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is a possibility....

Has a GR player ever played for Ireland before?

US-based Republic of Ireland international Joseph Lapira is training with Rangers.

The 20-year-old striker, who plays for the Baton Rouge Capitals, was expected to have a trial with Aberdeen.

However, the Louisiana-born forward, who has an Irish mother, has won the chance to try and win a move to Ibrox.

Lapira was named 'college player of the year' in 2006, following in the footsteps of former Rangers midfielder Claudio Reyna.

He made his international debut in May, when a makeshift Republic of Ireland side drew with Ecuador in New York.

Head on the block time...

Mayo
Kildare,
Meath,
Westmeath,
Tyrone,
Dublin.

Think Westmeath will provide the shock of the weekend, are a good back door team, home advantage and something doesn't seem right with Donegal. Louth could spring a win although I doubt it would be classified as a shock.

What a plank, Spillane pulled him up over saying that the any of the losing provincial finalists would love to draw the winners of Kildare v Louth. He squirmed and slithered and said that he said that in private Pat and then mumbled something about Kildare being good in Newbridge etc etc.

For Christ sake Davis grow a back-bone, everything you said is true, on form Kildare and Louth are the 2 of the worst teams left and would be the preferred draw for a beaten finalist, any one-eyed Kildare or Louth man can see that.

The Sunday game pundits are brutal, although I like him I had to laugh at Michael Duigan yesterday, he said the Eoin Kelly switch would favour Limerick, how wrong was he?

Championship football in a packed Newbridge on a Saturday night, bring on the wee men...

Kildare
Westmeath
Louth
Meath
Mayo
Donegal
Fermanagh/Wexford
Armagh/Derry

Hmm, is there a revival going on in Leinster football with Meath, Kildare and Louth all registering away wins in different provinces? Anyway from a Kildare perspective would love a home draw and feel we could beat any team left in Newbridge. Of course would like to avoid an away trip North or Mayo but should be an interesting draw tonight.

Good draw for both sides as they will both fancy their chances. They played a great game in 2003 which should add to Kildare's motivation. The mood in the Kildare camp is not good and they shipped a heavy defeat to Kerry during the week. A lot people just want these footballers to put some pride back in the shirt so hopefully that starts here....

Why aren't they showing the Liimerick Tipp replay live, they showed last week that they can broadcast 3 games live on the same day and the auidence figures were massive, almost 600K between both games and they had 500K watching at prime time Saturday night. Now I don't mean to bash the precious dubs but did they only show the game last week because it was the Dubs?

Could this be Harrington's best chance so far, he always seems to perform at this tournament. Fancy Els myself.

New posters, can you please refrain from Text Speak, although fluent in that bloody language can you keep it to your mobile, extra letters don't cost you more euro on the auld inter webby thingy. And to be honest it makes any valid point you are making look infantile and hard to take serious...

Now where is that things that annoy me list......

Enjoy this week lads because after Sunday the Cheeky yet precious Dubs will be back complaining about how the whole world hates them 

Just over 2 weeks away and Kildare are f*cked at midfield.....

A major doubt hangs over Dermot Earley's participation in Kildare's Leinster SFC opener against Meath on May 20 after he suffered a recurrence of the stress fracture in a bone in his foot at the weekend.

Kildare manager John Crofton took his team to Sunderland for a weekend of training at the Black Cats' state-of-the-art training facility when Earley, who has been sidelined since the second round of the National League, suffered a recurrence of the injury.

And with Killian Brennan ruled out for the rest of the season, it means that the Lilywhites could conceivably be without their first choice midfield pairing for their clash with the newly-crowned NFL Division 2 champions.

The weekend away had been organised with the help of Sunderland's Kildare-based chairman Niall Quinn.

DERMOT Earley's inter-county career with Kildare is hanging by a thread after yet another injury setback.

Earley suffered a recurrence of a metatarsal injury during a training session in Sunderland where the Kildare squad had set up camp over the weekend, courtesy of club chairman Niall Quinn.

Earley did the damage to his foot while running during a non-contact part of the session. He had already missed most of the NFL campaign because of the same problem and has been plagued by debilitating injuries over the last number of years.

The former Allstar missed most of last year's league with a broken collarbone, and returned for the summer only to miss the qualifier defeat to Derry with a broken metatarsal sustained in training.

Kildare manager John Crofton admitted that the Sarsfields powerhouse will require "minor surgery" and won't play any part in their championship opener against Meath on May 20.

After that, Crofton says he is not in a position to say when his team captain will return again.

"I really couldn't say or wouldn't like to put a time on it other than to say I'm very disappointed for him," said Crofton who faces something of a crisis as he weighs up potential midfield pairings for the game in less than three weeks' time.

Killian Brennan, who ruptured his Achilles tendon in the early part of Kildare's league semi-final defeat to Donegal, has already had surgery and will be out for the rest of the season.

Rehab

Brennan faces a long period of rehab with the injury and it will be next year's league before he can resume with the Lilywhites.

There is better news concerning Michael Foley who is another potential midfield recruit. Foley has resumed action with his club Athy after a prolonged back problem, but as to whether he will be fit to face a resurgent Meath is not something Crofton would be willing to speculate on.

Tomás O'Connor, who moved to midfield after Brennan's injury against Donegal, subsequently damaged a cruciate ligament and he too has been ruled out for the remainder of the season.

However, Ronan Sweeney is expected to be ready for the championship after recovering from a groin problem, while clubmate Ross Glavin (ankle) is also back in training.

The trip to Sunderland was organised through Quinn who is a resident of Eadestown outside Naas. Kildare were given use of the newly-promoted Premiership club's facilities and the squad were at the Stadium of Light on Friday as the home side beat Burnley.

Meanwhile, Meath footballers will warm up for their clash with Kildare with a five-day training stint in Portugal next week.

Fresh from their Division Two league success at the weekend, they will continue their preparations abroad but are unlikely to have Graham Geraghty, who is a Fine Gael candidate in the forthcoming general election, as he steps up his political campaign.

Kildare were in Sunderland, Meath are off to Portugal, both teams are putting a lot of effort into this game, our crisis at midfield leaves Meath as firm favourites, although it looks like it could be a straight shoot-out between Doyle and Farrell as both sides are struggling to get other names on the score sheet...

Really fancy the winners here to beat the Dubs....

Surprised this hasn't been commented on but Football365 posted this link...

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Irishleague/

[One rule and one rule only you can't vote for your own county....]

One rule and one rule only you can't vote for your own county....

[One rule and one rule only you can't vote for your own county....]

One rule and one rule only you can't vote for your own county....

[One rule and one rule only you can't vote for your own county....]

One rule and one rule only you can't vote for your own county....

[One rule and one rule only you can't vote for your own county....]

One rule and one rule only you can't vote for your own county....

[One rule and one rule only you can't vote for your own county....]

Will do a poll for each province and All-Ireland in football. Will wait till next week for the hurling...

One rule and one rule only you can't vote for your own county....

[All the talk years ago about the need to build a new 'national stadium' for Ireland was made to seem redundant. The country already has one.]

Please bear in mind that the article below is written for an English audience but as someone who works in this part of the city his comments on the North Side aren't too far off the mark.....And before the forum police jump down my throat I put it in the GAA section beacuse it's about Croke Park....


Croke Park sets the standard for coexistence
By John Inverdale



What have you done today to make you feel proud? The adopted anthem of the 2012 Olympics could justifiably have been playing from every jukebox in every bar in Dublin on Saturday night.


Togetherness: England in a huddle at Croke Park before kick-off
The tens of thousands who partied into the night were not just celebrating a great Irish victory, they were acknowledging the fact that sport, and in this case rugby, had confounded the doom-mongers in the media who had predicted an outpouring of venom and resentment against the visitors from across the Irish Sea.

It was one of the most joyous sporting occasions it has ever been my privilege to attend, and when all the revellers woke on Sunday morning (or probably afternoon) it was time to put the hangover of history to bed and embrace the future.

Which, as things stand, includes spending not far short of €400 million (£270 million) on the new Lansdowne Road - although, as we all know, these projects have a habit of increasing in cost at a rather alarming rate.

There are still various planning hoops to be jumped through, but essentially the new stadium is going to be like the old stadium, only more modern.

It's going to have roughly the same capacity of 50,000 and if/when Irish rugby internationals return to their traditional home and leave the 83,000-capacity Croke Park behind, it may be a bit like going to the local corner shop rather than Asda.

Those of you who were lucky enough to get a ticket for the game on Saturday will almost certainly have gone through parts of Dublin you hadn't seen before, and which you were probably shocked by. There are some estates which architecturally wouldn't be out of place in Bucharest, and some streets of deprivation that are a throwback to a time long before the Celtic Tiger revolution made the Irish economy the envy of most countries in Europe.

Gang warfare is rife in the city and, by common consent, the health service is a shambles. Which means you could argue there are better things to be spending €400 million on than a new, and some would say unnecessary, football and rugby stadium.

This is not an issue unique to Dublin. While the North-West of England harbours some of the worst sink estates in the country, Liverpool and Everton go their own merry ways in planning individual super-stadiums, when a joint venture combining blue and red would free up invaluable space and hundreds of millions of pounds to be invested in regenerating the area.

Huge arenas sit idle for the majority of their lives. While Tottenham Hotspur search endlessly for a home to replace White Hart Lane, the Emirates Stadium lies empty on alternate Saturdays barely an Arsene Wenger pout away.

Don't trot out the old cliches about the fans never accepting the idea of ground-sharing. It's about leadership and vision on the part of the clubs concerned, working in tandem with the local authorities.

There's a bigger picture out there than what colour scarf you wear, and if diehard Gaelic sports fans can welcome rugby and football to Croke Park, the two sides of the great Merseyside and north London divides can certainly coexist.

The great thing about Croke Park on Saturday was not just that it looked great, but that it 'felt' right. I'm sure all the football fans who go there in the next couple of weeks will feel similarly at home. All the talk years ago about the need to build a new 'national stadium' for Ireland was made to seem redundant. The country already has one.

The next stage for Croke Park is to replace the terracing on Hill 16 (but not change the name) and then, in keeping with a country accelerating through the premier league of Europe, it would have arguably one of the finest grounds on the continent.

The corner has been well and truly turned in Ireland. As Saturday night hazily became Sunday morning, and the talk became increasingly more honest (and inevitably less coherent), it was hard to find anyone who didn't think it would be something of a come-down to return in future to a much smaller venue for such a big occasion. So do they have to?"

[Kildare]

We had this thread before but would be grateful if I could gather them all again...

E.G  Kildare - Lilywhites, Flourbags, Short Grass, Thoroughbreds....