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these fixtures are not confirmed yet so take care lads.

The London one is set in stone though as apparently teams have to know well in advance to plan travel.
Book the flights!🙂

Any guesses as to what a GAAGo annual pass will cost? Think it was €120 last year.

It also re emphasises the need to revamp our intermediate championship. Sending our 17th rank team to compete isn't doing us any favours in the Leinster intermediate championship.

Wouldn't disagree with that. Offaly's 9th ranked team (Bracknagh) were in the same competition. Same as Fenagh in Carlow.

Might be OK for bigger, mainly one code counties to send their 13th or 17th ranked team like Kildare, Meath, Kilkenny do, but it isn't doing us any favours.

Anyone know how things are going with the new manager etc.

News on new fella's in or lads not willing to commit for next year?

From listening to him n the podcast he was ready to get going

Through no fault of his own, he's probably playing catch up a bit. He's probably secretly hoping C/B don't have a huge run in the Leinster club! Billy probably hoping the same with Port!
Are we playing the same 5 teams in the league? i.e. Waterford, Antrim, Dublin, Tipp and Kilkenny?

Really expected The Heath to go well in Leinster. Just goes to show the value of a home draw in those games. Hopefully there isn't a repeat for Port tomorrow.

We have to get 7 or 8 of that Port team in with Laois this winter or we're wasting our time.
We simply can't afford to be without the likes of Piggott, Byrne and Colm Murphy and we should also be asking in 3 or 4 more of them on top of O'Sullivan and Mohan who were there this year.

I just think Port are a bit ahead of O'Dempseys as a team. Wouldn't rule out O'Dempseys winning it but think it might take them another year or two.

CB away to Dublin champions in 1st round of Leinster. Very difficult to see them having a similar run to last season and they won't be underestimated this time around. Wish them the best of luck though.

I fancy Abbeyleix to have a real run at the Leinster intermediate though. They've a good draw and have a pathway through to the final as I think they avoid KK/Dublin/Wexford side. Hopefully they give a good account of themselves at Senior next year as well.

Just looked at the fixtures there, looks like CB will have the harder run in Leinster again like last year. Dublin champs, Wexford champs and you assume BHS would be awaiting them in the final if they were to get through those ties. It would be very hard to take all those scalps again this year.

Very tough draw for CB alright. But they are becoming a very experienced outfit and I think they'll give the Dublin champs plenty of it.
Just hard to see Leinster not being won by Kilkenny champions.

It's not the point.
There was sufficient time to get the right man.
Nobody is suggesting rushing for the sake of it/giving the job to anybody at all who wants it.

But

You'd hope that the selection committee and CB are at least privately acknowledging that the process ran on too long.
Identifying why.
Intending that this won't happen the next time etc.

Anybody involved who cannot acknowledge that the length of time it took (& the public manner in which Maher was offered the job) made the process look very amateurish/desperate shouldn't be involved again.

It was the same when the current football management was put in place. Missed most of the senior championship.
I know it seems like Maher is a good appointment and hopefully he does a brilliant job but it really could have happened a bit sooner surely.

I'm convinced that The Heath would beat that Courtwood team there today . It dosent bode well for the standard of football in the county when you have a team that poor getting to a senior semi final . In no other county in Ireland would that Courtwood team of got to a senior semi final bar maybe in some of the poorer division 4 counties .

Look, you're probably not a million miles out. If we draw The Heath next year, we'll have it all to do to beat them. I'm still convinced there's not that much between 13 or 14 of the senior teams.
The Heath went down last year after losing to Emo by a last minute goal and Emo went to the semi-final. Teams sometimes get a bit of impetus like that.
I'm also convinced that we're a good bit better than how we played on Sunday but maybe some of that is down to how well O'D's played. All I know is we were desperately disappointed afterwards and even though another poster said we'd be happy with our year on reflection, it still feels like a chance missed and to partly agree with your original point, we might get it damn hard to get back to another semi-final.

https://www.leinsterexpress.ie/news/local-news/904578/anything-other-than-the-delaney-cup-is-a-failure-the-big-interview-with-graiguecullen-manager-kevin-doogue.html

Don't know Kevin personally but he sure could do with a few basic tips on management after doing an interview like that this week.

I wouldn't know him either but I think picking one little throwaway phrase in a long interview and using it as the headline didn't reflect the interview as a whole.

A lot of this "pin it on the dressing room wall" stuff is a bit overrated but teams are always looking some edge to hang on to. I know Courtwood didn't like being written off by virtually everyone but it's easy be wise after the event. Our form had been pretty poor up until yesterday to be fair.

Brian "Beano" McDonald. 3 Leinster minor medals 1996 to 1998. 3 All-Ireland finals 1996 to 1998, winning the first 2 out of the 3.

I only saw our own game over the weekend but from talking to people it appears there were a lot of disappointing games.
I'd have no fear for Park-Ratheniska going straight back down. I think they have enough about them to find a win or maybe more. That first senior game is under their belts now and they'll be the better for that.
We weren't too bad but we've a very small squad this year. We badly need to avoid injuries and/or suspensions. I'd imagine Portlaoise will be anxious to prove last year was a once off to us!🙂

Wouldn't sit down and watch every Ireland game but when I do, it's inevitably a very hard watch. Very unattractive style.
Looks to me like the players just aren't there. The manager mightn't be great but he's picking lads from Premier League benches, Championship and League One (I think).

I'm a divil for the crisps and that's my biggest struggle weight wise. The worst thing that was every created was a 'share bag'. Like who the f**k ever shares a 'share' bag?!?

I'm a fellow crisp addict. McCoy's Cheese and Onion are my absolute favourites but I'll literally eat any type of crisp or corn snack.