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Class stuff Sidney -  but disappointed to hear the early drafts of the book have been edited to get rid of a chapter entitled "My Drugs Hell" when Canice detailed the wild party scene that circulated around the Ag Science block in UCD - including his near fatal dalliance with Ivomec F.

If the concept worked, it would be easier to defend. As it is, the balance is never right (and all the complaints from the Irish side about Australian thuggery has affected this). It is now a neutered game, which is all it can ever be given we have removed any possible advantage the Aussies may have had in this code.

Only the Aussies coming back will save it - but why would they show the interest in it? One way would be to go with the Oval ball in Oz and the O'Neills in Ireland - the touring side can go out for maybe a little longer, play more warm-up games against feeder or senior clubs, and maybe make it more like a Lions tour (given the difference in rules interpretations between Southern and Northern hemisphere rugby, I think it is an apt analogy). Maintain the strictness of the discipline and really emphasize the skill aspects. We expect the Aussies to adapt every year - why don't we?

I think for pure curiousity value, a lot would watch just to see how the Irish lads would fare. Maybe the first couple of away trips would be massacres - but I honestly think the fitness gap is very small now, and regular picks on the international team would get used to it.

Great article Deiseach - Taibi is one of the best journalists out there these days - he'll be up there with the likes of Hunter S. and Tom Wolfe, when people look back on his work on the bailout, Goldman Sachs especially.

By the way, I heard the Eugene Mcgee piece and he was actually decrying the appearance of "split Dublin" topics on message boards. Don't Matter is the the archetype of the internet troll - or a member of the Irish cummann of the Tea Party. It's rare to see a man so invested in his own idiocy.

I'd far rather see James McCarthy get the All Star at wing back than McCaffrey - Jack has plenty of years of tormenting lads down the wing ahead - James is Rolls Royce standard.

BTW does anyone else agree that once you've won Young player of the Year once, you should be ineligible for it again? No reflection on Cillian O'Connor's quality per se, but surely a year playing at the top level gives a level of experience which should trump the age on your passport? Maybe it should be just rookie of the year and confined to players making their senior debut, no matter what age they are.

Anytime, anywhere LL 

Said it before and I'll say it again, their performance against us in the rain in 2008 was a pure master class. When I'm thinking of the style of football they played, using a soccer analogy, the best Tyrone sides were like a great German team - outstanding individuals in key areas, but always subservient to the team ethic and the primary characteristic being efficiency - they could play it any way you wanted it. I think Kerry may have touched heights of better football in certain passages of play in the last decade (Kerry 2007 vintage was fairly sublime) but you could never bet against that Tyrone side versus any team. And the key was they reserved their best performances for the biggest games. Respect to all involved in that team.

Let's follow the arguments here

1. Should Hill be Dublin only (trolling opener, anyone who knows anything about GAA ticketing knows that all counties are allocated Hill tickets and usually swap them back)

2. Feck the Dubs - how dare they think they own a spot in Croke Park! (see above, and also it was Dublin fans who first gave it the identity it has by deciding to congregate there - back in the day a full Canal End of Meath men was a brilliant counterpoint to it)

3. Anyway Hill 16 is full of scumbags, who'd want to go there? ( bit of a circular argument here, it is the preponderance of dubs fans which gives it the identity and force that it has, which means that opposition fans want to go there to plant a flag, silence/taunt the locals, which in turn leads to hassle with the local fans. Perhaps then remove all Dublin fans, thus leaving Hill 16 country only, so in five years time a Dub can start trolling this topic from the opposite point of view?)

5. Sure aren't all dubs knackers anyway, look at the booing, and the parking. (In a previous life my work took me to nearly every major GAA ground in the country, and one thing that fans have in common is that they boo kickers - not all of them but a lot of them. GAA fans are not rugby fans and the attempt to clothe them in the Munster Rugby respect - type blather is snobbery and insecurity. As for the parking situation, if you had a stadium in Limerick, Cork, Galway which every Sunday from July onwards was guaranteed a crowd of 40k plus in the middle of a largely residential tract of the inner city, I don't think it would be too long before the locals scum bags came out to play.)

6. They treat it like their home ground and it is a big advantage to them. (Lads for various historical reasons, Dublin is the capital city. And any sports organisation worth it's salt would want their headquarters there. So until we find a different way of organising ourselves other than as counties, then yes, we will be playing at home more than others. And by the way, every time a road trip is suggested in Leinster, the ugly truth rears its head - there is nowhere big enough to hold the crowd we will bring. The Leinster Council could ignore this if they liked, but for financial and health'n'safety reasons, they choose not to. And as for Croke Park being an advantage to us may I please refer you all to the 16 years between 1995 and 2011? And for the really hard of learning, please look at the 12 years between 1983 and 1995. And for the truly dumb, please look back at the period between 1958 and 1974 - one All Ireland title in 16 years.)

It's truly disheartening to see the level of bile spat at not only the team, but my county after this win. I don't know why the fact that I come from a city rather than a rural background would make a difference to my pride as a county man - it doesn't, especially as, for a lot of reasons, there is a large amount of people in Dublin to whom the concept of county pride doesn't occur. A fair amount of contributors on this thread would need to grow up - ironically, least of all the Mayo fans, who like their team, did their county proud last Sunday. You will be back, fired by the same pride in place and achievement that we have in Dublin. And when ye beat us, as you have done before, I hope it will be in front of a Blue Hill, silenced by a better team.

What Dublin brought to the AI final in terms of cynicism has probably never been witnessed before apart from Meath and now with the black card will never be bettered. 

Jesus, we win an All Ireland and Meath still find a way to beat us.

Cyncial feckers...

Read a very good interview with Flynn in the Sunday Times, I think it was, day of the final - he does a lot of work with Pieta House as well - comes across as a thinker, not just on the game but on life. Proud to follow a team with him on it.

Well here we go......

I'm never confident before a Dubs game but I just feel that this Dublin team's main quality, despite the acres of newsprint devoted to their "pure" footballing virtues, is their character. In each of their games so far, they have been presented with different challenges - a bad start against Kildare, a full blooded physical challenge from Meath, a Cork side who deliberately targeted our perceived weakest line, and a Kerry side that defied the odds and the ages to fully vindicate their footballing tradition and still ended up the wrong side of a 7 point scoreline - and they have reacted calmly, with no hint of panic and merely trusted in themselves and their plan all the more. They up the pace, they adjust where needed and they remain unified.

I'm not going to go into the relativisim of the form line - but I simply don't think that Mayo have faced challenges of that proportion this year, and that gives the Dubs a real advantage.

It has been brilliant this week to read some of the articles on the history of Mayo football, its triumph and tragedy, but the flip side of that characterisation is the swaggering Dubs, cocky and arrogant, the black hats barging through the swing doors facing the oppressed farmer who might just get mad enough to throw down his scythe and pick up a gun. But the truth of football in Dublin since 1983, is that our nightmare is never far away, the insecurity that lurks underneath the bravado, the years that we wondered why anyone would think that playing against us was a big deal, when it was clear we were well below the standard required. I remember finally after the horrible sequence of 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 saying to my brother that the only consistent thing about Dublin was that each year they found a new way to f#'@k it up outside Leinster.

2011 was necessary to put the steel back in our soul - to remind ourselves that for all the swagger we were also the county that produced Sean Doherty, Gay O'Driscoll, Pat O'Neill, Tommy Drumm, Brian Mullins, Gerry Hargan, Mick Holden, Mick Kennedy, Dave Foran, Paddy Moran, Keith Barr, Eamon Heery - as P Sé would say, "pyschopaths - in the best possible sense of the world".

That steel has not gone away, despite the talk this year of a porous full back line etc - Rory O'Carroll is a genuine traditional full back, one of the best, if not the best on his day, in the country (Ger Cafferky i would rate along side him). If he plays well, and if Philly Mac brings some of the intensity that his forebears above brought, then there is no need for system adjustment - these guys will back themselves man to man.

And as for our forwards and midfield - for all the deficiencies that people have said that the O'Shea brothers will expose, I fully expect us to break even here, on the principle that MDM and COS will know for us to win they will have to attack Mayo's strongest unit - something they have done all year. And our forwards, despite the wastefulness that they can be guilty of, never vary from the plan and never cease to back themselves. I'm thinking of unsung guys like Paddy Andrews, who gradully grew into the game on the 40 against Kerry, until he was doing a very passable Alan Brogan impersonation. And what about Berno Brogan, who ended up for one of the first times this year doing a very passable Bernard Brogan impersonation? Or Paul Mannion,who had a quiet game, yet whose first half finish was both important and absolutely deadly. And the subs who can roll on, with an incredible selfless focus, putting aside their own ambition, elevating the team always.

I'm sure every Mayo fan feels the same about his/her own team - I'm sure the same arguments can be cogently made from the opposite end of the pitch. Which is why I feel tomorrow should be a classic.

But it doesn't change the fact that we had our own cycle of despair to break, and this team feels like it both honours and transcends our past - we're playing in a different way now, when empty swagger mutates into confidence, when entitlement becomes justified, and when the past is no longer a millstone on the present.

If Mayo win, i hope they will feel the same way, their demons consigned to history. But either way, with two young teams competing at the very top of a game they have transformed this summer, I think the next few years might compare to the best of times witnessed before.

Good luck to all the players and to everyone lucky enough to have a ticket. i'll be watching at home with my two year old boy, who already knows how to wave a fist and shout "Up The Dubs!"

Cannot wait!

Hi highorlow

Let me answer a few of your questions

If the young lads get smothered, roll on McManamon/Cullen/ Rock/O'Gara

If we need a plan B for the kick outs, roll on Bastick

Our porous back line hadn't conceded much on the scoreboard before the Kerry game - and we usually outscore what we concede

McCauley's "predictable" ball hop has been on full display for the past four seasons and not many have lived with it

If Jack is stopped, sure we might get James running at ya

this is the same Connoly who was man of the match in the last game, being marked by one of the greatest defenders in the past twenty years?

to be fair, they subbed Berno because he was injured the last day - and if we sub him after he scores six points, four from play, against this magnificent Mayo back line, I'd be happy with his performance

Hmmm - fell 5 behind against Kildare, we were behind against Cork, and I don;t need to remind you how far we were behind against Kerry - or how the Hill stayed with them all the way - best atmosphere at a game I've ever experienced.


You may notice I'm not asking any questions of what Mayo are going to do - and that's because we're going to go and play our own game regardless. Can't wait for it - underdogs in a full Croker? Bring it on.

they own the rights for the League in 2014 - the new rights package always kicks in after the League is done.

I hope I didn't come across as outraged but why should we settle for daft, when with a bit of forethought and consultation, we could immeasurably improve what is a brilliant promotional opportunity. I don't care if the North American board is put out, what annoys me is this presentation of a fait accompli, when most hurling people here and in American would question the usefulness of these new rules.

I'd also ask where is Pat Daly in all of this? Is anyone just allowed come up with a hare-brained hybrid and then bowl away with the GAA's approval? We should promote as a means to protecting the future and the heritage we already have in hurling. Nothing against the free style hurling though - think that is a very good initiative.

[hurling]

I don't have much of an opinion on the politics of the thing - in general i think Donal Og has as much a right as any to promote hurling in any part of the world, and that his star wattage can only be a good thing - but...and it is a big but....if you're going to promote hurling, promote hurling.

Read these rules and was baffled by the motivation of coming up with rules for what is essentially a new game, to promote another game. As said above, what happens if it actually works, and new American converts go looking for a game that doesn't exist? Idiotic and potentially damaging to any other promotion efforts.

And as for these adjustments - surely any change made should be to simplify the game for the onlooker, whereas these rules make things far more complicated.

Finally, point taking is an intrinsic and beautiful part of the game - for a man who was on the pitch when the Rock scored his epic from 100 yards out against Limerick in 2001 to forget this or take it for granted is a comment on the fuzzy logic behind this initiative.

As always I'm sticking up for my county men - I'd say a team that won an All Ireland in 83 and contested the next two finals deserves more than O'Leary and Drumm - toss up for me between Mullins and McEntee (even a Mullins after the accident) Tommy Drumm for 83 alone is worth a shout against the Horse and we might have found some space for Duff, consistently through the 80s one of the best forwards around (no matter what happened against Galway).

Let the stoning commence....