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One thing on all of this, has anything been bulldozed yet at Lansdowne? ? If not why not use that for any home semi finals?

thats the most sensible suggestion I've heard all day. Even if work had started then surely demolition could start at one end of Lansdowne in any case, allowing a capacity of 25,000 or so, which would be ideal.

The IRFU messed up somewhat by redeveloping Thomond while Lansdowne Rd was also closed. However the point here is that the gesture will never be returned, neither Lansdowne Rd not Thomond will be built at a size that will allow GAA games be played there. The GAA suit themselves by having a policy of not allowing Rugby games, the IRFU build walls to do the same.

The point is that the Union is not delivering benefits to Scotland. NI is kept in by the prejudice of union supporters towards the natives, which has hardly been helped by the events of the last 40 years, and a big subvention. If things are peaceful and people are working together the type of issues that lead to discontent in Scotland will also become more important in NI.

UK's existence is at risk - always good to hear some good news in these dark January days!

Surely the Brigids v Cross game should have been fixed for Cavan..

Cavan is on the main Crossmaglen-Roscommon road. I exect Mullingar won out as it in a different province.

Strange that they are not being played on Paddy's Day.

Surely the senior final should be pride of place on that day.

Pint, the 1600 figure was a very rough division of the nationalist population of Armagh divided by the number of clubs, I wasn't suggesting that other neighbouring clubs to Cross had this population.

The NI census has EDs and wards, I haven't yet found a map of the EDs, but the ward called Crossmaglen comprises most of the Rangers catchment and all of Cullaville. This happy district has 2918, I suppose Cullaville can claim a 1000 of those.

http://search2.nics.gov.uk/highlighter/highlighter?qt=crossmaglen&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nisranew.nisra.gov.uk%2Fcensus%2FGeography%2Fmaps%2Fnewrymourne%2Fcrossmaglen.htm

Their Creggan ward has 2631, I expect some of these think of themselves as Bridge people, Cullyhanna fans and some as Rangers supporters.
http://search2.nics.gov.uk/highlighter/highlighter?qt=creggan+ward&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nisranew.nisra.gov.uk%2Fcensus%2FGeography%2Fmaps%2Fnewrymourne%2Fcreggan.htm


If you had a map of EDs (or list of townlands) you could work out the club catchment areas pretty exactly.

Culloville, Co Monaghan  starts 100m from the Cullaville Co Armagh stadium.

The potential pick is not so far out of line, there is an average of 1600 people or so per club in Armagh, Cross have perhaps 2000? The Armagh city clubs have more and and the likes of Keady as many. The question of what else there is to do may be more important as the GAA in Upper Creggan gets the full use of that pick without even road bowls to compete. Other comments on this thread suggest that other clubs with big potential populations are getting the underage players, but are not getting a strong senior team from this. Cross' is just a size where there is the basis of a good team, yet everyone still knows everyone else and there is a close identification with the club. Its a bit like the intercounty scene, Kerry have the tradition and the organisation, some lack of alternatives and the expectation of success. This continues to bring them the players that keep the success going. However a county with a big pick like Cork or Dublin should win some and a well organised county with a smaller pick like Offaly or Armagh will make the breakthrough from time to time.

I am abandoning my office until 10/1/07. To all on GAABoard have a good one and lets hope for some good games and some good slagging in 2007.

Wicklow tread...

There was another article in the Indo on Sunday which ended with the words

" I, for one, can't wait to see John Delaney doing for domestic soccer what he's done for the international team. The GAA must be quaking in its boots."

I don't think the we should panic!

I don't know much about this incident, but the media reports at the time suggested that Ballymacnab players become "involved" initially with Stewartstown subs. This could lead to an injustice, in that a sub, who wasn't likely to play anyway, could get a suspension which didn't affect the team too much while someone that was needed for the 60 minutes might be suspended on the other team, a much bigger loss.

Wasnt Cúchulainn from Louth

Sure what is Louth only an appendage of Armagh. In any case Cúchulainn was born in Meath, lived a few years in Louth and became a man of Macha at the age of 5.

Well sure its hardly worth arguing about Cuchulainn or Ring, it's all ancient history of little relevance to the present day, like a successful Down football team.

The foremost exponent of hurling in history, at least until "26 County" Carey came along, was an Armagh man.

Interesting that you Down folk were so happy with the interview, he said the population of Ireland was 3.5 or 4 million, which suggested that he was talking about the 26 counties only. Why exclude the 6 counties, is is that hurling is less popular there?