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God I hope our boys kill him if/when they get the chance.

A Meath man gets the idea to resort to dangerous filth to take out a talented northern forward in a bid to achieve success by cheating.

Haven't I heard rumours about that before?

Dinny, this is not a dig and I don't know the full story so forgive me if I'm wrong. Did your own club not 'bring in' a couple of outsiders from a neighbouring club in recent years?

If you mean did we facilitate the transfer of players from another club to our own in recent seasons well then the answer is yes, the same thing that happens at club level every day of the week across the country. They had there own reasons for wanting to join Towers and they certainly weren't contrived, there is no parish rule in Kildare and the transfers were sanction under Kildare GAA by-laws governing such transfers. As a rule of thumb in Kildare a player can seek a transfer if wants to play at a higher level and the transfer is generally granted. But I guess you know all that are just trying to play the hypocrite card but surely you can see the difference between those type of local transfers compared to this national inter-county transfer.

Very hard to know where the line is drawn though Dinny. All the things you and others are saying about Johnston - that he has no connection to the place and that his arrival stunts homegrown players' development - could also be said of the type of club transfers you're talking about.
I've said it a hundred times - I believe this transfer is wrong - but don't cod yourself that there's this never-before-broken-ethos that Johnston is the first to break.
Boys switch clubs all over the country because they've had a falling out or they want a chance to win things or both. It is less common on the inter-county scene but it has still happened all over the shop. Johnston's problem is he's been honest about that while the likes of Billy Sheehan and Thomas Walsh weren't.

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Fair enough I seem to have got it wrong I'll hold my hands up. . . in fairness to it though 2 wrongs don't make a right!
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Yeah that's true

Lads who move counties for genuine reasons (say work or family reasons) and decide to throw their lot in with their new county of residence is a lot different to Johnston (though I admit I can't remember what the circumstances were around Fahy and Tompkins).

Just relying on memory here, but I think Tompkins was in the States when he got an offer to come home to a job in Cork and a place on the team. Now I imagine he wouldn't have been offered the job if he wasn't a footballer, but it's hard to see anything wrong with an emigrant seizing the chance to come home. Whatever about the spirit, he complied completely with the letter of the rule. He actually lived in Cork. And, in case there are any lingering doubts about an address of convenience, he still does.

Fahy was in the army and stationed in Cork, as I remember. No issue there.

I'm off now to scrub my hands after typing a defence of Corkies.

Tompkins was flying home regularly to play for Kildare, he fell out with the County Board in particular Seamus Aldridge over reimbursements of flights, that is when Castlehaven and Cork GAA stepped in. Tompkins threw his lot in with Cork because of a falling out, while not the same as SJ, it is still another county approaching a player to play for them. It would like Conor Mortimor been approached by Dublin GAA because Parnells pay him to play football now.

In my book there is very little difference between Tompkins' transfer to Cork and Johntson's to Kildare. Two wrongs don't make a right, but it would be nice to see both wrongs treated the same. Instead Kildare is painted as having an 'anti-GAA' ethos while Larry and Cork are great lads.

So Tomkins was living AND working in Cork but travelling home to Kildare for games and matches. The County Board wouldn't pay for his travel (I'm guessing this would have been pretty expensive 25 years ago with flying) so he decided to play football for the county where he lives AND works.

Seanie Johnston is kicked off the panel in his own County with the most likely reason being he is a destructive influence on the panel and then throws his lot in with a county to which he neither lives NOR works in. . . maybe it's just me but are these not 2 complete polar opposites of reasons to transfer to another County?!

No, you've got that completely wrong.
Tompkins moved to Cork AFTER he fell out with Kildare. When DH talks about a falling out over flights, he's referring to flights home from the US, where Tompkins was playing in the mid-80s. He got the hump after that and was persuaded to move to Cork when he came home from America.

So you had a talented forward that fell out with his own county, courted/was courted by a county with more of a chance of success - and one he had no family connection to, or reason to play for - AFTER that falling out, and then transferred to them.
Pretty much the same as SJ, in other words. The only difference is that Johnston still works in Cavan, whereas Tompkins took a job in Cork after he decided to move there. But he was still brought to Cork to play football because they (primarily Castlehaven) saw an opportunity when things went sour between Larry and his native county.

Lads who move counties for genuine reasons (say work or family reasons) and decide to throw their lot in with their new county of residence is a lot different to Johnston (though I admit I can't remember what the circumstances were around Fahy and Tompkins).

Just relying on memory here, but I think Tompkins was in the States when he got an offer to come home to a job in Cork and a place on the team. Now I imagine he wouldn't have been offered the job if he wasn't a footballer, but it's hard to see anything wrong with an emigrant seizing the chance to come home. Whatever about the spirit, he complied completely with the letter of the rule. He actually lived in Cork. And, in case there are any lingering doubts about an address of convenience, he still does.

Fahy was in the army and stationed in Cork, as I remember. No issue there.

I'm off now to scrub my hands after typing a defence of Corkies.

Tompkins was flying home regularly to play for Kildare, he fell out with the County Board in particular Seamus Aldridge over reimbursements of flights, that is when Castlehaven and Cork GAA stepped in. Tompkins threw his lot in with Cork because of a falling out, while not the same as SJ, it is still another county approaching a player to play for them. It would like Conor Mortimor been approached by Dublin GAA because Parnells pay him to play football now.

In my book there is very little difference between Tompkins' transfer to Cork and Johntson's to Kildare. Two wrongs don't make a right, but it would be nice to see both wrongs treated the same. Instead Kildare is painted as having an 'anti-GAA' ethos while Larry and Cork are great lads.

Sure we've plenty of above average players as it is. No need for another one. Fionn Dowling gave two Kildare defenders a hard time of it for Suncroft against Celbridge last weekend and young Mellett from Naas was excellent against the Sash. They're some of the lads we should be focussing on.

I agree with you, I wish the transfer never happened and I don't think it's right.

But I'm also making three points:
1) Johnston is a better player than some people make out
2) Croke Park have made a special case of this and are not being even-handed.
3) People pretending this transfer is a new departure or something are a joke. Look at two men slating Johnston on Sunday Game: Tony Davis, who owes his two All-Ireland medals to two Kildare men, and Colm Parkinson, who of course played for Parnells for the love of it. You couldn't make it up.

Who said he was bad or below average?

Plenty of people, not saying you, but I've heard the phrase 'all this fuss over an average player' a lot the past week. He may not be a world-beater but he's well above average.

Ok Steven gerrard no 8. Care to tell me a few cavan games he won single handedly that you were at.

I haven't seen too many Cavan games in recent years but I was in Newbridge when he almost destroyed Kildare single-handedly in a qualifier in 2008. Took an injury-time James Kavanagh goal to win it.
Wasn't he also instrumental in 2010, coming off the bench when Cavan were seven points and two men down against Wicklow. Think he kicked six points during a cameo. That's heroic stuff.
Not saying he's the greatest forward in the country but to say he's a bad or below average player simply isn't true.
I'm sure he's had plenty of bad days too but it can't often have been easy being corner-forward on a struggling team - let's face it, Cavan have been muck for a decade and are only coming out of the doldrums now.

Who is this upstart gonna replace in the starting 15 ? ..................................... guarantee this bucko johnson gets sent off vs meath or dublin  ....................................the bould seamus kenny ger brennan or phily mcmahon will bend his ear

Assuming Earley and Hugh Lynch are not ready for 70 minutes and Padraig O'Neill starts midfield with Flynn (which is a big assumption) that leaves Doyle, Callaghan, Conway, Eoghan O'Flaherty, Kavanagh and O'Connor as highly probable starters; so I wouldn't take it for granted that Johnston will start at all, though he might end up playing Doyle at midfield which creates a slot. I reckon if Johnston is eligible and in good form he will end up pushing Smith, Padraig Fogarty and Fionn Dowling down the pecking order. Though McGeeney tends to base his team selections on who's going well in training so it could be any six from all the players I've named.
Also, I would imagine that Ger Brennan will be shorter odds to get sent off than anyone else, with the possible exception of Diarmuid Connolly.

Ok Donnellys Hollow may I ask you this?

Remember '98 and the three 'outsiders' we had. I'm sure then we had three Kildare men lose their place on the panel to those same three outsiders. I don't that has done a whole lot of harm to Kildare football. Our underage set up has improved hugely over the past 4/5 years. These were the kids who saw Kildare reach an AI in '98 and spawned their interest in putting on the white jersey.

The outsiders in that case didn't do any harm at all to the future of Kildare football.

It's not really about whether it's good or not for Kildare football - I don't agree with the transfer because it's not what the GAA should be about.
However, I also don't agree with the hypocrisy and anti-Kildare bias whereby people carry on as if this is the first inter-county transfer in history, and who don't bat an eyelid when Laois, Offaly, Wicklow or Cork do the same.
And I certainly don't agree with Meath men calling us a 'disgrace'.

Come off it, we all know Croke Park stalled this so that Kevin's would already have played championship...

Really?

How long in your experience does the average inter-provincial transfer take? One that isn't contrived now...

Yes really. Are you honestly telling me that it couldn't have gone through last week? That the timing of the first round of the Kildare club championship had nothing to do with it? That Cavan Gaels or Cavan did lodge an objection, contrary to number two above?
You're trying to paint this as just a normal inter-provincial transfer that took the normal amount of time, that Croke Park simply processed it as they usually would. We both know that  from day one it has not been viewed that way.

I'm struggling to understand your questions.

Are you asking or stating that both Cavan parties made an objection? I've stated twice in the last few hours what happened there.

I'll be clear, this transfer, the third such application was processed in a normal amount of time.

I'll reduce it to one question in plain English.

Do you honestly believe that Croke Park did not intentionally delay this transfer to stop Seanie Johnston lining out for St Kevin's last weekend?

Yes I honestly believe that.

OK, fair enough, though I'd say you're in the vast minority. Maybe I'm paranoid.

Come off it, we all know Croke Park stalled this so that Kevin's would already have played championship...

Really?

How long in your experience does the average inter-provincial transfer take? One that isn't contrived now...

Yes really. Are you honestly telling me that it couldn't have gone through last week? That the timing of the first round of the Kildare club championship had nothing to do with it? That Cavan Gaels or Cavan did lodge an objection, contrary to number two above?
You're trying to paint this as just a normal inter-provincial transfer that took the normal amount of time, that Croke Park simply processed it as they usually would. We both know that  from day one it has not been viewed that way.

I'm struggling to understand your questions.

Are you asking or stating that both Cavan parties made an objection? I've stated twice in the last few hours what happened there.

I'll be clear, this transfer, the third such application was processed in a normal amount of time.

I'll reduce it to one question in plain English.

Do you honestly believe that Croke Park did not intentionally delay this transfer to stop Seanie Johnston lining out for St Kevin's last weekend?

Come off it, we all know Croke Park stalled this so that Kevin's would already have played championship...

Really?

How long in your experience does the average inter-provincial transfer take? One that isn't contrived now...

Yes really. Are you honestly telling me that it couldn't have gone through last week? That the timing of the first round of the Kildare club championship had nothing to do with it? That Cavan Gaels or Cavan did lodge an objection, contrary to number two above?
You're trying to paint this as just a normal inter-provincial transfer that took the normal amount of time, that Croke Park simply processed it as they usually would. We both know that  from day one it has not been viewed that way.

Come off it, we all know Croke Park stalled this so that Kevin's would already have played championship... are you really trying to tell me it just happened to go through a few days too late for him to play club championship?

When's the transfer window close for 2012/2013 season ? Will there be one before the National League and another one for after the National league ?.


There might be lads who show up well for their counties in the national league who Kildare might want to sign, now that there's apparently no problem with address or anything else to hinder them.

Will RTE be doing the transter window countdown clock ?.

Orangeman I agree with you on principle but people acting like this is a watershed transfer are deluding themselves. Zero difference between this and Thomas Walsh's transfer to Wicklow from Carlow, to name just one example.
People acting as if Kildare have broken some ethos that has been taboo up to now, when the fact is that the vast majority of counties have done something similar in the past.

Personally I'd favour a rule where once you've played minor or above for your county, you can never transfer, full stop.