All Ireland Club SFC Semi-finals Feb 2016

[AZOffaly]

Think  it will be  a Mayo/ Tipperary final.

Imo anyway, BBSE team as a whole  for some reason is not better than the players on it.  Clonmel I presume will be hamming up the usual no one gives us a chance routine despited Tipp's dominance over Dublin at overage level recently.

Castlebar to win is just a hunch, nothing more.

Take that back. What are you insinuating?

My bad. Typo .    Underage of  course.

I'm joking. I knew what you meant.

[seafoid]

I find it hard to see Clonmel beating Ballyboden.

I just don't think they have the depth of quality of the other 3 teams in the semis.

From what I've seen they are not of the quality of heavy hitters as the other 3 teams left.

Cross v Castlebar I think will go to whoever performs on the day [with insight like this I'm obviously gunning for a lifetime slot on the Sunday Game] However I really don't think there is a huge amount between the two teams - wouldn't be a bit shocked for this to end in a draw.

CC beat Nemo. 7 times champions

[brokencrossbar1]

I find it hard to see Clonmel beating Ballyboden.

I just don't think they have the depth of quality of the other 3 teams in the semis.

From what I've seen they are not of the quality of heavy hitters as the other 3 teams left.

Cross v Castlebar I think will go to whoever performs on the day [with insight like this I'm obviously gunning for a lifetime slot on the Sunday Game] However I really don't think there is a huge amount between the two teams - wouldn't be a bit shocked for this to end in a draw.

CC beat Nemo. 7 times champions

.

Memo haven't won Munster since 2010 or the AI since 2003 so that's a bit of a non sequitur. I would fancy Clonmel though to have the freshness to be Ballyboden. Twohands might be right with our game going to a draw.

[rodney trotter]

Thought Ballyboden looked average enough in  the Leinster final. Portlaoise looked the better football team, more of a grind effort by Ballyboden to win it. Quinlivan is a class forward for Clonmel , if he gets a good supply they have a chance.

Breffni might be a slight help for Crossmaglen. They played a few times before there.

[seafoid]

I find it hard to see Clonmel beating Ballyboden.

I just don't think they have the depth of quality of the other 3 teams in the semis.

From what I've seen they are not of the quality of heavy hitters as the other 3 teams left.

Cross v Castlebar I think will go to whoever performs on the day [with insight like this I'm obviously gunning for a lifetime slot on the Sunday Game] However I really don't think there is a huge amount between the two teams - wouldn't be a bit shocked for this to end in a draw.

CC beat Nemo. 7 times champions

.

Memo haven't won Munster since 2010 or the AI since 2003 so that's a bit of a non sequitur. I would fancy Clonmel though to have the freshness to be Ballyboden. Twohands might be right with our game going to a draw.

Nemo were odds on

[tippabu]

Think  it will be  a Mayo/ Tipperary final.

Imo anyway, BBSE team as a whole  for some reason is not better than the players on it.  Clonmel I presume will be hamming up the usual no one gives us a chance routine despited Tipp's dominance over Dublin at overage level recently.

Castlebar to win is just a hunch, nothing more.

Take that back. What are you insinuating?

My bad. Typo .    Underage of  course.

They won a few matches - what's the AI breakdown like? One for Tipp, countless for Dublin..

Dont often meet and to call it dominance is over stretching it but we have been a bogey team in recent years, 2011 minor win over as good a minor team as there has been and last years under 21 victory against the 2012 dublin minor winning team, they are our only two games since 1984.

[twohands!!!]

I find it hard to see Clonmel beating Ballyboden.

I just don't think they have the depth of quality of the other 3 teams in the semis.

From what I've seen they are not of the quality of heavy hitters as the other 3 teams left.

Cross v Castlebar I think will go to whoever performs on the day [with insight like this I'm obviously gunning for a lifetime slot on the Sunday Game] However I really don't think there is a huge amount between the two teams - wouldn't be a bit shocked for this to end in a draw.

CC beat Nemo. 7 times champions

.

Memo haven't won Munster since 2010 or the AI since 2003 so that's a bit of a non sequitur. I would fancy Clonmel though to have the freshness to be Ballyboden. Twohands might be right with our game going to a draw.

Nemo were odds on

This Nemo team are a good bit off the quality of the classic Nemo teams imo.

The outright betting odds at the moment are

Crossmaglen 13/8
Castlebar 2/1
Ballyboden St Endas 11/4
Clonmel Commercials 6/1

[AZOffaly]

Possibly, but if Nemo had beaten Clonmel they, Nemo, would be shorter than 6/1.

[tippabu]

Clonmel Commercials' football family help Ian Fahey in time of need



When the final whistle confirmed victory for Clonmel Commercials in October's Tipperary senior football final, Ian Fahey couldn't hold the emotion in any longer.

Jubilant Commercials fans invaded the Semple Stadium pitch to pay tribute to their heroes but one familiar face was missing.

Less than two months earlier, Ian's mother Caroline passed away peacefully at St James' Hospital in Dublin.

She had battled cancer before succumbing to a brain haemorrhage, and Ian considered taking a year out as he struggled with his grief.

He still finds her loss tough to cope with on a daily basis but football has helped.

The 21-year-old confided in club and county colleague Michael Quinlivan, who told him to take his time coming back.

And in early October, he did, ironically coming on to replace Quinlivan, who was black-carded, six minutes before half-time in the Tipperary SFC quarter-final against Loughmore-Castleiney.

Fahey played brilliantly in Cashel, scoring a goal and having a major impact as Commercials took control in the second half to end Loughmore's reign as champions.

A few weeks later, they were back on top of the Tipperary tree themselves, having seen off local rivals Moyle Rovers in the final.

Caroline would have loved Mallow last November, too. The day when Commercials became the first Tipperary team to win a Munster senior club football title. It was another afternoon when Fahey knew that he'd made the right call by not ditching football.

"For a while I was thinking of taking a year out," he confirms. "But the best thing that happened me was to go back. It takes your mind off things, especially with the club, being with the lads the whole time.

"They'd cheer you. I have my ups and downs but I take each day as it comes. She was at every match, she was the biggest supporter I had."

Commercials did what they could to ease the Fahey family's pain. Club members were stewards at Caroline's funeral and provided a guard of honour. They did whatever they could.

Naturally, for a while, football was the furthest thing from Fahey's mind.

"I told a few lads," he says. "To be fair, Michael Quinlivan was brilliant, he was there any time I wanted anything. I could pick up the phone any time I needed to. He just said take my time coming back."

It wasn't long after Tipperary beat Cork in the Munster U21 final when Larry Fahey, his sons Ian and Luke, and daughter Tara received the news that Caroline was ill.

"She was rushed to hospital as was in intensive care for a few days. She got out of intensive care and they were saying she was fighting well and we were getting positive news the whole time.

"That morning, it was a shock getting the news. We used to go up there every days, seven days a week there was someone up there." Ever since, life's been about "trying to keep the best side out" for Ian and his family.

He's back in college too, on a 10-week plumbing course at Waterford IT, and that helps "not sitting around at home thinking about stuff". The Commercials voyage provided a welcome distraction, too, and has captivated the town.

"At the start of the year, I wouldn't have thought we'd get there but I fancied us against Nemo in the (Munster) final," Ian says.

"We hadn't seen much of them but we did some video analysis with (Tipp U21 manager and senior selector) Tommy Toomey.

"Tommy's brilliant." All season long, Commercials had made a habit of digging themselves out of tricky situations.

They came from six points down against Moyle Rovers, overturned a four-point deficit with just six minutes left against Newcastlewest in the Munster quarter-final and of course, there was that famous late goal from Quinlivan to seal victory over Nemo.

"They used to say a few years ago that, as a town team, if we got to the last 10 minutes a point down or a point ahead, we'd bottle it," Fahey says. We proved different this year."

Winning Munster opened the door to a potential date at Croke Park on St Patrick's Day but formidable opposition stand in the way in Portlaoise this evening.

"I saw the Leinster semi-final and final," Fahey adds. "Ballyboden have some big names and are very physical."

[seafoid]

Roz Plunkett is from Clonmel as well. Does she go to the matches?

[Captain Obvious]

Roz Plunkett is from Clonmel as well. Does she go to the matches?

Who is she?

[AZOffaly]

I imagine he means Purcell.

[macdanger2]

Good luck to Castlebar today

Would like to see clonmel win also, spent a couple of years living down there

[joemamas]

anybody got a link to watch games in USA.
TG4 once again doing their utmost to make their programs impossible to watch
Thanks in advance

[Captain Obvious]

Low key start to this semi final. Twelve minutes gone one score a Ballyboden free.