Quote from: J70 on January 23, 2024, 05:46:37 PMQuote from: Blowitupref on January 23, 2024, 03:59:51 PMJim McGuinness
"There's a lot of people hellbent in the GAA in talking down the provincial championships, even though the provincial championship in Ulster, there is no change on it. It's still the exact same thing that it always was,"
"But people's perception of it, that people are not taking it seriously or people are focusing on the All-Ireland, it's absolute nonsense. A paper doesn't refuse ink, or conversations on podcast.
"The bottom line for us is that it will always be the number one competition. Whenever we're out of that competition, the next one will be the number one competition. There is two competitions every single year, in terms of championship football, and you focus on the first one first and the second one second.
"That is absolutely it. For us, everything from that very first training session to that ball being thrown in at Celtic Park is focused on that moment, nothing else.
"We will obviously be going out to win as many games as we can in Division 2, you're trying to get promotion, keep the wheel turning, build the positivity and try and get up into a higher level for the next year.
"But the only reason you're trying to do that is to be in a better place against better teams so you're better positioned for the Ulster championship."
Well said by McGuinness. Devenney did a good interview with him, which is where this quote is from.
Especially with Ulster so competitive right now. I could see someone downplaying it a bit during periods when the province is not that strong (we won a couple of relatively handy ones in 2018 and 2019) but you've a couple of teams who should be aiming for AI semis at least, and several more who could beat any of them on the day.
This is the interview on Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6YhR5cwPaA0HD5iwSQGhTR?si=vyF4sCEYSS2J5_RCrfyN1A