I saw the highlights last night of Carlow getting a 'hammering' by Meath. So what, Carlow are badly organised, were not a full strength, and Meath appeared to play particularly well. I couldn't believe it last night when Tony Davis / Pat Spillane intimated that Carlow participation in the championship is of dubious benefit. What is it about GAA Analysts/Pundits and sometimes officials that makes them trot out this claptrap every time one of the 'weaker' counties get beaten badly?
The last time I checked in high-scoring games like Rugby, American Football, Cricket, Aussie Rules, Basketball etc (and even Soccer, to an extent) teams regularly get bad beatings. However these organisations don't go around trying to reduce the number of competing teams!! The onus is on those teams to get their act together. If we followed their logic then Wicklow may not even have played Kildare yesterday - a perennial div 4 team who are often on the receiving end of some lob-sided scoreleines.
As a principle all 32 (34) teams must be given the same chance of competing, regardless of format, regardless of ability and regardless of past performance. Treat them like equals and they will behave and perform like equals.
Seedings, secondary competitions, selected teams into qualifiers is a load of baloney and helps no-one. The big advantage football has over hurling is that on a given day "nearly" any other county could beat another. Tommy Lyons said only one of 6 could win the All-Ireland, he conviently never mentioned who they were but guessing they could be 'Kerry - Cork - Dublin - Armagh - Tyrone - Derry/Galway'. Regardless of who he had in mind, the next 'level' Meath, Donegal, Mayo, Monaghan, Westmeath, could easily beat those 6/7 on a given day.Then we have counties like Fermanagh, Wexford, Louth, Sligo, Kildare, Offaly, Down who could threaten the top teams and definitley beat the next level. Then we even have Longford, Leitrim, Wicklow, Limerick, Tipperary, Clare, Cavan, Antrim etc who are tricky opposition at times, particularly at home. In summary, even though we would expect the AI to be won by Kerry, in my mind about ten teams could beat them on a given day, and beneath that 10-15 teams could in turn beat those ten on a given day. I suspect this is as healthy and as competitive as the GAA has ever been.
So relax about 'hammerings', it happens, there is nothing wrong with it. Just a reflection of a teams ability at a given time. Carlow are more than capable of wining a Leinster Championship match or two in the next few years if the put their minds to it. They certanly won't if we have secondary competitions that nobody wants, would go to see or do the teams any good at all.
So Pat, Tony......just please stop this annual baloney.
By the way, the best thing ever is the 9-team Ulster Hurling Championship, which I hope and expect will reap great rewards for Ulster Hurling in the future. Fantastic, cuts to the chase and tells the counties get on with it. If teams get a hammering from time to time, so what.
Excellent post Solo Run, I was of the same opinion. 3 Division 4 teams were playing yesterday. Carlow were hammered. Antrim give Cavan a fair ould scare & Wiclow beat Kildare by 5. So I cant understand how Davis came to the conclusion he did. All I can say is get the thick idiot off the tele he has nothing to offer, using his methodology we mind as well hand Kerry the All Ireland, & maybe let Cork play them in the final. An awful idiot.
Quote from: Death Valley on May 19, 2008, 09:09:21 AM
Excellent post Solo Run, I was of the same opinion. 3 Division 4 teams were playing yesterday. Carlow were hammered. Antrim give Cavan a fair ould scare & Wiclow beat Kildare by 5. So I cant understand how Davis came to the conclusion he did. All I can say is get the thick idiot off the tele he has nothing to offer, using his methodology we mind as well hand Kerry the All Ireland, & maybe let Cork play them in the final. An awful idiot.
I agree with you all the way lads. Spillane and Davis could not see the contradictions in their position of praising Wicklow and saying that Carlow should not be allowed to play in the Leinster Championship. They are both Div. 4 teams with almost identical records in this year's NFL. I can only presume that they had their statements about Carlow and possibly Wicklow were prepared during the week and then had to think again when Wicklow won. Not many Div. 4 teams would lie down like Cork did in last year's All Ireland Final.
I also agree lads. Offaly were a division 4 team as well. Is Davis going to tell me that Offaly shouldn't be 'allowed' play in the Leinster championship? The blatant contradiction in praising Wicklow while castigating Carlow seemed to pass them by. And about 10 minutes earlier one of them said something like 'This is what championship is all about, it's about more than winning Sam Maguire.'
Lads, I don't know why you are picking on the Sunday Game guys for their peculiar attitudes to the "weaker counties". They are not alone in this.
QuoteGAA Director-General, Paraic Duffy, warned that allowing those teams back into the championship would have a negative impact on the local club scene as it would use up an extra weekend and add to already hectic schedules.
Duffy also said that it would be naive to expect that a Division Four team would start winning championship games and questioned why change was being proposed so soon.
http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-football/tommy-murphy-cup-dead-in-the-water-says-gaa-boss-1346829.html
Every few years the same argument is thrown out there. I remember when it was said about Westmeath in the 80's and when our Hurlers on the subs bench were pictured smoking in teh Dugout. Its always been the same and everyone reams off the same old garbabe. More must be done at underage level - Blueprints - Schools. I have been hearing it since for 20 years now and the state of the game has stayed the same.
I think its unwarrented to say Carlow have done nothing - Their Minors reached a Leinster, their Schools have come on. Players like Mark Carpenter would get on most Senior teams. And then to slag teh Tommy Murphy Cup after saying that was what gave Wicklow the boost.
Bad scene by RTE and Tony Davis (who is usually spot on), I think we could have got a Sunday game from teh first round of the Championshiop in the 70's & 80's & 90's and the same sh1t would be said.
Quote from: cornafean on May 19, 2008, 10:05:30 AM
Lads, I don't know why you are picking on the Sunday Game guys for their peculiar attitudes to the "weaker counties". They are not alone in this.
QuoteGAA Director-General, Paraic Duffy, warned that allowing those teams back into the championship would have a negative impact on the local club scene as it would use up an extra weekend and add to already hectic schedules.
Duffy also said that it would be naive to expect that a Division Four team would start winning championship games and questioned why change was being proposed so soon.
http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-football/tommy-murphy-cup-dead-in-the-water-says-gaa-boss-1346829.html
We're picking on the Sunday Game lads here, because they said it last night AFTER Wicklow had beaten Kildare. But I hate it when anyone talks like that. As was said, there's more to championship than winning Sam Maguire, and the likes of Westmeath, Sligo, Fermanagh etc etc have come from nowhere in recent times to become respected competitors. IF these lads had their way, Westmeath would never have been taking on Mayo back in 2002 or whenever it was, Fermanagh would be toiling away and Sligo would be still thinking about 1975. The Offaly hurlers of the 1980s and 1990s would never have happened, and Clare would still be best known for Spancil Hill and Lisdoonvarna.
Let them compete, and help them raise their standards if you want, but I firmly believe the Provincial and All Irelands should be open to everybody, and everybody should be encouraged to play in them. The decision to eliminate Division 4 teams from the Qualifiers was the greatest bit of contradictory thinking I've heard, seeing as how their express purpose was to give lads at least 2 games in the championship after training for 6 months and more.
I'm in favour of a second level competition, properly pitched and marketed, which would allow teams to compete in a competition they can win as well, but that competition should be in addition to the Championship, not instead of it.
Well said.
The Monaghan hurlers are making a bit of a name for themselves at the moment, having recorded two exciting wins on the trot in the revamped Ulster Hurling Championship. Some might say (correctly) that they are operating at a low level but its good to see them making a big effort and getting some measure of success in return.
Would it be easier if the "6 teams who could win Sam" be penalised and only play with their Left foot, or they cann't move if they have the ball like Netball.
Its always easy to blame the weak counties, what about blaming the strong counties
I don't think 'blame' is the right word at all, even though I know that was tongue in cheek. Weaker counties should be encouraged to bridge the gap, as much as they can. Stronger counties should be encouraged to keep their standards high.
Gaelic games is a meritocracy, as it should be, but you can't sacrifice the rights of teams to play for their own, albeit lower, targets just so some pundit or journalist can always be commentating on Kerry v Armagh, or Tyrone v Galway. The championship was never like that, nor should it be. I hope the GAA don't go down the road of the games being a 'product'.
Just a small point in Spillane's support, i actually thought he took Davis up on this assertion and asked him how would weaker teams ever improve if they only played against teams of the same level.
It never ceases to amaze me how much store people put on league form despite oceans of evidence that this is not the right way to judge things. League form means next to nothing.
That's true NL, and I think Spillane was correct.
I know where Davis is coming from, in that you don't learn a lot from hammerings, either way, but by denying them the chance to play better opposition, you are stagnating their growth. In fairness Carlow should be better than that, so they need to look at themselves a bit, but throwing them out of the Championship, or other teams like them (Wicklow as a topical example) is not the way forward.
Quote from: magpie seanie on May 19, 2008, 10:53:51 AM
It never ceases to amaze me how much store people put on league form despite oceans of evidence that this is not the right way to judge things. League form means next to nothing.
I wouldn't agree 100% with that Seanie. I find it depends and varies from county to county. If a county puts a serious effort into the league, then you are entitled to draw conclusions from that, especially when they play other counties of a similar outlook. There are always Micko types who treat the league as an inconvenience at worst, and a glorified challenge match at best, but I think the benefits of playing at a higher level of league football are worth the effort. I know Offaly, for example, won the Leinster title out of Division 4 in 1997, and Sligo will be division 4 next year despite being Connacht champions, but in general, the better teams in the league are also the better teams in the championship. Not necessarily the winners of the league, or those playing great stuff in the league, but it's better to be playing in the top two divisions, and going along steadily, than playing in the bottom two.
It was said about fermanagh in the past, in 96 tyrone gave them a timbering, and Martin McHugh siad they shouldnt be let play in the championship. The wee bast*ard hasnt been forgiven either. In 97 cavan won Ulster, but needed a replay to get by fermanagh, and the second game was nearly as tight. Theres been a steady improvement since. I dread to think what we'd be like now if someone had actually listened to the wee pri*k
Martin McHugh eh ::)
That was a good Cavan team in 97. McHugh sure got alot out of Cavan and I am not talking about the Players
We shoulda beat them, and would have but for Mickey Graham coming off the bench. Presumably the notorious cavan folk saw it as an investment - they must have thought they could sell off the cup for a profit. ;)
Quote from: AZOffaly on May 19, 2008, 10:58:40 AM
and Sligo will be division 4 next year despite being Connacht champions,
Jeez AZ you must be listening to Sligoian too much
Despite being current Connacht champions, which they are. I wasn't making any outlandish predictions :D
Carlow got hammered. A defeat like that would send me to the outer reaches of despair.
It depends on how they respond to it, that's what the sport is also about - responding to challenges,
even seemingly impossible ones :)
Quote from: magpie seanie on May 19, 2008, 10:53:51 AM
It never ceases to amaze me how much store people put on league form despite oceans of evidence that this is not the right way to judge things. League form means next to nothing.
I'd take you up only on the use of the phrase "next to" when you should have used "absolutely"
It's only a couple of years ago Longford got an almighty tanking in Croke Park by the Dubs. Only Tyrone's hammering of Cavan exceeded it in the entire championship. 2005 I think it was.
Madness calling for the likes of Carlow to withdraw from serious competition
QuoteI'd take you up only on the use of the phrase "next to" when you should have used "absolutely"
I'm trying to be a bit mellower!
Quote from: Shamrock Shore on May 19, 2008, 12:38:52 PM
Tyrone's hammering of Cavan ... 2005 I think it was.
...following which Cavan happened to bounce back and won their next 2 qualifier games before finally being beaten narrowly by Mayo for a place in the quarter-finals.
Often its more a matter of how you react to a bad experience than the experience itself.
carlow can't get their best players out for the county team due to internal problems. that's a public fact. if they got their full whack out they'd give most leinster counties a game. you can't compete without 8-9 of your best players. that's the real reason they were slaughtered rather than banning them from the championship.
ros got hammered yesterday
we'll still be back next year, and the year after, and year after that...
Well, i was thinking the same thing. someone has to be bottom of the pile. We cant keep changing everything everytime someone gets a hammering. Look at the hurling championship, the reason teams are getting milled out of it is because they are shite. Constantly shifting the championship structure every other year is doing nothing only turning the competition into a farce. If you want to beat teams like Kilkenny or Kerry you have to be more skillful, fitter, athletic, determined & more tactically astute. Nothing to do with the number of games.
Not the standard of opposition, its the standard you set yourself
Agree with most of the above, just cos a team ships a heavy beating like Carlow did, doesn't mean they should be discarded from the competiiton. As the Carlow poster (can't remember his name) was saying before, they have a lot of problems, so we aren't seeing them at their best, after all two of their better players are playing for Wicklow and in Oz. Sure we were just like that 20-odd years ago, if Rossies think they got a hiding yesterday, twas nothing on the massacre of our lot in 1990. Within a decade we were going well, in Connacht finals and beating Kerry and Dublin in the league, and by 2002 were tilting at the big one.
It won't happen for everyone but giving up because you are getting beatings repeatedly is no use either. Our own club is a great example as any Sligo poster will agree, were amongst the very worst anywhere in the land results-wise circa 2000 (losing by 43 points to a second-string lot in the JFC), admittedly pulled out in 2001, but by 2005 we were in Intermediate and are reasonably competitive in that grade. Indeed if we had our full team out we could go a long way, but it rarely happens. Last weekend we lost to last year's SFC semi-finalists by 20 points in the league, allowing them to cruise through the game, played them again yesterday and were unlucky to lose by 6. It's all on the day really.
Just to play devil's advocate here, but people don't have issues with the Hurling Championship being split into different levels of ability, do they?
Most people accept that Kilkenny aren't fit to play in teh football Championship either.
I'm not saying that the likes of Carlow shouldn't have a chance in the Championship, but maybe it's time to have a meaningful second-tier competition or a proper seeding of teams in the early rounds so that such mis-matches don't happen(?) Yesterday's match was no good to either team.
The Ulster Hurling Championship appears to have sorted a seeding arrangement this year - it will be interesting to see how it works when the likes of Monaghan play Derry - i'm sure there's still a big difference in class, but it makes more sense than Cavan v Antrim (Hurling) in an open draw in the early rounds. I know there's some level of seeding in Leinster, but it's clearly not very scientific.
Quote from: Maguire01 on May 19, 2008, 09:27:46 PM
Just to play devil's advocate here, but people don't have issues with the Hurling Championship being split into different levels of ability, do they?
Most people accept that Kilkenny aren't fit to play in teh football Championship either.
I'm not saying that the likes of Carlow shouldn't have a chance in the Championship, but maybe it's time to have a meaningful second-tier competition or a proper seeding of teams in the early rounds so that such mis-matches don't happen(?) Yesterday's match was no good to either team.
The Ulster Hurling Championship appears to have sorted a seeding arrangement this year - it will be interesting to see how it works when the likes of Monaghan play Derry - i'm sure there's still a big difference in class, but it makes more sense than Cavan v Antrim (Hurling) in an open draw in the early rounds. I know there's some level of seeding in Leinster, but it's clearly not very scientific.
I'm all for lower tier championships etc, but they have to allow the winners access to the main event, and there's no point in waiting to the next year - how difficult would it be to arrange for the Ring and rackard cups to be played off earlier and allow the winners to play in the hurling qualifiers? What about the ludicrousness of the situations whereby Down or Derry could conceivably beat Antrim yet Antrim go on to play in the qualifiers and they don't (same with westmeath in Leinster I believe)? (How any of them would do in the qualifiers is not the issue here).
The Murphy cup winners could come back in at the 3rd qualifying stage, that'd be a prize worth winning (only problem is we'd probably see teams try to get relegated to D4 as this might be the easy route).
Quote from: haranguerer on May 19, 2008, 11:14:15 AM
We shoulda beat them, and would have but for Mickey Graham coming off the bench. Presumably the notorious cavan folk saw it as an investment - they must have thought they could sell off the cup for a profit. ;)
We've had that cup 39 times and haven't sold it yet ;D I'm sure when ye finally get your hands on it you'll mind it for us.
Quote from: mylestheslasher on May 20, 2008, 08:28:52 AM
Quote from: haranguerer on May 19, 2008, 11:14:15 AM
We shoulda beat them, and would have but for Mickey Graham coming off the bench. Presumably the notorious cavan folk saw it as an investment - they must have thought they could sell off the cup for a profit. ;)
We've had that cup 39 times and haven't sold it yet ;D I'm sure when ye finally get your hands on it you'll mind it for us.
We were always hoping you'd sell it - looks like it might be the only way we'll get it!! :'( I'm sure all the clubs would sell tickets to cover the price! ;D
Quote from: INDIANA on May 19, 2008, 03:05:23 PM
carlow can't get their best players out for the county team due to internal problems. that's a public fact. if they got their full whack out they'd give most leinster counties a game. you can't compete without 8-9 of your best players. that's the real reason they were slaughtered rather than banning them from the championship.
You are 100% correct Indiana. Every year its the same problem, we never get even close to fielding the best 15 in the county due to lack of interest, lads walking off the panel etc. Add to that players like Thos Walsh playing for Wicklow now, and Brendan Murphy with Sydney Swans and no wonder we are on the end of a drubbing like last Sundays.
The guys that put in the effort in training and stayed with the thing deserved better than to suffer the humiliation suffered v Meath. Those guys are a committed bunch, but sadly too many of them just are not good enough for inter county football.
There are 15 guys i could name now who were missing Sunday and 10 - 12 of them would certainly have started.
If we had a midfield of Walsh & Murphy that would be as good as any mf pairing about. I know we can't as they are both not with Carlow anymore.
Centre half back should be 2006 carlow footballer of the year Joe Byrne, he didnt join the panel this year. Centre half forward would be our 2007 footballer of the year Derek Hayden who left Eire Og in Carlow to join Arles in Laois and has taken a year out of county football, rumours are that he will be with Laois next year. Full back Liam Murphy is out with injury, and Mark Brennan who is excellent at full fw, mf or fb is concentrating on hurling.
Thats the entire spine of our team missing, without going into other positions. Lads like suspended Mark Carpenter, injured Paul Reid and guys who left panel after being superb earlier in the year v Dublin and other early games like Ray Walker. And there about 5 or 6 more who should be there too.
Hard to know what the solution is, but banning us from the championship certainly isn't one. Its only 2 years ago this month that we dished out a hammering to Wicklow in a Leinster championship game down in Wexford Pk, ironically our star man that day was Thos Walsh! And only 2 years later look the way both teams are.
Only hope for us is to stick at it for the Tommy Murphy Cup, and for once put an effort into winning it. Players said they will commit to it, that they can't let the season just end after an embarresment like Sundays. If we can win a couple of games in that, maybe blood 1 or 2 more of last years excellent minor side then we can build from there.
The performance of last years minor captain St Ledger at full forward on Darren Fay was the only positive to take out of Croker. He did very well to kick 2 great points despite being starved of possession.
Sunday was probably the darkest of many dark days i've had following Carlow football, but only thing is we can't get any worse, only way has to be up from here. (Unless Kilkenny knock us out of TM Cup :o)!
Quote from: tram on May 20, 2008, 10:29:34 PMThe current football championship is IMHO a mongrel setup that helps the strong get stronger and the weak stay weak. You will get some occasions like Sligo or Fermanagh getting good one-year runs in the championship that could be pointed to the system in place but such fairytale runs existed in the championship before this.
disagree, virtualy every year (since the back door) some team has punched above their weight. I'm agreeing with you to an extent, all I'm saying is that there should be a prize of entry into the big championship for the winners of the lessor competitions. What is there to lose? I mean the weaker tier championship will improve things for all the teams competing in it, the winners will be well battle hardened and should be able to put up a decent challenge to the top tier side they meet.
It's win win imo.
All these discussions are good, but they have their place, and that was not the place to be having them. Neither Tony Davis or Pat Spillane, nor any other match day analyst is an administrator of the GAA at central level. They are employed by RTÉ to comment on, and analyse the games of the day. Any discussion on whether a team should be allowed to play is totally outside their remit. It is beyond the scope of what they are employed to do. And since they never came up with this "brilliant" insight BEFORE the game, and only suggested it after the result is known, it smells of shite stirring!
RTÉ should remind them of their duties....
Quote from: western exile on May 22, 2008, 01:37:51 PM
All these discussions are good, but they have their place, and that was not the place to be having them. Neither Tony Davis or Pat Spillane, nor any other match day analyst is an administrator of the GAA at central level. They are employed by RTÉ to comment on, and analyse the games of the day. Any discussion on whether a team should be allowed to play is totally outside their remit. It is beyond the scope of what they are employed to do. And since they never came up with this "brilliant" insight BEFORE the game, and only suggested it after the result is known, it smells of shite stirring!
RTÉ should remind them of their duties....
This is rubbish, to be fair. You can't look at and analyse games in isolation - games and performances have to be put in context. You don't have to be a GAA decision maker to have and express an opinion on a GAA matter.
As for coming up with the idea before the game, it's not the first time that splitting the championship has been raised - it wouldn't have made much sense to raise it on Sunday's show before screening the game - again the argument was in the context of Carlow's hammering and whilst it was very likely they would lose, it was the extent of the loss that raised this line of comment.
They're opinions may not have been universally popular, but they were entitled to make them and, from my viewpoint, this was totally within their remit as pundits.
I disagree Maguire01 . You earlier post indicates that you are in favour of another tier of competition similar to the hurling. Tony and Pat appear to share that view. However, if that is the case, they should have been open about it before the match, instead of waiting in the long grass like snakes until a result goes their way so that they can jump on it. If the game had ended with less than 7 points between the teams, they would have had to wait until another time to hijack the analysis with their alternate agenda.
Their job was to analyse the games of the day. BTW did they call for Roscommon to be removed from the Connaught championship?
The late, great Raymond Smith wrote in the Sunday Independent in May 1993 that Clare should not be in the Munster Hurling Championship and concluded by saying "I will not travel to Limerick today to witness another slaughter of the innocents". Clare went on to beat Cork that day.
Quote from: western exile on May 22, 2008, 02:22:04 PM
BTW did they call for Roscommon to be removed from the Connaught championship?
They didnt need to - effin Galway did it for them :'(