Messages

Mayo should be awarded the All-Ireland posthumously.

Otherwise I think Cork will win. Kerry seem to be overleveraged.

Very evocative. The hurlers of Waterford did so much over the last few years. It's a real pity they didn't win the big prize but I think they gained everybody's respect. 

I think it's going to be the second most emotional future all-Ireland win. Mayo will be the first.

In the spirit of revisionism Seaf, what have they actually done? (When compared to our own county?) Why should they have more respect tham Galway? (Or Mayo footballers for e.g.) League record over the past 10 years is rather similar and Galway's c'ship record is slightly superior - we reached 2 finals and weren't beaten heavily in either. Yes, they won a few Munster finals, but provincial titles count for little in my mind. Sure, they played a lot of exciting matches, but they weren't the only ones. Believe me, this isn't an anti-Waterford sour grapes rant, I was at last year's AI final and was shouting like mad for them, but in my book moral victors = gallant losers = losers.

I repeat, I've nothing whatsoever against Waterford but getting a little tired of the whole sympathy, 'everyone's second favourite team' lark. Plenty of other teams entitled to sympathy also (Dub footballers / hurlers?)

Dub hurlers maybe but how many people in Dublin care about hurling? I'm not pushed about the footballers. I suppose it's a personal thing. Galway hurling's long 22 years of failure is due to county board ineptitude imo. They could have gone into Leinster a long time ago and would have won a few all-Irelands if the honchos cared more about the team than their own egos.

Laois, Westmeath , wicklow, Kildare etc leave me cold. I would like to see Fermanagh winning something. Waterford have a bit of romance. I don't know what it is.

I was watching the Ashes on sunday and the England fans have a dose of Mayo about them. Even at 546 runs up there were loads of people who thought they would throw it away with Australia in the Meath role.   Mayo is a mental thing more than anything else.  Fascinating to watch. So much passion but so little confidence in the last 5 minutes.

I think it has to be losing to Galway in the 01 final. Sickening.It still hurts now. And no matter what anybody says, beating a team that beat your team in a year gone by does nothing to ease the hurt. Beating Galway in 07 made no difference. So mayo fans, if you finally ever beat one of the list of teams you want revenge on, it won't ease any pain or suffering, only Sam Maguire can do that!!!!

The effect of that match on the Meath psyche never fails to amaze me. It must have been like that when the Spanish killed Montezuma and took over the Aztec empire. Everything went arseways all of a sudden. Even sacrificing Sean Boylan later made no difference.

'83 - Football - I was a very very sad 10 year old trooping out of Croke Park that day

'89 - Hurling - An absolute disaster of a year with the Keady affair that was topped only by that bollox of a ref, John Denton, in the semi v Tipp.  The auld fella hasnt been at a Galway hurling match since  .

1989 was wrong. But Tipp were desperate, you had to feel sorry for them. All those all-Irelands and the premier county and the doyles and turles and hell's kitchen and they couldn't win a match fair and square.

I never felt that sad following Galway actually. You know they'll be back once they get their shit together. I tend to be sad for Mayo. 1996 the replay was probably the worst. 

Very evocative. The hurlers of Waterford did so much over the last few years. It's a real pity they didn't win the big prize but I think they gained everybody's respect. 

I think it's going to be the second most emotional future all-Ireland win. Mayo will be the first.   

It's great to see a J Cooney playing on a Galway team in an AIF. Brings me back to 1990 and the summer he was conceived. I  remember it well. Ffrench's niteclub I believe. Bryan Adams agus mar sin de. 

Surely the Fitzgibbon and Portumna heads can cop on and plan without JC for the next while. A break until next June would do him the world of good and benefit everyone. 

Kevin Pietersen went off to play in the IPL against better advice and ended up crocked for the Ashes. If he had been playing today in full health England could be 400 for 7..

The annual anguished Mayo postmortem, as regular as a bran diet.

O'Mahony doesn't have the players in Mayo. Sammon didn't seem to be the right manager for Galway.

96 hurling final, the last 10 minutes

87 Hurling semifinal Galway-Tipp

90 final

The hurling in the 06 final was magnificent

[Henry and Walter in the same forward division, sounds like a BB soccer team.Who gives a youngster a name like that nowadays?]

Henry and Walter in the same forward division, sounds like a BB soccer team.
Who gives a youngster a name like that nowadays?

Normans. Kilkenny are at least half Norman . Fitzes, Hennessys, and Delaneys. Listen to dose accents. Same thing with the way they pronounce r's
in Waterford. Straight out of French.  Guillaume became Willie. Henri became Henry.

There is also lots of English blood. Tennysons and Langtons and Rochfords. They didn't speak Irish in Kilkenny for a very long time.

Tipp are the hurling equivalent of France at the UN. Why does France still have a permanent security council seat?   Why do people talk about Tipp in the same breath as Cork and the cats ? Tipp stopped winning consistently shortly after De Gaulle died. I remember hoping they'd make the breakthrough back in the early 80s. In many ways I am still waiting. 

Are Meath de real Mick Lyons deal or alternatively up to the standard of the rest of Leinster?
Have the Celtic tiger years sapped the  Ur-Meath spirit or is it still there somewhere buried under the
concrete ? 

Fingers crossed for the Deise. Wouldn't a Waterford-Limerick final be marvellous ?

The priority has to be beating Kilkenny . I think Galway are better than the Deise. Less fragile. Sorry Deiseach.

Ah, the greater good. I agree Galway would have a better chance of beating Kilkenny than Waterford. But if Waterford winning were to increase the chances of a thousand year Kilkenny Reich, I'd still want Waterford to win. They're my priority.

That is the sort of attitude  many Austrians shared in 1938. By 1945 Vienna was in ruins, a bit like the state of offaly hurling today. You really need to think about what you want. Sometimes dreams come true. And then you can have Fianna fail in charge for 10 years. 

anyway the cork hurlers obviously need a few years to get a new team together. I see there are almost 500 pages on the strike. I suppose both sides were partly right. Who will buy donal og's book if there is no hurling in Cork and no telly exposure from the second half of July on ?