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Anyone else shocked by how quickly they wrote off Alvarez's penalty? Replays I saw didn't definitively show a double tap on the penalty.

Yeah it didn't seem clear to me on a replay. When it was accepted at the time by the ref it should not have been overturned. Seems like it must be the only thing, offside excepted, that the ref doesn't get a 2nd look at.

Christ I despise Real Madrid.

One of the key drivers of interest in Gaelic football is not the quality of the game but rather the a more even distribution of success. The 90s and 2000s drove an exponential increase in the interest in football nationwide as more 2nd rank counties rose to competitiveness with the best. Tyrone, Westmeath, Laois, Fermanagh, Wexford, Sligo, Leitrim, Down, Antrim all went through periods of real success. The modern game has stripped that chance of success from all but 6 counties. The GAAs answer was to quarantine them off in a 2nd tier, where like hurling in Leinster or Ulster, they could let the game die off away from the attention of the national press.

The league needs to be changed to a 1A/1B structure again so that Kildare, Westmeath, Down, Monaghan, Fermanagh and Roscommon get regular exposure to top level tactics, S and C, skills so that they can close the gap between the top 6-8 and themselves. It's no coincidence that the development of a top 8 tier in football has occurred since the league structure was split in 4.

If the mindsets of some here had been prevalent down the years we'd still be playing 21 a side, and have point posts etc etc.

Anything is better than the sterile games of chess played before a silent crowd that had become tge norm in recent years.

Except we still have long periods of sideways chess still being played. There's a slew of useful idiots who believe any change is good. If you can't accept the easily identifiable problems the new rules throw up you don't understand football.

I think we all wanted change to the rules but changes that were fair, simple and didn't radically change the structure of the games by lumping commandments on the referees.

What annoys me is that we removed the game from the dictatorship of coaches and handed it over to the dictatorship of the referee.

50m advances, black cards, 20 second kickouts, 20 Second frees. The game now all revolves around punishing players rather than letting the game be played.

I think those loose ends will be sorted. Not sure the game has been played in recent years...

Ive watched the loose ends be replaced with more loose ends this weekend. Anyone on the side of massive rule changes will be in the minority come the business end of championship.

Antrim players should line out in corrigan . Let the ulster council sell.the tickets and then have to refund everyone that showed up in Newry.
Corrigan or nowhere.

I would then suggest fining Antrim the sum of the revenue lost.

Everything's about money is it?

What annoys me is that we removed the game from the dictatorship of coaches and handed it over to the dictatorship of the referee.

50m advances, black cards, 20 second kickouts, 20 Second frees. The game now all revolves around punishing players rather than letting the game be played.

So if you drop back 15 players it's a free on halfway. Surely teams will now drop the full 15 players back as the free will be moved all the way back at halfway.

Rugby referees are such slabbers nowadays f**k they're annoying.

Yeah maybe PSG a bit of an afterthought, really intrigued to see how Kvaratskhelia goes as I feel PSG got him in January for a bargain in relative terms, feel he was perfect for the Premiership and all the top 6-7 teams should have been mad after him

Its only a 5 second highlight, but there's plenty out there, he's a beautiful technician as Brendan might say

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ydcHRZ_yONY?feature=share

Two words, too slow.

Takumi Minamino was a wonderful technician too but doesn't have the pace or strength for PL level football. All these European players are measured and analysed to the ninth degree, if you aren't in the top percentile across the main factors you don't get into the league.

It's the reason Liverpool gave 80 million for Nunez.

How much would it affect all the countries/companies to not trade with the US for 4 years?

Doing the sums how would it pan out?

We can either buy the oil and gas from America or Russia. Europe and most of Africa will not be able to source it anywhere else.

Without access to America or Russia Europe would last ~6 months on its energy reserves.

Went to my first "new rules" match at the weekend, can safely say rather than change behaviour the rules reinforce the status quo tactics in Gaelic football.

Since you only have 12 defenders and the attacking team have an 13 it makes zero sense to push out the field and press high. Instead the rules encourage you to drop into a defensive arc which the rule makers have politely marked out for you on the pitch. Here your chances of stopping or slowing an attack are greatly multiplied and you all but nullify the goal threat.

Should you win the turnover the idea you can easily and immediately boot the ball 40m to your own player is a fallacy. Again your most likely way to advance up the pitch is to make a series of handpasses by which you can advance into a scoring position and possibly work a score. Why would anyone lash the ball up to the front 3 when he at best has a 50/50 chance of winning it an may well miss the resulting shot at goal. You could count on one hand the amount of points that have been scored by fast ball into the front 3, as a source of scores it is vastly outnumbered by the running score or the "keeper overlap" score.

Worse still is the encouragement to waste time or keep possession without intention to score. Mayo got a black card against Tyrone and spent the guts of 10 minutes passing the ball to each other. They did the same at full-time. Why take a score and risk giving possession back to the opposition when you can just run around and wait for the hooter to save you? I don't blame Mayo for this I'd expect Tyrone to be smart enough to do the same thing. Likewise Dublin were fools to attempt to score against Kerry in the first half of a gale force wind. They should have just kept ball for 35 minutes as much as possible, preventing Kerry from making use of the wind advantage and leading to a 2nd half were Dublin would have the advantage on kick outs, scoring and defence. This was possible under the old rules but the new rules effectively make it easier as the defending team are armed with less players to press the team in possession.

It's no coincidence that the 2 most effective teams under the new rules are Dublin and Donegal. The uber-fit, running game suits them down to a tee. The predominant tactic used by the best teams will remain a mass attack, quick break and if that breaks prolonged spells of defensive arc hand passing.

That game would have been awful whatever rules were being followed.

I've been to a good few county and club games now, and while I'd amend some rules, I'm enjoying the football more than I have done for a good while (overall)

If shite games are still gonna be shite and good games are still going to be good remind me why we had to change the rules? Kerry/Dublin in the league is a cracking game 8 times out of 10.

In a years time we'll be adding rule changes to the rule changes because football simply reverts to type.

Went to my first "new rules" match at the weekend, can safely say rather than change behaviour the rules reinforce the status quo tactics in Gaelic football.

Since you only have 12 defenders and the attacking team have an 13 it makes zero sense to push out the field and press high. Instead the rules encourage you to drop into a defensive arc which the rule makers have politely marked out for you on the pitch. Here your chances of stopping or slowing an attack are greatly multiplied and you all but nullify the goal threat.

Should you win the turnover the idea you can easily and immediately boot the ball 40m to your own player is a fallacy. Again your most likely way to advance up the pitch is to make a series of handpasses by which you can advance into a scoring position and possibly work a score. Why would anyone lash the ball up to the front 3 when he at best has a 50/50 chance of winning it an may well miss the resulting shot at goal. You could count on one hand the amount of points that have been scored by fast ball into the front 3, as a source of scores it is vastly outnumbered by the running score or the "keeper overlap" score.

Worse still is the encouragement to waste time or keep possession without intention to score. Mayo got a black card against Tyrone and spent the guts of 10 minutes passing the ball to each other. They did the same at full-time. Why take a score and risk giving possession back to the opposition when you can just run around and wait for the hooter to save you? I don't blame Mayo for this I'd expect Tyrone to be smart enough to do the same thing. Likewise Dublin were fools to attempt to score against Kerry in the first half of a gale force wind. They should have just kept ball for 35 minutes as much as possible, preventing Kerry from making use of the wind advantage and leading to a 2nd half were Dublin would have the advantage on kick outs, scoring and defence. This was possible under the old rules but the new rules effectively make it easier as the defending team are armed with less players to press the team in possession.

It's no coincidence that the 2 most effective teams under the new rules are Dublin and Donegal. The uber-fit, running game suits them down to a tee. The predominant tactic used by the best teams will remain a mass attack, quick break and if that breaks prolonged spells of defensive arc hand passing.

Mayo were awful today and it's a very very poor reflection on us that we were worse.

Really fear for how we fare for the rest of the league. MOR looks a bit out of his depth, same old team playing the same tactics of the last 4 years. Thought he would've added a spark or change to Tyrone's play but in reality only Morgan and Kennedy produce top quality moments for us.

McElholm and O'Hare have been particularly disappointing. Look so lightweight and ineffective.

Unconvinced by the new rules. Obviously Cassidy just invented a rule book of his own today in Castlebar but overall football really isn't much different. It's still descending into basketball. Everyone back behind the arc, slow buildup, lateral passes.

Dublin Kerry was a cracker but Dublin Kerry league games in Kerry have been classics now for the guts of 10 years. Its desire and history that makes that a good game rather than the addition of new rules.