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What's John McCloskey doing with himself these days? Is he still working for a rugby union outfit in England?

I'm sure someone on here could enilighten me as to what Sinn Fein's tax and economic policies are? No harm to Michelle but if she was looking to attract 'undecided' voters around the Moy she could have done better than send the two gimps who landed at my door the other night - I asked the question as above and was met with a blank expression and told that every vote counts - maybe I was being too vague?

You'll tend to get that 'blank expression' with local campaigners who arrive at your door if you dare to ask a question which in anyway relates to real social/economic issues. The majority of these campaigners would have entered politics on the back of the political struggle and would still have a bit to learn regarding real policies. Dare I say, this would be more evident within Sinn Fein than in the SDLP. However, there seems to be real effort within parties to develop their youth wings (Ogra SF etc) and it's this young talent that SF will be confident can help them further shine at a local level as time goes on - ever so gradually replacing the older guard.

Lets not forget another aspect of this equation,Margaret Ritchie will need Unionist votes to retain South Down for the SDLP, probably her primary reason for rejecting a pact, pure self interest

Nail on the head. It is within the SDLP's interest to appeal to the centre ground to help maintain their vote in areas like South Down and Foyle. Making any pact with SF may scupper this.

Are Monaghan using Clones for any of their league games this year or is out of action at the minute?

Nothing worse than a man who's blind following won't let him reason.

I've said it before - Monaghan are at a crossroads -
- Get rid of Banty and bring in a better manager
- Keep Banty on - get a better backroom team and try and improve for one year
- Keep Banty on - get a better backroom team and try and improve with a long term view
- Keep Banty on - same backroom team and get the same result

That's the stage that team is at

In my eyes Banty has got maximum return from this current squad of monaghan players and until new/youthful players are bleeded into the monaghan team then you're just going to get the same results as the last couple of years. The main talking point in monaghan shouldn't be the management decision, it should be looking about fresh talent who can re-ignite the current team.

I won't miss him if he does go. His team is the epitome of everything that is wrong with Gaelic football.

This comes back to monaghan playing to their strengths. If a new, possibly naive man came in and proposed to play a more open brand of football I don't think that positive results for monaghan would be forthcoming. People in monaghan would soon appreciate what they had under banty. maybe not pretty football but in my eyes a very competitive outfit continually punching above their weight

[Nothing touches the meath Dublin series for drama as far as i am concerned, that was the GAA at it's most exciting. Pure theatre.]

Nothing touches the meath Dublin series for drama as far as i am concerned, that was the GAA at it's most exciting. Pure theatre.

Great clip and worthy to be deemed greatest moment in the GAA, i would say the hurling contingent might argue that you are wrong.

I don't think I could ever get tired of watching that Kevin Foley goal. How Meath literally walked the ball into the net in the last minute I'll never know followed by Kevin Foley cooly running back to his position. was great stuff

I think November 29th will see Crossmaglen playing Glennullin. I wonder what odds you would get on that now?

about 20/1 I'd say

I think I feel sorry for him because he feels like he has to exclude himself from the rest of the group especially if noirin is sitting on siavash's lap right in front of him. I know some of his diary room antics might have been over the top but he's good to watch.

Big Brother: "Marcus proceed to the jail for breaking the rules"
Marcus: "Do you want cherryade poured over the diary room chair?"    

Noirin is acting the maggot big time and she seems oblivious to what she's doing..purely in it for herself. I kind of feel sorry for Marcus too, he can get a big angry but he must be well pissed off with what's happening around him.

The show at the minute seems to revolve around 5 or 6 characters..the rest aren't even getting air time!

Another problem with Sophie is that her voice starts to break when she tries to string a sentence together. You wouldn't half get bored of her. Noirin isn't much better.

The best of it is Kenneth to me looked like a relatively mild and shy character when he arrived on the scene. Then he opened his mouth and it was clear that he was a tool. Sophie is getting big attention from the 2 new lads, pity she has the personality of a barn door.

Siavash is the one to beat.

[He was manager the year we drew with you's in Clones and could have won it after Pip Duffy won a free in with time almost up. He said or done something that made the ref throw it up.]

That would be a step backwards for Monaghan!

youd know what a real giant backward step was if you appointed the wrong candidate !
at least Eamonn Mc has a bit of a clue at what he's doing

Do you think so? I look at Louth and I don't see much improvement there over the past 4 years.

I think Eamon McEneney had a run with Monaghan a few years ago - but one of the Monaghan lads would be able to tell me that better

He was manager the year we drew with you's in Clones and could have won it after Pip Duffy won a free in with time almost up. He said or done something that made the ref throw it up. Monaghan where massive underdogs at the time.
The replay was over after 5 minutes when Eddie Murphy, harshly, got the line. It was a cake walk after that for Derry in Celtic Park.

I think I partly remember that incident. The Monaghan man had the free won after an awful tackle by Derry's Emmett McKeever then the Monaghan man reacted and there was a hop ball. Derry subsituted McKeever before the ref even got a chance to talk to him. We'd have been beat that day only for that hop ball.

Cusack, it is you and morons like you that has derry in the position that they are in. derry talent, talent, talent, if we had that much talent we wouldn't be 1998 since we played in an ulsre final, we wouldn't have beaten in the 1st round of the minors and u21 this year. Football in Derry is failing and peole like you running round talking about talent. Get a bit of disciline and courage into them boys and go out play an d stop whinging about boys hitting you. Its a mans game.

tfal, I think you've ever so slightly misread what i was trying to say. I'm not trying to claim that Derry are the most talented team in the business because we're not but I was making a lighthearted plea for Derry to give us supporters a break and put in a performance were we take the game to the opposition from the off instead of the usual championship form in the past 10 years or so were we are constantly chasing games. God supporting Derry can be as frustrating as it gets.  Its about chanelling our talent into an effective gameplan which we've never really managed to do in recent times and it won't be fixed overnight. But i can be optimistic that we will get there...

I genuinely believe that we are well ahead of Monaghan in the talent stakes but they just always seem to be that kind of opposition that cause us bother. I'm thinking back to the early 90's and being about 10 points ahead in Castleblayney before we needed a last gasp goal just to get a draw and then Peter Duffy running riot against us in the late 90's, think we sneaked a draw that day too. I would just love us to go out and fulfill our natural footballing ability and get the scores on the board instead of constantly chasing games which would maybe give us supporters an easier time of it......or maybe that's just part and parcel of being a derry fan 

Please don't be the time which means i have to get up right now!
...followed by an anxious look at the clock
...followed by a sense of relief when i realise i have a few more minutes or a sense of anger if i just have to get up

of course the weekend (when im not working) is a completely different ball game altogether!