The 2025 All Ireland Senior Football Championship (Sam Maguire Cup)

Does it suggest matches played outside Croker are more exciting with smaller venues and smaller crowds?

Make a goal 10 or 12 points, it would allow for better weighting of scores generally. Currently two 2 pointers are obviously a goal and a point. Are they worth that? Obviously a standard point would be more than a single point in such a system.

When Cian O'Neill was being interviewed with Jack O'Connor on the Sunday game did he say that Kerry have 40 coaches or did I pick him up wrong.

scoring wise I think an issue is keep a point as 1. If a current one pointer was worth 2 , a current 2 pointer worth 3 and a goal worth 6 the weighting would be about right for me. I’d make a hand passed point worth 1 as I hate them but I don’t think many would agree. It would probably discourage as much 2 point shooting but the 2 pointer is a double edge sword, great when the likes of Kerry are kicking them but Meath destroyed their chances against Donegal going for them. Same with the way scoring goes sometimes it means big leads being brought back but other times it means big leads built quickly and games that are not close.

Overall probably the worst GAA season for a few years. The hurling had one or two decent games, the football a few good games early in the year but two crap SF and Final. Add to that it feels like everything is so rushed now, I find myself less interested in it than I used to. Doesn't help that my own country is going nowhere right now.

Almost every "top" team in the country now have a bus full of (Usually paid) coaches and staffers.

It's a bit ridiculous in an amateur game where the players don't get paid directly and is one of the core reasons the spending in each county is only going one direction. It badly needs to be clamped down on and the money put to better use.

Kerry had a great year, league and championship as well as Munster. The rule changes particularily with respect to the 2 pointers have realy benefited them - they play lovely football - no issues with them winning. As for the bits of the match that slow down because of the hooter - thats really down to the defending team to do something about it. You'd think there'd be enough coaches involved to come up with some tactic to go against it.

Ha, the former Kerry players that are on the punditry circuit love to pedal that kind of stuff.

The reality is they are a juggernaut, a big county totally concentrated on the one code a massive pool of players to select from, huge financial backing. That translates to 39 All Ireland wins. They have produced brilliant footballers but so have most counties, but it's a numbers game and they have very little distraction from football down there, the selection of players they have for their divisional teams would be the envy of all inter county teams outside the top 3 or 4.

They are well able to spin the mystique about great natural footballers being formed in the Kingdom leading to them being successful, but the reality is it is a numbers game. They have more younglads playing the game without distraction from other sports than any other county therefore producing more top quality players.

Fair play to them, they have provided us with mighty entertainment over the years and some great individual players.

This kinda reminds me of when people were so bitter and full of rage towards Limerick that they were willing to believe we had 53 coaches because of a slip of the tongue.

40 coaches is more than 1 per player.

Paidi clifford could have lit up a fag n have a few cheeky drags while on the ball yesterday. Kerry 7 points up at the time.

Donegal seemed happy enough to let him at it so why wouldn't he potter away. Were Donegal hoping he'd run into 2 or 3 lads n get disposessed? Up to Donegal to go out to him.

The national league and 2026 championship will be interesting in terms of seeing what changes counties will make to personnel and tactics. Kerry winning under the new rules will force others to pick attacking skillful players, tight marking defenders, proper midfielders and good kick passers. I think it's better for the game that Kerry won despite their huge haul of titles. The only problem is what counties can match their skillset under the new rules?

i agree… maybe we are just getting older and a bit bored of the same thing every year…

Its hard to step away when you've a talent like Clifford in his prime to work with.

goals should be worth 4 points. I think it would make things a lot more interesting

I thought Cian O'Neill was referring to the players effectively being their own coaches and the actual coaches learning as much from them.

I don't think it matters who the manager is in the modern game. The media big up the cult of the manager, the one man that can be praised or blamed and photographed in victory or defeat. An army of coaches being photographed and interviewed doesn't have the same effect. A quality coaching set up is the key now. Jack seemed to be walking around bewildered before the game yesterday while Cian O Neill and other coaches were doing the last few bits with the players. I think if you kept the same backroom team and but in any other cranky old codger to give the media a few soundbites Kerry wouldn't miss a beat. Don't get me wrong when he came in first in the early 2000s he was the man and did the bulk of the work but now the manager is a media hyped thing and he is only an aging figurehead.