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Is there any reason with games being played next week why the GAA can't confirm the dates and times of next weekends fixtures so that supporters can sort travel/accomodation if required.  I understand last round of games are neutral and undecided but why could they not announce the venues/times for the first two rounds at one time. 

The thing is that this surely has to impact ticket sales.

The group draw was made on April 30th. On that date it was known that Derry would be playing at home against the loser of the Ulster final on the weekend of the June 1st/2nd.

On the 12th of May, Armagh were confirmed as being the opposition for Derry in this game.

10 days have passed by since then and there is still no confirmation of the date, location, or time.

It's a similar situation for all the final round games.

That's 10 additional days of ticket sales. Whatever way you want to slice it I doubt that having the tickets on sale for a longer period of time would lead to less overall sales and there has to be a very serious chance that it leads to increased ticket sales.

The season ticket holders and the other types of GAA regulars are pretty much guaranteed to turn up no matter where and when the game is on but even if you sold no additional tickets, it would surely be a benefit to a significant percentage of these thousands of people to know the date/time and location two weeks earlier.

I jsut can't understand why the GAA aren't better on this issue.

Last week Derry were 6/1 for Sam and Galway were 12/1
Today Derry are 12/1 and Galway are 9/1

Galway have put themselves in a great position to win the group now and that would likely have a massive impact on their chances of winning Sam.

Derry by contrast are very unlikely to top the group, so if they do get out of the group they will end up going the much much harder (close to impossible) preliminary quarter-final route.

Was talking to someone who was at the Clare v Cork game. Standard was poor enough from his account.
He said if both Tyrone and Donegal don't manage to beat both of them comfortably they might as well not bothering turning up for the knockout stages.
He didn't give Cork much of a chance in the knockout stages (assuming they pick up the 3rd place spot in the knockouts.

Heaton-Harris not running for re-election and a general election around the corner.

Can't shake the feeling the current plan is to leave it in the in-tray for Labour to deal with.

The election being called on 4th of July looks like it's going to complicate things even further.
I feared the Rishi and the Tories would try to drag out having an election for as long as possible (the latest the election could be held is something like the middle of next January) while refusing to actual commit the money for the stadium, which would have surely meant going back to the drawing board with a much smaller capacity stadium.

Hopefully this will mean that Labour will be in charge with enough time to make a decision on how much they are going to contribute and that they uphold the previous government's commitment to underwrite the cost. Unless London stump up the vast majority of the overall cost, I just can't see any possibility the current proposal gets built.

Heaton-Harris not running for re-election and a general election around the corner.

Can't shake the feeling the current plan is to leave it in the in-tray for Labour to deal with.

Doubts cast over Casement Park being ready for Euro 2028
GAA president Jarlath Burns has called on Chris Heaton-Harris to "make good" on his assurances last year that the money would be found for the stadium.


MON, 20 MAY, 2024 - 21:08
JOHN FOGARTY

Delays in the British government's commitment to the rebuild of Casement Park have cast doubt over the stadium being ready to host Euro 2028 games.

At Saturday's GAA Central Council meeting, director general Tom Ryan relayed to delegates that there was no update from London about how much they are prepared to contribute to the reconstruction.

In the context of the imminent deadlines that have to be met for the Belfast stadium to be a venue for the competition, there is growing concern in the GAA that the British government will not deliver on assurances given last year.

The stadium's listing as a Euro 2028 venue is considered integral to the additional funding that had been assured by the UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Chris Heaton-Harris.

GAA president Jarlath Burns has called on Heaton-Harris to "make good" on his assurances last year that the money would be found for the stadium. However, the minister has baulked at the possibility the final bill for the reconstruction could exceed £308 million (€360.35m).

That figure has been disputed on the GAA side but as the Irish Examiner reported last month, the cost could be amplified by the discovery of waste materials on the Andersonstown Road grounds.

The Stormont Executive's original contribution in 2011 was £62.5m (€73.12m), while the Government in February announced a commitment of €50m (£42.74m). The GAA has refused to increase its original £15m (€17.55m). Another £13m (€15.21m) was recently committed to Casement Park from Stormont as an "executive flagship project".

Earlier this month, First Minister Michelle O'Neill insisted the stadium would be built in time for the Euros in June 2028.

"Hosting the 2028 European Championship in a world-class Casement Park presents our island and economy with an unprecedented opportunity, and it's going to be an enormous opportunity, and it's going to be a fantastic investment, and we are going to build Casement Park."

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-41399506.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Clean sweep for kerry in Munster football this year.

Bit of bizarre format they have at Minor level in Munster.  An off night for Cork seeing that they only lost by 2 points against Kerry in the Quarter final a few weeks ago?

Yeah Cork just a nightmare all over tonight. Every bounce of the ball seemed to go for Kerry tonight. Results like this can happen with kids. Kerry didn't look like that great - seemed solid throughout without being all that impressive in spite of the scoreline. Cork really struggled with their kickouts - Kerry won a serious chunk of ball and were just camped in the Cork half for long periods.

How does "Scoring chances converted" relate to the next two rows? In Galway's case there is a only a difference of one in the sum of the frees and scores from play, but in Mayo's case there is a difference of 9?

Forget it jake, it's chinatownRTE

Could easily see Sligo having a right go at this.

Ok so why are Dublins hurlers not doing what Limerick are doing with their money and less numbers that Dublin?

Because they were coming from a far lower base to start with.

If you look at where Dublin hurling was historically compared to where it is now, there is literally no comparison.

Galway hanging on by their finger-tips - will be delighted to be only down by 2 points at the half.
Mayo doing their trick of managing to make a game much closer than it should be.
Neither side making much of a case to be considered serious All-Ireland challengers based on that performance.

Make Dublin a Province with 4 County Boards and 4 County teams.

I mean that's what the Dublin county board wanted a few years back - to treat Dublin as a separate province.

The GAA just messed it up by giving them more money than any of the other provinces.

I take it both go forward into AI QFs anyway - what is the QF draw?

No Derry are out now.

No quarterfinals at U20 level - straight to the semis.

Awful run of penalties there from Derry, All poor.

My first thought was to wonder how much practice they've done recently.
Surprising to see such a number of poor penalty attempts at intercounty level.

The last rr - pre qf- qf
 is the killer

I wonder how many first seeds will win their qf . Will it be 3/4 like last year ?

You would have to assume 4/4 would be the standard every year for the group winners making it the the semis.
This would have been the case last year only for Monaghan's penalty win over Armagh.

I wouldn't be surprised if 3/4 would be the usual most years for the first seeds in as regards making the semis. I think most years you've a very decent chance of one of the Ulster teams turning over one of the other provincial winners.

As you said the the preliminary quarter-finals route with 3 games in 3 weekends looks like an absolute death-trap of a route towards Sam. It's very hard to see a team winning Sam through that route.

Yes would expect that to be the case until such time that all Quarter finalists are given at least two weeks prep time.  If we get another 3 Quarter final mis-matches this year as we did last year then HQ need to tweak it.

I don't think there is any chance that all the quarter-finalists are going to be given two weeks prep time for a fair while yet (think 10 years or so).

If you give the four preliminary quarter-finalists two weeks, you would need to give the group winners three weeks (assuming you did't stagger the groups) which would tilt the advantage of winning the group a fair bit away from the group winners. I don't think the powers that be want to reduce the benefit of winning the group/increase the odds for the teams coming 2nd and 3rd in the group.

Even if you were to play around with the timing and stagger the group stages to give all four quarter-finalist two weeks, it would lead to a situation whereby you gave some sides three weeks and some two at a later stage which I think the powers-that be would consider a worse option.

Long story short I think the GAA is going to keep the status quo in place for a good few years yet and that winning your group is going to be key if you want to win Sam.

The last rr - pre qf- qf
 is the killer

I wonder how many first seeds will win their qf . Will it be 3/4 like last year ?

You would have to assume 4/4 would be the standard every year for the group winners making it the the semis.
This would have been the case last year only for Monaghan's penalty win over Armagh.

I wouldn't be surprised if 3/4 would be the usual most years for the first seeds in as regards making the semis. I think most years you've a very decent chance of one of the Ulster teams turning over one of the other provincial winners.

As you said the the preliminary quarter-finals route with 3 games in 3 weekends looks like an absolute death-trap of a route towards Sam. It's very hard to see a team winning Sam through that route.