The 2024 All Ireland Senior Football Championship (Sam Maguire Cup)

So please put forward your suggestions for improving the game.

And please don't try and pretend it doesn't need to be improved because it does.

One of the noticeable things that has grown over the past decade at matches has been the audible hum of people chatting or even near silence during matches (like you get at baseball and cricket) as opposed to people being fully invested in the game.

Do you think teams endlessly hand passing the ball around in a circle is what fans want from the game (because it's a major feature of the game in the last few years)

Thinking back on yesterdays game
It was very clean. Both teams very disciplined.
I think there may have been one yellow late on and that was it ?
No blacks. No cynical fouls (even from Armagh at the end when they should have 🫣)

That is a credit to both sets of players

The forward mark was meant to encourage a bit of traditional catch and kick. Whilst its done the first part, it doesn't help that the average modern footballer is very mediocre at kicking points. And taking marks 40 yards out is utterly pointless.

100% accurate. Galway did try and leave multiple players forward to be more attacking, but there were so few turnovers in the game that all attacks came off dead balls, and Armagh funnelled everyone back at each break in play. The strategy worked to a tee.

yeah it’s getting ridiculous, is it the fact they are all so beefed up?

Either lads here are too young to remember, or are wilfully ignoring it, but defensive, negative football wasn't invented in 2003.

I grew up through the 1980s, and believe me there were some shocking games and tactics. Pulling and dragging, and even wilful violence used as a way to control skillful players - big lumps of lads they whose main skill was boxing a lad on the back of the head, and lumping a punt kick up into the air as far as they could. You could only imagine a player scoring a point like O'Neill scored yesterday,full pace going into the corner, and it's quite commonplace now,I think it was D'Arcy did something similar for Galway too, and don't mention Conroy and his shooting from range. The fact that corner backs and even goalies are better ball players then most half forwards in the 1980s means you can't kick the ball to them willingly, and it impacts on how teams play with the ball in hand.

"The thing about the old days, they the old days'!

You do not get the room to kick from that far out. To kick a point from thatt distance you need about 5 meters of a run up and you will ve closed down by the time you reach your kicking point so you have to check your run so as not to get turned over.

It was actually a problem with the game no player was risking carrying the ball into contact incase of getting dispossessed and turned over. Excluding the goal there was no other goal chance created by either team.If a player got within a meter of you you generally offloaded. Neither team tried too many runs along the end line to create scoring chances. When faced with a potential turn over players tried to work the ball immediately out of this zone rather than risking continuing on to create a score

I do not think that the limited amount of free was necessarily a plus. As well Armagh did hold up players a number if time late in the game as Galway tried to counter attack so they could get there defence set. None were pull downs but they are fouls to slow the game down.

I don't dispute that Armagh were very defensive also. I watched the match on tv but I'll take your word on it that Galway left lads up more often. But none of what you've said contradicts the point that Armagh attacked with more pace. You describe it as a "myth" but then also explain how they could do this. At least Armagh move the ball down the field at pace, unlike Galway. Granted it was mostly a running game rather than a kicking one, but it was still better to watch. Galway in the last few minutes in particular beggared belief with their slow, lateral handpassing. Not to mind when Galway did turn the ball over in open play generally they would also slowly move it up rather than try to capitalise on Armagh's unset defence.

I don't think if Galway set up more defensively it would have been better for them- probably they'd just have scored even less- Kerry set up very defensively vs Armagh and it got them nowhere. If Galway were able to kick easily scoreable frees yesterday they'd probably have won the game, despite everything, so inefficiency/poor finishing (as well as good efficiency by Armagh) as well as the slow buildups were the main things that cost them.

beating Dublin is like a mini all Ireland

So why host it at all then?

Standard stuff. Let's people go and show their appreciation for their efforts. Kids get photos and jerseys signed and a chance to meet the players. Would have all been planned well in advance, win or lose. Nothing wrong with it imo.

At least they didn't charge €4 per person for a ticket that had to be bought in advance online like the Cork hurlers did after losing!

Well said.

Are you trolling or have you just no clue about what the GAA represents? Real Madrid comprise multi millionaire players playing a professional sport for clubs run as profit making businesses. The GAA is a voluntary community based organisation. Homecomings are a county's way of acknowledging it's volunteers and giving a chance to kids and their parents, elderly people and others who are unable to attend the game to meet their hero's. Dublin and Kerry have had homecomings following defeats and gone on to win all Ireland the following year so what you said is nonsense.