Donegal GAA Discussion Thread

If they did cancel the games, a more salient question would be, what about the season ticket holders, are they entitled to some kind of refund? Indeed!

Ceist_Beag wrote: »

I'd be very surprised if the matches were cancelled - as you say, play behind closed gates would be the logical decision. We've decided not to go on Saturday regardless - it's not worth the risk.

We are in unprecedented times. The NBA is suspended. Soccer matches around Europe being played behind closed doors or postponed. As a society we are not immune from what has struck other nations. We will all have to step up to the mark and act in a responsible way.
If we don't postponed matches, season tickets and the pleasure of beating Throne will seem extremely trivial.
As for Cheltenham............

Matches will be cancelled - statement below from An Taoiseach

The following measures will come into effect from tomorrow until 29 March:

Schools colleges and childcare facilities will close from tomorrow.

Indoor mass gatherings of more than 100 people and outdoor mass gatherings of more than 500 people should be cancelled.

Where it is possible to work remotely people should do so.

Mr Varadkar said we need the public and businesses to take a sensible approach.

Redsoxfan wrote: »

Aye, the right decision.

Even if behind closed doors, the issue of player welfare would surely come up.

Not the most pressing issue but April will be a mess.

The right decision, but tbh I cannot see anything happening in April either.

Or indeed at the very least, early rounds of the championship.

Jebus Krist! There's not even an ounce of sport on over the weekend - all cancelled.
Last resort could be some NASCAR racing from Boonieville, Tennessee.

ArnoldJRimmer wrote: »

I have my 2012 dvd ready to go

Plenty of good stuff on YouTube too

They showed 2012 final on Eir sport last night...,some work rate by Donegal that day. Some pile of high ball in on top of MM in the first half.Great to watch again after the few years.

dog_pig wrote: »

I went back and watched the full 1983 Donegal Cavan Ulster final before last summer's game, Martin McHugh was some baller. He puts a solid free over in the 1992 1st round game to bring it to a replay as well.

He was class, the point against Cavan, and the two he scored in the 92 Ulster final against Derry were sensational

Brian Roper doing the skills challenge today.
Paul Brennan must not be available.

Tony Boyle was and still is my hero from that 92 side. 22 years of age and out winning ball like a hardened pro. Have yet to see a forward time a run like him.

That being said, having watched the 92 Champ games game recently, there was no doubting Martin McHugh's class. He was special.

https://www.irishnews.com/sport/gaafootball/2020/03/28/news/london-life-lifting-odhra-n-out-of-a-rut-1881703/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&fbclid=IwAR2coRer12_zHd9k2t4-zUtj8hJnhVP5ufjCjWtW1pfsdmcPHfugGXkJTHc

One of the most naturally gifted footballers in Ireland in recent seasons, Donegal's Odhrán MacNiallais recently relocated from the west coast of his homeland to north London. He tells Cahair O'Kane about why he turned down Declan Bonner's offer to come back and hopped the Irish Sea instead...
28 March, 2020 01:00
LIVING in the shadow of Alexandra Palace fits as snugly with Odhrán MacNiallais’ persona as it does his complicated relationship with sport.

The pint-of-bass-gargling, football-chanting raucousness of the PDC Darts Championship at the turn of the year is replaced within a fortnight by the shushing sobriety of Masters Snooker.

MacNiallais only moved to Crouch End in the northern suburbs of Britannia’s maiden city six weeks ago. From the bit of a sun terrace at the back of the house he shares with two fellow Donegal men, they look straight on to the Ally Pally.

The darts never took him, but snooker?

“I love Ronnie O’Sullivan, he’s the man. Even outside the snooker, he’s a great character. You couldn’t but like the man.

“Me and one of my mates, Eoin Ward, went through a stage where we were in Letterkenny almost every evening playing snooker.

“He used to have a wee Peugeot, he’d drive down and we’d spend two or three hours in the snooker hall. We’d be very competitive against each other, we’d have money on it.”

He loves sport. Golfing and a bit of Sunday league soccer with Gweedore Celtic had been the recent terms of leisure around home.

Chipping around the picturesque Gaoth Dobhair golf club that sits on the sprawling acreage just across the road from the GAA club’s base in the townland of Magheragallon, MacNiallais’ handicap had come down from 20 to 14 before the bad weather set in.

There was no greater thrill than the big goals that became his custom for the county, or the championship wins that came back to Gaoth Dobhair after a generation’s absence.

Some days the pace of the Atlantic Way suited him. Others, it ate into him.

That’s reflected in his football career. He loves playing for Donegal. He’s as fond of the dry ball and summer sod as the next man. He’s just not mad enough about the training to keep chasing it, and he’s not convinced he ever will be again.

“Your life’s completely taken over by it. It’s gone to extreme levels where personally, I don’t know. I wasn’t built for that kinda stuff.

“I obviously used to love it but after a few years of doing it, I nearly had enough of it.

“I wouldn’t be a big fan of the travelling. If training was down in Magheragallon every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, I’d be there every time, I’d play for Donegal no bother.”

For a while there was little else for him to do other than play football or golf. He’d tried call centres, he tried to get in with Randox at their Dungloe base, but had no joy and found himself jobless over the last while.

Every couple of weeks since September, he’d have met up with Declan Bonner. If it was about a manager, MacNiallais would be standing front and centre for selection.

“Declan’s a great man. He’ll always keep in contact with you and see how you’re doing, see how things are.

“I wouldn’t say he was persuading me to come back, he was trying to guide me to do the right thing for myself.”

By November, MacNiallais had made his mind up to go back in.

“At the same time it was still in the back of my mind to go away. I did say that to [Declan] and he was fine with it.”

After meeting up with strength and conditioning coach Paul Fisher and remembering what would be required of him, things quickly changed.

He’d been wrestling with the idea of Australia, to join up with friends in Sydney. But with 18-month-old godson Eanan on the scene now though, family would have just been too far away.

London was mooted to him and Michael Boyle, who’d coached Gaoth Dobhair for the last three years under Mervyn O’Donnell, including to their Ulster title, had just moved out in November.

He’s ended up in a house with two of the significant Donegal contingent that operate around North London Shamrocks, the club for whom he’ll tog out this year if there’s any football to be played.

The decision to go wasn’t about football. Life around home has been ragged for the last year. Not a day goes past when he doesn’t think of his close friend, Michéal Roarty. Together with Shaun Harkin, Daniel Scott and John Harley, they were killed when the car they were travelling in crashed last January.

Home never allowed MacNiallais’ mind away from it.

“You nearly get stuck in a rut, you’re stuck there the whole time and you find yourself thinking about Michéal more frequently, it gets you down.

“It’s been a tough year since that happened and nothing’s been easy since it. You think about it every day, many times a day. It’s still hard to believe really.

“Being stuck around home didn’t really help. Getting away from that and over here can only help.

“Maybe it worked out better for me that I didn’t have any luck with getting a job at home and I’ve ended up here. It’s a better opportunity,” says the trainee CAD technician for Capital Construction, with whom Shamrocks chairman Patrick Madigan is managing director.

It’s the city and it’s not. Crouch End is socially distanced from London itself. Close enough to hop on a train and speed in, but far enough out to not be overwhelmed by the difference between a city of nine million people and the lakes and fields of the Donegal Gaeltacht.

“There’s a bit of a buzz about my life at the minute, the city life, though there’s nothing really happening at the minute obviously. It’s a bit surreal.

“But nothing will beat home, the scenery of it.

“Nothing beats good old Gaoth Dobhair.”

Just finished watching the 2012 Semi Final on Eir.

Feels like a long way off what I have seen in last few years.

bob skunkhouse wrote: »

If they did cancel the games, a more salient question would be, what about the season ticket holders, are they entitled to some kind of refund? Indeed!

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/sport/gaa/clause-means-no-refunds-likely-for-gaa-season-ticket-holders-993829.html

Ummm, looks like they dragged out some fine print to avoid compensating season ticket holders over the Covid virus. Given the amount of people who now find themselves out of a job through no fault of their own I think a hard line stance like this will be another serious own goal by the association. Would it not be have been better to see how the season pans out before dragging this up? In the unlikely event that we do have a season then reconsider options for punters.

If the season does end there is one positive to be taken from it....it'll give us time to get the injured masses back to fitness again, unfortunately our biggest negative is Murphy is now one year older! Actually, there's one more...Dublin won't win 6 in a row....:D

So there’ll be no Tyrone game in Ballybofey in the championship. Looks like it’ll be an open draw with no back door if it goes ahead at all. I’d expect the Donegal championship to be a 1 game straight knock out as well if it goes ahead in autumn/winter.