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Seems like Dessie needs a few bob for the upkeep of the offices.

http://www.herald.ie/sport/gaelic-football/latest-gpa-deal-signals-a-new-departure-1533639.html

I posted this on the "General Discussion" area but because so many of ye are gaa stalwarts and do not visit that area of the board I would like anyone who has any info on this to toddle over there to General area or PM me if you have inside track on this.  Sorry for posting on GAA part of the board.

Anyone hear anything about a fairly big betting scandal about to break involving a League Of Ireland Club?   
Is the sh*t about to hit the fan big time?

Duz anyone have a Skype In telephone number and how does this yoke work.  Is it reliable enough toi use for business and can you forward calls from the number to your mobile if you are out and about. Anyone using it on here?

I sees that the GPA are cackling away about the decision of Stevie McDonnell below:

ARMAGH star and former GPA Player of the Year Steven McDonnell has turned down a lucrative deal with a rival sports drink company in support of Gaelic Players Association sponsor Energise Sport. Energise Sport is one of the mainstays of the players' body and GPA Chief Dessie Farrell yesterday reiterated the importance of this unique partnership to all players.

"Huge progress has been made for players since the GPA came on the scene but none of that could have been achieved without the Energise Sport sponsorship," explained Farrell. "Unlike individual deals, this arrangement benefits all county players collectively.

I would like to praise Steven for his decision and I think it sends a very positive signal to all players and reminds them of the importance of Energise Sport to the GPA and therefore to themselves. In October every county player will receive government funding; that reward didn't come out of the blue, it was achieved because an intense campaign was spearheaded by GPA officers with the support of the staff. Without these structures, there would be no voice for players." Other prominent players were quick to support McDonnell's stand. Clare star Tony Griffin called on GAA fans to support their players by choosing Energise Sport. "I know how dedicated GAA fans are to their counties and to their players but I think we need to explain to them that they can help them directly by supporting Energise Sport products.

"Supporting the GPA sponsors is an important responsibility for county hurlers and footballers. We are in talks with Croke Park at the moment and the stronger the message from players, the stronger our hand in those negotiations."

Have to say I can't wait to hear the breaking news that Mr. Duracell, Brian Dooher was fuelled up on Red Bull for the All-Ireland and against the Dubs and has signed a two year contract for 2009/10.
There must be money in picture frames if a man can't accept a few grande for knocking back a bottle of mineral water.

OK, anyone any thoughts on the adminstration costs of issuing the All-I.F. Tickets.
According to the accountants at HQ your ticket will cost €70.00 and this is where it goes.


Distribution to counties and provinces  €12.60 
Match Day Costs...............................€9.80
Games Development.........................€9.10
Player Injury & Welfare......................€9.80
Infrastructural Investment.................€18.90

Adminstration Costs.........................€9.10
TOTAL Expenditure €69.30
Retained €0.70

I asume the match day costs include the red bibs and general security but at games outside of Croke Park there are no such costs, well not as high anyway say at a game in O'Moore Park. So I would think that the "Adminstration Costs" are for the wages of Peter McKenna, Danny Lynch and the staff at Croker plus full time employees of the provincial council offices.

80,000 backsides at an AIF =  five and a half million or 11 million for the two AIF's alone.  "The Gaa contributed over €13Million last year to help counties meet the cost of running teams in the intercounty leagues and championships" but does the hurlers of Carlow get the same as the Cats for example or does each of our 32 counties get 406,250.

In any event, the adminstration costs of putting that ticket in your paw for the AIF is €728,000 for this one match alone.

One saving they could make on match day costs is to get rid of your man that does the announcement " Will all stewards please go to their end of match positions"  This is the most stupid, annoying and unwanted announcement ever, it comes with ten minutes left in the game, it comes invariably when players are trying to keep their concentration in the most crucial part of the game and most of all, if they don't know when to go to their positions, or are unaware that there is ten minutes left in the game with all the clocks and big screens around them they should have nothing to do with security anyway.

On the plus side, €9m was invested in coaching and games development last year (where?) and a further 10Million was spent on the welfare of our players (put that in your pipe Dessie) including almost €9M to assist playeres at all levels (Castletown & Camross for example) with the cost of on-field injuries.

EDIT:  Sorry, meant tpo say that the figures quoted are from an article in last Sundays Match Program.

Right, about two years ago I muted the idea of having a golf outing and this was supposed to involve each team wearing their county colours. In the end the idea was hijacked and never got off the ground so lets have another go.

Rather than be too ambitious this time first of all lets pick a golf course that is fairly reasonable in terms of distance for all.

Would anyone interested in playing please register and say:

1. -  which of these three locations , Ardee, City West, Heritage (Portlaoise) would suit you best.  If you don't like any of them suggest an alternative.

2. - what month would suit you best.

3-   weekend or week day.

4 - the number of 4 balls the outing should be restricted to.

5. - You just want to play golf and go home - OR- you want to have a session afterwards, prize giving, a band, wimmen, the works.

http://www.ardeegolfclub.com/

http://www.theheritage.com/golf_course.html

http://www.citywesthotel.com/site/golf.aspx?gclid=CLezyvXE2JUCFQ0yQgod_TPbWg

["This was the worst performance from a team in white-and-blue in over ten years.. The Waterford selectors, Davy Fitzgerald, Peter Queally and Maurice Geary set up this team all wrong yesterday. Stephen Molumphy at centre forward? Eoin Kelly the best full forward this year at corner forward? Wasn't that telling Noel Hickey that Kelly was afraid of him? Starting Dan Shanahan after the year he's had? Seamus Prendergast likewise? They looked liike a tired team, perhaps over-cooked, certainly not ready for the game of their lives. Waterford had nothing, no plan, no tactics, no idea"]

Anyone think Considine has set the bar a bit high for himself by his criticism, (and that is what it was) of Davy Fitz?

Me thinks Fitzy is right in that there is no place for such sniping and that the promotion of hurling does not need this type of crap.  Here is what all knowing Mr Considine said:

"This was the worst performance from a team in white-and-blue in over ten years.. The Waterford selectors, Davy Fitzgerald, Peter Queally and Maurice Geary set up this team all wrong yesterday. Stephen Molumphy at centre forward? Eoin Kelly the best full forward this year at corner forward? Wasn't that telling Noel Hickey that Kelly was afraid of him? Starting Dan Shanahan after the year he's had?  Seamus Prendergast likewise?  They looked liike a tired team, perhaps over-cooked, certainly not ready for the game of their lives. Waterford had nothing, no plan, no tactics, no idea"

I think anyone who knows anything about hurling or saw the game would agree that whether Eoin Kelly started at full forward or full back it would not have made one blind bit of difference.  If I was training a team tomorrow one of the first things I would look at is the pace and number of training sessions that the Cats undertake in the build up to the big day. Maybe there is a need for a coming together, a meeting of minds on this?  The number of hurling coaches are scarce enough without criticising the ones we have.  Or has TC a point, do we need more people like him who knows exactly how to win an All-Ireland?

Just seen where one of our representatives at the paralympics has been sent home for being too good.  There was nothing wrong with him and he did not qualify even though he was on the national soccer team.  The representative said "we were afraid this might arise" which translated means we entered a banger and we got caught.

Should we have a Minister for the Olympics, maybe Conor Lenihan, Minister for Children and Minister for Integration would do the job? Apart from yesterday look at our record for jaysus sake.

We had a hammer thrower who trained all on her own for the last four years down on the farm and then before she goes to throw the hammer she twists her ankle. We had the swimmers, girls bursting out of their swimsuits, because they were too small and goggles that fell off because they were too big and they had to stop half way up the swim lane to fix them.  We had to borrow caps because they brought ones that were not acceptable. Any wonder we did not win any swimming medals.

Then we had your man with the horse.  "Can we see your horse, we want to do a drugs test?"   "Oh sure he is out the back here, work away" and then after they do the test and leave he thinks it is safe to administer a banned substance only to prove that there are more brains in the horse than in the entire Irish Equine team who like meself and Heffo and GNevin seem to spend more time fighting than working together.

Take the boxers, and apart from the pin up lad from Clondalking and the bronze medal who proved as if proof were needed that the only thing we are good at is fighting it was not all success.  I watched one lad fight a brit and after all that training and all that travel he only hit him twice. I thought watching it that if I travelled that far I would give him a good kick in the goolies if I could not get a box at him, but no, our man got 2 points.  Just as well as it happened because the boxing team or whoever forgot to get his mother and father a ticket and they had to wait outside while someone from Knocknagoshel or somewhere was giving it their all in a lost cause inside.

We had a Clay Shoting team. Anyone that knows anything about Clay Shooting knows that DTL (Down the Line) is the easiest bird to hit.  We were out after the first round. We have criminals who can shoot better than that, even hit you four or five times between your bedroom window and the lawn and we send a fella that gives an interview wearing glasses! 

We then had yer man who qualified for the 5000 meters and he decided he had enough after one lap when he was passed out or he passed out. Ok, so we did fairly well at the walking by a woman from Mayo or somewhere that we were told completed over 2,000 miles in training.

Our latter day Ronaldo, the one who was cutting every paralympic defense apart may have unknowningly created a just cause for Ireland when it comes to sport at an international level. There is a lovely big stadium in Bejing now all lying idle. I think we should send over the Kilkenny hurling team, sorry, teams,  give them China men two months free demonstration in the art of hurling and then tell them, "thats it, ye have four years to practice and we will be back and its hurls ye want not chopsticks."
Even if they fail to compete in a more european type sport the final between the Cats and an Oxford & Cambridge selection representing the UK should give the little f**kers something to squint at instead of looking at our girls in swimsuits two sizes too small.

Anyone visiting the website or look at the amount of advertising for Cul Green where they urge us all to travel to Croke Park by bus or train and leave the car at home?

Last Sunday I decided to do that, normally I park in the Bishops Haggard there off the lower fields at Clonliffe.

Anyway, I decided to get a taxi from Ballyboden to Terenure (that'll be 9 Euro Please) that cost me 10€.
The idea here was to hop on the 16, 16a bus and get off at the Big Tree and walk down.

From ten minutes to twelve, and there is no exaggeration here, myself and another growing crowd stood in Terenure until twent minutes to one.  I was like a fcuuking demon and eventually I got a taxi at a quarter to one because I would miss the minor match.

Before Croke Park start advising people to get busses they need to liase with Dublin Bus.  All-Ireland Hurling Final Day is as important as St Patricks day or any other big event.  Bus Eireann are a disgrace. It cost me €36 to get to Croke Park and €70 for a ticket.   Cul Green me hole.

Next Sunday people who can not get busses will drive and if they come within a mile of Drumcondra the clampers are driving out to meet them to clamp their cars.

About time Croke Park and Bus Eireann started working together or else give the money they are wasting with Cul Green staff, websites and advertising to a worthwhile charity.

(Just as well I walked anyway ' cause I went into Tom Mayes and got pissed with a fella that owns a pub in Keady)

Tony,

I put a letter in today's Independent there about the M50 , shur theres no point in having you out on your own all the time !

Edit:

6 Trips across the M50 now and if you drive behind a truck it is all free gratis and for nothing   

I hate bothering ye boys like this but I am absolutely and totally confused to the point of giving up. I have a little business for which I have to produce specifications along with each quotation.  Me likes to include a few colour brochures of the product when I do this so the customer sees what he gets. I can't use the manufacturers brochure because there is none or I don't want to include the name of the manufacturing company or whatever. I can't get the stuff printed because the product for each customer varies whereas todays specification may include a picture of a lovely big Rhode Island Red brown hen egg and tomorrows a big sky blue duck egg type of situation.

So, can anyone suggest a laser printer that does colour at around three or four hundred euro that when the ink toner cartridges run out I do not have to ring Peter McKenna and ask him to do a testimonial in Croke Park for me to find the money to replace them.  A good printer that will produce quality colour in small amounts. Any help from anyone who has one that is doing the job for them will be much appreciated. I know this is not the stuff to put on here but I saw one 'dother day asking can you reheat boiled rice!

Anyone as pissed off listening to the sneering and unmannerly attitude of Joe Brolly on the Sunday Game as I .  It is time for RTE to leave this yokel in the car park while the All-Ireland is on.  Every time, and I mean every single time that Colm went to speak, and during when he was speaking Mr. Think He Knows It All kept butting in with snide remarks.   At one stage he told O'Rourke that he was more or less stupid and was beginning to sound like Eamon Dunphy, Dunphy being in my opinion about twenty times smarter than Brolly.

There is a slot where RTE could use pundits for good evaluation of what is happening during a game.  Brolly's ideas are as scarce as a razor in a Mace shop in Tyrone when he is asked a direct question himself. We didn't need him to keep telling us constantly why the Vikings were going to be better than Wexford but that aside, his display of ignorance with snide remarks when O'Rourke is speaking wouldn't be heard at a football game in the prison yard of Moiuntjoy let alone in RTE.  Then, when O'Rourke is making a good point, which in fairness to him he does, yer man can be heard off camera, "aye, yes,yes but" waiting to cut across O'Rourke before he finishes but at least implying that "what you are saying is right, but not unless I agree with you" and he leaning forward like an ould lad of 90 warming his hands at a turf fire instead of sitting up in the chair and listening to his colleagues remarks before he imposes his own.  Surely if RTE have to have him back they can tell him to shut his mouth until he is asked to open it and to have the basic requirement that being a pundit demands, that being manners.

Leaving aside the thread down the board about O'Loughlin having his jaw broken I see he was listed to attend the two day trial for Mr. Nixons Oz recruits but I understand he never intended being there in the first place.  The players who attended were:

Tomas McCann, Niall McKeever, and Conor Murphy - Antrim
Stephen Forkar and Joe Feeney - Armagh
Kieran Nolan - Carlow
James Kielt, Niall Forrester - Derry
Colm Murney - Down
Kevin Nolan - Dublin
Conor Meredith - Laois
Dessie Moore -Daniel McNally - Monaghan
Brian Sheridan - Meath
Peter Hughes - Tyrone.

Players who were asked to attend but think more of their heritage, their Irishness and their club and county and said , "up your's Mr. Nixon" :
Brendan Boggine - Tyrone
Conor Galligan - Monaghan
David Moran, Tommy (to the left and wide) Walsh and Barry John Walsh - Kerry
Michael Murphy - Donegal
John O'Loughlin - Laois,
Ian Ryan - Limerick.

Three years ago I was excited about the new, well, what we will call the new school of excellence for our hurlers that was going to lead us up the ranks in Leinster Hurling by prepared diets and five nights a week training for a selected group making a panel of 25.  That, as we all now know ended in tears and Clonaslee and Camross added a further blot on our county's copybook with their well published disgraceful scenes.  Now this thuggery has hit the football headlines as well with Mountmellic and County Player getting a fractured jaw in an off the ball incident last Sunday against Emo.  It is sickening that this young lad ended up in hospital not remembering the last ten minutes of the game, during which he took several more off the ball belts.  I wonder if the county board said anything to Clancy after the Wexford game in which he could have broken a players jaw as well?  Course not, giving the message that this is how to be a great man on the field of play.  No wonder Etihad are sponsoring the football championship, next they will give players who are sick of the game here free flights to Oz and don't be surprised if young O'Loughlin is not on one before this year is out if our county board do not stand up for him instead of their usiual stance - the Ostrich one.   It is time for the Laois County Board to take stock of themselves in the first instance, they have absolutely no control over what is happening.

A while back there was a discussion on the board about GAA players making the headlines.  First, there is no need to rehash the old topic, that was done already, and it is not necessary to raise the named players again.   I just want to refer back to a point I made at the time when I said that one reason that a headline can read like "Gaa Player Assaults Garda"  "Gaa Player accused of robbery" etc was because on the one hand while we all proclaim that the "Gaa" reference should be left out while on the other the GAA involve themselves when they shouldn't.

This week there was a Circuit Court Case in which two boyos from Kildare started slagging a lad in one of the Burger joints in O'Connell St, Dublin.  It ended when they followed him up the street after the lad left and they proceeded to kick the head off him and stab him.  I forget what the sentence was but it was lessened for the following reason:

The accused had a letter of support from his GAA Club saying that he was a good lad and had never been sent off in a game, which translated to me meant, he was a f**king coward who would pick on a young lad when there were two of them and they had knives and he would not be so brave on a football field because he would get as good as he gave.

The point is, this GAA Club (in my opinion) have no right whatsoever to be writing letters of support for convicted criminals and if Croke Park are aware of this a letter should be winging its way with a heavy fine on this club for bringing the GAA into disrepute and the person, ie, the secretary of the club should be banned from his position permanently.

And then we wonder why the reporters refer to people being charged with offences  as "Gaa Players"  !!!!

Knocking the book out of the refs hand or hitting a lad a box in the jaw like our man Clancy did on Sunday, not just off the ball but about 100 yards off it.  No point in asking for an opinion unless I have one myself I suppose and it is this:

I had a disliking for Galvin since he acted the maggott against Limerick last year, or the year before so leaving the blinkers aside I think there is a difference between being caught up in the moment of time when you are in the thick of it, which is where Galvin was. Without going into the lengths of suspensions my thinking is that Galvin should get half the sentence that Clancy gets if he appeals.

http://www.fennetec.com/ringTommyMurphy.html

Click on the above link to hear how Louth faired out against India.   

Mod, in the thread below "feck this I'm off"  I registerd that I am leaving the board.

When I tried to delete my account it asked for a password and even though I entered the correct one it says it is wrong.
Can you please delete my account.

Thanks, and thanks for everything,

Bud

Great to see Glen Hansard get an Oscar .  Dinny Breen as a Kildare man will be proud.
I thought meself, Indiana, Heffo and GNevin would have been included in the nominations for "There Will Be Blood", aye, and include that fecker, Hardstation too...

http://www.firhousevillage.com/Breaking.html