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Time for the real sthuff now.

We will catch Kerry on the hop here, Mayo by 4.

Illegals out he says.

The most likely draw tomorrow to bring in the cash for the GAA so a preemptive thread here.

I was hoping for Derry (no offence to their supporters).

We don't have much of a chance v Kerry. Ah well.

New topic here for us civilized Mayo and Kerry supporters. The other thread has turned into a quagmire of bullshite.

I think this match is more 50/50 than the bookies have it made out to be. Mayo have no problems in a shoot out type of match and I expect this to be one of them. Too close to call IMO.

What's the story with this hi?

Only 3 wins away from Sam for both teams.

If I remember correctly the last league game we played in Castlebar broke into something like a mini war.

Just read this. Sad one. .

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/sport/columnists/kieran-oconnor-is-a-man-youd-pick-to-go-to-war-with-you-909812.html

https://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/eamonn-fitzmaurice-reveals-the-chilling-letter-a-kerry-player-received-that-crossed-the-line-37195344.html

The question I have is why do these supporters bother? On the one hand though you have Kerry media going daft and driving this, they too, need to look at themselves. 

Mayo's best friend Bernard Flynn reckons our manager is getting away with murder, yet again Bernard makes a poor judgement call.

Maybe in Mayo the reason our managers "get away with murder" is the fans aren't led on as much by the ex-players who themselves aren't really in position to be overly critical.

Kerry were perhaps expecting too much from their team this year and their fans led by their ex-player media team maybe need to put a lid on things going forward.

What's the crack with this? Redknapp and Vialla managing club teams or something?

Arra shur why not.

I'm bored ta f**k looking at league shit on here. We need to get serious and look at talkin bout the tar melters?

Last post til June!

Runs.

Ok, it's the wrong section but he is a football man originally.

Hopefully the Dubs can lord it at hurling now for a decade and this might distract a bit from their ladies footballers etc

Time to get these pests to pay road tax like the rest of us.

Made history today and will again the next day.

Changed the modern game and Dublin football.

... they are shitting themselves over this final?

Can they really get beat next week by a bunch of washed up bogmen?

At this stage there is no getting away from the fact that cash is king and the Kings of cash are the duds.

Something has to change.

If the Leinster final today was in portlaoise then we have a positive start.

It's also completely unbalanced when the Ross, Mayo, Galway, Donegal and all the rest of the country's finest players have to get up for work in the morning while the well looked after dubs players will be out playing golf on Oliver Barry's course for the day.

Capitalism rules in the capital team. It's wrong and it's what's scewing and ruining our national sport.

Time to open a new thread for the replay as the other one has turned into nonsense.

Lookit, for the great Dublin lads on here we know how ye feel after that game. The same happened to us last year and the feeling is shit and some of our own supporters after both games last year got a wee bit OTT.

The last game is done and dusted and with a better ref the next day I fancy a better match where both teams can show their potential.

Obviously I now think we have the upper hand but the Dubs will not be as bad again. Too close to call.

Any thoughts?

A Westmeath-based referee has said he will no longer take charge of ladies football games in the county because of verbal abuse he received during a recent match.

Shane Farrell, a 45-year-old garda originally from Dublin but now living in Westmeath where he is attached to the Ballynacargy club, has alleged he was called a "retard" after sending a player to the sin-bin during the match.
Farrell, a former inter-county referee who took charge of a Dublin final in the past, subsequently issued the player with a red card, an action he claimed led to a "volley of abuse" from other players.
He said he was "shocked beyond belief" and couldn't wait for the game to end.
The player he sent off is a member of the Westmeath ladies football squad.
She was subsquently suspended for one-month by the county's disciplinary committee.
However, on appeal to the Westmeath Ladies County Board on Monday night of last week, she had the suspension reduced to two weeks.
The reduction made her available for the county's Leinster round-robin match against Laois in Mullingar last Sunday which they won ahead of their male counterparts' Leinster SFC quarter-final win over Wexford.
Westmeath ladies County Board chairperson Geraldine Giles has emphatically stressed that the reduction had nothing to do with the upcoming game against Laois.
In a letter which Farrell sent to the Ladies Gaelic Football Association in Croke Park seeking answers about the suspension, he raised the issue of that fixture.
Giles says the reduction had "absolutely nothing to do with it".
"The girl came in and made her appeal. Under no circumstances was that the case," she said. "Yes, she is a county player. Had the one-month suspension been upheld her club and county would have accepted that."
Giles said the player was entitled to appeal under rule 296 of the Official Guide which gives a committee, in this case Westmeath County Board, the power to review or impose suspensions as they deem necessary.
At the most recent Ladies Congress, rule 273, which governs the abuse of match officials, the minimum suspension was lifted from two weeks to four weeks on the back of a Dublin motion which was carried by 80-9.
Farrell was initially under the impression that the ban had been overturned and sent a letter to Croke Park on that basis querying why this was the case.
He has since been informed by Westmeath Ladies County Board that it was a reduction on appeal but he is adamant about the nature of the abuse and feels let down by the turn of events.
"My report is a matter of fact, not conjecture, or something I believed I heard or saw. My profession requires me to be very sharp.
"If I sent a player off for striking and was proven to be wrong I can accept that, if prima facie evidence is available," he said in the letter.
He also said he felt like "a pariah" in the county because of it.
Farrell is keen to "draw a line" under the matter now and move on but wanted to highlight the issue of verbal abuse of match officials.


http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/ladies-football/westmeath-ref-opts-out-of-ladies-fixtures-over-shocking-verbal-abuse-31308342.html

This is not correctly monitored by the refs.

Yesterday we had:

Sice for Galway, 7 steps, bounce 7 steps, goal.

Jamie Clarke, Armagh, lost count of the steps, hits post.

The rule gets broken at least once a weekend, particularly if the Dubs are playing. It's unfair on opposing defences. The 'pundits' don't even bother to highlight it anymore.

Prior to the black card we had just a few teams playing the blanket defence.

It could also be argued that the Tyrone and Donegal styles prior to the black card were not the out and out extreme blankets that we are seeing lately.

It strikes me that the black card rule change has unintentionally added to, or even fully caused the blanket defence tactic to go nationwide and this tactic is used at almost every level in our game.

To test this logic we have to go back to before the black card was introduced. It is clear that defenders had much greater scope in the tackle. They could tackle without the fear or burden of the black card. There is no doubt that as a last resort they could also deliberately and cynically drag down an opponent and concede a 1 point free. A 1 point concession and a telling off from his manager was probably enough punishment to fit the crime rather than the rest of the day in the dugout.

This form of 'last resort' defending is no longer possible and therefore the attacker, safe in the knowledge that the rules are weighed more in his favour, will take on his opponent and, if good enough, get a free run on goals that will result in a 1 v 1 with the goalie or an overlap with his colleague. This form of attack was made easier over the last 10 years as attackers also became aware that the overcarrying rule was rarely enforced and the speedy forwards nearly always got away with 2 to 3 extra steps.

Therefore the balance in the rules in favour of the attacker completely outweighs the rules for the defender.

The only way to stop something in a game where the rules are so imbalanced is to over defend. Thus a secondary form of defence must be in place and a team that risks not doing this will only get caught by the rules, which favour the faster and more skillful attacking teams.

IMO the unintended consequence of the black card rule change is a greater use of the blanket defence tactic. Ironically a rule that was supposed to improve our game is quickly leading to its destruction.

It will be difficult to fix this problem but I'm sure the GAA will get another visionary to come up with a report to solve the problem.

With both teams now safely back in Div 1 and still in their 'championship training schedules' this game will be won by the team that treats it as less of a hindrance. The only thing that will concern both managers is avoiding injuries. Won't be any heavy tackles going in from either side and expect a high scoring game with plenty of goals.