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I think the GAA would be right from banning him coaching kids. However not sure about the banning from matches??

Horrible situation but if you did it in a teaching job you'd be suspended until everything cleared so GAA doing correct in this case. He was a full time coach wasn't he? Career ruined then too. Horrendous.

The highest individual score I heard of was SL McGoldrick in the Derry juinor/ intermediate hurling last year. 23 points.

You'd think with us, maybe, making these records in Antrim we were a good team!!

33 points - that'd be some going. 1 point every ~2 minutes. You'd need to be nearly catching every kickout , running with it and then kicking it straight back over!

I thought there were quite a few positives to take out of the game too.

The defense was quite good when they got going. Corner backs were slow to start but when they got going they were good. Delargy's block in the first half was excellent and Graffin in the second half was also superb. I thought Ciarn Herron was good and Micky was solid but perhaps made a couple of unforced errors which got punished. Johnny Campbell wasn't brilliant - he's too loose a marker - but I think he wasn't as poor as being made out here. Pinky struggled withe the pace of the game - I'm not sure he's fit. Malachy Molloy would have been a big plus for the defense in that game.Clare had an awful amount of free catches. Midfield well - Herron wasn't in it but I thought Karl did well. I thought Micko did well when put into full forward though he should maybe try to catch it a time or two rather than consistently flicking it on. McManus allowed Gerry Quinn too much dominance in the air but was good on the ball. Paddy McGill put in a good performance. Young Sambo , I think, merits his place. He is pacy and I think it was worth a shot seeing if that would bother an aging Clare defense. He did see a lot of ball and didn't win enough but I think when he fills out he'll be a good county player. Tosh wasn't at it at all and Shorty did well picking uploose ball behind half back line but maybe needs to think before just sending it liong as Clare had too many bodies.

In summary I think it's like people say - at the minute we just don't have the players. I however think this time last year or the year before Clare would have gave us an awful spanking and at least we competed.  If Paddy Richmond and Malachy Molloy were playing it could have been a much tighter game. We also need to be a lot sharper, and position ourslves better , for breaking ball. If a ball is coming high between two men there should always be another man coming in for the break. That wasn't the case a lot of times yesterday. Not all doom and gloom - next day Micko to start at FF, Tosh at CF and McCrory in WHF. That's what I would like to see. McFall hasn't the pace to start though I think he's good for an "impact" sub.

That is a truly horrendous story.

You hear of things like that happen - e.g. Dave Jones who used to manage Southampton and a few other less high profile ones. The sad thing is that it's guilty until proven innocent in scenarios like that and some people never recover.

It's good that he's had all the support from family etc. I hope he can rebuild his life properly and get to spend the time he has been, up to now, denied with his own children.

And on another note Feeney should be allowed nowhere near GAA matches and like someone said should have been put away for life. Too many of those sick f**kers walking around these days. Countless lives have been ruined by his sort. A story about Greg Lemond in the Sunday Times today illustrates what it does to people.

Although young Graffin is a good prospect it's pretty harsh to have him in front of Barney McAuley I'd have thought??

McAuley was near enough the best player last year. Clearly not a favourite of Sambo and Woody's though.

Are that Derry team even half fit?

A lot of very cumersome men on that team. They may find it easier against Armagh though.

McGoldrick wasn't bad nor McCloy. As for the rest well not much can be said. Max doesn't know much about football based on a lot of his posts but he'd be right in saying Lockhart is no CHB. He's very reluctant to kick the ball at all and just holds up play. Mark Lynch is fast becoming one of these boys with great potential who never lives upto it.  As for tactics or tactical substitutions there weren't really any -well unless you count taking Patsy Bradley off.

Monaghan were minus Finlay who by all accounts will be ok for the final. Those two Freemans are some footballers though. Woods despite his size can fairly use a ball too. That team will give Tyrone their fill of it me thinks. They won't win but they won't lie down.

As much as I wanted to see Limerick win I would have said the ref. was harsh on Tipp in the last few minutes when it was a one point game. They should have had a free to level her and instead Limerick went up and made it a two point game.

Still these things likely balanced themselves out over the course of the 3 games.

Good to see that munster final pairing.

Great series of games - maybe standard not as goo as Cork etc. but good to see saga's like this. Brings out the best in teams.

and then there's the women supporters who bring their umbrellas and threaten the opposition players with them!

Every club has boys like that - they are a pain in the hole and do no good for the development of confidence in young players or senior players who are maybe a bit frail on confidence.

I mind playing a junior game a few years ago and marking this old boy. I was round the 21 mark and he was to be honest about 40 odd. He won first three balls and never got a kick the rest of the game. So one of the negative sorts comes up to me at the end - "so you finally got the better of him then. sure he's nearly my age"! Closest to a compliment I've ever got from the boy, or anyone else for that matter, and he coached me from u10 to u21 inclusive!

What date are the first rounds of the football championship?

Creggan have been on the up for a few years now. Moran has probably just injected a new enthusiasm and he is genuinely a top coach which would help but they have some decent, maybe not brilliant, but decent players to work with.

I would expect them to be one of the stronger u16 and minor teams in the county which will help in the future. You don't become a decent division one team overnight team too so someone must have done something - not sure if it was McGettigan or not but they certainly seem to have and have had decent underage structures in place.

It would be very unrealistic to be thinking just because they are competing well in the league that Creggan could compete in the championship with the big guns. They can compete for maybe fourth best team but the calibre of player coming out of Cargin and St Galls is just much better than anything coming out of anywhere else. Lamh Dhearg would be next at the minute too. I'd like to see them and Portglenone in the c'ship  they'd likely be about the same level.

I would hear bits and pieces and I would guess McGettigan would be one of the key players in Creggan getting better - not 100% sure though. Slim maybe you can unbiasedly comment??

The best ones seem to be the close local ones where a load of boys went to school etc. together, knock seven shades of s**te out of each other and then gi for pints after them.

Loughgiel - Dunloy in antrim hurling is a big one.

Some teams have a right few enemies too. Wouldn't say Cargin have been the most popular in antrim football and rivalries there could include st pauls, st galls and even st johns.

There'd be a few in derry that'd be interesting too - bellaghy - ballinderry, swatragh - slaughtneil etc. Slaughtneil don't seem overly popular so may have a few of these "rivalries".

Carrickmore in Tyrone sound to be the same.

Well I suppose we can take some satisfaction in the fact that last time an antrim club played a derry club in a competitive football game the antrim team won that one

You might remember that game Max

http://www.athleticsireland.ie/content/?page_id=714

Seems to be the southern equivalent.

From what I have seen the ref. in general takes the umpires opinion but the problem has been the umpires haven't made the call! This then creates a problem like the Longford goal where the ref. calls it himself when there shouldn't be any need for it. I reckon that in the Longford Laois game the ref. had this in mind and that was why he erroneously called the square ball.

If umpires kept an eye on the square and the ball - even agreed between the two of them that one keeps more of an eye on the ball coming in and one keeps more of an eye on the square then this might help. Ultimately in a lot of cases the umpires haven't been looking near the square. They just need to be more vigilant in this regard and I don't think the whole square ball thing would be an issue.