The 2015 All Ireland Senior Football Championship

For the record I'm deeply sorry for not making it clear that I was making a flippant, tangential remark.

STB. wrote: »

AI Club medals (not provincial) ONTOP of their AI Championship medals.

None of your current players have even 2 All Ireland medals, let alone the handfull of NFL medals that the current Dublin team have.

Yes then I mentioned All Stars. Count them.

Donegal are underachievers for all the rubbish their fans talk. I suppose the reasoning is that if they say it enough it might come true. It might be better to stay in the bubble that the Donegal thread is. Some wake up call coming this year.

Haha you need to relax man.

K-9 wrote: »

Not much point adding much else tbh. Donegal are clearly over achieving, this group of players has no AI minor or U21 medals for a start, a flew played in a final but that's about it. How anybody could try and even attempt a comparison between us and Dublin as if both are equal is truely awe inspiring.

Yeah! One is a bunch of naturally talented footballers who won the national league before going onto improve and win the All-Ireland.

The other is Dublin.

From the last few pages we can now put the split Dublin (Underachievers) in two argument and move it to Donegal (Overachievers):rolleyes:

K-9 wrote: »

Yeah, there were loads of people on here in 2010 who thought Donegal would go on to win an AI, get to a final and win 3 Ulsters in the following 5 years.
These same people couldn't see 2012 coming never mind 2015?

Sure why not? It was a group of naturally talented footballers, one of the most naturally talented group of players in the country surpassing even the likes of Dublin, and they were recent league champions so why could people not see any success in the future for them?

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

It is quite obivious that Donegal and Dublin are the best football teams in the country with Mayo and Cork the next best teams. One of these four are going to colect Sam

Yup, exactly like last year. I can't see any team outside these 4 winning...

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

Just after watching the Westmeath match again and one thing that it highighted for me that in spite of it regularly being suggested that fisted points should be banned , banning fisted points would be an absolutely terrible idea.

Twice in the second half Kieran Martin cut inside the corner back near the end line and had a very tight angle to get a score.It would have been almost impossible to kick a score as the goalie was coming out to meet him so his only option was to fist the ball over the bar.

Without the option for the fisted point Martin's excellent corner forward play wouldn't have been rewarded.

Agreed, however the open palm handpass over the bar should definitely be outlawed.

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

A fisted point is a great sign of an intelligent player if you ask me.

Given a wee bit of context it can be. Take your points the goals will come is a saying nearly as old as the game itself. All that said It is way more exciting when a player does go for goal.

Boom__Boom wrote: »

Maybe make any point kicked outside the 45 a 2 pointer - you see a great point kicked from distance and then you see a fisted point and the reward for both is equal.

Might need to change the goal to 4 points.

I would argue that getting the ball into a position where it can be fisted over the bar is just as worthy of a point as kicking it from out the field.

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

It is quite obivious that Donegal and Dublin are the best football teams in the country with Mayo and Cork the next best teams. One of these four are going to colect Sam

DDC1990 wrote: »

Yup, exactly like last year. I can't see any team outside these 4 winning...

I'd love to see an outsider like Kerry play Dublin in the final. It would give them a chamce to win a proper All Ireland after Donegal did the hard work for them last year

willabur wrote: »

I would argue that getting the ball into a position where it can be fisted over the bar is just as worthy of a point as kicking it from out the field.

Sometimes it can be as a result of a good kickpass (however if it is such a good pass that close to goal surely the reward is that you can created the potential for a goal chance )- how many times does a fisted pass occur where the forward near goal fails to get off a chance at goal and the move ends up with the fisted point being taken. I'm not arguing that there should be no score for the fisted point, I'm arguing that a point kicked for distance should be worth that bit more.

Also sometimes it can be as a result of a ball just lumped forward or a side handpassing up the pitch. Oftentimes a fisted pass is the sign of a player simply not being able to kick a point.

A great point from distance is a thing of beauty and a joy for ever - should we not be rewarding this skill a bit more ?

Boom__Boom wrote: »

A great point from distance is a thing of beauty and a joy for ever - should we not be rewarding this skill a bit more ?

No because it would just encourage lads to take a punt from distance rather than opt for the more skillful option of trying to pick out an inside forward. It would also encourage lads to come further out the pitch thus bunching midfield even more. It takes more effort and work on the training ground to figure out ways of getting the ball into positions closer to goal where the percentage of scoring is higher - I'm all for encouraging this, not discouraging it.

Boom__Boom wrote: »

Sometimes it can be as a result of a good kickpass (however if it is such a good pass that close to goal surely the reward is that you can created the potential for a goal chance )- how many times does a fisted pass occur where the forward near goal fails to get off a chance at goal and the move ends up with the fisted point being taken. I'm not arguing that there should be no score for the fisted point, I'm arguing that a point kicked for distance should be worth that bit more.

Also sometimes it can be as a result of a ball just lumped forward or a side handpassing up the pitch. Oftentimes a fisted pass is the sign of a player simply not being able to kick a point.

A great point from distance is a thing of beauty and a joy for ever - should we not be rewarding this skill a bit more ?

The scenario you describe where a ball is lumped in more often than not results in a ball that is won by a defender or more likely again goes out of play. Also I have seen many long range points that have come from a swinger of a boot been thrown at it.

As someone else said, these points tend to be taken mostly from an angle where the chance of a goal is greatly reduced. Where an anomoly does exist is if a player on the endline inside the box is fouled its given as a penalty when the likelihood of him scoring a goal is minimal, For me if the chance he had on was a point then a free is all that should be given but it would be impossible to enforce that rule. That said I feel alot of penalties given are unfair

Ceist_Beag wrote: »

No because it would just encourage lads to take a punt from distance rather than opt for the more skillful option of trying to pick out an inside forward. It would also encourage lads to come further out the pitch thus bunching midfield even more. It takes more effort and work on the training ground to figure out ways of getting the ball into positions closer to goal where the percentage of scoring is higher - I'm all for encouraging this, not discouraging it.

At present in the GAA to few players can score from distance. The reason for this is at least two fold. At inter county level few team leave room or time on the ball around the 45 yard line. At training more and more time is spend doing handpass and running drills instead of kicking drills. this leave the situtation where a hand pass is often incoporated into a kicking drill vica versa dose not happen. At underage in most counties with the exception of 2-3 counties most young players spend too much time doing hand passing or soloing drills and not enought time kicking the ball.

However there is exceptions, in the 1012 and 2013 championship mayo scored a lot of long distance points up until the final but tight marking and nerves caught them in both finals. Last year they tried to run with the ball in hand too much.

15 years ago we were nearly on par with the aussies for long distance score now we are way behind them. When you consider they use an oval ball. this is a bad stastic. I do not have any issue with a fisted point neither do I consider long range point taking lucky. I saw it at a club game latley by an old junior team where they kicked any chance they got. They had spotted a weakness in the younger team in that they were dependent on the short kick out. They closed this down were wining 70% of long kickouts and just kicked from distance knowing there was a 70% chance they would win the kick out or if the younger team got the ball under pressure that they had a good chance getting it back. They scored about 30% of these.

If you reward the long distance point more teams will practice them. Not sure if I would tinker with it however. I was more intrested in the suggestion that for any kick out or at the start of halves that the goalie would have to kick to beyond the 45 line. That the only players allowed between the 45's are the mid fielders and that each team had to have 6 out field players behind and beyond the 45 yard line. There players could not encroch into the middle area until either the ball was touched or hit the ground. Not sure again if I would bring it in but it was an interesting idea.

I suppose the blanket defence type system haven't helped either, it was easier to get big long range scores 15/20 years ago as less pressure was put on the kicker.