Messages

Of course if you took more chances you'd win by more. If we'd taken more chances we'd have won. When it starts raining the ground gets wet. For God's sake.

I think you misunderstand Geraghty's role - it was to stay on the edge of the square and beat Henry(which he did with ease any time he had the chance). But he didn't get enough service - to the extent that he did break ranks and come out to forage at times in the second half.

[Tyrone-Donegal (MFC) Wednesday 15:30]

Meath-Dublin tonight (Monday) 22:30, Friday 19:00
Tyrone-Donegal Tuesday 12:05
Waterford-Cork Tuesday 19:00, Wednesday 12:00
Wexford-Louth Wednesday 19:00, Friday 14:40
Sligo-Roscommon Thursday 19:00, Friday 11:50
Tyrone-Donegal (MFC) Wednesday 15:30

What year is this game from? Or is that the Tyrone-Armagh (MFC)?

I have no idea - I copied it without thinking. And now it's disappeared from the schedule.

Also Tyrone-Donegal is now scheduled for 19:00 - in thre minutes time. I didn't see that before.

All the times in my post are 24-hour clock.

By Bill O'Brien - Torrevieja June 2007.

THIS IS A CHAIN LETTER. PLEASE DO NOT READ!

Fed up of getting chain letters sent on by people who should know you better? This is different, but equally important!

A man in Denver broke the chain and his labrador was eaten by marauding goldfish!
Mrs. Smith in Brighton sent on five copies and now she is the Secretary General of the UN!

WHAT MUST I DO NOW? I hear you say.
Well, first think. Do you have five friends with whom you are sufficiently bored to want to send this rubbish to? If the answer is no, you are obviously a saddo and I would advise the Samaritans.
Next, go to the fridge and see if there's anything to drink. If not, go to the pub or at least the nearest off licence. NOW, ISN'T THAT BETTER?
We can get back to this later.

B. Frobisher of Newcastle broke the chain and came home early to find his wife in bed on her own!
Mrs Samuels in Wicklow sent on ten copies and is now a hooker with the Leinster team!

LATER: DOES THIS STILL SEEM LIKE A GOOD IDEA? It does? Good.

Bring a liitle joy into the lives of five people  today
Spread a little happiness as you go on your way
Spare a thought for others and never selfish be
Pass me the sick bucket cos I'll need it presently.

And remember: If you are going to sing; DON'T !

At this point a picture of a kitten in an old shoe or a few puppies looking as though they had just come out of the spin dryer would be nice.

Lee Wong Tsu of Beijing broke the chain, was executed a few days later and had all his internal organs sold to a wealthy American!
J. Gormely of Dublin sent off 4,500 copies and is now Minister for the Environment (or something)!

So, please, please, please don't let us all down. Send on to five deserving friends straight away.
If  you don't and something bad happens later you are going to blame yourself.

In case anyone doesn't know, Setanta Ireland are showing full re-runs of most of the weekend's matches (I don't see Tipp-Limerick in the schedule) at the following times this week:

Meath-Dublin tonight (Monday) 22:30, Friday 19:00
Tyrone-Donegal Tuesday 12:05
Waterford-Cork Tuesday 19:00, Wednesday 12:00
Wexford-Louth Wednesday 19:00, Friday 14:40
Sligo-Roscommon Thursday 19:00, Friday 11:50
Tyrone-Donegal (MFC) Wednesday 15:30

There's also The GAA show on Friday at 18:30 and 21:30 and Saturday at 9:05 and they're showing Féile na nGael throughout the week during the day.

Setanta Ireland is available on Sky (I don't know the terms) and free on Chorus (Channel 105).

The full schedule is here:
http://ie.setanta.com/portal/systemcontent/tvschedule

I agree 100%. Get that ould hurling stuff outa here and clear the way for football talk.

Only joking - anything to encourage the hurling men back to provide us with their usual good standard of stuff.

Pietas - I must have another look at Whelan-Geraghty. Maybe I was too hasty in condemning GG's reaction - I forgot I only had RTE's selection of slow-motion shots to go on and we've discussed that here before.

Anyway about the Smarmy McStay – Geraghty dismissed him in yesterday's tribune as "a whinger – always was". He said he didn't know anyone who would be paying any attention to anything McStay would say. I was calling last week for GG to be given a platform to reply to McStay's personal vilification of Geraghty from the commentary box. So thanks Tribune.

[Edit - sorry AZ!]

I'm not myopic in my views

Dinny – do you mean to imply I'm myopic? Maybe you're right, but I can't win the argument if we start from that premise, so let's just debate the facts.

Dublin hit a tremendous amount of wides, at one stage it was 10 - 2, Brogan kicked five including two good goal chances not to metion Collie Morans open goal that he missed.

How does the fact that they can't convert scores make them an 8-point better team?

Meath were only close because of Dublin ineptitude

So what you mean is that if Dublin weren't inept, they'd be an eight point better team. What were you saying about your aunt?

Bray was the only player who rose to the challenge.

With due respect, I think that's nonsense. Darren Fay would have been arguably man of the match, if it wasn't for Vaughan (I have an aunt too!). Geraghty was absolutely outstanding (dive notwithstanding), anytime he had even a chance of possession. Moyles was excellent. Far from being an 8-point inferior team, for a team with only one player rising to the challenge, Meath came very close to winning it and four points was an exaggeration of the difference between the sides. (OK – I can't say that's a fact, but it's an opinion I'll support all night).

Personally speaking I don't think any side in the qualifiers will be too worried about playing Meath at home, in Navan maybe.

I'd agree with that – even in Navan. Meath are not good qualifier competitors. And their home record is nothing to ehhh ... write home about. Geraghty as much as said in yesterday's Tribune that he found it hard to get motivated for the qualifiers. And, as agorm was suggesting, it wouldn't be a surprise to see them using the qualifiers to try some things, blood some lads, etc.

Anyway if my Aunty had balls she would of course be my uncle....

And if she was from Dublin, that alone would give her a good chance of getting a spot in the full back line.

BT – spot on. I couldn't believe it when yer wan Evanne was sent out to interview Babs before the game on Saturday night. The talk of the country was the dropping of Cummins. Did she ask him about it? Not at all – platitudes, clichés and sound bites was what we got. As usual. I'll stop now or I'll be outraging Slim Shady!

Uladh - I'm not in favour of playing Reilly at No. 11. He's not there to be a CHF and he does a reasonable job as a third midfielder, though a lot of the time he seems confused about his role and pops up as an orthodox half-forward. Also, in the first Dublin Game he was effectively marking Brian Cullen and removed him from the game as an influence - not yesterday, though.

I believe in the third centre-fielder idea and I like the idea of Reilly in the job – it gives us a good big central spine and he's a very good footballer. But every team needs a CHF. You don't deploy the CHF as a third midfielder – you name him at 10, 12, 13 or 15 and play a real CHF at no. 11.

I forgot to say - what a player Darren Fay is. Probably the performance of his career yesterday.

I agree with all of that, agorm, though I'm not ready yet to dispose of Big Joe. But we have to do something to harness his talent properly. I can't think what, though.

The only thing I'd add is a question - where's Daithi Regan?

And please, please don't let it be Clones. The nearest it can be for me is Limerick. I'd settle for that.

Says it all about that crowd of good-for-nothing, overpaid, tired, lazy, couldn't-care-less, secure-in-their-monopoly, civil-service-mentality clowns.

Great stuff Sligo.

Well-deserved win for Dublin and they will see the manner of the win as a big monkey off their backs. That could be very important to them in the rest of the campaign. Like most people here, though, I just don't think they have the quality to go all he way.

As regards Meath's performance I'm happy enough, though disappointed at the performance on the sideline. Yesterday has dented confidence that was growing in the sharpness and shrewdness of the management. Nothing was done about the struggling midfield. I didn't think it was a case of clear dominance of the two Dublin midfielders over our two – I thought all four played well, Dublin's slightly better. The difference was our complete failure with breaking ball and the difference there was the absence of Kenny. We should have done more to make it harder in there by bringing more bodies into that area.

And I can't fathom why, having put Geraghty on the edge of the square because we knew he would win ball against Henry every time, we then failed to use the tactic and starved him of the one-on-one contests that he was going to thrive on. Except twice. And both times he won the ball, scored once and hit the post the other time. (I also couldn't fathom why Dublin left Henry on him). For those who say Dublin were eight points the better team, this point alone shows that to be rubbish. If GG's shot had gone in we'd probably have won. If we'd used him properly, he'd have won it on his own.

Anyway, the only differences that really mattered between the teams were (1) Mark Vaughan – a hugely impressive display and he must be a fixture in the team now and (2) a few bad decisions by our inexperienced lads when we were back to within a point, on a roll and had their backs to the wall. 8-point gap? Don't be ridiculous.

I'm happy, though, that we're making progress. This is a 3-year project. Let's see where we are in 2009. Overall the signs are promising.

It seems we can never have a post-match debate without Graham Geraghty featuring in it. Most here know I'm a great admirer of his. However, I was disgusted with his dive after the push by Whelan. I hate that more than anything else in the game and most of all I hate to see a Meath player do it. Forget the whinging nonsense over a few wayward swings in the other game  It's time for red cards and, where necessary, post-match video citing for this stuff (but by a proper commission, not by Pat Spillane). It has to be stamped out or we might as well give up and go watch soccer.

Hound, you're usually a reasonable commentator here, but your gutter comments about Geraghty are disgusting – on a par with some of the chanting by the scum around me in the Hogan Stand. Fair play to you for being man enough at least to delete the worst of them.