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Although young Graffin is a good prospect it's pretty harsh to have him in front of Barney McAuley I'd have thought??

McAuley was near enough the best player last year. Clearly not a favourite of Sambo and Woody's though.

Are that Derry team even half fit?

A lot of very cumersome men on that team. They may find it easier against Armagh though.

McGoldrick wasn't bad nor McCloy. As for the rest well not much can be said. Max doesn't know much about football based on a lot of his posts but he'd be right in saying Lockhart is no CHB. He's very reluctant to kick the ball at all and just holds up play. Mark Lynch is fast becoming one of these boys with great potential who never lives upto it.  As for tactics or tactical substitutions there weren't really any -well unless you count taking Patsy Bradley off.

Monaghan were minus Finlay who by all accounts will be ok for the final. Those two Freemans are some footballers though. Woods despite his size can fairly use a ball too. That team will give Tyrone their fill of it me thinks. They won't win but they won't lie down.

As much as I wanted to see Limerick win I would have said the ref. was harsh on Tipp in the last few minutes when it was a one point game. They should have had a free to level her and instead Limerick went up and made it a two point game.

Still these things likely balanced themselves out over the course of the 3 games.

Good to see that munster final pairing.

Great series of games - maybe standard not as goo as Cork etc. but good to see saga's like this. Brings out the best in teams.

and then there's the women supporters who bring their umbrellas and threaten the opposition players with them!

Every club has boys like that - they are a pain in the hole and do no good for the development of confidence in young players or senior players who are maybe a bit frail on confidence.

I mind playing a junior game a few years ago and marking this old boy. I was round the 21 mark and he was to be honest about 40 odd. He won first three balls and never got a kick the rest of the game. So one of the negative sorts comes up to me at the end - "so you finally got the better of him then. sure he's nearly my age"! Closest to a compliment I've ever got from the boy, or anyone else for that matter, and he coached me from u10 to u21 inclusive!

What date are the first rounds of the football championship?

Creggan have been on the up for a few years now. Moran has probably just injected a new enthusiasm and he is genuinely a top coach which would help but they have some decent, maybe not brilliant, but decent players to work with.

I would expect them to be one of the stronger u16 and minor teams in the county which will help in the future. You don't become a decent division one team overnight team too so someone must have done something - not sure if it was McGettigan or not but they certainly seem to have and have had decent underage structures in place.

It would be very unrealistic to be thinking just because they are competing well in the league that Creggan could compete in the championship with the big guns. They can compete for maybe fourth best team but the calibre of player coming out of Cargin and St Galls is just much better than anything coming out of anywhere else. Lamh Dhearg would be next at the minute too. I'd like to see them and Portglenone in the c'ship  they'd likely be about the same level.

I would hear bits and pieces and I would guess McGettigan would be one of the key players in Creggan getting better - not 100% sure though. Slim maybe you can unbiasedly comment??

The best ones seem to be the close local ones where a load of boys went to school etc. together, knock seven shades of s**te out of each other and then gi for pints after them.

Loughgiel - Dunloy in antrim hurling is a big one.

Some teams have a right few enemies too. Wouldn't say Cargin have been the most popular in antrim football and rivalries there could include st pauls, st galls and even st johns.

There'd be a few in derry that'd be interesting too - bellaghy - ballinderry, swatragh - slaughtneil etc. Slaughtneil don't seem overly popular so may have a few of these "rivalries".

Carrickmore in Tyrone sound to be the same.

Well I suppose we can take some satisfaction in the fact that last time an antrim club played a derry club in a competitive football game the antrim team won that one

You might remember that game Max

http://www.athleticsireland.ie/content/?page_id=714

Seems to be the southern equivalent.

From what I have seen the ref. in general takes the umpires opinion but the problem has been the umpires haven't made the call! This then creates a problem like the Longford goal where the ref. calls it himself when there shouldn't be any need for it. I reckon that in the Longford Laois game the ref. had this in mind and that was why he erroneously called the square ball.

If umpires kept an eye on the square and the ball - even agreed between the two of them that one keeps more of an eye on the ball coming in and one keeps more of an eye on the square then this might help. Ultimately in a lot of cases the umpires haven't been looking near the square. They just need to be more vigilant in this regard and I don't think the whole square ball thing would be an issue.

There were definitely aspects of Sunday where we looked a lot sharper. I thought movement of the ball was quicker and rather than getting bottled up players were looking to move the ball sharply.

We're still a good bit of southern teams this yearI would say. Soem of them young boys are sharp. McManus is definitely ready for senior hurling but Shields needs a few eggs first.

Down like Johnny cool says lack leaders. Johnston is a brute of a man but Mick McCambridge is a tidy full back and to be honest was never troubled. From 1 - 15 and subs antrim were well on top and to be honest it's the most convincing hammering I've seen antrim give Down. I thought Kettle,Campbell and McManus were particularly excellent.

It definitely looks to be the building blocks for a half decent team and if the club game is rectified it can only improve. Still a long way to go to compete with southern teams though. A win against Laois and a couple of respectable scorelines would be a big pluis.

They were giving your one Charley an awful raking on radio one this morning.

Your man comedy dave called her "danny glover with hair"...

Brilliant! 

Graham punched David Henry twice on the head in "tackles" in the space of two/three minutes so McStay was fair enough to point it out!! He then slapped Cosgrove and should have walked for the first two things and possibly even the third.

Still - great game for the neutral. Dublin still need a freetaker and that Cian Ward boy has some right peg on him, Looking forward to the replay!

Never thought Brogan could field so well - he has a good pair of hands on him.

Working in IT I've worked with a lot of Indians and have always had decent enough working relationships with them. Their culture is vastly different so it is interesting to know where they came from, arranged marriages etc, but once you find out different cultures some are hard to relate to.

The ones over in Belfast in my experience always gather among themselves. In my time working we've had a few go on the beer but not too many with the funniest episode being one doing john travolta pulp fiction style dancing at the christmas do and hitting on the most senior woman in the office.

They do seem however to eat nothing but curry. This does mean they sweat curry which means they don't smell the best which is a pain when you're working closely with them and has led to some awful messes in the toilets...  It's generally only afternoon time though. One who I was continually developing software with so sitting pretty closely beside kept burping almost in my face so some manners would be needed among some of them!

As for work standard I have yet to find a happy medium. They either are shit hot or know absolutely buck all and are lazy as sin.

They're like anyone else - some are grand some aren't. I often wonder what they think of us. I'd say they think we talk too much,question things too much, drink too much, spend too much money, eat too much and get paid too much!!