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I'm sure Kilcoo & Slaughtneil, the two favourites, would rather have been kept separate at this early stage.

A very open competition this year with a number of clubs in serious contention.

The vultures are circling throughout the land with the smell of blood lingering from Jones road. They want Dublin beaten, they don't want Dublin to do 3 in a row, it will be bad for the game they say, we cannot let this happen they say. This thought process will filter through to every fan, every Croke park official  and every officiating team, give them nothing will be the cry. The greatest team of all time who have shown certain counties how to play the game in the right way, the beautiful total football displayed time and time again, the humility of the management and players, the gentlemen like approach to media and fans, the volunteer work they do not highlighted in the media, whether it be feeding the homeless around Dublin City centre or the hours and hours of visiting kids at camps, mini-leagues, hospitals.

The players get vilified at every chance, one of the greatest players for club and county to play the game was witch hunted for a suspension. A conspiracy that will come to light in later years, the masses celebrated for 4 nights and 4 days, they sneered and cheered. They also sneer at their manager,  the most astute, down to earth, calm, gentlemen, with a great mind, who serviced his country through his career in the armed services and who served his county as a player, coach and management. They sneer at him, why, is it jealousy, is it that they so want to be like him, his loyalty to his players, his county?

The GAA and all officials knows what's at stake here, they won't state it publicly but its in their thought process, Do every to help the opposition against Dublin. The Media know it too. The media hate Dublin, hate that the players won't talk to certain journalist, hate writing the same pieces every September.

Now at the semi-final stage, playing good opposition, but not better, it is a general feeling in the capital that the only way Dublin will be beaten is bad officiating in whatever form that may take, a non-red card, a last minute free against or opposition cheating like diving of the opposition, sledging by the opposition, some old traits to come out from a time long past. The world and its mother hoping Dublin are beaten so they can sneer and cheer and write abusive comments on social media and GAA forums.

You may not get that chance and it will be a case of who's laughing now.

Kind regards

The Greatest

Amazing post, so well written, thoughtful & right on the money.

Here in Donegal we are talking of little else except how Dublin are going to be badly done over in the coming weeks. If HQ do nothing we are going to throw a couple of car loads together & make sure justice is done.

Malachy will prob leave monaghan this year too. Eamon burns may go yet and Mattie seems to be hanging on by a thread in Cavan. Big turniver of managers in Ulster this year......

By 6pm on Saturday Harte will be done too.

If Tyrone lose to Armagh I'd say Harte will explode never mind resign

A piece from peter mc eniff former donegal manager.

McEniff View: Galway is a good draw and a game we can win
First of all Donegal are a Division One side and albeit Galway will play in Division One next season, they have been playing in the second division for the last few years.
As we saw last weekend against Roscommon, Galway may not be as good as they are cracked up to be.
They have shortcomings in the half and full-back lines and I feel we have forwards who, if given room, will cause problems.
I know we only scraped past Meath, but I felt we were the better team and I think we proved that the way we recovered when Meath went one up late on.
Ryan McHugh showed the leadership and after a few below par performances, he finished strong and was back to his best.
I was also impressed with Mark McHugh, too, when he came on. But overall I thought we had recovered from the Ulster semi-final defeat by Tyrone.
And I expect them to be even better in next weekend's game.
Caolan Ward and Eoghan Bán Gallagher have settled into the defence and the other boys at the back, Neil McGee, Paddy McGrath, Frank McGlynn and Ryan McHugh, have a wealth experience and are all playing well.
We have been doing well in midfield supplemented by Michael Murphy and Patrick McBrearty had a great game up front. He scored seven points including the late winner.

Seven points is a big score in a championship game and it is good to see Patrick coming into form; it could not be more timely.
The other big advantage we have is that we have two games in the QualifIers played and have the momentum.
Galway are having their first outing in the Qualifiers after losing to Roscommon by nine points. That is a right good trimming and there will be psychological damage done by that defeat to Roscommon.

Peter McEniff??

 I think there will be a good enough support there from Donegal. We saw glimmers of progress against Meath & will be hoping for another step forward for this young team against Galway.

Mind you if Donegal do beat Galway we will be waiting for the QF draw with bated breath, Kerry or Roscommon.......

The gaa have made a pure cnut of the football championship with the money they've pumped into Dublin. It's not reached such a low we've to celebrate Kildare getting within 9 points of Dublin. A f**king joke.

This present Dublin team has little to do with money. They are a bunch of hungry, talented, athletic footballers who are expertly managed by one of the greatest coaches the game has ever seen.

Watching Brolly licking up to Gooch is equal parts funny/embarassing.

Great game!!

Fair play to Kildare those Dublin goals would have scuppered most teams.

Best team won
Not sure why Tipp crowd are annoyed
One point from play in second half

In the last 10 minutes when Tipp ran at armagh there was only 3 things happened, and none in Tipp's favour:

1. Cynical direct fouls were met with yellow instead of black.
2. Cynical off the ball fouls were ignored.
3. When no foul was made, the ref invented one in case an overlap formed.

Fair play to armagh for creating the lead. But the referee is the reason they protected it.

Who should have got a black card?

Co-commentator actually said there was a pull on the jersey and couldn't understand why it wasn't a black card. Is it that hard to read a couple of lines?

Pulling a jersey isn't a black card offence.

So in summary, what we want is EPL style blanket coverage of every championship game in two sports.

And we also want it on free to air TV, with the cheque being covered from our licence fee.

And it's vitally important that those who play in the Christy Ring, that their game gets a camera at it too, because you know, it's effectively a zero cost to film, plus it'll make a real difference to the players to get home that evening and revisit that not even their closest friends or family members would cross the street to watch them play in that competition.

And if you go back anything beyond 2 pages on this thread, what we also really want is high quality commentators and analysts who are passionate and knowledgable about our games, and never make mistakes.

I'd sincerely hope we are never put in charge of a company. It'd be bankrupt by this afternoon.

Good man wobbler, a solitary voice of sanity amidst the dross of the mob.

Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel. This video is a montage of live performances which works brilliantly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeYqJxlSv-Y

Nothing much to add to what has already been said, a poor performance against a super Tyrone outfit & I'd say a lot of lessons will be learned.

For a young team to be out muscled in the way Donegal were is not that surprising. What was disappointing was the lack of intensity & the lack of leadership from big name players. To lose is one thing, to lose without putting up a fight is worrying.

All this nonsense with naming dummy teams days in advance simply to satisfy the printers needs to be sorted.

Since the days of teams lining out in accordance with the programme, either in terms of personnel or position, is well & truly over surely all we need are squad listings so that we can identify individual players.

No Justy MM be happy.

Speaking to Murph last night, he is distraught.

Michael hegarty has said in today's paper that Donegal will win this game by 8 or 9 points no bother. Seems to be a lot of confidence around Donegal and that's very big talk there.

I would have huge respect for Michael Hegarty, he is one of the few players I know who makes the game look easy & he is worth the admission price any day of the week but his optimism would not be matched by most Donegal people.

Yes, we have the makings of a fine side but this year may be a year or two soon for some of them & the jury is still out on Rory Gallaghers style.

Mind you, I was talking to a few Tyrone men over the weekend & they held out very little hope for their men.

If Donegal hit their stride & Rory Gallagher loosens the shackles a bit then fair enough Donegal will do well but the memory of the second half last year will take a long time to get over