Joe Brolly

[Walter Cronc]

What's the story with St Pats Armagh? They never seem to compete at all at colleges level these days. Do most North Armagh lads attend Lurgan?

[naka]

What's the story with St Pats Armagh? They never seem to compete at all at colleges level these days. Do most North Armagh lads attend Lurgan?

Struggling with a lot of guys staying in Tyrone and st Ronans.
But still playing mc Rory

[illdecide]

Yeah St Ronan's is now the hub for College football in North Armagh (Lurgan) with the small exception who would travel to St Pats Armagh or St Colman's Newry. St Michael's Grammar school merged with St Paul's JHS and St Mary's to form St Ronans. Should take a few years to establish but once it's up and running proper they should be decent enough.

[shark]

Armagh are paying for years of neglect at county board level when the 00's team was in it's pomp. The fact that the team was going well on the field masked a lot of problems off it. Failure to maximise sponsorship revenues when the potential was there meant that they failed to invest in a suitable centralised training faciliity. There was also a lack of investment in coaching at schools level. In fairness some of the issues have been attempted to be put right in the last few years but unfortunately it has co-incided with a dip in the performance of the senior team. For me those 2 areas are where the money still needs to be prioritised the most. Underage coaching and a suitable training centre for the county teams to prepare. 

Was there a table published at the satrt of the year showing team expenditure for last year?

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/cost-of-running-county-teams-at-record-levels-34513426.html

Limerick, Wexford and Armagh are the stand out ones!

Wouldn't accept that Armagh expenditure was more than Tyrone or Donegal so would take that with a pinch of salt
A few posters know who I am and know that I am content to contribute money to Armagh
At the day at the races a full breakdown of expenditure was published
Showing the vast majority of money goes below the senior team
It's easy to recollect the money spent in the glory days but now the focus is on developing a strategy to get back to the top table
Work is being done in the schools
We had St. Paul's st pats Armagh , st Ronans as well as a fair chunk of players playing for abbey and college in the mc Rory


It will take time but we are in a far better place than we were 5 years ago
Armagh are trying to bring coaches and leaders in at all levels id development from u14 up
Which can only be applauded

The independent article above should come with a major health warning. That is, it's nonsense. Many county senior setups are being funded from outside the county board, so there is no transparency as to what teams are spending.

[Jim_Murphy_74]

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/cost-of-running-county-teams-at-record-levels-34513426.html

Limerick, Wexford and Armagh are the stand out ones!

This tells that they are less attractive to sponsors and supporters clubs than other inter-county teams.

Getting County Board's to pay expenses for top-level inter-county teams is old-hat.  They have to publish accounts and all sorts of transparent things.  That's the last thing you want when you have a high-profile manager "taking no expenses" and "doing it for the love of the game". 

/Jim.

[Disillusioned]

Yeah St Ronan's is now the hub for College football in North Armagh (Lurgan) with the small exception who would travel to St Pats Armagh or St Colman's Newry. St Michael's Grammar school merged with St Paul's JHS and St Mary's to form St Ronans. Should take a few years to establish but once it's up and running proper they should be decent enough.

Are there any Armagh men taking football in St Pats?  Did they not bring in Denis Holywood from Ulster Council coaching to have an Armagh football coach in the school?  I think football is taken by M McGleenan, M Harte and D Harte.  The school has done nothing at any level for many years. Meanwhile J Rafferty and M O'Rourke have pulled St Paul's out of years in the wrong competition and are a major force at college level. 

[SkillfulBill]

Yeah St Ronan's is now the hub for College football in North Armagh (Lurgan) with the small exception who would travel to St Pats Armagh or St Colman's Newry. St Michael's Grammar school merged with St Paul's JHS and St Mary's to form St Ronans. Should take a few years to establish but once it's up and running proper they should be decent enough.

Are there any Armagh men taking football in St Pats?  Did they not bring in Denis Holywood from Ulster Council coaching to have an Armagh football coach in the school?  I think football is taken by M McGleenan, M Harte and D Harte.  The school has done nothing at any level for many years. Meanwhile J Rafferty and M O'Rourke have pulled St Paul's out of years in the wrong competition and are a major force at college level.

Three Tyrone men doing a good job keeping the applemunchers deprived of young talent then

[Wildweasel74]

Brolly right about McGeeney, not up to this level as a manager, may be a great trainer but that's a world of different to managing a team at this level. Can anyone tell me what was Armagh tactics on Sunday, i didn't see any, except kick long to Stefan Campbell. As for Barton, Derry supporters didn't not want him  for the start and a few said so on the Derry board at the time, again totally not up to this level as was maybe expected, different with McGeeney he been here 7-8 yrs at it

[T Fearon]

Not saying Brolly is right or wrong,but don't understand the furore over Brolly.Is there a manager who ever lived whobwasn't accused of not having a clue by his own supporters.

[longballin]

Brolly spot on about McGeeney... once your dealing with paid managers theyre fair game.

[Jinxy]

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/joe-brolly-squeezing-every-last-bit-of-joy-out-of-the-game-34754928.html

Finally, the great Sean Lowry contacted me about a piece I wrote a few weeks ago where I mistakenly said he had a few drinks the night before the 1982 final to settle his nerves, when in fact it was another team-mate. It's better in Sean's own words: "No big deal Joe but a lot of people have contacted me (someone must be reading you). You might mention it on Sunday if possible. You can also say that all Seamus Darby had to play for was 5 minutes and get 1 kick, we had to keep it kicked out for nearly 70 minutes!"

[Fuzzman]

I just don't understand Brolly's status or how anyone enjoys him. He is bombastic, attention seeking, full of bluster and changes horses depending on what he thinks will generate the most publicity. I think his shtick is old and cliched at this stage.

Getting back to the topic of this thread, I agree with you AZ and a few others here in how he changes his horse so often and just focuses on creating the most uproar. The fact that he often makes some good true points keeps loads of people on his side as they see him standing up and being outspoken where most are not.
A lot of people love hearing a good row and if I'm honest even though he annoys me I still find myself wanting to hear what he's gonna say this week and will Spillane react. It makes good TV for lots of people I suppose.

I feel he makes a lot of money off the GAA media bandwagon (RTE and newspapers etc) so it's a lot easier for him to go to events for free but he's a bit like the Pharisees in the bible who make sure he lets you know he's there for free to reap the benefit of that and tell who else isn't there for free. I suppose what I dislike the most about Joe is his two faced personality where he appears to go meet people face to face and be all nice to them and then behind their back tear their personality to threads.

I heard Sean Cavanagh talk about the aftermath of Joe's attack on him after "that tackle" and how non GAA people in his work perceived him differently and how his parents and wife had to deal with people bringing it up and changing people's perception. Joe doesn't seem to care a damn what people think of him and is why he continues to be so out spoken but not everyone else is like that and he needs to respect that. I wonder what he said to Marty last year in way of an apology. You would imagine it was rather dismissive of the whole thing. Just a bit of craic Marty.

[Walter Cronc]

As someone alluded to earlier - criticising players is wrong but paid managers. Well that's par for the course to me!

[illdecide]

As someone alluded to earlier - criticising players is wrong but paid managers. Well that's par for the course to me!

Well Walter spill the beans and tell us who is getting paid and how much? Please provide the evidence too.

[Walter Cronc]

As someone alluded to earlier - criticising players is wrong but paid managers. Well that's par for the course to me!

Well Walter spill the beans and tell us who is getting paid and how much? Please provide the evidence too.

Is McGeeney not?

Are clubs around the country not getting fleeced by average outside managers??