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Back with a great bet, Longford to get over 19.5 today v Carlow at 11/10. Will happen for sure. New manager Carew in and he got all out attacking style, in complete contrast to the Turlough O'Brien & Steven Poacher era where we just sat back and relied on Broderick Frees to win a low scoring game.

While the fixtures list will be out soon it has emerged that there will be no Colleges/Uni sides in the mix from 2018 onwards.

I welcome this return to the traditional format. None of your fancy dan United Nations 'students' diluting what is the greatest GAA competition of them all.

Wonder will the 'Bihatimber' competition be resurrected as well now?

Good that the colleges won't be in it. Hate the games v them, never seemed like proper matches.
I'd say that they'll stick to the groups, probably 2 groups of 4, and 1 with 3.

The Bihatimber is sadly a thing of the past now, was a glorious 7 years though!

Anyone else see the Carlow final? Thought the ref was shocking and all in one direction, clearly had it in for Rathvilly during that last 20 minutes.

Shocking referee. Why did they get referee from outside county as he was from Kilkenny? Thought he missed a couple obvious black cards for Rathvilly late in game.

I was at it, only got to watch it back in full this evening having recorded tg4 coverage. As I thought on Sunday he was ok for most of the game, and certainly wasn't all for 1 side. He could/should have given a black card to a player from each side in 2nd half but didn't. He did stop quick free kicks too often though. Seen a lot worse refs that him tho!

As for the game, it was 2 teams terrified to lose instead of going for the win. Even after a 1st min goal the 1st half still was cagey, very good defensive stuff by both sides. Couple of nice points but not much else.
2nd half was a lot better, some great long range points, couple of quality saves and very exciting. Rathvilly 2 points up going into injury time should have killed it. But fair play to Eire Og, and what a point to level it by Mullins.
Replay will bet tight again, still impossible to call a winner.

The Caroiw manager comes across as some chancer in fairness. I thought Carew was a bluff machine but he's taken the biscuit this year.

In what way? I'd try to explain all that he has done to improve Carlow, but trying to get yourself to try and talk sense is probably hard to do when you can't even spell Carlow at this stage.

Sadly that just won't happen. It'll end up like the hurling Christy Ring...1st year out it was live on before an AI semi final...then it fell away and ended up 1 year played on a saturday night in tullamore, with 3 mins highlights on Sunday game.
Different levels are needed in hurling, as the gaps in standard all along the way are massive. So that is necessary but needs to be worked on.

In Football it's not the same at all, there's the top 3/4 after that then maybe another few that might compete with them on a good day. But we have proven that even one of the worst teams in Div 4 can be level with Monaghan with 5 mins to go, and we held Dublin to 4 points with 20 mins to go, until we lost our best player to a red card. This year we have proved that any team with a decent structure and intelligent gameplan plus obviously a good committed group of players can compete with even the best.
They are already planning to give it a go again next year, hoping to avoid Dublin in the draw and looking at potential Leinster final.

A B championship in any name will always be a lesser tournament and players won't commit, fans won't go. Nobody will care, no matter what it's called. I'd rather have an occasion like we had on Saturday ahead of winning any made up stupid Kevin Heffernan Cup by beating Leitrim or someone in the final in front of about 100 people.

No way, nothing can beat the feeling of still being part of the main championship deep into July. Last Saturday night even for me was unforgettable, never mind all the young kids who filled Dr Cullen Park at half time in their Carlow & Monaghan jerseys to play their games.
We got a home game, live on tv against a Div 1 side. All week in Carlow there was flags everywhere, out of cars, it was all that people were talking about. Thousands came to support Carlow, instead of the usual 150 of us!

We gave it a good go, and even led with 10 mins left, but sadly the energy and their stronger bench won the day. But by jesus we had them very worried. It was even after the game on the pitch with the players that said it all, they were in bits, felt they had it there for the taking. One of the guys who missed a great goal chance was hardly able to talk.
Most of the players were signing autographs, getting selfies...the teenagers and kids look up to them as heroes now. All those youngsters want to be Brendan Murphy, Sean Gannon, Paul Broderick, Sean Murphy etc.....
It's great  for the future of Carlow football. The Cul camps are sold out for 1st time ever.

If we were stuck in some B championship nobody would care less. A B championship would kill off a county like us.

Always the same with Laois, so many internal stupid problems every year. Drinking is a massive one, it ruined the potential of s few of their great minor teams. They famously wrecked the Leinster U-21 cup by playing a match using it as the ball back in mid 2000s after a night out.

A lot of their best players are old or retired now too. So it's a tough ask for whoever takes over.

In saying that. there is still a decent side there, if the right man takes over and they get things together. No way should they be in Div 4, they are at worst a top 4 Div 3 side.
Next manager is a massive call, and getting out of Div 4 is not as easy as anyone that falls into it thinks. Carlow, Limerick, Antrim will all fancy the 2 top places too.

Carlow captain Darragh Foley says a second tier championship does not appeal to him.

A championship for lower-ranked counties has been mooted again this year but Foley feels it would be of no benefit to the Barrowsiders, whom face Monaghan at home this weekend in round three of the All-Ireland SFC qualifiers.

"It wouldn't appeal to me. If you're playing in a 'B' championship you're seen as a lesser player," Foley told the Irish Independent.

"We'd never get a chance in a 'B' championship like we're getting on Saturday - playing a Division 1 team in a Round 3 qualifier at home before Sky TV cameras. That's where you want to be."

Fair play to him talking sense there.

I'd say he speaks for most players from so called weaker counties there. A b championship will never work in football. It was tried a few years ago and failed miserably. A couple of wins and a decent draw can lead any well trained team to still be playing championship football in mid July. To see Carlow as one of the last 14 teams left is amazing for me. A home game v Monaghan live on tv, in front of a massive Carlow crowd on Saturday evening. This beats any stupid B championship competition, where the final is played before 50 uninterested people.

Monaghan

1. Rory Beggan (Scotstown)
2. Fintan Kelly (Clones)
3. Drew Wylie (Ballybay Pearse Brothers)
4. Ryan Wylie (Ballybay Pearse Brothers)
5. Dessie Mone (Clontibret)
6. Colin Walshe (Doohamlet O'Neills)
7. Karl O'Connell (Tyholland)
8. Kieran Hughes (Scotstown)
9. Neil McAdam (Monaghan Harps)
10. Gavin Doogan (Magheracloone)
11. Dermot Malone (Castleblayney Faughs)
12. Shane Carey (Scotstown)
13. Owen Duffy (Latton)
14. Jack McCarron (Currin)
15. Conor McManus (Clontibret O'Neills)

Subs
16. Conor Forde (Scotstown)
17. Kieran Duffy (Latton O'Rahilly)
18. James Mealiff (Clones)
19. Brian Greenan (Clontibret O'Neills)
20. Vinny Corey (Clontibret O'Neills)
21. Darren Hughes (Scotstown)
22. Dessie Ward (Ballybay)
23. Ryan McAnespie (Emyvale)
24. Thomas Kerr (Ballybay Pearse Brothers)
25. Conor McCarthy (Scotstown)
26. Darren Freeman (St Brigid's, Dublin)

That's a strong team and seriously good bench too. That is what I fear most for us on Saturday. We might set up fairly defensive and keep it reasonably close for 45/50 mins. Then that bench Monaghan have will come on and run riot in last 20 mins. It will end up being a bad loss, something like 2-19 to 0-7 after being 0-9 to 0-5 at ht.

Leinster Quarter finals on tomorrow.

Kildare(---)v(---)Wexford
Newbridge 7:00 PM

Dublin(---)v(---)Westmeath
Abbottstown - GAA Centre of Excellence 7:00 PM

Meath(---)v(---)Carlow
Páirc Tailteann 7:00 PM

Laois(---)v(---)Longford
Portlaoise 7:00 PM

If only RTE or whoever had our brains. Obviously the games are filmed in full, all be it by what looks like a JVC video camera from 1992 for some of the qualifier highlights. But yes, now that Sunday game will not give proper highlights and the Monday game is never coming back. The feeds of all games that they must get should be available on RTE player at worst. If some poor Leitrim/Wexford man wants to relive how/why his team lost on Saturday then it should be available online to watch full game back

The 'analysis' of Meath v Donegal was pathetic tbh.

A joke, I was looking forward to seeing a good 10 mins of that game at least. As they didn't bother to show it live was expecting decent highlights. Instead we got about 3 mins. The 2b qualifiers got about 2 mins each with a reporter who had no idea what was going on doing the voiceover. Carlow scored 2-14 we got to see the end of the 2 goals, none of the points were shown. Same for Monaghan, 3 goals shown, none of their 24 points shown etc...

Carlow have literally brought a lot of colour to the Championship this year and have made the last sixteen for the first time ever.
Sure they beat London and Leitrim to get there but they also hammered Wexford and gave Dublin a fright  - made a better fist of it than Westmeath.
Monaghan should easily account for them in Dr Cullen Park on Saturday.
Good draw for Monaghan in getting Wexford and then Carlow.

For us to be in the last 14 is amazing, Monaghan was the nightmare draw really. Against Armagh, we would have fancied our chances. Even Tipp, might have been 20/80!

We beat Wexford, London & Leitrim to get this far....did annoy Dublin for 48 mins. Up to that stage when Brendan Murphy got sent off, it was Dublin 0-9 -Carlow 0-6. If Diarmuid Connolly had been sent off just before that as he should at the time for push on linesman who knows how close it might have ended up. We saw what they did to Westmeath after. We did very well in comparison!
It's been a great run for us, 5 championship games/3 wins for the 1st time in 73 years, should be a great occasion on Sat evening. Even last Saturday after beating Leitrim, there was a big Carlow support there and loads of kids after the game asking the Carlow players for selfies & to sign shirts, programs etc. Seeing them on Sky and then winning games in front of them, makes them celebs to the kids. Hopefully we can put on a respectable display on Sat night, would be horrible for this run to end with a hammering.

For Westmeath Denis Glennon (33) is the oldest with the footballers and had only missed 1 year since 2003. With the hurlers Brendan Murtagh is still going at 35. I reckon he probably made his senior debut as a minor, which would have been 2000. Can't be sure though.

It's funny though, I've noticed most of the senior club teams in the county have got older in the past few years. Which goes against the trend at county. May be an outlier though.

Brendan packed it all in today at 35 I think. Amazing player, as is always said about players like him, he would have started on any half forward line over last 15 years. He broke my heart many times scoring last minute frees and goals to draw/win games v Carlow.
Not enough people got to see him play, if he had been born a few miles either direction he'd have been an all star for sure.
Its always the same for Carlow, Westmeath etc...but what a player and hopefully Westmeath hurling will have the brains to keep that guy involved.

I was at the Clare game there on Saturday as a neutral. Was shocked at how uninterested Laois looked especially after the sending off. It was odd, so many of the backs just shadowed their man instead of putting in a hit or a block or something.
Can't remember 1 good shoulder or even a hit on a man that might get a yellow but will get the team going.

The whole thing was so passive, it was like once they lost JOL, they just totally gave up, not that they were doing much up to then.
Have to feel sorry for Donie Kingston and McMahon in the backs too. Bit of quality and interest about those 2.
I see some people here defending the manager and saying you can't do better. He has to go, you can tell by body language of the team, they couldn't give a shit about him.

I see today he is looking for another year! If he gets it, Laois will remain in Div 4 and then he will be sacked. You need an internal manager, and somebody who will get the Portlaoise element back on board.

I see a lot of posts here are saying it'll be a year in div 4 to rebuild and we'll get out. A lot of teams come down from Div 3 and think they'll get straight back up. Ask Wexford, Limerick, all who have spent 2 or 3 years now in Div 4. The top 4/5 in Div 4 are equal to a lot of Div 3.

Laois
Antrim
Carlow
Limerick
Leitrim

Waterford
London
Wicklow