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This could be a short thread, but sticking it up anyway, although I'm not sure how much appetite there is for it, at least from our perspective!

Am I correct in that 2010 is the only championship win Down have against us since 1996? I believe otherwise we won mostly fairly handily in 2002, 2003 (qualifier), 2012, 2013 and 2018. Not sure if I've missed any.

Donegal are down Murphy (retired), McBrearty (injured), Gallen (injured), and the St. Eunan's O'Donnell brothers (opted out) from players who would have first choice or close in the starting front six last year. Ryan McHugh is also out injured for the season. Hard to see where our scores are going to come from. Thompson and Langan can knock over a few long ones, but otherwise it's just Jamie Brennan, who hasn't been setting the world alight, and Conor O'Donnell, who's still fairly new at this level. I'm not even sure if Peadar Mogan will be back for this.

Throw in the absolute chaos behind the scenes, the subsequent treatment of Paddy Carr, the thrusting of Aidan O'Rourke into the hot seat with a few weeks to prepare, the overall disillusionment with the county set up and the negative play which was evident in attendances last year, and I don't see too many Donegal ones making the trip.

Big chance for Down here, assuming they're in somewhat decent shape.

Suppose we might as well start discussing...

Preliminary round: Down v Donegal, June 27 (1.15pm)

Quarter-final: Monaghan v Fermanagh, July 3 (3.30pm)

Quarter-final: Armagh v Antrim, July 4 (3.30pm)

Quarter-final: Tyrone v Cavan, July 10 (4.30pm)

Quarter-final: Derry v Down/Donegal, July 11 (4pm)

Semi-final: Armagh/Antrim v Monaghan/Fermanagh, July 17 (4pm)

Semi-final: Tyrone/Cavan v Down/Donegal/Derry, July 18 (2pm)

Final: August 1 (3.15pm)

Do we need a thread for each match given how quickly this is going to run through?

Sat Oct 31 - Monaghan v Cavan
Sun Nov 1 - Donegal v Tyrone
Sun Nov 1 - Derry v Armagh
Sat Nov 7 - Mon/Cav v Antrim
Sun Nov 8 - Fermanagh v Down
Sat Nov 14 - Don/Tyr v Der/Arm
Sun Nov 15 - Fer/Down v Mon/Cav/Ant
Sun  Nov 22 - Final

Surprised no thread up yet for this, or have all the Down men disappeared from the board?

Paddy Power has us 1/4 for this (Down 7/2!), but I'm not sure we should be such strong favourites as we are fairly untested so far. True, we still have a few big name players, but there is still a lot of youth in the team, while we have not exactly been tight at the back this year. Teams were cruising up the middle during the league, while Cavan and Derry scored 1-15 and 0-16 respectively against us, not exactly small scores. On the other hand, we are looking decent going forward, while Patton in goal seems to have finally presented us with a decent successor to Paul Durcan. Our kickouts were an utter disaster last year, but Patton has been very quick and accurate so far, as well as getting huge distance on the long ones. On the whole though, Donegal are very much unproven and we don't really know where we are at. IMO, an Ulster final and, hopefully, Super 8 spot would still represent an excellent first season for Bonner, although that depends on us avoiding the likes of Mayo and Tyrone whenever we eventually hit the qualifiers.

What's the mood like in Down? I saw a headline from Danny Hughes (couldn't read the article with the paywall) saying that this game is not the foregone conclusion that some in the media appear to think.

Haven't seen this mentioned here yet. Hope the hay's in the shed!



http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at2.shtml?cone#contents

What's this, our third ever meeting? (I remember 1990 and 2002 - don't think there's been any others).

What kind of shape are Meath in?

Things are not good in Donegal based on the past two games. The Tyrone game needs no further comment, while apparently Saturday night against Longford was appalling, in both performance and tactics (back to 14 men behind the ball and little movement ahead of it). Donegal missed some ridiculous chances, but from what I've heard, had Longford had an accurate free taker on the night, we'd have been in big, big trouble.

We went back to the short kick-outs again too. If Meath have any sense, they'll push up on this, especially if they are competitive at midfield. This was the area where Tyrone really turned the screw in that second quarter... well that and the red seas parting inside our 40!

Not too optimistic about this as you can probably guess! Whether its inexperienced players or management that don't really know what to after the Tyrone debacle (aside from going for all-out defensiveness at home against a Division 3 team), this year's championship looks like its on life support for Donegal, just waiting for a half-decent team to put us out of our misery.

Didn't see any link to this story - please delete if its already up there.

Only 26 years old.

Honestly only recognized the name because he missed a late chance to level the game against us in the 2012 quarter final, but he must have been a decent player to make appearances for Kerry at full forward, even if only for a couple of seasons.

http://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2015/1229/756633-kerry-in-mourning-after-passing-of-patrick-curtin/

3rd year in a row!
Odds should swing a bit after today's match. Donegal going in after a poor performance, similar to 2013. At least there will no complacency on the part of Donegal.

BTW, I've heard it repeated a few times this week that Donegal reaching their fifth final in a row is the first time its been done since the 60s. That's bullshit. Donegal played in five consecutive Ulster Finals between 89 and 93.

Foregone conclusion or not, might as well have a thread. Tradition, lip service and all that! 

Not sure where this will be played. Presumably Clones, as its an Ulster semi.

Antrim scored and conceded a huge amount today, twice blowing big leads, but I would presume Bradley will do what he did in 2011 when he came to Ballybofey and matched McGuinness's tactics to keep the score down, saying he had no choice. So I don't forsee a media-pleasing game here.  Don't really give a shite myself about the negative commentary, but it would be nice to see the superb football of first fifteen minutes of the second half against Derry repeated for a longer period and show we are at least some way back to the 2012 version of Donegal. Having the midfield players available again should help, and hopefully McFadden won't be down with flu this time out. Don't have much of a clue about Antrim really. Can they cause an upset?

Don't think there's a thread yet.

Derry owe us one (or more!). I'm nervous!

We haven't been too hot this year. A lot to prove, but the main men are another year older. McHugh and Kavanagh unavailable.

On the plus side, we've very good forwards (if we can get the ball in!). And Lacey.

And, based on their Donegal tenures, McGuinness is a better manager than McIver! (Although he has had six years to improve)

After the Down game, I'm assuming we'll not be hearing about certain victories and strolls in the park for this match!

We rarely meet in the Ulster championship. Last time was 1995, when, fresh from a victory over AI champs Down, us Donegal folk went to Ballybofey expecting an exhibition from our team against an inexperienced Monagahan side, but ended up starting to leave the ground with 15 minutes to go to the jeers of "Cheerio" from an incredulous Monaghan support.

Think the previous game was probably sometime back in the 80s.

We did have two backdoor meetings a few years back, with Monaghan humiliating us in Omagh in 2007 in yet another game where Donegal, typical of the time, just downed tools, and grabbing a late one point victory in a tight match in Ballybofey the following year, mainly thanks to the marksmanship of Paul Finlay.

I honestly don't know WHEN we last beat Monaghan in a championship game (or any game - I've vague memories of Brendan Devenney scoring a hatrick of goals against them in Ballyshannon around ten years ago in a game I think we nicked late on, but I'm not sure).

As to this one, I haven't seen much of Monaghan this year, but from what I've read about them and given Down's "success" in the last game, I'd expect them to come out and pack their defence. Hopefully the return of Lacey and the other absentees, together with the experience of the Down match, will stand to us and we'll scrape through to another title.

What do you Monaghan boys think/expect?

Surprised this thread hasn't been started yet. Surely its not that forgone a conclusion? 

Thought Down looked fairly good today (in an open game), but we will obviously (presumably!) bring a different level of pressure to bear on their forwards when creating chances and shooting. We were poor at midfield for much of the contest against Tyrone, so we will want to improve there, both winning primary ball and the breaks. And presumably Down will have some lessons learnt from last year - can't see a facile eleven point win here again. Still, its hard not to see us winning it, given McGuinness's track record in preparing teams and making adjustments. In the past, I'd always have been fearful of Donegal losing a game like this through poor attitude and preparation. Not any more. Which is not to say that Donegal can't or won't have a bad day. Just that it won't come through poor attitude or treating a fixture lightly.

Rematch of last year's final. Haven't kept up with Derry but I would assume the Bradleys will play and are in decent form? Murphy will be back for us, but will he be fully fit and back in top form?

Can't see us getting as handy a win as last year, but I would hope that our defense will keep Derry quiet enough for us to nick it.  Revenge is a fine motivator, but will John Brennan stubbornly stick to his traditional style of football like last year?

[BP Fought Safety Measures at Deepwater Oil Rigs]

BP Fought Safety Measures at Deepwater Oil Rigs
Owner of Louisiana Oil Well Objected to System That Would Have Shut Off Spill

By MATTHEW MOSK, BRIAN ROSS and RHONDA SCHWARTZ
Apr. 30, 2010

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/bp-fought-safety-measures-deepwater-oil-rigs/story?id=10521078

BP, the company that owned the Louisiana oil rig that exploded last week, spent years battling federal regulators over how many layers of safeguards would be needed to prevent a deepwater well from this type of accident.

One area of immediate concern, industry experts said, was the lack of a remote system that would have allowed workers to clamp shut Deepwater Horizon's wellhead so it would not continue to gush oil. The rig is now spilling 210,000 gallons of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico.

In a letter sent last year to the Department of the Interior, BP objected to what it called "extensive, prescriptive regulations" proposed in new rules to toughen safety standards. "We believe industry's current safety and environmental statistics demonstrate that the voluntary programs&continue to be very successful."

That was one in a series of clashes between the industry and federal regulators that began during the Clinton administration. In 2000, the federal agency that oversaw oil rig safety issued a safety alert that called added layers of backup "an essential component of a deepwater drilling system." The agency said operators were expected to have multiple layers of protection to prevent a spill.

But according to aides to Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat who has followed offshore drilling issues for years, the industry aggressively lobbied against an additional layer of protection known as an "acoustic system," saying it was too costly. In a March 2003 report, the agency reversed course, and said that layer of protection was no longer needed.


"There was a big debate under the Bush administration whether or not to require additional oil drilling safeguards but [federal regulators] decided not to require any additional mandatory safeguards, believing the industry would be motivated to do it themselves," Carl Pope, Chairman of the Sierra Club told ABC News.

A second area of focus emerging Friday involved the cement casing that was supposed to seal the well and prevent gaps from opening between the outside of the well pipe and the inside of the hole drilled into the sea floor. If cement is not poured properly, oil and natural gas can escape  a cause of more than a dozen previous well blowouts in the Gulf.

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman Friday sent a letter to Halliburton, the company responsible for pouring the cement seal, asking company executives to brief committee investigators on conditions at the rig, and preserve all documents relating to their work on the sea floor.

Elmer Danenberger, an expert on offshore drilling who retired from the U.S. Department of the Interior in January, told ABC News he is worried that "lack of attention" during the pouring of the cement could be to blame.

"With these cementing operations it's just a matter of not being attentive enough," he said. "What you want is a closed system. You want the cemented pipe totally sealing the well bore. If you don't have that, you have problems."

Because the well us under more than a mile of water, it may be some time before investigators have more clarity on what exactly went wrong. But Brent Coon, a lawyer who sued BP over a previous deadly oil facility explosion, said he has obtained a restraining order to prevent the company from doing anything to cover up the cause of the accident.

"BP stands apart, heads and shoulders above all the rest of them, with respect to their conduct," said Coon, who represents a 24-year-old roustabout who was working on the rig at the time of the blast. "It's like they just don't care."

BP issued a release saying it had launched its own investigation into the cause of the blast, and would cooperate with federal efforts.

"Losing 11 of our industry colleagues is a tragedy for the offshore community," said BP Group Chief Executive Tony Hayward in the statement. "As an industry, we must participate fully in these investigations and not rest until the causes of this tragedy are known and measures are taken to see that it never happens again."

Copyright © 2010 ABC News Internet Ventures

_______________________________________________________________

I wonder what the good people of the coastline from Houston to the Florida panhandle think of voluntary industry controls now? The shrimp fishermen? The hotel owners? (We know what the wildlife managers think). Its looking like the worst oil pollution disaster in US history, and they still haven't got the thing stopped (big test for Obama here on how all this is dealt with).

Its been a bad few weeks for the fossil fuel industry in the US with this, the Massey coal mine disaster and the planned wind farm off Cape Cod. Now Obama is putting the breaks on opening further areas of coastline to drilling.

[Thousands wait for Knock apparition]

Has April 1st come early? WTF was going on in Knock yesterday?!!

I know bad times bring out the more superstitious and gullible side of people, but in this day and age?!!

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1012/1224256437842.html

Thousands wait for Knock apparition

THOUSANDS GATHERED at Knock Shrine, Co Mayo, yesterday hoping to see an apparition of Our Lady.

There were ripples of applause from a crowd estimated at more than 5,000 as some people believed they could see the sun shimmering, changing colour and dancing in the sky.

Some people were rapturous afterwards. Others were highly sceptical. "It's an optical illusion, pure and simple," one sceptic, who did not wish to be named, said. "Anybody looking at the bright sun long enough would begin to imagine things." But other pilgrims were adamant that something supernatural, possibly life changing, had occurred.

John Tunney, from Islandeady, Castlebar, said: "I'm 53 years old and I never seen the sun go like that before. I witnessed the sun go all different colours, yellow, red and green. Then it completely darkened and began shimmering. Sometimes the sun emitted a clean, bright light, then it would darken again."

Mr Tunney's wife, Nina, said: "The sun was spinning in the sky. I experienced a feeling of total happiness. It is a feeling I would love to experience again. It was amazing. I felt marvellous."

Yvonne Rabbitte, from Dunmore, Co Galway, showed other pilgrims a photograph she had taken on her digital camera which showed vivid rays radiating downwards from the sun at the time the image was taken.

Maggie Ahern, from Castlebar, had no doubt that the happenings in Knock were due to "heavenly intervention".

Earlier in the week Dublin-based clairvoyant Joe Coleman predicted Our Lady would appear at the old parish church – scene of the 1879 apparition – at 3pm. Quite a number of those present were members of the Travelling community.

The crowds waited in the open air despite an invitation on loudspeaker at about 2.30pm from Knock parish priest Msgr Joseph Quinn that those in the grounds enter the adjacent Basilica to participate in ceremonies to mark the annual Dominican pilgrimage.

Msgr Quinn was not available for comment last night.

Most of you are probably unaware, but Wikipedia is considered to be an insidious component of the "liberal" media by fundamentalists in the US. To combat this evil influence on their children, a few years ago they started their own version, called Conservapedia (The Trustworthy Encyclopedia!). Its well worth looking up for a laugh for their treatments of politics (especially Obama!), science (especially Darwin and evolution!), atheism and so on.

http://conservapedia.com/Main_Page

At the moment, Conservapedia is looking for some help: the Bible, in its various translations, has been infused with liberal ideas, bordering on communism in spots. Things aren't so bad in the Old Testament, but when you get to the New Testament and Jesus, the liberal bias screams off the pages!

Apparently "Father forgive them for they know not what they do", apparently a favourite quote of liberals, has no place in a conservative bible, because those people most certainly did know what they were doing, and only Luke carries that particular quote from Jesus!

Socialism repeatedly rears it ugly head: For example, the conservative word "volunteer" is mentioned only once in the ESV, yet the socialistic word "comrade" is used three times, "laborer(s)" is used 13 times, "labored" 15 times, and "fellow" (as in "fellow worker") is used 55 times.

So if you get a bit of time, try to lend a hand to The Conservative Bible Project!

http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project

Have you heard of a worse drink-driving case than this?

Just a bit of background - the accident took place last Sunday (July 26th), a little bit north of New York City. A woman, Diane Schuler, drove her minivan with five children, two her own, three of them her brother's, the wrong way down a major road, against three lanes of traffic, going almost two miles before crashing head-on into an SUV, killing herself, her three nieces, her two-year old daughter and three men in the SUV (the worst accident in Westcherster country for 75 years). The crash was so violent that her van exploded into flames and she left her leg behind her when she was thrown from the car. In the aftermath, it came out that she had rang her brother about half an hour beforehand, saying she didn't feel well and was having vision problems, but she kept going even though he asked her to stay where she was and he'd come and get them. It was after that she turned onto the northbound side of the Taconic Parkway and started driving south. Apparently cars were serving out of her way and quite a few people called the cops. There was loads of speculation afterwards about her possibly being disoriented after having a seizure or a stroke or something and, given the sheer carnage and the loss of four young children, it was a heart-breaking story that dominated the local news, with huge sympathy for all involved, including Diane Schuler.

Until yesterday...

Turns out that she was twice the legal limit for blood alcohol AND had smoked a joint within an hour of the crash. She crashed at 1.30pm, but had packed the kids and left the campsite in the Catskills at 9.30am! A broken 1.75 litre vodka bottle was lying in the front of the car and she apparently had drunk the equivalent of 10 shots (along with the joint)! And all the way from the Catskills, she had been tailgating and honking at cars to get out of her way, even crossing the grass median between the two sides of I87, a major motorway that heads up to Albany from NYC! Yet, no cops stopped her anywhere along the route. One can only imagine what the young kids went through - apparently the oldest, her 8 year old niece, had been on the phone to her father for a few minutes during the phone call a half hour before the crash, after which the driver threw the phone away! God knows what was going on!

Anyway, for anyone whose interested, the NY Times tells it better than me...

Horrific stuff...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/nyregion/05crash.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion

Haven't seen a thread on Sunday's game in Ballyshannon...

Donegal team (John Joe seems to have dispensed with McIvor's practise of waiting until the day before the game to announce it)

Donegal (NFL v Dublin) - Michael Boyle, Eamon McGee, Neil McGee, Paddy McDaid, Eoin Wade, Raymond Sweeney, Kevin Cassidy, Ciaran Bonner, Christy Toye, Brendan Boyle, Conall Dunne, Rory Kavanagh, Michael Murphy, Stephen Griffin, David Walsh.

Starting debut for Eoin Wade, Raymond Sweeney in at centre back for the first time in years, Cassidy making his first appearance of the year. It will be interesting to see how the three young fellas do up front. Presumably McFadden will be available off the bench if needed. Bonner and Toye in a very experimental midfield pairing (both normally half-forwards at this level) - Neil Gallagher is out for the league.

Donegal need a win here badly, or it will be very difficult to see them staying up.

Not exactly the handiest of openers for Donegal, and I doubt if the McKenna Cup line-ups would have much chance of getting a result down there. We're definitely without Kevin Cassidy, Neil McGee, Colm McFadden, Michael Murphy (all injured), Christy Toye and Michael Hegarty, while Karl Lacey won't be back until the summer. Apparently John Joe Doherty is going to be looking at some of the lads who were away on college duty or otherwise didn't get a run out in the McKenna Cup, so it's probably going to be experimental enough for the first few league games anyway. Hopefully it won't be too one-sided this weekend! Any word from the Kerry lads on their current status?

Live on TG4 apparently.