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Clare got the better of Galway in the minor hurling final in what was a surprise to many including all 3 tg4 pundits who backed Galway. Clare enjoyed a big lead before conceding 2 late goals to still win by 5.

In the ongoing under 20 final Cork are pulling away after getting away with a lot of fouling going largely unpunished. 10 points up with 10 minutes to play.

Cork, physically further on than the Offaly lads, some of the tackles were borderline and I'm being kind here, one looked like a shoulder, elbow to the head, umpires had the better view of that one. Offaly have some fine stickmen in there, the defender with the green and black helmet being one of them but it may take some time for them to make the difference at senior.  They'll need even more underage teams to make the step up to being truly competitive in Leinster and beyond.
Big Eoin Downey patting Screeney on the top of the helmet wasn't a good look, we'll see how many lads be pats on the head like that come senior.

Cork certainly lowered the blades and some of it was unpleasant.
https://twitter.com/buff_egan/status/1665372458352885762?s=08

Weighing it all up, Cork were going to win this game anyway with their older and highly talented team.
I've read lots of comments from Cork lads patting themselves on the back for by winning by showing an 'edge'. This may not be as clever as they think.

Imagine if a less generous ref showed red to Kingston. When Richie Hogan cost Kilkenny any chance in the 2019 All Ireland by doing something similar, the Kilkenny people weren't thanking him for showing an edge, laying down a marker, showing Tipp who the men were.

Cork had a physical advantage which the correctly used, but there was some cheap stuff mixed in too that is the opposite of good hard hurling.

Some win for Westmeath. But all the more amazing given how much a deficit they had to come back from.
Is Leo Cullen in charge of the Wexford hurlers?

The biggest sin is that the sacred Munster championship wasn't given preference. Cork vs Tipp is some sort of religious experience.
Moreso because it turned to be an even contest. No one would care if it was one-sided.

Also, it seems like a lot of people were caught by surprise that RTE weren't showing it. There is a whiff of armchair fans not really paying attention beforehand.
Most of us are already resigned to having to make do with local radio if we can't attend when our county plays.

If you think the outrage over Cork/Tipp was bad wait until the football hordes unite over the sacrilege of Mayo/Kerry and Galway /Tyrone on a SATURDAY

The quotient of lonely farmers living on mountainsides may be even higher than in Cork or Tipp.

The biggest sin is that the sacred Munster championship wasn't given preference. Cork vs Tipp is some sort of religious experience.
Moreso because it turned to be an even contest. No one would care if it was one-sided.

Also, it seems like a lot of people were caught by surprise that RTE weren't showing it. There is a whiff of armchair fans not really paying attention beforehand.
Most of us are already resigned to having to make do with local radio if we can't attend when our county plays.

Something remarkable in Meath is the change in accents amongst their support this millennium. Not so many coming down from 'Nobboh on the back of a haws' nowadays. Now the Dublin accent is hugely prevalent, or more especially the Fingal accent as Dublin 15 has spilled out into the Meath commuter towns. In Kildare it's less obvious.

A bit like Offaly hurling, there are those adamant that the solutions lie in the old ways and the old strongholds. Like the O'Rourke appointment, or lads insisting that North Meath is where the proper caveman defenders need to be sourced from.
Whoever cracks the commuter belt conundrum best should be well able to overtake Dublin.

The architects of the Tailteann Cup probably didn't envisage that so quickly it could potentially have Cork, Meath and Kildare in it.
These are counties that the number crunchers want to see going well because they put bums on seats and are good revenue streams.

Cork footballers putting bums on seats?
That barely happens at the best of times, unless you mean there's some scheme with free tickets for tramps.

Back in the day Killarney and Pairc Ui Chaoimh would be full for Cork v Kerry Munster finals.
With the stadium debt in Pairc Ui Chaoimh to be paid off, they would be hoping to have Cork competitive again.

Yesterday in Tullamore there were 5,000 people for Offaly vs Meath. 25 years ago 48,000 came to Croke Park to see both teams contest the first round of the Leinster championship.
Financially juicing Dublin to such a degree has massively backfired on the balance sheets.

Those Cork-Kerry halcyon days are long gone. Last year's Cork-Kerry game in Pairc Ui Rinn didn't sell out even with the whole Pairc Ui Rinn or nowhere furore.

Yep, when Cork were contenders, these were big games. 10 years ago, they'd get 40k at them, even 5 years ago they were still hovering around 30k gates. Pairc Ui Rinn is where it's at now.

The architects of the Tailteann Cup probably didn't envisage that so quickly it could potentially have Cork, Meath and Kildare in it.
These are counties that the number crunchers want to see going well because they put bums on seats and are good revenue streams.

Cork footballers putting bums on seats?
That barely happens at the best of times, unless you mean there's some scheme with free tickets for tramps.

Back in the day Killarney and Pairc Ui Chaoimh would be full for Cork v Kerry Munster finals.
With the stadium debt in Pairc Ui Chaoimh to be paid off, they would be hoping to have Cork competitive again.

Yesterday in Tullamore there were 5,000 people for Offaly vs Meath. 25 years ago 48,000 came to Croke Park to see both teams contest the first round of the Leinster championship.
Financially juicing Dublin to such a degree has massively backfired on the balance sheets.

The architects of the Tailteann Cup probably didn't envisage that so quickly it could potentially have Cork, Meath and Kildare in it.
These are counties that the number crunchers want to see going well because they put bums on seats and are good revenue streams.

Best Offaly win in years.
The first half game control was excellent. Offaly put in the big tackles and won the turnovers that Meath rarely did. Offaly worked the ball around the field well to create openings.
Meath hit a few wides, but they were generally one-dimensional in attack. Straight and narrow drives, very little width on the ball.
At the back, they had no real defensive setup, meaning Offaly could open them up with overlaps.

For the 2nd half Meath had to go for broke and throw everyone forward, including the keeper. A half time team talk by Sean Boylan and O'Rourke would have been about invoking the voodoo of Meath past and launching a famous comeback.

Offaly made some poor handling errors and coughed up too many turnovers, but Meath spilled and lost the ball a lot too. The conditions were terrible.

The golden rule of the top soccer managers like Guardiola or Arteta is "if there's a transition, make a foul". So every Offaly turnover of Meath was immediately followed by a cynical Meath foul. All matter of pulling and dragging, head high at times. With a ref who had no intention of stamping it out, Meath were rewarded when they fouled because they bought time to get players back, and unfortunately Offaly tapped the frees short or backwards and the pressure was back on Offaly.
And while Meath did make inroads, they didn't look like getting a goal, or they never got many easy, quickfire scores.

After the Down match, I didn't believe Offaly would go well in 2023. The players looked deflated and downbeat. Here we are now, daring to dream.
Unfortunately, Louth are better than Meath. Offaly edged them by a whisker in 2021 when Louth were still a division 4 team. They are better now.
While Meath had a throwback manager in O'Rourke, Louth have the manager who practically invented the swarm defence. Looking at the Sunday Game, every Louth player looks 6 foot 3 as well.

We'll need something special again. You'd never know though.

Are gaelic games a minority pursuit in the big Leinster towns generally?
One or two I'm somewhat familiar with have fine GAA clubs with loads of youngsters on Saturday mornings etc.
But all the young lads play soccer on the greens all week unlike in Ros where kick arounds are more often than not gaelic football.

Soccer is the go-to sport because it's straightforward to play and everyone can play it.
If you get a group of kids on a green and a subset play rugby and a subset play GAA, then soccer will be catch all for having a game.

Kellie Harrington just tore up ans threw her meal ticket into the Liffey.

It was a carcrash crashing into another car crash and then the PR lady came along and crashed into the carrcrashes

I'd say she'll be able to move on from it, once her advisors get her back on message.

I expect the people involved always wondered would the day arrive when they were detected.

The Gardai didn't cover themselves in glory in the initial investigation. It seems like policing morality was as important to them as catching burglars and speeding drivers.

This weekends matches make an even bigger joke of the world cup groups.  The winner of the group containing Eng, Jap and Arg more than likely playing Wales for a place in the semi final.  Meanwhile, two of Ireland, SA, NZ and France getting eliminated and Scot potentially not even reaching the quarters.  Joke

There's flaws in the WC system no doubt. But here. Soccer has an almost egalitarian qualifying and seeding system for its WCs and it routinely throws up groups of death, and  produces both subjectively and clearly easier and tougher paths to the final.

Short of an entirely objective AI, fed with all the data on form, talent and injury reports intervening the week before a finals to split everyone fairly, no perfect system is possible. Such an AI doesn't exist. And even if it was possible, coaches and teams would then game that AI to the point that we would end up not much different to what's currently ordained.

This will be the last World Cup where the groups are set so far in advance.
It is often the case that the 9th ranked team is as good as the 4th ranked team. The Groups of Death are bound to occur.

Dreadful for a man to pass away at a young age.
RIP.

Under Solskjaer, Mourinho, Rangnik, the players knew that if they downed tools, it was the manager who would be out the door.
This time Ten Hag has a far stronger footing. How certain players didn't perform when the game unravelled will no doubt feed into offboardings and recruitment.