Messages

How many of the West Brit team:

a) were not born in this country and do not have any lineage with Ireland?
b) were educated in a non-fee paying school?

Good luck to the garrison sports team vs wales.

Irelands call and all that.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/answering-apartheids-call-29839040.html

How many of the West Brit team:

a) were not born in this country and do not have any lineage with Ireland?
b) were educated in a non-fee paying school?

What crap high school did you attend?

What does that matter?

I consider myself grateful I didn't go to a rugby school, lessening my exposure to sodomy and concussions.

Mayo's dominance of Connacht is a worry at the minute (by dominance I mean them handing 20+ point beatings out regularly) 

Over the last 5 years I can only think of three 20+ point wins Mayo had, leitrim at home New York and Sligo in last years Connacht final. Galway gave Mayo a good game last year,Roscommon twice got within one score of Mayo in 2011,2014. Sligo lost the Connacht final by only 2 points in 2012 and London brought Mayo to extra time in 2011.

12, 17 and 16 point victories in 2013 in their 3 Connacht matches against Roscommon, Galway and London.

20, 1 and 8 point victories in 2014 in their 3 Connacht games against New York, Roscommon and Galway.

4 and 24 point victories last year against Galway and Sligo.

I think the two victories against Galway in the past two years have been a bit flattering for Galway, Mayo looked like they could kick on and win by more if they needed to.

That should worry you.

Dublin's spend on county teams in 2012 was €1.6m according to this article.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-football/counties-sixfigure-budget-deficits-have-gaa-on-alert-29051723.html

Income: €3,264,394
Expenditure: €3,105,613
Surplus: €158,781
A decent surplus, but their spend on inter-county preparation was still the highest by some distance, in excess of €1.6m, despite not being in an All-Ireland football final and their early exit in the hurling championship.

I would estimate it is about €2m+ now given the money rolling into the Dubs. I would also estimate that the apportioning of this figure is about 60:40 football to hurling which will put an estimated figure of €1.2m+ forward.

Funny enough, I'm finding it quite tough to find the figures for Dublin and what they are spending on their county teams.

[Tyrone in comparison operate on very strict budgets and I would hazard a guess that their spend on county teams is significantly less than Mayo's or Dublin's last year.]

Over 12 years this funding is in place.

So any 26 year old on the Dublin panel would have come onto the U14 development squad aged 13/14. So a good chunk of them have benefitted.

I have some involvement with Dublin development squads. They are pretty much the same.as the Tipp squads listed above. One t shirt per year gear along with sorts and socks. One or two away games.aside from blitzes. No strength and conditioning  activity until.u17. These.are the facts. There is no more money spent on them than there is anywhere else and considerably less.than a lot of.counties.

Counties like Mayo are burying themselves in huge debt to try and keep up with what Dublin are spending on their senior team at the minute. They have the biggest sponsorship deal in the country, their income dwarfs that of every other county in the country, they have a  big brand and good relationships with big companies. They should be able to finance themselves accordingly without the help of central funding.

I don't know if Dublin and Mayo disclose the money they are currently pumping in to their senior team but I would imagine it is obscene. The difference is Dublin are well able to sustain that money year on year while also providing the very best for underage football and development in the county. Mayo on the other hand are throwing their lot on this particular generation of players and won't be able to sustain it in the long run.

Tyrone in comparison operate on very strict budgets and I would hazard a guess that their spend on county teams is significantly less than Mayo's or Dublin's last year.

Kerry also seem to be pretty well ran but they have the caveat of Kerry Group if they ever feel like they're falling behind the field.

Donegal have pumped a lot of money in the last few years but I get the feeling that is being reined in now.

Dublin are like the juiced up cyclist, it can set the pace and it knows that nobody else has the reserves to properly keep up with it. As I said earlier the Dublin fans who deny these advantages and are unwilling to admit they exist remind me of unionists. It shouldn't be used to diminish their achievements but this money has created a huge imbalance in the Championship.

Kerry have always dished out beatings in Munster because they are the only footballing team in the province. Nothing will ever probably change there unless football starts to gain a foothold in other counties.

There's only about 3 or 4 teams in the entire country who you could see get within 10 points of Dublin in a big game, this was never the case with Tyrone or the Kerry teams that dominated football in the past decade. This was pre an era of massive financial discrepancy. Kerry and Tyrone may have been putting more money into their teams than most but they weren't putting 20 or 30 times what some of the rest of the field were.

Mayo's dominance of Connacht is a worry at the minute (by dominance I mean them handing 20+ point beatings out regularly) but in the long run they don't have the money to sustain what they're at and that domination will end.

Dublin's dominance of Leinster and Ireland will continue as they have the money to sustain it and nobody can match them.

You don't have to make (erroneous) guesses about what counties spend each year.
Annual reports are available online, with easy to read balance sheet summaries.
Tyrone in particular in 2013 were a model of efficiency, realised a surplus, yet actually spent more than Mayo.

And Dublin GAA themselves can finance a good % of those expenditures that central GAA funds are covering.
We can call that strategy, DublinGo.

Erroneous?

Tyrone spent £430k on county teams this year, using a fx rate of £0.7 that comes in at €615k. That also covers an U21 side who won an All Ireland as well as an All Ireland semi-finalist team who played an extra game to Mayo.

Mayo spent €880k on their county teams last year, that's 43% more than Tyrone spent.

In 2014 it was €587k (£411k) v €887k  and that's using a fx rate of 0.7 which is probably not correct given that sterling has began to notably gain strength in the past 18 months.

In 2013 it was €668k (£469k) v €906k, again that's probably an inflated figure for Tyrone as a fx figure of 0.7 is used.

So for the past three years, Mayo have been spending on average 200-300k more on their county teams than Tyrone. That's not far off €1m in those three years.

I suspect you check your figures in future before erroneously accusing others of being wrong.

How many of the West Brit team:

a) were not born in this country and do not have any lineage with Ireland?
b) were educated in a non-fee paying school?

I see brollys on twitter now having a pop at McCann over the Rodgers incident, there wasn't much talk about this after the game if I remember correctly but it's been slowly gaining momentum ever since. Does anyone on here seriously believe McCann went in to do him? Realistically the video doing the rounds is from quite far back so nobody can be sure but it looks to me that McCann has come steaming in trying to get to the break and as it came in his direction he has jumped in to catch the ball and tried to kind of spin around at the same time so that he could roll away with the ball. Unfortunately he missed the ball and crashed into Rodgers.

It really is a serious statement to make (especially for someone in Brollys position) to come out and say McCann has deliberately hurt him whenever if you watch the video rationally I don't know how you could be sure that that is the case. Suppose we should expet nothing less from Brolly. Just wondering if we think the Derry management's comments on the issue are a bit of mind games leading up to the championship or does anyone think McCann deserves the flak?

What I will say is that it doesn't look good.

But it's impossible to tell either way whether it was intentional or accidental. The only one who really knows whether he meant it or not is McCann and there is definitely an agenda involved in trying to stoke the flame of last year with this. Rogers is a brilliant young player and I hope he makes a full recovery and the injury doesn't have any impact on him.

They will probably say we're paranoid but compare the reaction to the McCann challenge, a challenge in an non-televised pre-season tournament game to Johnny Cooper's kung fu kick of Diarmuid O'Connor last year which could easily have ended his career. There's no way McCann's is even in the same ball park as that even if he meant it or not, which isn't apparent. Cooper's is clear as day that he meant to do the Mayo lad and was swiftly brushed under the carpet in one of the biggest televised games of the year.

On Brolly, he's been trying very hard and quite crudely over the past three years to get rattles out of the Tyrone camp, he's had quite a number of disgusting personal attacks on Harte in particular. What really gets to Brolly though is that Harte never takes the bait and laughs off the fact that anyone should take Brolly seriously on these matters.

You get the feeling that whatever we achieve it will be devalued anyway so hopefully that gives the players and management the right motivation.

Over 12 years this funding is in place.

So any 26 year old on the Dublin panel would have come onto the U14 development squad aged 13/14. So a good chunk of them have benefitted.

I have some involvement with Dublin development squads. They are pretty much the same.as the Tipp squads listed above. One t shirt per year gear along with sorts and socks. One or two away games.aside from blitzes. No strength and conditioning  activity until.u17. These.are the facts. There is no more money spent on them than there is anywhere else and considerably less.than a lot of.counties.

Counties like Mayo are burying themselves in huge debt to try and keep up with what Dublin are spending on their senior team at the minute. They have the biggest sponsorship deal in the country, their income dwarfs that of every other county in the country, they have a  big brand and good relationships with big companies. They should be able to finance themselves accordingly without the help of central funding.

I don't know if Dublin and Mayo disclose the money they are currently pumping in to their senior team but I would imagine it is obscene. The difference is Dublin are well able to sustain that money year on year while also providing the very best for underage football and development in the county. Mayo on the other hand are throwing their lot on this particular generation of players and won't be able to sustain it in the long run.

Tyrone in comparison operate on very strict budgets and I would hazard a guess that their spend on county teams is significantly less than Mayo's or Dublin's last year.

Kerry also seem to be pretty well ran but they have the caveat of Kerry Group if they ever feel like they're falling behind the field.

Donegal have pumped a lot of money in the last few years but I get the feeling that is being reined in now.

Dublin are like the juiced up cyclist, it can set the pace and it knows that nobody else has the reserves to properly keep up with it. As I said earlier the Dublin fans who deny these advantages and are unwilling to admit they exist remind me of unionists. It shouldn't be used to diminish their achievements but this money has created a huge imbalance in the Championship.

Kerry have always dished out beatings in Munster because they are the only footballing team in the province. Nothing will ever probably change there unless football starts to gain a foothold in other counties.

There's only about 3 or 4 teams in the entire country who you could see get within 10 points of Dublin in a big game, this was never the case with Tyrone or the Kerry teams that dominated football in the past decade. This was pre an era of massive financial discrepancy. Kerry and Tyrone may have been putting more money into their teams than most but they weren't putting 20 or 30 times what some of the rest of the field were.

Mayo's dominance of Connacht is a worry at the minute (by dominance I mean them handing 20+ point beatings out regularly) but in the long run they don't have the money to sustain what they're at and that domination will end.

Dublin's dominance of Leinster and Ireland will continue as they have the money to sustain it and nobody can match them.

Should be a good battle at midfield.

Hope McNulty shows up well, particularly on kickouts.

Pretty much as strong as is available. Good chance for McNulty to stake his claim.

1 - Niall Morgan - Éadan na dTorc - 45 Appearances
2 - Aidan McCrory - Aireagal Chiaráin - 73 Appearances
3 - Ronan McNamee - Achadh Uí Aráin - 46 Appearances
4 - Cathal McCarron - An Droim Mór - 75 Appearances
5 - Rory Brennan - Trí Leac - 10 Appearances
6 - Justin McMahon - An Omaigh - 94 Appearances
7 - Tiernan McCann - Coill an Chlochair - 32 Appearances
8 - Colm Cavanagh - An Mhaigh - 111 Appearances
9 - Padraig McNulty - Dún Geanainn - 22 Appearances
10 - Niall Sludden - An Droim Mhór - 6 Appearances
11 - Matthew Donnelly - Trí Leac - 70 Appearances
12 - Conor Meyler - An Omaigh - 7 Appearances
13 - Darren McCurry - Éadan na dTorc - 51 Appearances
14 - Connor McAliskey - Cluain Eo - 49 Appearances
15 - Ronan O Neill - An Omaigh - 44 Appearances
16 - Michael O'Neill - Cluain Eo - 12 Appearances
17 - Mark Bradley - Coill an Chlochair - 13 Appearances
18 - Lee Brennan - Trí Leac - 4 Appearances
19 - Conor Clarke - An Omaigh - 46 Appearances
20 - Pádraig Hampsey - Oileán a'Ghuail - 4 Appearances
21 - Hugh Pat McGeary - Cabhán a'Chaortainn - 3 Appearances
22 - Kieran McGeary - Cabhán a'Chaortainn - 5 Appearances
23 - Conall McCann - Coill an Chochair - 16 Appearances
24 - Cathal McShane - E R Uí Néill - 13 Appearances
25 - David Mulgrew - Ard Bó - 2 Appearances
26 - Barry Tierney - An Omaigh - 29 Appearances

Best of luck to Wales at the weekend.

I thought the dilemma of where to play Peter Harte was resolved with his performances last year at wing back. Seems like he might be getting a shot at CHF again. Are there any McKennas in the squad at the minute?

His best games last year came in the half forward line. He played there against Donegal and Tipperary.

[Scott Brown was only interested in acting the hardman.]

Awful result. Team selection was woeful. with the exception of Griffiths and Tierney there was no passion. Scott Brown was only interested in acting the hardman. No leadership on our off the field. At this rate Aberdeen will win the league.

That's all Scott Brown has ever done imo. Dreadful player.
Wouldn't be just wonderful if Aberdeen did win it.

Why would that be wonderful? are you an Aberdeen supporter? What connections do you have with them? This sickens my hole TBH as the portion of Ireland that supports Celtic the rest want to see them beat. You don't support any other team in that Country and Celtic having the Irish connections you'd rather see Rangers/Aberdeen or any other team for that matter win the title...and if you've no interest in Celtic (look at the title of the thread) why come in and try to wind people up (we've already got Fearon for that)

Chill out ffs you big luder 
It would be great to see Aberdeen win the league in the same way it would be great to see Leicester win the English League,or someone other than Kilkenny win the All Ireland,everyone loves an underdog...comprende??

Does it really mean that much to you that you have to see Celtic win it every f**king year. Does it not get to the stage where it just becomes a meh moment that they won it again?
I'm not trying to wind anyone up but I think most football fans would agree it would be nice to see someone different win for a change.

Would you support other countries playing Ireland?

What the fcuk has that to do with anything?

Celtic are a club steeped in Irish culture and tradition. Celtic are a de facto Irish club plying their trade in Scotland.

Aberdeen are not.