Gooch Retires

[Il Bomber Destro]

He was the baby faced assassin,  the wolf in sheep's clothing.

Cheap. (The post, I mean.)

I would trust the judgement of the legends Tomas O'se and the ex tyrone player Philip Jordan who now ironically writes a column for rte.ie long before I'd trust the judgement of Breheny or some of the biased posters on here. Both of those men rate Gooch as the greatest. They wouldn't be rating him that highly if he was all style and no substance. In my opinion he made games easy for Kerry when they might otherwise have been tight and that was because he took them by the scruff of the neck. Also there were a number of games where without him kerry would have been well beaten but because of his ability he kept kerry in the game and they only lost those games narrowly. It's a team game and putting defeats down to one man is okay only if you apply the same rule to all players. In the last 9 years tyrone for instance have lost 14 or 15 championship games and sean cavanagh has played in almost all of them. If he had taken those games by the scruff of the neck maybe tyrone would've won more of them. It's a ridiculous criteria to apply as you can spin it to make any player look bad unless they win every championship game they play.

Unsurprising that Jordan comes out in show glowing praise of Cooper so after he starts writing a column for RTE. Do you not remember the hysteria Martin McHugh got himself in for when he made a quite fair comment on Cooper? Free speech and critique is banned when ti comes to Cooper from the mainstream media down south.

Sean Cavanagh has a track record of producing the goods when it really, really mattered. I can list you numerous big games when he came to the fore to save a Tyrone side on the ropes. The problem people have with Cooper is there's very few instances when those big games that were in the melting pot involving Kerry, did Cooper manage to pull it out. I'll ask you to recall a few for me.

It's a fair point and rather than dismiss it, I'd like you to address it. What was Cooper's best performance? When did he really dig Kerry out of a hole? For me it was guys like Tomas and Darragh O'Se, Kieran Donaghy and Declan O'Sullivan who were the guys who really stepped up and delivered when Kerry were in needs. That was substance over style.

[rrhf]

To be honest it's a dampener before the championship starts. The young lads have one less purely skilled footballer to copy. For those who knock his game, catch yourself on, for those who say he was a better footballer than Peter Canavan the same.

[The Stallion]

"Free speech and critique is banned when ti comes to Cooper from the mainstream media down south."

It doesn't matter how often you repeat this, it's still not true.

[Farrandeelin]

He was the baby faced assassin,  the wolf in sheep's clothing.

Cheap. (The post, I mean.)

I would trust the judgement of the legends Tomas O'se and the ex tyrone player Philip Jordan who now ironically writes a column for rte.ie long before I'd trust the judgement of Breheny or some of the biased posters on here. Both of those men rate Gooch as the greatest. They wouldn't be rating him that highly if he was all style and no substance. In my opinion he made games easy for Kerry when they might otherwise have been tight and that was because he took them by the scruff of the neck. Also there were a number of games where without him kerry would have been well beaten but because of his ability he kept kerry in the game and they only lost those games narrowly. It's a team game and putting defeats down to one man is okay only if you apply the same rule to all players. In the last 9 years tyrone for instance have lost 14 or 15 championship games and sean cavanagh has played in almost all of them. If he had taken those games by the scruff of the neck maybe tyrone would've won more of them. It's a ridiculous criteria to apply as you can spin it to make any player look bad unless they win every championship game they play.

Unsurprising that Jordan comes out in show glowing praise of Cooper so after he starts writing a column for RTE. Do you not remember the hysteria Martin McHugh got himself in for when he made a quite fair comment on Cooper? Free speech and critique is banned when ti comes to Cooper from the mainstream media down south.

Sean Cavanagh has a track record of producing the goods when it really, really mattered. I can list you numerous big games when he came to the fore to save a Tyrone side on the ropes. The problem people have with Cooper is there's very few instances when those big games that were in the melting pot involving Kerry, did Cooper manage to pull it out. I'll ask you to recall a few for me.

It's a fair point and rather than dismiss it, I'd like you to address it. What was Cooper's best performance? When did he really dig Kerry out of a hole? For me it was guys like Tomas and Darragh O'Se, Kieran Donaghy and Declan O'Sullivan who were the guys who really stepped up and delivered when Kerry were in needs. That was substance over style.

Tomás and Darragh Ó Sé, Declan O'Sullivan were usually out around the centre of the pitch, therefore had more of a chance to turn things around. Donaghy was a big man for the long high balls in. Gooch was usually in the corner.  But if you reckon Donaghy is better than Cooper, I disagree.

[lenny]

He was the baby faced assassin,  the wolf in sheep's clothing.

Cheap. (The post, I mean.)

I would trust the judgement of the legends Tomas O'se and the ex tyrone player Philip Jordan who now ironically writes a column for rte.ie long before I'd trust the judgement of Breheny or some of the biased posters on here. Both of those men rate Gooch as the greatest. They wouldn't be rating him that highly if he was all style and no substance. In my opinion he made games easy for Kerry when they might otherwise have been tight and that was because he took them by the scruff of the neck. Also there were a number of games where without him kerry would have been well beaten but because of his ability he kept kerry in the game and they only lost those games narrowly. It's a team game and putting defeats down to one man is okay only if you apply the same rule to all players. In the last 9 years tyrone for instance have lost 14 or 15 championship games and sean cavanagh has played in almost all of them. If he had taken those games by the scruff of the neck maybe tyrone would've won more of them. It's a ridiculous criteria to apply as you can spin it to make any player look bad unless they win every championship game they play.

Unsurprising that Jordan comes out in show glowing praise of Cooper so after he starts writing a column for RTE. Do you not remember the hysteria Martin McHugh got himself in for when he made a quite fair comment on Cooper? Free speech and critique is banned when ti comes to Cooper from the mainstream media down south.

Sean Cavanagh has a track record of producing the goods when it really, really mattered. I can list you numerous big games when he came to the fore to save a Tyrone side on the ropes. The problem people have with Cooper is there's very few instances when those big games that were in the melting pot involving Kerry, did Cooper manage to pull it out. I'll ask you to recall a few for me.

It's a fair point and rather than dismiss it, I'd like you to address it. What was Cooper's best performance? When did he really dig Kerry out of a hole? For me it was guys like Tomas and Darragh O'Se, Kieran Donaghy and Declan O'Sullivan who were the guys who really stepped up and delivered when Kerry were in needs. That was substance over style.

And since 08 I can list you numerous games where Sean Cavanagh has failed to step up to the plate when needed. In fact in the really important tight games which tyrone have lost poor decision making, being too greedy and poor discipline from Cavanagh has contributed to tyrone losing all those tight games.

[Croí na hÉireann]

Who'd be in your top 5 GAA reporters (not columnists)?
For me, it's the following:
Kieran Shannon.
Malachy Clerkin.
Vincent Hogan.
Sean Moran.
Wooly Parkinson.

Jaysus, you've left out 2 of the top 3, Kieran Cunningham and John Fogarty. And the other one, Shannon, is probably more of a columnist these days to be fair.

Parkinson wouldn't be in my top 10, show me one article of his that's well written. He wasn't back on that Setanta Sports program to be fair and his podcast can be good if he can find someone to argue with.

[vallankumous]

There's some mickey pulling going on with this retirement. I'm surprised Trump isn't tweeting about it.

[The Stallion]

I'm not surprised. I doubt Trump knows who Cooper is to be honest. I don't think it's unusual for there to be discussion and debate when a great sportsperson retires. Perhaps if you are perturbed by it all you should avoid this thread.

[vallankumous]

I'm not surprised. I doubt Trump knows who Cooper is to be honest. I don't think it's unusual for there to be discussion and debate when a great sportsperson retires. Perhaps if you are perturbed by it all you should avoid this thread.

I'm not talking about this thread. I'm all for it here and expect nothing less from a GAA board.

I'm talking about every muppet with a twitter account itching for retweets or desperate to get their tweets published on Joe.ie.

[The Stallion]

Fair enough

[Jinxy]

Look at the finals Kerry won and lost over that period. All close games were lost!

Wind-up of the week.

Well played Colm Cooper - one of the best I've seen.

Don't believe that Gooch hid in big games, however, this statement is pretty close to the truth. Outside of the 2014 final when Durkan handed the game to them Kerry haven't won a close final since the 90s.

... or in other words, Kerry, when they don't win, lose only narrowly.

..........or in other words they lose tight games.

OK. I understand. They'd be a better team if they lost by more.

No they'd be better if they won even one tight final.

OK. I'm getting the hang of it. Winning by a lot is a sign of a bad team.

Sad to see a Meath man existing through other counties. Maybe they'll annex you if you keep on pleading.

Did Peter the Great 'go missing' against us in '96?

[rrhf]

No he stayed on the field with an ankle badly broken by a yellow late tackle from the Meath midfielder. 

[Jinxy]

Ah yes.
The first, and only, time in history that one man has used his shoulder to break another man's ankle.

[rrhf]

Shoulder yer arse!

[johnpower]

Great debate as usaual , for me it's very hard to call if you take Canavan,Gooch,Matt Conner as what they achieved with both their counties and their clubs. I wish the Gooch the best in his retirement and hope he can enjoy life after his inter county career