Messages

[commercial focus]

Any grand ideas we may have had about increased capacity were crushed around the end of the noughties. It used to be a near sell out for every Dublin game back then, and 3-4 extra per season. Now it's only a true sell out for the finals, with 65k+ attendances reserved for certain big days involving Limerick or Cork hurlers, or an odd football double header including the likes of Armagh or a blockbuster semi like Kerry v Dublin. If anything the stadiums considerably too big now

The oldest part of the stadium, the Cusack, is still perfectly adequate in basically all areas. Corporate facilities there are still not far behind the Hogan side. To have that being the case 30 years on is probably testament to the vision of the admin behind the reconstruction at that time. I suspect we'll see near to zero changes to the stadium for the next 20 years

I think it's too big for the GAA, not just in terms of size but also in term of maintenance costs, commercial focus  and potentially in terms of future rebuild if cost inflation on the A5 is anything to go by.

Huh? Doesn't the stadium produce revenue through its museum and conference facilities?

It does but it's a distraction imo

Last Year Croke Park contributed over €18m in non GAA match day related income

Some distraction

you'd swear the referees and players were in there running the conferences in between games!

The whole thing is pointless really. Anyone who has coached kids will know that regardless of counting scores the kids will know themselves who won or who "lost".

Losing and how to react to it is a vital life skill and teaching kids early will help them develop into resilient adults.

That's all well and good, and of course the kids will know, but if there are no official results, then the club doesn't need to pick the stronger players at the expense of the weaker ones. They can all play and develop and learn.
Kids will be kids, its the adults that need to be managed!

It's an interesting debate - my kids are not sporting age just yet, and it's been a while since I played!

But a thought crossed my mind. The opinions in this forum for this topic may be a bit like assessing the bullet holes in the returned planes.
Most of the people who post here were never lost to the game.
To grow the game - even to stabilise with the increasing global pull of international sports - we should be trying to ensure the players who were traditionally lost to the game, are not lost to the game.

There are so many players who might not have been competitive as a 6,7,8,9 even 15 year old but who become great players or club people.
Would suggest that of those children, more of them stopped playing.

I didn't play from age approx 14/15 - 25 because they started bringing players from younger teams in to start ahead of me in 'important' games when we didn't have subs. I just gravitated towards other sports. It's a regret that I didn't stick at it, but 15 year old me didn't want the disappointment.

[reported]

Whatever the finer points about extrapolation and assumptions, the fact that there are over 25,000 DV cases reported per year is absolutely depressing.

We need to do more to educate our boys and young men

IS this game on RTE or GAAGO only?

It's on the latter only, hence all the controversy.

Thanks. Not based in Ireland, so only aware of the controversy in an overall sense, not specific games

Don't know where all the expectation coming for a Mayo win.
Mayo with a lot of changes to personnel and system this year. Got training early and did their work early in the league, beating Kerry still on holidays and Tyrone who were very out of sorts; as well as looking very inconsistent in draws to Armagh and Galway.

Would think Kerry will be 4-5 points favourite.

IS this game on RTE or GAAGO only?

i dont mind penalties  but alternative could be golden score or first to 2 points

would be pretty tough tho if there's a gale force wind blowing one way

[kicking 45s]

I really don't understand where this "penalties have no place in the GAA" nonsense comes from. Name me any sport that doesn't have a tie breaker. It comes across as typical anti- soccer rubbish.

Yes, but a tie breaker could be kicking 45s or throwing the ball up between two players, it does not have to be penalties.

They had this and people complained.

What's the difference in taking 45s and taking penalties, besides the fact that those terrible soccer hooligans have penalty shootouts? That's what this is really all about.

I have no issue with penalties - scoring goals, and scoring goals from penalties have been skills in the GAA for a long time. So have saving goals, and saving penalties. So you get 2 players involved in each action.

I would have loved if they had a free taking competition, from varying angles and distances with the kicks getting progressively more difficult, then back in to easier kicks. But you can only use each player once. Would be very tactical, how much 'risk' you take with the poorer kickers on the easy kicks etc.

["The current drink-driving limit is a BAC of 50mg. This means 50 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. For professional, learner and novice drivers the limit is a BAC of 20mg. Most people will have a BAC of 20 to 50mg after 1 standard drink."]

"The current drink-driving limit is a BAC of 50mg. This means 50 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. For professional, learner and novice drivers the limit is a BAC of 20mg. Most people will have a BAC of 20 to 50mg after 1 standard drink."

From the HSE website.  No one should be driving after 6 alcoholic drinks.

according to Drinkaware.ie the limits for a blood test and a urine test are slightly different
it 67 milligrammes of alcohol per 100ml of urine  

This was urine sample of 414mg of alcohol per 100ml .. so a rough calculation is just over 3 pints would get you there .. not quite 'an enormous amount of alcohol' as the article states.. but i'm sure time & body size etc all affect this.

No one should be driving after half a pint if they want to stay within the law

It's not linear like that. The body processes alcohol at different rates as the volume of alcohol increases.
https://www.verywellmind.com/bac-and-drink-conversions-for-men-by-weight-22481#:~:text=After%2015%20drinks%2C%20the%20BAC,of%20cardiac%20or%20respiratory%20arrest.
Obviously a lot of variables in how each body processes alcohol, but according to this article, a reading of 0.45 is considered fatal for adults.
They talk about 15 drinks for a BAC of 0.3. It is unclear what they are referring to as a drink.

https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/business-and-industry/heavy-vehicle-industry/preventing-alcohol-and-drug-related-harm-on-our-roads/employers-and-employees/blood-alcohol-concentration-levels
This article from Victoria in Aus, refers to 9-18 drinks to result in BAC of 0.15-0.30, noting that in Australia a standard drink is defined as 10g of alcohol


A pint of Guinness at 4.2% ABV would be equivalent to 1.83 standard drinks, so 15-18 standards would be somewhere around 8-10 pints.


Noting from both articles, you would be very drunk with a BAC of 0.3

6 times over.
If accurate, thankfully nobody was hurt or worse.

Indeed. Just clicked on the link in the previous post - from 2016 but definitely a hard watch

Reading that, don't think there are any questions to the accuracy of the result, given a urine sample is more accurate than a breath sample.

The appeal seems to be trying to get this thrown out on a technicality. It appears legal advice at the time wouldn't have changed the fact that the driver was over the limit, and was obliged to submit to a sample, so why not take your medicine and thank your lucky stars it's a drink driving conviction and not a cause serious harm while under the influence, or worse.

Hannon is now media savvy so well able to throw out a statement showing his embarrassment at such a tweet when he was young and stupid and easily led, people develop and learn all the time and change their views regardless of what age they are.

This boxer on reflection at some point may change hers and that's a good thing too. As for her actually having a PR person are you sure she has?

I have no idea whether she has or not, which is why I said

but surely her agent/PR person/someone in her backroom team would have discussed this with her since October

You don't need a degree in Public Relations (does such a thing exist) to discuss a story about her that was in the news at the time and one that she could have expected to be asked about

People can grow and change opinions / gain more experience and understanding of the world.

People can also throw an opinion out in the ether without fully thinking them through.
The difference as I see it, is that:
- KH opinion was a few months ago and she has not commented publicly on the tweet (afaiaa). Hannon's tweets seem to be ill-adjudged 'banter' between soccer following teenagers from 10 years ago
- If she was misunderstood, she could have either clarified her position, if not, she could have doubled down and explained. I think she panicked in the face of a live interview, but surely her agent/PR person/someone in her backroom team would have discussed this with her since October! She deleted the tweet, so she knew it was contentious.

I think if she said something like "I retweeted something that I took at face value, that later realised was from a non-reliable source. I was drawn to the story of a young girl raped and murdered." then some people would still not be happy, but it would have blown over.
I don't believe her statement issued since the incident goes far enough to clarify either way.

The reason she was so unprepared, is the fact that no journalist has actually asked the question to date (again, afaiaa)

Anyone trying to equate Hannon's tweets from 10 years ago to KH from October, has other motives

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/15/florida-man-serving-400-year-sentence-freed-exonerated

400 year sentence!! And he was just the getaway driver.

An Irish goodbye soon best love action short movie

Took me a while, but have deciphered this

'An Irish Goodbye' won the Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film

Fairly shocking news, he was no age.

Some list of achievements, a true GAA man who gave a lot of his life to the sports

May he rest in peace