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Kilkenny's star man for me now is Eoin Cody...

Never knew so many Pool fans cared so much about the LGBT community until the past few days

Doesn't bother me one way or another, just think its a bit hyprocritical that Henderson raises these issues that he believes are morally wrong, but when the big pay packet is pushed under his nose his morals then go out the window and is happy to move to that country.

Who would be any different given the sums involved?

If anything I find it very hypocritical of politicians giving footballers and football clubs abuse over getting bought over by groups linked to countries with dubious human rights issues yet they've no issues selling these very same countries weapons, armaments and a whole myriad of "defence" products.

Patience? Lucky nobody has dreamed up that you need 8 GCSEs or equivalent, including Music and one of BTEC Sport or GOML French.

I left school with diddly squat at 16, though different times, GCSE's were harder then 

O-Levels. Youre fooling noone 😉

He's telling the truth this time, we were the first year of it and the teachers hadn't a puff at times about the course work needed....

[Limerick's physicality]

It's Limerick's to lose, they've more match winners and can still win if a couple of them are quiet. Kilkenny have no such luxury, everyone will need to play the game of their lives to have a chance.

Limerick's only black mark in the last 5 years was surprisingly losing to Kilkenny in 2019. They'll surely still be sore about that.

While Kilkenny ran them to 2 points last year, it never felt like there was going to be an upset. I also think that Cody felt that this was a good time to go as they'd probably overachieved with the talent to hand.

Kilkenny would need more goals, or a ref who gets strict on Limerick's physicality to cause a shock.

Kilkenny hurling has prided itself in it's physicality and they won't be found wanting in that regard either when it comes to it on Sunday, I just think Limerick have that bit more "Grace under pressure" all over the park when it gets close.

Hoping for a humdinger on Sunday but it doesn't always bear out like that, Limerick going for 4-in-a-row (and 5 out of 6) and Kilkenny looking to get their first since 2015, that's almost famine like times down on the Noreside, let alone the prospect of losing 2 AI finals in a row against Limerick will add it's own pressures to this particular set of Kilkenny players still living in the shadow of their great teams of the 00's and 10's.

[And their hand passes.]

It's Limerick's to lose, they've more match winners and can still win if a couple of them are quiet. Kilkenny have no such luxury, everyone will need to play the game of their lives to have a chance.

Limerick's only black mark in the last 5 years was surprisingly losing to Kilkenny in 2019. They'll surely still be sore about that.

While Kilkenny ran them to 2 points last year, it never felt like there was going to be an upset. I also think that Cody felt that this was a good time to go as they'd probably overachieved with the talent to hand.

Kilkenny would need more goals, or a r

And their hand passes.

Are they any worse in relation to hand passing than anyone else?

They have improved upon it IMO, but I've seen plenty of Clare,Galway,KK, Cork, Waterford lads hand passing being dubious as well!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66235152

Another 2 fingers from the British Government to the DUP.

Howards Hastings et al will be on the phone to wee Jeffrey telling them to wind their necks in.

"Unacceptable gap in UK border security"

I wonder is Mr Jenrick talking about enforcing these checks along the Irish sea.....

I'd agree with MR2 that in the heat of a competitive match with both teams with a lot at stake, most fans will be delighted with
their own man winning such a catch and taking out the other team's best player in the process. Imagine if it had of been Glass hitting Clifford instead.

One of the commentators or someone used the well known term, the keeper took man, ball and all.
We often here this term used for when keepers come out to punch the ball away and it seems to be accepted that if the keeper gets the ball first then it doesn't matter what happens afterwards.

When watching it back you can see Ryan firstly eyeing the ball and when he knew he was going to catch it, he then eyed up McGuigan. He had to make a split second decision to make, Do I land face forward and maybe drop the ball or do I turn my backside and try to knock him over with my momentum.
Had he JUST turned his back you could say he was trying to shield the ball but if you look carefully he actually bends over and sticks his backside out so it looked like he was trying to hit McGuigan hard with his follow through.
Bearing in mind how Kerry seemed to be targetting McGuigan the whole game you could be forgiven for thinking that this was one of those times where you can "do" a man in a so called 50/50 challenge.

So i've come full circle in this incident myself and think the ref got it wrong but as we all know it's a tough one to call so quickly.

It's always a Brucie bonus if you could take the man as well as the ball, although I did have a referee tell me recently that you have to have a duty of care to your opponent allegedly, so I can see it both ways.

If big Glass or Chrissy McKeague had buried his arse into Clifford in a similar manner and won the game, they'd get the freedom of the whole of Derry.

Refs are also under so much scrutiny now, slow motion etc etc when they've one split second to see the incident and make a call within a second or so at whatever angle they happen to be at at that exact moment FFS, cut the lad some slack.

[Maths and the weight given to it is a sham]

Was at uni in the 80s and luckily did a vocation  degree which has led me to having a good life but times have changed .
Daughter graduation  was at start of summer and the reality struck that uni is now a money making exercise .
60% we're foreign nationals who queens are simply extracting cash from.
A lot to be said for apprenticeships but even that's a mess , why does a kid need English and maths gcse to become a brick layer or joiner .

I couldn't agree more. GCSE Maths and the weight given to it is a sham. Virtually all of it is entirely redundant to the vast majority of people. Much of it is redundant to everyone. Who the hell needs to know highest common factors?
Like a lot of things in education, traditionalist, classist bullshit.

See I would totally disagree with this. In my view Maths is the one thing that is needed across the board by everyone, whether household budgeting, understanding a loan, working out angles for a roof, getting ratios right for a cement mix etc.

We had a former client who could barely read or write but was a sharp as a tack on numbers, engineering plans etc. He set up his own manufacturing business when he left school and sold it for over £20m a few years ago

Most builders use Pythagoras theorem day and daily and don't know it..

Maths is a fundamental to any engineering degree including software and is certainly not a sham degree.

There are lots of people doing degrees in the various humanities and will end up in Job recruitment agencies or the Civil service were your degree is perceived as a level of intelligence even if the subject matter is irrelevant in the final profession.

I've met so many lads (and ladies) with brains to burn, but the social skills of a gnat which really holds them back.

The person who can sell themselves will always get by even if they do bullshit a bit.

Folks, any inkling that the GAA might put some unsold tickets on Ticketmaster like last year?

Give Frankie Quinn a shout, you being an Antrim man and all

Was coaching officer in my club for good few years. These are what I think most important duties are...

1. If you club starts at U6, every year new U6 groups come on board. Spend a lot of your time figuring out which parents you want to get involved and which you don't. Appoint people, do not just let any eejoit in. You'll be stuck with bad apples and you'll never get them to do the right thing by kids.

2. Don't have open meetings asking for volunteers yo coach. Identify a head coach for each group, work with them to get their coaching courses done. Let them pull in a head or two to help.

3. Set up a coaching sub committee with these head coaches. Agree as a group a way the club will play, what ages you will train in what way. Policies around game time etc. Do this as a group. If you've the right people involved it will be smoother than you'd think.

4. Work out your gaps and with same group work out how to address. So for example in my club it was getting into all schools in our area and making sure every kid got encouraged to come to club. In yours it might be different.

5. Find out what your coaches need - courses, equipment etc and get it for them. Bring it to your executive. investment in youth should be as much as your senior team.

Those are a few thoughts of the top of my head

All good those points but also set out a basic skills matrix for each agegroup, ie what are the clubs expectations that the club would expect every kid to be able to execute reasonably comfortably and get the coaches to focus on those.
Make sure you enforce the aspect that all kids should be proficient in these skillsets and set ones that are achievable at the end of the year and not at the start, kinda gets the coaches to spend more time with the weaker kids but like everything else once you get your headcoach in place they can tend to lose the run of themselves..

All Ireland Final this weekend. Same two as last year and last year was a classic. Limerick will rightly be hot favourites, their record in finals under Kiely is exceptional.
Looking back on last years final Limerick have got Cian Lynch back to some degree but have lost Finn and Hannon which is a bad blow. The Cats have a new manager and slightly modified style. I think the Cats are fractionally better than last year but I don't think a fractional improvement will beat limerick who are still the best team in the country by some distance when they put their mind to it.

Can't argue with much of that. Only chink I could find really is that Cian Lynch still isn't firing like he can, as of yet. Think teams have realised the middle 3rd is where the battle is with Limerick and have flooded this zone with bodies which has limited his effectiveness. That being said he could still rock up on Sunday with a storming performance, he is the type for it.

Lynch just isn't motoring full pelt at all, he thrives in the close confines and when on song, sees the better option and has the ability to get the ball to them, no zip to him as yet for me, he finds that on Sunday and he'll cause problems. Cathal O'Neill is some backup all the same, he's start all day, every day in every other team in the country.

who picks up Flanaghan and Guillane? Lawlor probably on Guillane and that'll be a battle royal, but as much as Butler is a wee sticky bollox I think Flanaghan may have too much power for him, horse of a man also. I like big rangy Blanchfield but he'll be needed further out the field on any of the bastes Limerick to put in there, so it could be on hands on deck in there.

Richie Reid won't be allowed to play as a quarterback and if he does sit deep in the pocket then expect Limerick to create overlaps out the field and pop over the points.
It's a conundrum how to outplay Limerick and whilst I do think Kilkenny may be able to match them mostly for physicality in the middle part of the park I think Limericks experience will see this out UNLESS Eoin Cody can bag a few goals if he's getting a good supply of ball and I'm not so sure Limerick will make the same mistakes as Clare..

Johnny Sexton could end up missing the world cup as he now faces a 24 week ban for intimidating the referee after the european cup final.

So Johnny ends up getting a 3 game ban which rules him out of the 3 warm up games for the world cup. No real harm done as he has tonnes of experience.

He is a somewhat lucky boy, Rugby really has no time for backchat to the ref, unlike the GAA or soccer

And he wasn't even playing, giving lip to the ref well after the game was over!!!

Hopefully it is a prelude to his statement when he leaves......although from what I hear he actually wants to stay and fight for his place.

Stripping him of the captaincy was sign enough that isn't going to be a regular starter and he should take the hint.

He's not going to pick up that big salary anywhere else so he'll do a Phil Jones and ride it out to the bank, although somehow he's an England career to think about.

Needed those goal chances to count....
Better team won, but both the hurlers and footballers need growth hormones....

I just find it bizarre that these people, who work in this industry, who know all about the workings of the press, have reported and interviewed countless people who have been caught out by phone tapping and covert operations by media and feel that they will be grand!!

There is stupid and then there is Huw and Phil

Same logic that applied to Jimmy Saville, everyone knew what he was at but he was too big to fall, plus who he might bring down with him.....