By the way.. Why ar'nt kerry any good at hurling?

[gwan-ye-boy-ya]

Seen as all the southern counties are brilliant or decent at hurling.. kerry are big time lacking,, makes sense why they have sooo many all ireland football titles.. take a look at the monaghan -- kerry all ireland QF thread..page 12 ....... tis all too easy for the kingdom.

[Seamus]

Contrary to your statement Kerry happen to be rated higher than most southern teams with only 11 teams definitely better than them leaving 14 teams their equal or worse. In fact overall they would be about 13 to 18th best in the country and have been in that position since I was born many moons ago.

They could and probably should have beaten Limerick in the Munster Championship around 5 years ago when all players and management were pulling together. They did beat Waterford in the championship in the 90's and ran Galway close on a number of occasions. This year is the first year since the Limerick game that they seem to be all in agreement again. They were very unlucky not to have made the semi finals of the Christy Ring, losing narrowly away to Westmeath, the eventual champs, in the winner take all last round. They were leading going into the final few minutes and would have had a great opportunity of winning the competition if they had held out. Sure, I'm fully aware that there is a big gulf between the top 9 or 10 teams and the second (maybe third now) tier where Kerry exists. They would be rated way ahead of Monaghan in hurling believe it or believe it not. As for the football we'll find out on Sunday.

[didlyi]

My own belief on this is that, many moons ago when the code of our counties was decided(not in recent times as some may think) the quality of land decided in alot of cases which game was played. You need dry, flat land with a decent crop to allow hurling to be played. On the other hand football is not played on the surface as much as hurling and the mountains of Kerry certainly wouldnt fair well for a game of hurling. Other examples of this are west cork, west Galway. west clare whwer poorer land exists.

[Frank Casey]

Kerry won a hurling All Ireland a decade before winning their first in football. It proved to be a bit of a false dawn. The notion of the quality of land is often thrown out as ash only seems to grow on better quality land. Hurling in Kerry is popular only in the north and east of the county where the land would tend to be better. I've also heard that those counties where hurling is strongest also tended to be areas where cricket was strongest up to the end of the 19th century.

Of course it might just be that we don't see the point in going onto the field needing a stick to defend ourselves. We've got Paul Galvin.

[The Forfeit Point]

it begs the question from a lot of counties though doesnt it. but i see where you are coming from with kerry being surrounded by strong hurling counties and all. what is more unusual to me anyway is galway in connacht being the only county that really competes in the game there, one would assume that the size of mayo along with being a neighbour of galways that the ancient game would have brushed off on them

[dodo]

If you draw a line across from Galway city to Ballinasloe the hurling is south of this in Galway. This area borders on Clare,Tipperary and Offaly.

Mayo borders north Galway where big balls are all the rage  .
Sure, we probably have too many bogs for hurling to be played. We'll not go cold though !

[we are blue... etc]

Seen as all the southern counties are brilliant or decent at hurling.. kerry are big time lacking,, makes sense why they have sooo many all ireland football titles.. take a look at the monaghan -- kerry all ireland QF thread..page 12 ....... tis all too easy for the kingdom.

Same reason why Kilkenny aren't any good at football. They don't care. But credit to Kerry for putting a senior team out every year.

[The Forfeit Point]

If you draw a line across from Galway city to Ballinasloe the hurling is south of this in Galway. This area borders on Clare,Tipperary and Offaly.

Mayo borders north Galway where big balls are all the rage  .
Sure, we probably have too many bogs for hurling to be played. We'll not go cold though !

geography was ne'er my forté 

[Bacon]

There's a small part of north Kerry were hurling is dominant.

[didlyi]

Dublin should be an off white.

[Guillem2]

Interesting map Bacon. Hurling really is confined to small areas when you see that. I see Armagh has annexed the Cooley area from Louth.