell. I think it's inevitable.

Our minors have won one All Ireland in 39 years. It is an appalling return.

Only catching up with the Sunday Game highlights now and first look at Saturdays behind-a-paywall games.

Kerry looked very impressive. Their defence looked watertight and the team looked to have boundless energy and fitness levels. Tyrone on the other hand looked flat and lethargic. Hard to really make a proper judgement after seeing about five minutes of play but Kerry look to be coming to the boil at the right time. Doesn't look like last years All Ireland has sated their appetite.

It is but I don't think Dublin prioritise winning minor titles. Players on them teams are picked more on football ability rather than size. The Derry team that beat us last week were physically stronger than us. Dublin look to develop players when they reach 19-21. It worked well winning 4 u21 titles in 8 years (2010-2017). Since she change from u21 to 20 we have struggled to bring young lads through to senior set up.