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Asked if he might be a potential contender in the event of a Wales coaching reshuffle following the national team's record losing run under Warren Gatland this year, XXXXX suggested that was not top of his priority list. "I haven't thought about that, to be honest with you," he replied. "Without lacking humility, I'd prefer Ireland, England or France."

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Would anyone need more than one guess as to the identity of XXXXX?

He's an odious man. Really is.

Anyone from the freestate able to offer an educated guess as to what the endgame/angle is for revenue commissioners?

My extraordinarily primitive / speculative/ unfounded understanding of how things might work in the north would be along the lines of:

GAA clubs (county boards) are constituted non-profit organisations. So while there is an onus on them to produce accurate books that follow solid accounting principles, they don't pay corporation tax. So if they "tidy up" their books, they're fibbing to their members rather than to the exchequer. So keep your VAT payments correct and you'll stay on top of HMRC.

And regarding payment of e.g. managers, the onus should be on the self employed recipient to declare their freelance salary and pay the appropriate tax, rather than a body that doesn't employ them, to keep the exchequer informed.

Hence while HMRC could if they chose make things difficult for clubs/counties in the wee six, what they'd gain from doing so wouldn't be worth the effort. They'd put a lot of people through a lot of aggro to gain the names of a couple of hundred people to monitor for income tax payments.

Note the key words above: primitive, speculated, unfounded.

Please educate me.

I wouldn't think Kilcoo are on the slide. They were the better team yesterday in an Ulster final. Which is one hell of a high bar. They are if anything more relentless and unselfish than ever, but are perhaps missing a little of the off-the-cuff verve that Laverty, Jerome and Ward brought them a few seasons ago. Eugene tried his best to fill some of those gaps yesterday.  My guess would be that they've  already identified this and we will see a slightly revised approach to risk taking next season.

They're always (at least) one step ahead. The buggers.

Jez the ref yesterday missed the most obvious black card in the first 5 minutes when an Errigal player dragged a Kilcoo player to the ground, a few minutes later stone wall square ball missed, then the very obvious aggressive and deliberate  block on a kilcoo plyers run in the second half, which again was a stone wall black card, all of those before the strike (not overly dangerous) by the same Kilcoo player whose was run was blocked, those are monumental mistakes for any ref to make in any championship game never mind an Ulster club final. Simply not good enough.

He also didn't penalise Niall Brannigan for a knee up sliding tackle, and didn't card Ryan Johnston despite swinging out twice.

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There's a point made after yours that if we are talking about a referee at any length then he must have had a poor game.

I call bullshit on that one.

The reason why we talk about referees after games is that we are culturally unwilling to accept that when two evenly matched teams meet each other, that the encounter can be decided by luck or skill: there has to be someone / something to blame. And the ref is always the target.

Fair play to EC and I hope they go on to win it, although Kilcoo would have had a better chance if they had prevailed imo.
There's been enough said about the game but the winning score was a reminder that fortune favours the brave. However, Kilcoo are unlikely to get any 50/50 calls from referees anywhere outside Down ( the square ball and absence of black card for example- the red was clear) and they should reflect on this before launching unnecessary and counter-productive legal challenges in the future.
It's a big setback for the Magpies as they had emptied the tank with their eyes on an Ulster- at least.
That management team doesn't come cheap and it will be interesting to see if they all make the big trips again next year. Equally , a few of the players might not feel they could give it another lash; PD and JJ looked jaded yesterday and Laverty might not want to continue his cameo role. However, there are more than enough replacements coming off the production line and I don't see anyone troubling them in Down at least for a few years.

Cannot at all understand the comment about not getting 50:50 calls outside of Down.

It's like one of those things that people are preprogrammed to say whether there's evidence or not.

Yesterday's referee neither was for Kilcoo or against them. As long as contact was "manly" he let it go. If it was dirty or lazy, he pulled players up. If anything what happened yesterday lends credence to the suggestion that Kilcoo don't like Paul Faloon, because this is how he referees the game. And they find it harder to keep their normally cool heads when physicality is increased.

But a more important point on this. Just a month ago Kilcoo got the benefit of the doubt on pretty much every key decision vs Crosserlough.

Referee didn't  beat Kilcoo yesterday. Not even remotely.

I like Ange and can see what he's trying to do.

But the players have given up on him. So he has to go.

That's just modern football summed up.

what has he been trying to do other than his high line tactics and makes friends with media so they take it easy on him when results like tonight happen.

Soccer is full of risk averse coaches from the lowest levels to the highest; those who expect the ball to be launched at the first sign of danger.

What Ange is trying to coach is that if all your teammates are attuned to taking risks, then the whole thing becomes less risky. For simple reason is they continually make themselves available even if they don't particularly want the ball in those positions.

Is it all a bit mad? No doubt. But a full strength Spurs are only a no.6 and a right back away from making it work.

Anyone see what happened in the first half with R. Canavan? Ball looked to be coming in at just below chest height and Kilcoo boy looked to have gone in with the foot

Easy enough to answer.

If you'd like football to be a hard game rooted upon regular one on one physical joists then the referee called it perfectly.

If you'd prefer it that every challenge is gauged not just on what happened but on likelihood of someone getting hurt, then the referee called it all wrong.

I'm in the former camp myself.

I like Ange and can see what he's trying to do.

But the players have given up on him. So he has to go.

That's just modern football summed up.

Kilcoo pretty much took EC's big 3 players out of the game. Some effort by the rest of them to get over the line.

Not even the staunchest Magpie could argue the red card either.

Eugene Brannigan had some game.

I cheered the goal in as if I was from the Ballygawley roundabout.

But it was definitely a square ball, no matter what rules anyone dreams up.

EC showing a cynical side already. They need to tread carefully. They'll never beat Kilcoo with 14 men. Never. Ever.

You sir are a disgrace to our county

You think everyone in Down is cheering for Kilcoo ? !

Absolutely should be yes. Any down man cheering against a down team is obviously a newry soccer tr**p

Cheered them on in the AI final a few years ago. Didn't even feel wrong to do so.

But right now I'd probably cheer the orange order ahead of them.

Ref. has lost this game

Definitely not.

Might do yet.
But not for now.

Deserved red card. Ref did well to pick it up in realtime.

This is all set for the narkiest 15 mins of football in history.

Never a free there!

There was a couple of frees

Who's the ref?

He's showing a usually high tolerance for aggressive tackling so far.

I applaud.

I cheered the goal in as if I was from the Ballygawley roundabout.

But it was definitely a square ball, no matter what rules anyone dreams up.

EC showing a cynical side already. They need to tread carefully. They'll never beat Kilcoo with 14 men. Never. Ever.