What games do you see as worth watching?
I'll watch them all and catch one or two on clubber aswell. In a few weeks there will be alot less to watch.
Repeated calls to stream U14 games ahead of our Junior/Intermediate championship quarter finals is absolutely idiotic.
2 draws in the Relegation Semis. Why no extra time when they still have to play a relegation final?
Do you understand hyperbole? I hardly expect Cavstream to show U14 games.
I was merely pointing out that I wouldn’t expect much entertainment from the games. Watching Denn vs Shercock in the intermediate SF last year was enough without the thoughts of a repeat showing this year.
Michael Foley has a piece on Kingspan
MICHAEL FOLEY
Kingspan first came on board as sponsors of Cavan GAA back in 1995 with their home venue soon having its name changed to the Kingspan Breffni ParkMichael FoleySunday September 15 2024, 12.01am BST, The Sunday TimesShare
Kingspan first came on board as sponsors of Cavan GAA back in 1995 with their home venue soon having its name changed to the Kingspan Breffni Park
Sunday September 15 2024, 12.01am BST, The Sunday Times
Before a single moment is spent considering Kingspan’s future as a prominent brand in the landscape of Irish sport following the savaging of the firm’s reputation and business practices in the mammoth report published last week on the Grenfell Tower fire, the stories of the 72 victims who died that night must always be placed at the centre of any conversation on Grenfell, like a lit candle.
Their story is always the story. Read the carefully curated details of their final hours, and nothing about Grenfell or Kingspan looks and feels the same again. Flick through the pages and pause at the door of Flat 113 where eight neighbours gathered to escape the fumes seeping into their own homes.
Rosemary Oyewole lived there with Oluwaseun Talabi and their daughter. Denis Murphy had been moved by firefighters to join them. Omar Alhaj Ali was there with his brother Mohamed. Zainab Deen was holding her two-year-old son Jeremiah.
They retreated to the bedroom where the air was clearest. Mohamed sat on the edge of the bed reading his Qu’ran. Murphy was beside him, bent over and struggling for breath. Talabi tried to fashion a rope using bedsheets and thought about abseiling from the fourteenth floor with his daughter tied to his back. All of them were on their mobile phones ringing emergency services, family and friends.
At one point the bedroom door flew open. Oyewole saw the figure of a firefighter and ran towards him followed by Talabi, their daughter still strapped to his back, and Omar Alhaj Ali. Once they left the tower, they realised the other four were left behind.
What followed captured how absolute chaos turned to catastrophe. Firefighters were directed back to Flat 113 but continually got blocked or diverted elsewhere. A crew manager with the fire brigade was on the line with Zainab as she told him her son was dead. Murphy was still talking to his sister Annie at 2.30am. Then Murphy stopped answering calls. Annie kept calling till 6am, but there was no reply.
Murphy was found in the kitchen, killed by the toxic fumes before the fire engulfed the flat. Mohamed Alhaj Ali was at the foot of the tower the following morning, face-up having leaped from the window. Zainab Deen died with her son.
The remains of Grenfell Tower which claimed the deaths of 72 people in 2017 when toxic fumes engulfed the buildingLEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGES
That is the scale of the trauma their families have carried since, the utter futility of their deaths laid bare by the inquiry chair Martin Moore-Bick last week. “The simple truth is that the deaths that occurred were all avoidable,” he said.
The people who died in Flat 113 were perfect examples of a neighbourhood blessed by layers of culture and personality. Alhaj Ali was a 23-year-old student from Syria. Murphy was second-generation Irish, born in Hammersmith with roots in Limerick. Zainab Deen had come from Sierra Leone and successfully navigated a job interview the day before she died. All of them perished in a lethal monument to deception and utter corporate greed.
Although the report apportions no specific blame for the fire, no agency, firm or individual involved in the rebuilding of Grenfell Tower is spared either. The section of the report devoted to Kingspan is a shocking excoriation of their business practices that created an environment for themselves and other firms to exploit gaps in industry knowledge and sell insulation products wholly unfit for purpose.
For years before the revamping of the Grenfell Tower in 2016 Kingspan had marketed an insulation product called K15 as suitable for use on buildings over 18 metres, even when their own tests told them otherwise. The report accuses Kingspan of being “disingenuous,” creating “a false market…deeply entrenched and persistent dishonesty…in pursuit of commercial gain coupled with a complete disregard for fire safety”. One Kingspan executive described the wording on their brochures as “a bit of a cheat.”
In their statement following the report’s publication Kingspan expended a single line on sympathies to the victims before pointing up the principal accelerant for the fire was not made by Kingspan and insisting the “historical failings that occurred in part of our UK insulation business…were in no way reflective of how we conduct ourselves as a group, then or now. While deeply regrettable, they were not found to be causative of the tragedy.”
Shane Lowry dropped Kingspan as a sponsor last weekBRENDAN MORAN/SPORTSFILE
It was selfish and utterly self-serving, offering no real acceptance of the actual responsibility placed on them by the report itself. Which is where Kingspan’s relationship with Irish sport comes into sharp focus.
The world of sports sponsorship and branding is always dominated by talk of higher things: shared values and passions, synergies and collective energies transformed into memorable experiences. Any time spent with the Grenfell report makes it hard to figure where Kingspan fit into that space now.
Shane Lowry sundered his links with Kingspan last week. Ulster Rugby were already winding down their relationship by the end of this season. But others remain on board.
Johnny Sexton has a connection to them through their Community Startup Programme. Leona Maguire hasn’t said a word. Neither has Cavan GAA.
When it comes to the GAA’s relatively small sponsorship market in particular, look and feel counts for more than it does for professional sports teams. Everything that sells the modern GAA as a commercial brand in a professional environment goes back to what makes the organisation unique in the landscape of modern sport.
The GAA’s value system as an amateur, community-focused organisation is their most precious commodity. Over their years as primary sponsor of Cavan GAA, Kingspan have developed one of the most recognisable brand links in Irish sport. Their name is on Breffni Park. They have sponsored Cavan county teams for nearly 30 years and spent around EUR130,000 annually. That’s from a global company reaching nearly EUR900m in profits last year.
If Cavan stick with Kingspan, it’s clear Kingspan will benefit far more from that endorsement than Cavan into the futureMATT BROWNE/SPORTSFILE
The money involved being that modest, it’s impossible to imagine Cavan couldn’t find another sponsor if required, but that’s not the point either. The question Cavan must address, out of deference to the victims if nothing else, is a moral issue. Do Kingspan still align to those core GAA values? Are they a suitable brand partner to promote social cohesion and everything good the GAA stands for?
If Cavan stick with Kingspan, it’s clear Kingspan will benefit far more from that endorsement than Cavan into the future. When giving evidence to the inquiry Denis Murphy’s son Peter recalled his father’s deep love for sport and how he talked about the football pitches near the base of the tower being removed during the renovations. He worried about future of a nearby boxing club. One club had already been closed down, he told Peter.
It already seemed to Murphy that the revamping of his home was happening at the expense of its people. Money and shiny new facilities are always useful in sport, but none of it makes any difference without the good people and good values that make them work for the benefit of everyone.
The same applies to Cavan GAA and everything that makes it special. Kingspan will always need Cavan more than Cavan need them. But so long as their name remains over the door and on their shirts, it will be hard to visit and not think of Denis Murphy and his neighbours.
SportShare
I don't see the rush personally. They've nothing else to play for this season and relegation is a big deal. let them have a replay without flogging them into extra time
I take it you don't watch much of the provinsional champioships and All - Ireland series either?
All Ireland hurling final was a bigger deal and finished on the day.
There’s a big difference between the quality of interprovincial games & the Cavan intermediate or junior championships!
That said, if a match was on between, say, Antrim & Fermanagh, I wouldn’t be rushing home to watch it. I prefer watching live football to a stream anyway.
There can be good games in Junior and intermediate. The Junior final a few years ago between Drumlane and Arva was high standard. Would fancy Belturbet and Knockbride to make the final. I wouldn't know much about Kill but they seemed to impress against Drumalee.
It has the makings of 2 good intermediate semis. 4 good side's who play good football.
Majority of intercounty games are muck.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - it depends what you are looking for. A game may be tactical but I like a match where the basic skills are executed to a high level.
If I want to watch end to end, action packed football with few tactics, my own club fields two reserve teams some years.
That's a really good article. The reality is, the County Board will come under scrutiny about Kingspan's sponsorship, and rightly so.
I appreciate that where's the muck, there's brass. But this isn't a tax swindle or a dodgy contract based on political shennanigans. Seventy two people died and a full inquiry has highlighted Kingspan's "deeply entrenched and persistent dishonesty".
The fact that the company is based in Cavan doesn't exonerate it, nor does the "who else will fund us" argument. The GAA continually talks about community and doing the right thing, and I think celt262 is more than entitled to ask serious questions about whether the integrity of Cavan football is completely undermined if we are linked forever more with a company who prioritsed profit over people's lives.
It's definitely beautiful to see players excute pickups correctly.
The last few words is the issue I have with them.
And that wasn't right either. Which I think they are looking at too. Could kind of understand that with split season though. At least after this, the relegation playoff teams have nothing further on, so replays can be done
Well everything seems to be replayed in Cavan. A Division 1 league Semi final last went to a replay.Tyrone play a knockout championship and it's finished on the day. Sunday was a good day for football I doubt the supporters wouldn't have minded extra time.
What League semi was that? Think Ramor and Gowna won both this year straight, unless I'm mistaken
Awk I dunno. The higher ranked team gets home advantage. If they can't get it done in normal time there, that advantage should be lost rather than carry on. Like it is in the replay where it's neutral now
Don't threaten me with a good time 😁, I'd be all for the Tyrone format. Straight knockout is where Championship should be at
When it goes to extra time people complain that it's better to have a replay and then when it's extra time they say that it's only fair to have a replay and not put the teams through extra time. That's in general with the GAA not related totally to Cavan i'm sure you have heard it said that the referee played for a draw so the GAA can get another gate at the replay.
Re the Kingspan chat further up the thread, Second Captains had Malachy Clerkin on their pod yesterday to talk about Golf, and with Lowry and such the chat came round to Kingspan and Cavan GAA. It's well worth a listen, he's very reasoned on it (for a Monaghan man 😏). It's episode 3048 - and is a free one in your usual podcast places
The Kingspan pile on is quite telling. You've corporations out there supporting genocide in Gaza but not a word, yet Kingspans relatively minor involvement in the Grenfell fire is big news with sports organisation being pressured with nonsense about whether their values align with the GAA values. Maybe we should Audit all GAA sponsors for the same criteria- insurance companies ripping off our kids, reckless banks almost bankrupting the country etc. I'm sure Cavan GAA have the sense to ignore this nonsense.
Well said. As I put it above, if you start looking into any corporate company, there are very few who it can be argued haven’t dirtied their bin in some way.
So the quarters played out as expected. Crosserlough look the team to beat but they haven't beaten anyone of note yet. The Geals are looking good but Crosserlough could be too good for them. They won by a cricket score today and worryingly the left 2-6 or 2-7 behind them with some bad misses.
Ramor haven't hit top gear yet. Like Crosserlough they had some very bad wides today. Castlerahan where very poor.
The second half today was very good but a bad start against Gowna and it could be curtains. Getting Maguire, Liam Brady and Magee back. Although Gowna do seem to bring the best out of Ramor. The first half of league final was clinical attacking football.
Should be two cracking games and hopefully the county board will put them on together.
Wouldn't be saying the Gaels look good. Didn't score for 25 mins of the 2nd half vs Mullahoran. Mullahoran with Cormac O'Reilly on one leg and he couldn't move, yet took a last minute goal to win as Mullahoran outscored them. Don't think they're up to much at all, Mullahoran will be sick after that one
Barring one newspaper article, I haven't seen a Kingspan / Cavan pile-on. Maybe I am missing it.
The "aligning with GAA values" is a valid point of query. If the GAA (locally, nationally and associated punditry- both paid and barstool) are constantly referencing the values of the GAA (remember the Pairc Ui Chaoimh SuperValu furore) then who pays to sponsor the GAA does come into question, rightly or wrongly.
There has absolutely been a Kingspan one, and Ulster Rugby too. Lowry and Leona Maguire as well. But Cavan GAA has indeed not been piled on, despite some articles etc. Kingspan to me has taken a lot of heat compared to the actual manufacturers of 95% of the material and who did consult on application of that to the building
Mullahoran only came into it after McKiernan was sent off after 5 minutes of the second half. Having said that the Gaels had some bad wides when they were down to 14. Even if they had McKiernan I wouldn't think they would trouble Crosserlough. I presume they'll appeal his red card although he pushed the guy in the face and so I don't know on what grounds they could appeal.
Was a fairly strong breeze though, but yeah no doubt GMac going off helped. Mullahoran younger legs always likely to come into it with the wind though
I reckon he'll win the appeal alright
I referenced a Kingspan "pile on". As Tazman said there have been particular focus on Ulster Rugby, Shane Lowry, Leona Maguire and recently an article on Cavan. If you shine a light into all the corporations that sponsor sports teams you might be shocked what you might find.
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://wa.vanillicon.com/v2/a00e3247d440d5c48e84d566062a0fcf.svg)
