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but I'd prefer not to have to pay the $29.99 PPV price Setanta are attempting to charge

Don't be such a tightwad. Sit down with a decent connection and enjoy the game rather than fiddling about with dodgy streams. How can the GAA make any money from TV rights if everyone robs their broadcasts?

Ah cop on.

I pay into every Roscommon game I can possibly get to and pay my tv license, the same license that pays for the vast majority of the GAA's media coverage. Why would I, or anyone else, want to pay for anything twice at that price? If international rights mattered all that much in monetary terms to the GAA they wouldn't have given a defacto global monopoly to Setanta outside the island of Ireland.

Not only that, but Setanta only seem to show GAA in SD, whereas if I wasn't out of the country at the weekend I'd be able to watch the finals in HD on Saorview - a good stream is going to be a step beyond anything Setanta can offer, in terms of analysis, commentary and picture quality.

People are going to stream it either way and $29.99 for a bad presentation of something that's free to the vast majority of people watching it doesn't set anyone's pulse racing.

Ways to watch the football finals aboard?

If it's a cruise liner then head up on deck if the weather is fine. If you're on the boat to Toraigh you'll be lucky to get radio reception.

Fixed!

I'd just like to appeal to people who will be watching on streams to share good streams they find here - I'm going on holiday tomorrow and there's zero chance I'm going to miss the two finals on Sunday but I'd prefer not to have to pay the $29.99 PPV price Setanta are attempting to charge - as there's plenty of people here that want to see the All-Ireland and it'll be easier for everyone if we make an effort to share information.

I know there'll be a bar in some corner of most cities showing the games, but I'm sure there's plenty like me that'll be in America or elsewhere where the program for the day starts at a time that going anywhere but your nearest armchair isn't all that appealing.

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I don't buy into any team 'needing', or it being all that more helpful, to enter the minefield of the qualifiers. Winning Connacht titles is still hugely important to us and I'd take beating Galway, Mayo, Sligo, whoever, and winning another Nestor Cup over maybe scoring a relatively meaningless victory over a Meath or Laois

We'd have been far better this year playing Laois/Meath or other "meaningless" teams than untested strolls past NY and bloody Laythrum.
At least if we got to Round 4 then we'd have been more up to speed than we were.
Now batin' Mayowestros ,Galway and Sligo .... that's a different story.

That's much more to do with the pace of matches by comparison than the level of competition; Mayo are routinely D1 and are All-Ireland semi-finalists, any meeting with Sligo is sure to be a highly charged affair and our recent record against Galway shows that beating them by any margin will be something notable. If we can put in good performances at the stop-start pace of the Connacht championship then there's little reason to think it'd be any harder to do the same on the week-by-week basis of the qualifiers.

Say we lose a Connacht semi-final to Mayo, and we draw a Cork or Kerry team that lost a Munster quarter-final and have already won a subsequent match - how would that help the team, assuming they don't pull something unbelievable out of the bag? The qualifiers are a second chance lottery for teams that lose; no team should be counting on losing. There's plenty of worthy tests in the province to help further the team, I'd only ever have any eyes for the qualifiers if we lose.

So basically we have at least 66% chance of drawing Mayo or Galway (we could get the semi-final bye and still meet the winners of Galway-Mayo in a semi-final) in our first match next year. It's probably time for a real test pre-Connacht final and given we'll have Galway at home they'd be the more attractive option. I wouldn't be going to McHale Park expecting much less than a close and hard-fought game, though.

I don't buy into any team 'needing', or it being all that more helpful, to enter the minefield of the qualifiers. Winning Connacht titles is still hugely important to us and I'd take beating Galway, Mayo, Sligo, whoever, and winning another Nestor Cup over maybe scoring a relatively meaningless victory over a Meath or Laois coupled with a few wins over teams we're expected to beat any year. People remember who wins their provincial title; they rarely remember 'heroic' round 2 qualifier victories. We'll get even better tests if we come through the front door.

Just thought I'd throw up a few pictures of the monument as a whole and the plaques for anyone that's interested but not able to get there in the short-term:

It would have been both disconcerting and heartening to have seen Galway make it through to the All-Ireland final as a Roscommon supporter but the one thing I think we learned from these two semi-finals is that there's very little between the four teams and all four crops should provide their senior teams with a few talented players in the future.

There is also an excellent Dermot Earley exhibition in the GAA museum at the moment. I don't know how long it is there for, but I was impressed with it when I saw it during the week.

It's going to be there until March and it's a lovely collection of items from both sides of his life, sporting and the army. I made a point of getting Cusack Stand seats for the Tyrone match to see the exhibition and it was well worth the effort.

I went to the Dermot Earley memorial unveiling ceremony in Gorthaganny yesterday, there was a great turnout from around the county, Kildare and the army. Most of the 70's-80's team that played with Dermot where there, as was Micheal O'Muircheartaigh (who's an even greater man in the flesh than he is on radio) and even Kildare people, not least of which being Johnny Doyle and Kieran McGeeney.

The President unveiled the statue - of Dermot eternally in action for Roscommon - and gave a great speech, as did David Earley, Dermot's eldest son. It gave the people who grew up with him in Gorthaganny a chance to honour him and to say good-bye - my father had the honour of playing kick-about with Dermot when they were young as well as with him for Michael Glavey's - which was no mean feat given his stature. Few men are great enough to deserve a statue in their image but none could argue that Dermot's life and impact on so many didn't deserve one.

The memorial itself a very special place - right beside his family home, where his 91 year-old mother still lives, adjacent to the primary school that he went to (and the reason his father moved to Gorthaganny in the first place) and across the road is the field where he kicked his first football, so it's as fitting tribute as you could imagine to perhaps the greatest Roscommon player of all time, and easily one of the greatest men ever to be born on these isles. I don't think there's a single person who met him that doesn't have something good to say about him. On the field he was a true sportsman who always tried to be fair and honest and in turn was the heart that inspired the great Roscommon team of the 70's and 80's. He embodied everything good we want to see in ourselves and he is, rightfully, nothing short of a hero to the people of Roscommon.

The memories will live forever.