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Messages - seafoid

#1
Hurling Discussion / Re: Hurling 2025
Today at 01:01:11 PM
Quote from: marty34 on February 08, 2025, 09:27:28 PM
Quote from: johnnycool on February 08, 2025, 08:22:52 PM
Quote from: Jeepers Creepers on February 08, 2025, 07:58:53 PMSpot the ball competition on now . Gal v Clare

Galway corner forward has no issues anyway, two goals and what looks like a dig in the taws for Lohan junior.

I'm not making light of it as the GAA has to come down hard on those incidents but Lohan was pretty loose with a few slaps on him just prior to that.

True. A few lads put on him to quell him. Lohan then sent in to sweeten him and gave him a swipe minutes before going away from the end line.

Hard to see from camera angle but Burns wasn't taking any messing.
Burns was impressive for a debutant.
#2
General discussion / Re: Russia invades Ukraine Feb 2022
February 14, 2025, 09:02:19 PM
Quote from: Wildweasel74 on February 14, 2025, 08:43:54 PMTo me the Russians def have sthing on Trump. His Russian love in does not make sense. He no idea of world affairs. Fall by the wayside in Ukraine putting the issue 10yrs down the line with Estonia or Poland. Though Poland well geared up this time unlike WW2. Finland I don't think is as worried, as they handed Russia their ass during WW2 with very little. Terrain just that hard going.
Finland lost a province called Karelia after WW2. I think it had the second largest city at the time. The population was ethically cleansed. It hit very hard.
#3
GAA Discussion / Re: Various football articles
February 13, 2025, 12:03:16 PM
There is still plenty of nuance to football kickouts
Among the more esoteric grumbles about the new football rules is the charge that the kickout has been reduced to a lottery. From the very first weekend when Conor Laverty of Down was puffing his cheeks on TG4 at how frantic things had become around the middle third, there has been a pretty consistent drumbeat of giving out about the rule mandating that kickouts have to clear the 40m arc now.
The thrust of the complaints seem to be that goalkeepers have no option now but to hoof the ball long, thereby taking all the skill and wit out of the position. And there are plenty of occasions in every game where that's true – although it's not necessarily a bad thing. Restoring collisions and chaos to the game was and is entirely in the spirit of what the FRC have been trying to do.
But even allowing for that, the notion that all kickouts are just tombola spins now doesn't hold water. Anyone who watched Donegal v Kerry on Saturday saw Shaun Patton show that the best goalies in the game aren't going to just keep drilling out long one after long one. Two of his first four were short and low, right out to the space between the arc and the sideline on the Donegal 20-metre line. They were high-risk but the Donegal corner-backs were up to it and got out both times.
That set the game of cat and mouse in motion. Once Kerry saw that he was prepared to go short, they moved to squeeze up that space, meaning that Patton increasingly went longer. And yes, a lot of them were contested around the middle and Donegal had to take their chances with the breaks. But he managed to get several of them into open country too, with Donegal runners galloping onto them and Jim McGuinness's side immediately on the attack.
The point is, many goalkeepers will settle for lumping the kickouts long and taking their chances. But the best ones in the game won't be happy with that and they'll find a way to separate themselves from the pack. Isn't that what we want? — Malachy Clerkin


Maurice Deegan: An encouraging start for the football rules but a long road ahead
Weather didn't help but referees and players deserve credit for how well week one went
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Tyrone's Peter Teague scores against Derry. Photograph: Lorcan Doherty/Inpho
Maurice Deegan
Tue Jan 28 2025 - 06:00
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Week one went about as well as anyone could have hoped. That's not to say that there won't be trouble in week two or farther down the line, but it was a good start.
I was certainly happy with how it went and it is fair to say that is the consensus FRC view.
This was for the first time a whole programme of competitive matches and there were no big systems failures nor obviously unintended consequences.
One unexpected issue was the pitch marking in Omagh but that's not a system failure, just a groundsman getting to grips with it. Marking the pitches properly is critically important in light of the significance of two-point scores but there's no reason why it should be an ongoing difficulty.
I spoke to seven or eight referees afterwards and the feedback was very, very positive. The "solo and go" has speeded up the game no end. There are more scores. Discipline in dealings referees has gone to a new level. They're far more respected – or maybe it's simply the penalties are discouraging disrespect!
The players took to it well. As I noticed refereeing a couple of challenge matches, they are very well versed in the new rules. There may have been 49 changes agreed by special congress but in practice that means about 15 new measures to be mastered.
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It is a pity that the weather was so bad at a lot of the venues because I think when this will really take off is when the ground dries out and you'll see the ball moving.
We didn't see much of the advanced mark over the weekend because of that weather and the slippery ball. It was still a slight surprise, as it's a gimme of a score unless you're catching a ball in the very far corner.
If you're looking at the seven enhancements to football, which are actually 49 rule changes, I'd say the 3v3 was the most difficult but that's more of a matter for the teams to get right – there didn't appear to be many of those calls found to be wrong.
The controversy over Galway's two-pointer for Armagh breaking the 3v3 rule was surprising. Allowing players to bring that award – the 20-metre penalty – back outside the 40m arc for a shot at a two-pointer is something that referees have been aware of.
Overall, I thought the referees refereed very well and even more encouragingly, the players played very well. As I was saying on Saturday, I hadn't been that concerned about the obligation to hand back the ball after a free is awarded but I accept that it may take time to get into some players' heads. They'll learn fast, though.
In Omagh, where I went on Saturday, it happened in the Tyrone-Derry game about 15 minutes in when a Derry lad didn't hand the ball back and the ball was brought forward 50 metres. But it didn't happen again for the rest of the match.
I was doing some work with Thomas Niblock and Chrissy McKaigue on BBC and afterwards with Mickey Harte. There was some apprehension before the match but afterwards there was a lot more positivity.
Talking to the others, I made the point that the biggest difference is going to be at underage with the new black card coming in because in a game when a young lad, 16, shows dissent or challenges the referee's authority, off he goes and is replaced for 10 minutes.
That's penalising the player rather than the team. Culturally, you're starting from a very young age, under-14 and all the way up, and in five- or six-years' time, if these rules keep going, players will be well used to how they are expected to behave on the field.
It will be like the introduction of the helmet in hurling. Players will grow up with a specific code of behaviour and will know no different by the time they're seniors.
Mickey Harte and Chrissy McKaigue made the valid point that at a lot of juvenile games, parents are the problem. My reply was that you have to start with the players and that eventually it will filter back to the mothers and fathers but you have to start somewhere.
There has been a lot of talk about the goalie joining attacks and creating that 12 v 11 imbalance. Does that need to be looked at? I commented on this when on the BBC. Teams are starting to defend not on the 45 but on the 40-metre arc. If the 'keeper is going to play as a quarterback, which he is, he's looking for somebody to make a run.
On Saturday night, Niall Morgan got the ball and slipped it over the defender's head, Michael McKernan was in behind, bang, goal! There was space for the run because not as many players were crowding it.
The goalkeeper rule is a risk versus reward calculation. For the team that takes the risk, the reward is undoubtedly there but if the ball is turned over, the 'keeper is in trouble because possession will transfer at 100 miles per hour up to the other end like happened in Hyde Park on Sunday when Ciaráin Murtagh scored a goal.
There will be review after review from here on in, to see how things are going. If anything needs to be tweaked, it will be tweaked. All to play for.
#4
General discussion / Re: The IRISH RUGBY thread
February 13, 2025, 10:40:03 AM
Quote from: Truthsayer on February 13, 2025, 01:51:27 AM
Quote from: SaffronSports on February 13, 2025, 01:35:51 AM
Quote from: Truthsayer on February 11, 2025, 10:11:33 PM
Quote from: Wildweasel74 on February 11, 2025, 09:55:00 PMIreland going well, will never wear off, if u watched Ireland in the 90's and how bad they were, and it was the wooden spoon race betweem Ireland and Scotland every year, a period of dominance like this over the years, is a good thing, especially against the population bases of England and France.
Aye brilliant between World Cups! Even with the domination it was England got bronze medals in last World Cup and reached 2019 final. Six Nations like a B competition.

Watched Lawrence Dallaglio on a podcast recently and he spoke about when Woodward came in they spoke about how England can win 5/6 nations no problem but none of those nations had their name on the Webb Ellis Cup so they had to learn to beat the 3 from the southern hemisphere. One World Cup aside, that's still the case. 
Is a quarter-final jinx. Be great to get past it. I think France as well have got to the final. You can add Argentina to that mix that's beat Ireland in the knock-out stage...
Wales have also done it
#6
General discussion / Re: Death Notices
February 09, 2025, 12:39:53 PM
Matt Doyle, tennis player
#7
General discussion / Re: The IRISH RUGBY thread
February 08, 2025, 04:49:34 PM
Quote from: armaghniac on February 08, 2025, 02:53:25 PM
Quote from: johnnycool on February 07, 2025, 03:16:51 PMHorses for courses and all that, but we really need to be seeing some young guns against Italy and Wales.

Italy better than Wales right now, which is a big come down for the principality.
Italy had won 3 out of 4 fixtures coming into this, according to RTÉ.
#8
Israeli
Lidl and Aldi
#9
General discussion / Re: The Many Faces of US Politics...
February 07, 2025, 05:24:46 PM
Serious pushback on Musk and Doge. Both legal and organised Labor. This is one area where the Dems can make progress. Musk has no authority to shut down anything.
#10
GAA Discussion / Various football articles
February 03, 2025, 06:51:03 PM
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/2025/02/01/paddy-tally-this-is-your-life-new-derry-coach-may-get-deja-vu-as-season-kicks-in/

Paddy Tally, this is your life: New Derry coach may get deja vu as season kicks in
Tyrone man's opening fixtures as Derry manager will stir up some sporting memories
 
Gordon Manning
Sat Feb 01 2025 - 06:00

Paddy Tally could be forgiven if, during these early weeks of the new season, he felt the urge to search the Derry dressingroom to make sure Michael Aspel wasn't preparing to pop out from behind an old white board or a stack of training cones.

Because Tally's opening three fixtures as Derry manager certainly have a fair whiff of This Is Your Life about them. Tyrone, Kerry, Galway – Tally's GAA family of old friends, profound relationships and unforgettable memories.

The fixture makers and script writers have dovetailed just lovely on this one.

Tally's first competitive outing as Derry manager was against his native Tyrone last week, the league encounter taking place in Omagh, just a little over 20 miles from his home, in Galbally.

READ MORE
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Five things we learned from the GAA weekend: Player and referee fitness is tested by new rules
Five things we learned from the GAA weekend: Player and referee fitness is tested by new rules
In 2003, Tally trained the Tyrone footballers under Mickey Harte when they made history by winning the county's breakthrough All-Ireland. But that success was to be only the prologue of a very singular coaching story.

He has now been to All-Ireland finals with three different counties: Tyrone, Down, Kerry.


The Kerry chapter came to a sharp, unexpected end late last year. Tally was involved with the Kingdom from 2022-24. And when Jack O'Connor announced his management team for 2025, Tally was again included. But in mid-November he was unveiled as the new Derry manager. Inevitably, Tally's second game-day task as Oak-leaf boss is to welcome O'Connor and Kerry to Celtic Park this Sunday.

Kerry's manager Jack O'Connor and Paddy Tally. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
Kerry's manager Jack O'Connor and Paddy Tally. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
After he negotiates that tricky test, his third league fixture will be against Galway, where Tally coached in 2018.

"It has been no surprise that Paddy has moved around over the years – a man of his intelligence and adaptability to the modern way of playing, he's always keen to learn and improve," says Danny Hughes, who played under Tally during his time in Down.

Despite him being a Tyrone man, Tally's appointment in Derry didn't generate the same ferocious pitchfork-wielding backlash directed towards Mickey Harte just over 12 months earlier.

There are several reasons for that. Firstly, Harte is such an iconic figure in Tyrone GAA. For some who had steadfastly followed and supported his teams for almost 20 years, it felt like a form of betrayal for Harte, of all people, to be hopping across the fence to help out the noisy neighbours.

Secondly, Tally – despite his link to that 2003 Tyrone team – has tended to be viewed more as a coaching evangelist; his philosophy has been cultivated and developed in Killarney and Newry as much as it has been in Galbally.

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Thirdly, he also previously coached the Derry footballers during Brian McIver's spell as manager between 2013 and 2015.

But when Tally's CV is cited, his first spell with Down is often the detail most overlooked. In 2010, the unfancied Mourne Men burst from the pack to contest that year's All-Ireland final.

"The one thing that really sets Paddy apart and what allows him to be a brilliant coach is the absence of ego," adds 2010 All-Star Hughes.

Paddy Tally during his time as Down manager in 2021. Photograph: Tommy Dickson/Inpho
Paddy Tally during his time as Down manager in 2021. Photograph: Tommy Dickson/Inpho
"He's very personable and doesn't think he is better or worse than anybody else. He gets on with people – that's a great starting point for any coach. He was huge for us that year in getting to the final.

"Often when managers and coaches come in, on some occasions they bring with them a reputation from their playing days, but management and coaching are very different. That ability of arriving to a dressingroom with no ego, I think that really stands to Paddy."

That's not to say Tally wasn't a decent player himself. He played for Galbally Pearses in the 1997 county senior football final while he was also part of the Tyrone senior football panel when they contested the 1995 All-Ireland decider.


He attended St Mary's where he trained to become a teacher and later completed a master's in sports science. Tally was just 29 when he was invited by Harte to join the Tyrone management team.

Those famous passages of play from the 2003 All-Ireland semi-final when the Tyrone footballers swarmed Kerry players like frenzied bees descending upon an open jar of honey – that was Tally's work, honed in small-sided training games. It is now a part of GAA folklore.

But Tally's relationship with Harte became strained the following season and in September 2004 it was announced that the young coach would not be involved with Tyrone in 2005.

When Tally next emerged on the national stage it was with the Down footballers during that 2010 season.

He later spent three years with Derry while at the time lecturing in St Mary's University Belfast and training the college's football teams. In 2017, his coaching work with The Ranch reached its apex. St Mary's games development officer Gavin McGilly was part of Tally's back room team that year when they caused a shock by winning the Sigerson Cup.

"Paddy knows what it takes to win," says McGilly, who is also the current St Mary's Sigerson manager.


Paddy Tally lifts the Sam Maguire following Kerry's All-Ireland win in July 2022. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
Paddy Tally lifts the Sam Maguire following Kerry's All-Ireland win in July 2022. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
"It was something Paddy would have aspired to and I suppose that was nearly 20 years in the making, so it was great to see him get his just rewards for all that hard work. We have very fond memories of that year."

McGilly has not been surprised to see Tally become one of the most sought-after coaches in the game.

"It comes so naturally to Paddy, he's a brilliant man manager and players want to play for him," he adds. "He's at the cutting edge of coaching and at the very highest level he has proved himself – from 2003 with Tyrone to most recently his time with Kerry, he knows what it takes to get teams up the steps of the Hogan Stand."

That 2017 Sigerson success put Tally back on the intercounty radar. Kevin Walsh persuaded him to link up with Galway for 2018 – a season during which they won the Connacht title and contested the league final.

Later that same year Hughes was part of the committee tasked with finding a new Down manager in advance of the 2019 season. Hughes believed the right man was from Galbally. They appointed Tally for three years.

He remained at the helm for that period but Covid proved a difficult time and despite being offered an extra season, Tally opted to step down in July 2021.


But just as one door closes ...

A series of events conspired to facilitate Tally's most high profile, if unlikely, coaching role. Just two months after Tally's Down departure, Jack O'Connor left Kildare. Peter Keane was the Kerry manager at the time, but the screw was starting to turn in the Kingdom and O'Connor's sudden availability changed everything.

Paddy Tally celebrates with Tyrone manager Mickey Harte in September 2003. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
Paddy Tally celebrates with Tyrone manager Mickey Harte in September 2003. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
Before September was out, O'Connor was back as Kerry boss for a third time. In the background, he had been arranging his poker hand – but confirmation Tally was to be part of the Kerry management team wasn't seen by all as a royal flush. It wasn't the first time an outsider had been drafted in – Cian O'Neill had coached Kerry under Eamonn Fitzmaurice – but bringing Tally down weighed heavily on some traditionalists in Kerry.

And the undertone to much of the criticism was that Kerry didn't need or want an Ulster coach, a Tyrone coach. There were some who would rather lose football matches the Kerry way than win them on the back of some guidance from elsewhere.

[ Joy unconfined as Kerry faithful welcome home Sam MaguireOpens in new window ]

Tally arrived with his defensive coaching credentials widely praised, and the numbers indicated the Kingdom needed some repair work at the back. In 2022, they proved to be a far more resolute group. Sam Maguire was won, all was forgiven – or perhaps just ignored. Winning has that tendency to make folk forget the other stuff. O'Connor's gamble had worked.

Players who have worked with Tally say the pigeonholing of him as a defensive coach is unfair. Brendan Rogers made his Derry debut during Tally's time as a coach there in 2015 and is pleased to see him return.

"Paddy gets probably lauded for his defensive credibility, and rightly so, but nobody gives him credit for how to get out of a defensive system," said Rogers before the start of the league. "What he could actually do is help make us a better transitioning team. I'm excited to see what he has learned from the last time he was with us."

And yet the Derry job radiated like a double-edged sword last winter – at once both attractive and hazardous.

"I think it was well known Rory Gallagher wanted it and some of the players seemed to want that as well," says Hughes. "So, it is a difficult one, but if anybody can manage it and convince the players, then it's Paddy Tally."

And a victory against some old friends this weekend certainly wouldn't hurt.
#11
General discussion / Re: The IRISH RUGBY thread
February 03, 2025, 05:20:43 PM

Ireland prioritise the 6N
I wonder how England will do in the next RWC

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/2025/02/03/determined-ireland-begin-title-defence-with-gritty-win-over-england/
England neither had the fitness, defence nor the depth to maintain their aggression and intensity, whereas Ireland could turn to a more impactful and experienced bench boasting 509 caps to the visitors' 91.
#12
Hurling Discussion / Re: various hurling articles
February 02, 2025, 10:29:26 PM
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/2025/01/31/hurling-is-such-a-local-obsession-in-tipperary-so-where-have-the-supporters-gone/

Hurling is a local obsession in Tipperary so where have the supporters gone?
The cold distance between the Tipperary team and the Tipperary public has troubled manager Liam Cahill

Denis Walsh
Fri Jan 31 2025 - 15:06

In Liam Cahill's post-match huddle with reporters after Tipperary eviscerated Galway on the opening day of the National League nine questions were put to him. He wasn't asked about the Tipperary supporters, but in answer to the second last question Cahill brought them into the conversation, stepping on to a diplomatic tightrope. For balance he had a carrot and a stick.

"I mentioned bravery there earlier about the direction we're going and the change we have to make," he said. "I'd ask the Tipp supporters to be brave as well and come out and support them. There's not much bravery in going up to Croke Park every year over the last decade for All-Ireland semi-finals and All-Ireland finals and all that.

"These players will be around long after I'm gone. They're the catalyst to everything that gives us the joy that is being a Tipperary supporter."

Cahill's answers are rarely strangled by self-censorship; he is straight and never short. But the cold distance between this team and the Tipperary public has troubled him for a while. In 2023, his first season as manager, they upended Clare in Ennis in the opening round of the championship and drew with Cork in Páirc Uí Chaoimh after a storming performance. In his post-match press conference that evening he applauded the "small" Tipperary crowd who had been heavily "outnumbered" that evening and pleaded for reinforcements. For emphasis, he used the word "small" twice.

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A year earlier, when Tipp's season was sinking in quicksand under different management, they disturbed Limerick for an hour in the Gaelic Grounds, but it was alarming how few Tipperary supporters had travelled. Padraic Maher, who was one of Cahill's selectors in 2023, tweeted about it at the time: "Very poor support for our boys in Limerick today," he wrote. "They deserve better."


Cahill speaking to the media before a game against Kilkenny in February 2023. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
Cahill speaking to the media before a game against Kilkenny in February 2023. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
Against Cork last May the numbers reached a stultifying nadir. To have any chance of staying in the championship both teams needed to win; Semple Stadium, though, was bathed in red. Babs Keating was canvassing for the European Elections with the former GAA president Seán Kelly, and they stood on the brow of the railway bridge.


"All we could see coming up the road was Cork supporters," says Keating. "It must have been 10 to 1. It was never seen before." The attendance in Thurles that day was given as 43,792; at least 35,000 were from Cork.

In the GAA desertion is a common affliction. Every intercounty team is followed by a standing army of unblinking loyalists and a Dad's Army of reservists, who prefer to avoid losing battles. In that respect, Tipp are no different from everybody else. But in a county of Tipp's size and history of success and livid passion for the game, everything is amplified. Winning is a carnival; losing is an opera.

"What I would compare it to is Manchester United," says Tommy Dunne, the former Tipperary captain, selector and coach. "Man United are in the news every day. With Tipp there is a spotlight there all the time – and probably more so when things aren't going well. In Tipp you are expected to win. You measure yourself on really, really high standards. That's the thing. When you lose there is hell to pay.

Cork fans outnumbering Tipperary fans during
a Munster senior hurling championship match at Semple Stadium, Thurles, in May 2024. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho
Cork fans outnumbering Tipperary fans during a Munster senior hurling championship match at Semple Stadium, Thurles, in May 2024. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho
"I was only thinking the other day about when Cork beat us below in Killarney [2004 qualifiers]. I remember going into work two days after, ashamed of my life. F**king ashamed of my life. I was working in a place in Nenagh with 400 or 500 people and I was going around with the head down, hoping you wouldn't meet someone that was going to have a go at you about the match, or even just offer sympathy to you. You wouldn't know what to say. That was real life, and it's not any different now I'm sure."

In every county there is a triangular relationship between the team, the supporters and the local media. Cahill has spent the last three years trying to navigate that space without impaling himself on the sharp corners. Last Sunday in his post-match comments he spoke, pointedly, about the "knowledgeable people who know the hurling landscape in Tipp" and understand that this team will need time; but he also referenced the "impatient, less knowledgeable Tipperary hurling folk," who will heckle that process. That intellectual divide is not unique to Tipp either; every manager must suffer it.

In many ways Cahill is hard-nosed, and he expects his players to be tough, but in some ways he is sensitive. After Tipp fell to their fourth defeat in last year's Munster championship Cahill was asked by Shane Brophy of the Nenagh Guardian if he would be staying on for the final year of his term. It was a perfectly legitimate question, but his response was prickly and defensive.

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"I take umbrage to that question," he said, before asserting that he enjoyed the support of the county board and the dressingroom. Managers don't necessarily need an overall majority. Cahill and Brophy continued the conversation in another room when the press conference finished and in the following week's Nenagh Guardian Brophy offered his side of the argument.

"The Tipp manager did express his annoyance to me over the headline used in this paper last week describing Tipperary as 'The Whipping Boys of Munster,'" wrote Brophy. "It's not a nice headline, I agree. However, I stand by it. When you are losing championship games by 15 and 18 points to Limerick and Cork respectively there is no sugar-coating it – facts are facts ... I loved the fire in his response [to my question]. I was caught a little by surprise I admit, but I'm a grown man, I can take it."

Cahill arriving at Semple Stadium for a match against Clare in the Munster senior hurling championship in May 2024. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho
Cahill arriving at Semple Stadium for a match against Clare in the Munster senior hurling championship in May 2024. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho
In a phone call after the Tipperary county final five months later the two men resolved their differences. But nobody lives in a soundproofed room and the modern world bristles with noise. Cahill pays attention. JJ Kennedy has been writing his esteemed Westside column in the Nationalist newspaper since 1981 and last Monday night he appeared on Tipp FM to review the Galway game.

His contribution was balanced and temperate. The gist of it was that nobody should expect Tipp to win anything this year, but producing a competitive team was both achievable and necessary. In last year's Munster championship Tipp's scoring difference was minus 36 and there was a destructive pattern of final quarter fade-outs. Cahill accepts that they got the team's conditioning wrong.

But 16 new players have been added to the squad in the off-season, which is more churn than any other elite team in the country. After he came off air Cahill texted Kennedy, essentially to say thanks.

"Look he's under pressure at the moment, there's no doubt about that," says Kennedy. "He has been taking a lot of flak. He is sensitive to that, and he does react to it. I was saying to him, the genuine followers know where Tipperary are at, and you can't work miracles. The other ones are just background noise.


"Hurling is part of the daily conversation here in Tipperary and people take it very seriously. When things go bad criticism flies, and you just have to suck it up really."

Cahill near the end of a game against Clare
in the Munster Championship in May 2024. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho
Cahill near the end of a game against Clare in the Munster Championship in May 2024. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho
But if the game is such a local obsession where have the supporters gone? Michael Bourke is a former chairman of the county board and is now chairman of the Tipperary supporters' club. When it was set up during Babs Keating's first stint as manager nearly 40 years ago it was the first such enterprise in the country, and in the years since they have raised more than €8 million, a staggering amount.

Last year they raised nearly €100,000. Supporters are still prepared to put their hands in their pockets. "Maybe some people are fickle in their view and they don't see prosperity," says Bourke. "Maybe there's an expectation from our supporters that we should be in Croke Park every year, and that would be your dream – but that doesn't happen. Everyone hits a lean period. Now, Liam is bringing in a huge amount of young, energetic players, and they will capture the trust of the public."

The absenteeism, though, is difficult to ignore or explain away. "It's hard to make sense of it," says Dunne. "It means so much to many people and yet so many people don't go and follow the team. What I do remember from playing is the feeling that letting down supporters is the worst feeling in the world.

"It happened a few times when we were playing and you never forget it. There is a responsibility there and that is part of playing for Tipp. There are certain standards that you must meet. That is a savage challenge for a group of players year after year. I was conscious of the pressure of being a Tipp player, I'm certain about that. Did it affect me? Did it bother me? It did affect me. There's no getting away from that.

"The jersey weighs a bit heavier when things aren't right. But I still love the fact that it carries so much weight with the public. I still love it because it means something. We are a county of substance, of tradition, we are a county with history – that's still there."


Tipperary selector Tommy Dunne in 2019. 'My perception is that the public look to the management first in terms of blame or accountability, and that's perfectly understandable.' Photograph: Oisin Keniry/Inpho
Tipperary selector Tommy Dunne in 2019. 'My perception is that the public look to the management first in terms of blame or accountability, and that's perfectly understandable.' Photograph: Oisin Keniry/Inpho
After the Cork game last year Dunne sent Cahill a text in solidarity. He says he wouldn't normally do something like that, but it was an excruciating a day for everyone who cared about the jersey. They had played together for a few years in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and like Cahill, Dunne had not been afraid to step into management, first with Declan Ryan and later with Liam Sheedy. On the sideline nobody wears a helmet.

"It was as bad, if not worse [being involved in management]," he says. "My perception is that the public look to the management first in terms of blame or accountability, and that's perfectly understandable. I remember the debacle of the All-Ireland semi-final in 2012 and the shame and embarrassment I felt [as a coach] incredibly hard. It was horrendous, absolutely horrendous. This feeling that we got it so badly wrong and it was on us.

"But you step into those roles and the reality is that that kind of stuff is never far from your door. There's no point in looking for sympathy or living in a pretence that it's not going to happen because you're only one performance away from negativity or maybe abuse. I'm not saying that's right – that's just the way it is.

"But every year I was involved with Tipperary I believed we could win a championship. I'd be surprised if that still isn't in the Tipperary manager's psyche right now. I think you're hard-wired to think that. All logic might say, 'you can't, you shouldn't, you won't.' But the hard-wired part of me says, 'we're Tipperary, and therefore anything is possible.' What are we if we lose that?"

That part is safe, come what may.
#13
GAA Discussion / Re: NFL Division 1 2025
February 02, 2025, 04:05:37 PM
Mayo keep on running into Galway backs. When they do shoot they mostly shoot wide. Galway have been far more economical with their shooting. At the moment  Galway are leading by 10 points.
#14
General discussion / Re: The IRISH RUGBY thread
February 01, 2025, 06:38:21 PM
Ireland are clearly better.  The afterburners came out in the second half.
#15
General discussion / Re: The IRISH RUGBY thread
February 01, 2025, 06:31:55 PM
Crowley has scored 2 from 2.
Prendergast missed at least 2