Joe Brolly

[DuffleKing]

Brolly is an excellent writer. His use of language is eloquent and very readable. His analysis is embarrassingly inept given a man of his connections and playing experience.

Almost without exception his articles are conjecture with little or no research behind them so he manufactures material to fill the gaps.

His articles always have one of two agendas - either to create controversy and attract attention or to attack someone / something / teams based on some personal position.

Entertaining and articulate, yes. Informative or insightful? Never ever.

PS Armagh lads using this as a basis for a discussion around the senior team development should be removed from our genepool.

[Dinny Breen]

I can't speak for Armagh but from a Kildare viewpoint I would say McGeeney did very well for about four out of the six years he was here. Things went downhill in 2012 when the team started to break apart which 'coincidentally' was around the same time that the Johnston saga started.

He took over a team that had barely won a game between 2004 and 2007. We were totally reliant on Johnny Doyle because Dermot Earley was perennially injured. He probably did take over at an opportune time because there were some good players breaking through back then from a few good u21 teams - the 2004 team won Leinster, 2005 lost the Leinster Final to Dublin after a replay, 2006 beat Dublin in the Leinster Championship and the 2008 team reached the All Ireland losing to Kerry in the final. He moulded that group of players into a competitive outfit between 2008 and 2011 and looking back he probably did get the best out of them.

Kildare hadn't reached a 1/4 Final before 2008 and they had only won three qualifiers since they were introduced in 2001 - (Donegal in 2001, Cavan in 2006, Roscommon in 2007). Between 2008 and 2013, Kildare reached the 1/4 Finals in all but the final year and they only lost one qualifier in those six years. People will say they didn't beat a big team or win a Leinster Championship which is correct but I would be hard pushed to pick out any match against a big team during that period which Kildare should have won. Generally they played well but just weren't good enough.

Joe Brolly says that "Kildare created the opportunity to win big games and then blew it," highlighting the Down 1/2 Final in 2010 and the Donegal 1/4 Final in 2011. Looking back at the Down game, Kildare were well behind for most of it after Benny Coulter's goal. They clawed their way back into it and almost snatched it at the death - they were never really in a position to win that game. The Donegal game was different but Joe is incorrect to say they were four points up in extra time. Unfortunately we never managed to get that fourth point which would have probably put us out of sight despite having a few opportunities. Each wide we kicked seemed to sap the energy out of them and give Donegal hope. It probably doesn't suit Joe's argument to mention that Donegal went three up with ten minutes to go in normal time after Christy Toye goaled and that Kildare scrapped out a draw kicking the last three points. Had Tomas O'Connor's goal early in the second half stood Kildare would have probably won comfortably. They had played for four consecutive weeks in the qualifiers and were shagged by the second period of extra time. The only other game during that period which Kildare lost narrowly was also in 2011 against Dublin. Again Kildare were never really in a position to win it and only found themselves close by sticking at it despite being outplayed for a lot of the game.

I was never as big a fan of McGeeney as some people within Kildare but it's hard to crab what he achieved with the team between 2008 and 2011. The Johnston circus was a serious error of judgement which turned a lot of GAA people in the county against him. 2012 and 2013 were turbulent but even after he was ousted in 2013 the players were still 100% behind him. Throughout his reign there were very few lads who opted out. Contrast that to 2014 and 2015 under Jason Ryan when there were players dropping like flies left right and centre. His team was fiercely committed and rarely failed to leave it all out there on the field.  He had his tactical limitations but I do know that the Kildare lads rated him very highly as a motivator and a man manager. Joe's article is wide of the mark in that respect. If he didn't believe in those players, he did a great job of conning them into thinking that he had belief in them.

Should have beaten Dublin in the 2009 Leinster Final. We scored 18 points all from play, Pat McEneaney was referee was so needless to say we couldn't buy a free, brutal starts in both halves as well didn't help. Dublin and their goals though, that's what Kildare teams fail to do, stop Dublin scoring goals..

I was a fan of McGeeney, turned Kildare into a proper championship team, got the most out those players, senior team costs were a factor in Kildare's financial woes buy only one among a host of issues. Suits people to spin that McGeeney was the cause.

Listened to Brolly's interview, he's just a bullshitter. He claimed journalists were afraid of McGeeney, Hogan pulls him up on it and he backs off giving some yarn about Paddy Heaney wanting to go toe to toe with McGeeney. Joe Brolly in a nutshell, a story teller no more no less.

[ck]

I'm sure everybody knows at this stage that the vast majority of Joe's columns can be taken with a pinch of salt.  However if you look hard enough, remove the anecdotes and condensed his article into one or two paragraphs, most of the time he does have a valid point. He prefers the dramatics in his delivery, but for me hits the nail on the head more often than not.

Would agree with that. Joes objective is always to entertain first and to give insight second. He usually achieves both.
Amidst all the silliness he regularly raises some brilliant points and articulately dissects them with ease. Regardless of what you think of him, I don't know anyone who doesn't enjoy watching/listening to him.

[Over the Bar]

Joe says a lot of that there can be no arguement.  Occasionally he makes valid points but the vast majority of what he says could be shovelled up and put around the rhubarb. 

[BennyHarp]

I'm sure everybody knows at this stage that the vast majority of Joe's columns can be taken with a pinch of salt.  However if you look hard enough, remove the anecdotes and condensed his article into one or two paragraphs, most of the time he does have a valid point. He prefers the dramatics in his delivery, but for me hits the nail on the head more often than not.

Would agree with that. Joes objective is always to entertain first and to give insight second. He usually achieves both.
Amidst all the silliness he regularly raises some brilliant points and articulately dissects them with ease. Regardless of what you think of him, I don't know anyone who doesn't enjoy watching/listening to him.

What would be his brilliant point in the McGeeney article?

[Beffs]

I just wish he'd stick to the analysis and opinion of the games that I am watching, the players, the managers, even the state of the GAA itself. If he has a strong opinion one way or another, that is fine.  I don't care if I don't agree with him. I'm getting increasingly tired of column after column, where its anecdote after anecdote. None of which I believe for a second. Is it just me, or is he doing more and more of that kind of thing and not writing about the games themselves? It's like he is a poor mans Billy Keane at this stage & that's really saying something. 

[Donnellys Hollow]

I can't speak for Armagh but from a Kildare viewpoint I would say McGeeney did very well for about four out of the six years he was here. Things went downhill in 2012 when the team started to break apart which 'coincidentally' was around the same time that the Johnston saga started.

He took over a team that had barely won a game between 2004 and 2007. We were totally reliant on Johnny Doyle because Dermot Earley was perennially injured. He probably did take over at an opportune time because there were some good players breaking through back then from a few good u21 teams - the 2004 team won Leinster, 2005 lost the Leinster Final to Dublin after a replay, 2006 beat Dublin in the Leinster Championship and the 2008 team reached the All Ireland losing to Kerry in the final. He moulded that group of players into a competitive outfit between 2008 and 2011 and looking back he probably did get the best out of them.

Kildare hadn't reached a 1/4 Final before 2008 and they had only won three qualifiers since they were introduced in 2001 - (Donegal in 2001, Cavan in 2006, Roscommon in 2007). Between 2008 and 2013, Kildare reached the 1/4 Finals in all but the final year and they only lost one qualifier in those six years. People will say they didn't beat a big team or win a Leinster Championship which is correct but I would be hard pushed to pick out any match against a big team during that period which Kildare should have won. Generally they played well but just weren't good enough.

Joe Brolly says that "Kildare created the opportunity to win big games and then blew it," highlighting the Down 1/2 Final in 2010 and the Donegal 1/4 Final in 2011. Looking back at the Down game, Kildare were well behind for most of it after Benny Coulter's goal. They clawed their way back into it and almost snatched it at the death - they were never really in a position to win that game. The Donegal game was different but Joe is incorrect to say they were four points up in extra time. Unfortunately we never managed to get that fourth point which would have probably put us out of sight despite having a few opportunities. Each wide we kicked seemed to sap the energy out of them and give Donegal hope. It probably doesn't suit Joe's argument to mention that Donegal went three up with ten minutes to go in normal time after Christy Toye goaled and that Kildare scrapped out a draw kicking the last three points. Had Tomas O'Connor's goal early in the second half stood Kildare would have probably won comfortably. They had played for four consecutive weeks in the qualifiers and were shagged by the second period of extra time. The only other game during that period which Kildare lost narrowly was also in 2011 against Dublin. Again Kildare were never really in a position to win it and only found themselves close by sticking at it despite being outplayed for a lot of the game.

I was never as big a fan of McGeeney as some people within Kildare but it's hard to crab what he achieved with the team between 2008 and 2011. The Johnston circus was a serious error of judgement which turned a lot of GAA people in the county against him. 2012 and 2013 were turbulent but even after he was ousted in 2013 the players were still 100% behind him. Throughout his reign there were very few lads who opted out. Contrast that to 2014 and 2015 under Jason Ryan when there were players dropping like flies left right and centre. His team was fiercely committed and rarely failed to leave it all out there on the field.  He had his tactical limitations but I do know that the Kildare lads rated him very highly as a motivator and a man manager. Joe's article is wide of the mark in that respect. If he didn't believe in those players, he did a great job of conning them into thinking that he had belief in them.

Should have beaten Dublin in the 2009 Leinster Final. We scored 18 points all from play, Pat McEneaney was referee was so needless to say we couldn't buy a free, brutal starts in both halves as well didn't help. Dublin and their goals though, that's what Kildare teams fail to do, stop Dublin scoring goals..

I was a fan of McGeeney, turned Kildare into a proper championship team, got the most out those players, senior team costs were a factor in Kildare's financial woes buy only one among a host of issues. Suits people to spin that McGeeney was the cause.

Listened to Brolly's interview, he's just a bullshitter. He claimed journalists were afraid of McGeeney, Hogan pulls him up on it and he backs off giving some yarn about Paddy Heaney wanting to go toe to toe with McGeeney. Joe Brolly in a nutshell, a story teller no more no less.

I don't know about that to be honest. We played some great stuff for about twenty minutes of the first half that day after a nightmare start but we had leveled it up by the time Ger Brennan was shown the line and we struggled in the second half from my memory of it. Corley insisted on driving kickouts down the middle despite Mikey Conway being free as the spare man and we lost Johnny for a good spell after he shipped a dirty belt and his head was probably still spinning when he came back on. The difference between the two teams that day was Brogan who was cuter at winning frees than our lads and more composed in front of the posts. Tyrone in the 2009 1/4 Final was a similar story now that I remember it.

Totally agree about being a proper championship team for the most part under McGeeney. For all that team's shortcomings they were relentless and hard to beat up until 2012. Most counties supporters outside of the likes of Kerry, Dublin and Tyrone would settle for that at the current point in time.

[ThroughTheLaces]

I'm sure everybody knows at this stage that the vast majority of Joe's columns can be taken with a pinch of salt.  However if you look hard enough, remove the anecdotes and condensed his article into one or two paragraphs, most of the time he does have a valid point. He prefers the dramatics in his delivery, but for me hits the nail on the head more often than not.

Would agree with that. Joes objective is always to entertain first and to give insight second. He usually achieves both.
Amidst all the silliness he regularly raises some brilliant points and articulately dissects them with ease. Regardless of what you think of him, I don't know anyone who doesn't enjoy watching/listening to him.

What would be his brilliant point in the McGeeney article?

Well as I said, more often than not, certainly not all the time. Again, if you take away all the nonsense and summarise the article in a couple of lines perhaps its focusing on Geezer's approach. Perhaps his man management skills aren't there. Not everybody shares his obsession for the game, as we seen even at club level with Jamie Clarke on the Cross documentary. Even at club level the enjoyment of the game he grew up with has completely gone. Times that by 10 for county football. Not everybody finds it as easy to buy in to the professionalism. I think there needs to be a step back from that approach, which is difficult obviously as if you do that then you'll fall behind.  I'm basing this on assumptions but perhaps he's not suited to managing a large bunch of lads that all need handled in different ways.

[seafoid]

Brolly's point is that for all his huffing and puffing McGeeney should get better results than "we weren't good enough". WWGE covers up multiple dysfunction including tactical weakness. WWGE is only acceptable if a team can learn from it and kick on. Did McGeeney leave Kildare in a healthy state? Maybe he stayed on too long.

Championship matches are often decided on wafer thin margins and management is about tweaking things so a higher percentage of those margins go the team's way. A lot of it comes down to psychology.
I don't get the impression McGeeney is very good at plámás.  Jim Having is.   

[seafoid]

I just wish he'd stick to the analysis and opinion of the games that I am watching, the players, the managers, even the state of the GAA itself. If he has a strong opinion one way or another, that is fine.  I don't care if I don't agree with him. I'm getting increasingly tired of column after column, where its anecdote after anecdote. None of which I believe for a second. Is it just me, or is he doing more and more of that kind of thing and not writing about the games themselves? It's like he is a poor mans Billy Keane at this stage & that's really saying something. 

Eugene McGeeney said recently a lot of GAA journalism is shite.  People will read anything.

[WT4E]

I'd agree with that. McGeeney gets a he'll of a lot of flak in Armagh when people fail to realise we have a very limited squad. Even if Armagh had a full deck to chose from, barring a Down 2010/Tyrone 2015  draw they'd be doing well to reach an AI QF this year. We don't have the same strength in depth that other counties have so even in the league this year a lot of stop gaps were put in and only towards the end did we see some improvement. This of course goes way over the head of some of the drama Queens that follow the team and you only need to read the county website forum to see the outrageous nature of some of the comments eg "worst performance ever seen on a football field" etc just because they got a tanking. Division 3 is a step in the wrong direction but not the end of the world; I'd expect it to be another temporary stay. McGeeney has brought in a lot of youth into the side, not sure he's the type of man you want giving fellas their first chance but then again it is what it is for now, I'm happy enough so long as we don't see a repeat of Donegal/Galway from last year

Out of the 6 teams that Tyrone played in AI Series last year I think a Kieran McGeeney Armagh side would lose to 4 or possibly 5 of them.

[Walter Cronc]

Brolly manages his clubs U16s. He's paid to give an opinion - get over it!!

[Hound]

I'd agree with the general Kildare consensus above that McGeeney did a very good job with Kildare up until the SJ Affair, after which it all went a bit pear shaped, by coincidence or not.

That quarter-final against Donegal was a great game that could have gone either way. For Joe to say that he knew Kildare would blow it when they were 3 or 4 points up in extra time is just complete bull. If it was Donegal who lost, he'd be saying he knew they were going to blow it, as they weren't regarded as mentally strong at that stage either. But Brolly is one of these that thinks whoever wins is mentally strong and whoever loses is mentally weak.

Kildare and Donegal went at it for 90 minutes and Donegal won it with a wonder point. If it had ended 5 minutes earlier, Kildare would have won. If there was another 5 minutes, who knows how it would have gone. As a Dub fan waiting for the winner in the semi, I wasn't sorry to see Donegal win, even though we'd a good record against that Kildare team.

A key question for Kildare is why have the trajectories of both teams gone in opposite directions since that day, when they were pretty much equal.

McGeeney seems to me to be doing an alright job in Armagh. But you can only work with what you've got. They were unquestionably unlucky to get relegated, in what was a very even division. Laois have actually got as much talent as anyone in that division (bar the tyronies maybe) but have the worst manager probably in any division, and unfortunately for Armagh they chose that day for it all to come together.

[Jinxy]

I just wish he'd stick to the analysis and opinion of the games that I am watching, the players, the managers, even the state of the GAA itself. If he has a strong opinion one way or another, that is fine.  I don't care if I don't agree with him. I'm getting increasingly tired of column after column, where its anecdote after anecdote. None of which I believe for a second. Is it just me, or is he doing more and more of that kind of thing and not writing about the games themselves? It's like he is a poor mans Billy Keane at this stage & that's really saying something. 

Ah now...

[WT4E]

McGeeney seems to me to be doing an alright job in Armagh. But you can only work with what you've got. They were unquestionably unlucky to get relegated, in what was a very even division. Laois have actually got as much talent as anyone in that division (bar the tyronies maybe) but have the worst manager probably in any division, and unfortunately for Armagh they chose that day for it all to come together.

I don't get this type of sentiment at all - Are people really saying a manager who has taken this team to division 3 is doing an okay job.

Also only work with what you have look at the last 10 years for Armagh teams:

2009 All Ireland Minor Winners (These lads should be peaking now at 24/25)
2007 U21 Ulster Champions (Some of these lads should still be making huge contributions 28-30)
Cross have 7 of the last 10 Ulster Club Championship titles

I just don't understand that a county with that behind them in recent times will be playing Longford and Sligo next year and people thinks McGeeneys doing a great job!