Messages

The word going around now is that Kevin Walsh is staying on but with a new backroom team as the current selectors aren't coming back.

The only hope is that he won't be able to source new selectors, or more unlikely that the board doesn't accept his new selectors.

@Hound, lads on here are not interested in facts which you clearly have first hand knoweledge off, The funding issues is just a cheap jibe to try and take away from the senior footballers.

As you outlined, there is bigger advantages Dublin have than some coach coming up to Dublin to coach in primary schools to mostley kids who are not even in GAA clubs, no offence to any but its a glorifed P.E job, a lot of schools dont have P.E coaches, these lads come in and do an hour or 2 a week.

It might be gloried p.e, but why can't urban clubs outside of Dublin avail of this funding ? Why are Dublin clubs seen as more equal than clubs outside of Dublin ?  Fair play to the Dubs for availing of this funding, but the GAA management at Croke Park need to start earning their salaries.

In my opinion, Dublin are underfunded. The amount should be increased for penentration into new area of Dublin to try to install a GAA presence.

I wouldn't see an issue with this as long as the funding was opened up to all growing urban areas where the GAA is lacking a presence. Increasing participation rates in our sports should be our top concern, though this may mean that our intercounty competitions may become more imbalanced that they currently already are. Similarly the association needs a strategy for supporting rural clubs. 

@Hound, lads on here are not interested in facts which you clearly have first hand knoweledge off, The funding issues is just a cheap jibe to try and take away from the senior footballers.

As you outlined, there is bigger advantages Dublin have than some coach coming up to Dublin to coach in primary schools to mostley kids who are not even in GAA clubs, no offence to any but its a glorifed P.E job, a lot of schools dont have P.E coaches, these lads come in and do an hour or 2 a week.

It might be gloried p.e, but why can't urban clubs outside of Dublin avail of this funding ? Why are Dublin clubs seen as more equal than clubs outside of Dublin ?  Fair play to the Dubs for availing of this funding, but the GAA management at Croke Park need to start earning their salaries.

https://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2019/0807/1067354-gaa-admit-learnings-to-be-taken-over-ticket-chaos/


The tickets for both semi finals ought to have gone on sale before last weekend and let people take risk on the outcome.

I believe 6 tickets were allowed per person in the shops, there will be some amount of touting done on Saturday morning.

I can't understand how Alan Milton is defending tickets.ie, it seems they messed up royally. Its 2019 the level of traffic directed at tickets.ie should of been a piece of cake to them if their application was properly designed.

Every club member in Dublin/Mayo/Cork should of had the option to buy tickets on line at 9am on Monday morning, then at 9pm tickets should of been opened up to grma members who had attended matches this year, then at 12pm on Tuesday tickets could of been placed on general sale online. I know this mechanism wouldn't accommodate people who don't use the internet, but they could still be accommodated through each clubs allocation.

Gas how the morons think when Dublin do well at underage it's down to money! But if Kerry, Tyrone, Cork, Mayo, Kildare, Galway have success, it's down to having good players!

Dublin have a very good development system, which was zero to do with Games Development Funding. Although despite our huge playing numbers, we can't get a good run of success at minor.

At this stage, all out of our U20s would have plenty of games under their belt at senior club level. This is a huge advantage over most other counties, because the standard is so high, and in particular, so deep in Dublin. Every team littered with culchies to, which again helps increase the standard.

Why Portlaoise?

Surely Semple Stadium would be a better venue and more neutral.

Portlaoise tends to get more of these football semis and finals than Semple for some reason?
There's a double header on this time. Don't know who with and whether that might explain or further confuse the decision.

Nothing to do with money at all
Who does all the athletic development and S&C with these lads in clubs and county panels?
I'd love to get a few of these Dublin GAA volunteers down our way. They must be miracle workers

And yet, and yet almost no player from a minority background has come through onto the county panels in Dublin.
Where is all participation money being spunked?

Bryan Cullen is in charge of the S&C progammes for all Dublin football teams senior and underage (not sure about hurling) He was originally with Leinster and in charge of their S&C

Top man to volunteer like that.

In fairness Cullen seems to be doing a good job, and probably getting less money than Lukasz Kirszenstein who is doing the S&C for the Galway hurlers.

Joyce taking a lad off after 6 mins was way harsh. Ridiculous to be honest.

Not a great Dublin team, but some strong players. The lad who got man of the match was clearly a lovely lad (judging by the interview) but IMO he won't play senior for the Dubs. His midfield partner probably will. The bould Blaithin Ni Chofaigh's son.

Archer's a class act, as is one of the other corner forwards. Although not sure either have the outright pace that the current Dubs have. Half backs handy enough. Half forwards are more runners than footballers, and I didn't fancy them as future seniors. But silly to judge just on one game.

Archer played soccer for a lot of his youth, so never had the benefit of a GDO. Didn't start with the Dublin minors. Not that any of the other lads got any GDO benefit anyway, given the GDOs aren't let near the elite players.

These f*cking GDOs are stealing a living by the sounds of it 

Hahaha sure they only help out with the third teams

Don't go near the third teams! Or any other adult teams.

You really are clueless as to what they do.

Of course there are the odd exception, but the vast majority of GDOs would not be in the top 10 in terms of ranking of coaches at a club. They look after the toddlers and aren't involved in any teams.

The GDOs are young people who by and large have no experience of coaching , but who have gone through the GAA training to get their qualifications to get this low paid job.  They get a 'teach by numbers' guide from the GAA and they follow that to teach the babies and to give parents coaching drills that they can use for the teams the parents train. You'll find a direct correlation between successful underage teams who have managers who played at a decent adult level, and didn't go near a GDO for a train the trainer type course.

The weaker you are as a young player, the more likely you are to have direct interaction with a GDO.

The 50% funding of a GDO allows Dublin clubs to spend money on other coaching initiatives where urban clubs outside of Dublin must 100% fund their GDO before they can fund other coaching initiatives. Its not Dublins fault but why can't every large club have access to 50% funding for a GDO?

Galway are way behind what is required at this level. As I said, it's not down solely to management but players as well. Surgery required.

I would go a lot further than that, a thorough review of Galway GAA is needed, with the outcome being a proper strategic plan aka The Blue wave.

Ask your clubs county board delegate to give you a run down on what has happened at county board level for the past twelve months up to and including the last meeting and you will see as a county we're a joke.

There has been a lot of talk about Kevin adopting the Corofin game plan, but very few people are saying all the clubs in Galway should be adopting the Corofin approach at underage, we're fixated with short term solutions.

In contrast Mayo aren't perfect, but they have appointed a commercial officer of late and made a considerable amount of money from their trip to NYC.

Rural clubs are a vital part of the GAA and its simply not good enough for the association to ignore them

* make it easier to run clubs, simplify the job of being the secretary etc of a club

* preparation of teams nowadays is becoming more and more time consuming, this means more and more people are saying no thanks to getting involved with teams. This needs to be examined seriously.

* the association should give smaller towns more matches, the galway v mayo match should have been held in roscommon Town last weekend

Connacht U20 final on tomorrow night at 730 in Tuam. No Youtube coverage for this final unlike the U17 final by the looks of it?

Two teams named

Galway: Oran Burke, Ross Mahon, Seán Mulkerrin, Eoghan McFadden, Liam Boyle, Ciarán Potter, Jack Kirrane, Matthias Barrett, Michael Collins, Matthew Tierney, Gavin Burke, Ben O'Connell, Darragh Silke, Padraig Costello, Rory Cunningham

Mayo: Jamie McNicholas, Jack Coyne, Rory Brickenden, Oisín Mullin, Aaron McDonnell, Conor Beirne, Eoghan McLaughlin, Evan O'Brien, Gavin Durcan, John Gallagher, Paul Towey, Paddy Goldrick, Aidan Orme, Stephen McGreal, Tommy Conroy

Galway have been really hyped up due to the results in the John Kerins competiton, Galway never seems to wear the favourites tag well.

I only saw this bunch once at minor level against Cavan and they were poor, lets hope they live up to the expectation.

They hammered this Mayo team by 13 points at minor in 2017 albeit Evan Murphy is a substantial loss since then but Matthew Tierney was only a sub that day and has really blossomed since. A lot of positional changes on the Mayo side since 2017 so it'll be a lot tighter tonight I imagine.

What happened to Evan Murphy's try out with Galway United, was it cut short due to injury? both have 8 same starters by my count from that minor match.  Daniel Kenny who i recall was big physical lad scored two goals in that match is he still playing football?  I think Tierney was starter Galway U17 team that year.

As far as i know he was playing some games with Galway Utd (Centre back i believe)  and missed some of the club championship around this time last year,  then came back for the quarterfinal and very unfortunately picked up a bad injury.

he did his cruciate, a big loss for Galway, i think he would of thrived under the management of P Joyce

I don't believe it was all down to luck in regard to the injuries, some of the injuries just weren't treated right, nothing to do with luck. If Damian Comer was a Dublin player or a Galway hurler he would of got the best treatment and would of been back playing in May.

Shane is extremely talented, but just not consistent enough.

Tom Flynn has been in pretty good form up until he got injured prior to the Roscommon match, the guy has a lot to offer, as does Fiontán until you can name a player better than him to take his place on the panel, I would of been a lot happier on Saturday before the match if Fiontán was fit to start.

The general vibe I'm hearing is that Kevin will go. He has given it his all,  I do think its time for a change, after hearing the same voice for five years a change is needed. 

Well done to Mayo,  the better team won, they will wonder though how they didn't win by more. The changes introduced this year giving the provincial champions home advantage will make their journey all the more difficult. This will be weekend number four for them against Kerry, with only one of those matches at home. It seems we're asking an awful lot of amateur players.

Shame on the GAA for not fixing the match for the hyde, you can be sure that match would of meant a lot more to Roscomon town than it did for Limerick, the GAA needs to be supporting rural  ireland.

The Mayo forwards really seemed to click, getting nice scores from out the pitch. Cillian did well, hard to see how he couldn't of started last weekend.

In relation to Galway, 2019 has been a step backwards, since the london match it was plain to see that too many of the players were out of form.

I thought Cooke and Kyne were the better players for Galway yesterday.

It must be difficult though for the Galway players incessantly hearing that your manager has got it wrong, it must get to you.

In relation to Kevins point about the "crap" I do think he has a point, on facebook there was a lot of keyboard warriors calling for all the corofin players to start, but in fairness he's the one watching them train every week. The Corofin lads will be the first to tell you that inter county is a totally different level to club. There was some person on newstalk commenting that Galways underage system has fallen behind today, that jarlaths was no longer the force it was, but come on we lost this years connaught minor final in extra time, and we won the previous four titles, contesting two all-ireland finals.

I do think its time for Kevin to go, I think after five years a change is needed. As a county we need to get to the bottom of the "fade outs" that Galway have suffered over the past few years, either the players aren't willing to die for Kevin, or there is a distinct lack of leaders on the team.  Kevin was unlucky with corofin going on such a run, he rarely had matches to test teh corofin players out in. The Galway medical team will also need to reflect on their performance. Comer should of been back weeks ago.

Rochford in my opinion is the only option, PJ just doesn't have the managerial experience, we have a set of players coming into their prime and now isn't the time for experimenting with an untested manager.

[Out]

so right now it looks like

For Mayo

Out
Ruane
O Connor
Keegan
Jason Doherty, (hard to see him being anywhere near fully fit in a week)

For Galway

?

Apart from Duggan I woulld guess all the rest mentioned will miraciously be good to go Sat evening!!
I expect Comer to start which should reak havoc in our full back line and maybe Conroy might come off the bench for the last 10 mins. Fair play to Conroy for making such a quick recovery from such a horror injury.

Maybe we might be able to squeeze 10 mins out of Jason Doc and maybe another 10 mins out of Seami O'Shea!!

Genuinely there is zero chance of Comer starting. He is miles off the pace - would be a bad bad call to start him.
He'll be in the 26 alright though.
Both Flynn and O Curraoin were carrying injuries into the Connacht final.
They played only because Conroy wasn't ready and Duggan was already injured.
Fiontain had a hamstring strain/pull in a club game only 3 weeks beforehand it was madness to start him. We have little cover around the middle now.
Genuinely have no idea about the other players carrying knocks as regards their readiness for the weekend but know there are definitely guys carrying knocks. Whether or not they are ready for Sat remains to be seen.

i would think comer will be lucky to make the 26, three weeks ago he wasn't fit to start for annaghdown in the championship and when he came on for the last ten minutes he wasn't great

Tom Flynn and Gareth Bradshaw the latest injury concerns for Galway, no end to the injuries for either side by the looks of things.

Don't believe half them at all

Which ones don't you believe ? 

imho Horan is thundering disgrace in view of his latest comments

What support has he given St Kevins hurling club when 153 apartments are being built on their pitch ? In one of the most disadvanted areas of the country S

However i think this debate shouldn't be tied to the fortunes of the Dublin senior team.

Participation rates are important, but why aren't all urban clubs with large number allowed to apply for 50% funding for a games development officer ? 

Any update on Aidan O'Shea ? will he be fit for Saturday ?