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If you're out and about the towns it's difficult to see where the cost of living crisis is. Shops, bars restaurants all packed out. Queues everywhere. Plenty of work and jobs. I think media might be making this out to be more than it actually is.

Ate out this evening, it was packed. People who hadnt booked a table were being turned away at the door. On a Wednesday.
What crisis?

Christmas is championship season for shops, pubs, and restaurants. The first proper championship for most people in 3 years.

How many of these punters will still be turning out once the McKenna Cup rolls around?

I thought Banshees of Inisherin was outstanding. A movie that knocks about in your head for days afterwards.

I wonder if the marketing of the film has something to do with some of the subsequent reaction. Trailers and other soundbytes seemed to characterise it as a quirky, witty bit of schmaltz. Maybe the sort of movie that might try to have a 'clever' ending.

But in reality it's a fairly straight deep dive into loneliness, abuse, and fear. I certainly haven't seen anything else recently that handles these themes with such humour and accessibility.

It'll win all the awards and probably deserve to do so.

I was worried when the crowd ran on at the end that there would be trouble, there was a real nasty atmosphere all game both in the stands and on the pitch.

Yeah, dumb and dangerous by McQuillan to blow for FT while players were still scuffling on the field. Asking for some overexcited idiot to run out and do something stupid.

Impressive game management from Kilcoo, employing their full repertoire of shithousery. Difficult for any ref, but McQuillan does seem particularly gormless in the face of it all. Definitely feels like it could explode in the second half. Good December afternoon entertainment.

That England group will have a good punt at Euro 24, but this was their World Cup moment.

Sure they have a few good young lads, but the spine of the side will be over 30 and on the way down by 2026. 2018 Belgium comes to mind - a dream also guillotined by the French.

Southgate has never disappointed with them. They're steady and reliable, and they beat pretty much all the teams they're supposed to beat. They've also profited from a few fortunate knock-out routes - Senegal, Denmark, Ukraine, Sweden, Colombia. But it's hard to argue that they've ever exceeded expectations under his watch. Only the round-of-16 win over Germany in 2021 (at Wembley) really stands out as a landmark win.

The English FA can afford managers that would be the envy of pretty much every other national federation, but they've stuck with their own man. They'll always wonder if someone with a bit more pedigree might have taken this undoubtedly talented group over the line against France, or Italy, or Croatia.

[9]

They a poor team, not win a game think but this hot weather, its hard to tell, only European teams I think do well is, Portugal or Spain where the weather is hot.

It will be the usual 6 European teams and Argentina and Brazil in the QF you may get one other team instead. It makes a mockery of the WC every time they keep expanding the tournament, more pub teams get in.  It is getting expanded to 48 soon and only about 15 euro positions - a joke. They should get about 25 based on rankings. I have said it before world qualifying would allow the best teams to actually qualify instead of the current farce.

The numbers might suggest that expansion has been good for non-traditional nations.

In the six tournaments since going to 32 teams we've had 9 non-Euro/Bra/Arg representatives in the last 8.
In the six tournaments prior to going to 32 teams we had 3 non-Euro/Bra/Arg representatives in the last 8/12.

So more involvement = more success for the 'pub' teams. Which is a good thing. The World Cup is more interesting when it is a world cup.

But Europe does seem to be getting a raw deal in the expansion to 48. Should probably be looking at ~19 qualifiers instead of the 16 slated, if the current shares were carried through. Africa and Asia do very well - a cynic might say this is Infantino and the lads shoring up their base, with perhaps an aspiration for more regular Chinese involvement.

I don't think this situation will persist though, it's too daft. The repechage tournament for the final two spots in 2026 looks like it will be particularly ridiculous. The 7th and 8th best teams from North/Central America, the 10th best team from Africa, the 9th best team from Asia, the 7th best team from South America, and the 2nd best group of islands in the Pacific. So, if this was in place for 2022, we'd see El Salvador, Honduras, Syria, DR Congo, Chile, and the mighty Solomon Islands fighting for two qualifying places. While half a dozen or more good European teams will have already been told to try again next time.

[Brazil]

Bowl 1: Brazil, Belgium, Argentina, France
Bowl 2: England, Spain, Netherlands, Portugal

Bowl 3: Denmark, Germany, Croatia, Mexico
Bowl 4: Uruguay, Switzerland, USA, Senegal

Bowl 5: Poland, Iran, Serbia, Morocco
Bowl 6: Japan, Wales, South Korea, Tunisia

Bowl 7: Costa Rica, Ecuador, Australia, Cameroon
Bowl 8: Canada, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Ghana

Final prediction: Brazil to beat Portugal

Calls for an all star for Rian O'Neill this year were wide of the mark I thought and cemented by his performance last night for Cross.
He's undoubtedly a talent but has a tendency to drift out in games when it matters. He's young and it will come for him eventually though as he has size, pace and accuracy off either peg.
Armagh club football is bang average at the minute as well.

Talk that O'Neill was an injury doubt before the game yesterday. Perhaps this was a factor in his performance.

Armagh club football is probably worse than average at the minute. Structures are good and run well enough, but there's little depth of talent developing across the club scene.

That draw was a bit fcuked up. They had top teams in pot 2 who certainly should have been in pot 1, hence the England Italy group and our group with Netherlands and France. It was the same throughout the draw, some teams were in pots above their level and some teams in pots below their level.

Now I don't expect Ireland to qualify but hopefully we can get back to giving the top teams a right rattle and beat the lesser lights in the group.

Always one or two big shots that fall out of the top pot, but it got pretty ridiculous this time round. They'll surely have to revisit the seedings for next time. Using Nations League performance lacks legitimacy when many of the bigger nations still treat those games as friendlies.

England and France are the 2nd and 3rd ranked teams in Europe, but slipped into the second pot because they used the last Nations League campaign to run their squads in advance of the World Cup.

In a weird way, that draw could be the making of Kenny and/ or the brand of football he's trying to introduce.

A handier group would have brought expectation, which might have seen compromise on the project of reinvention. But this group provides the opportunity to stay the course and just see how it goes. Taking anything from Holland or France will be a bonus, so it's really all about the playoffs from the start.

One gripe I have with ROP is that the most primitive race nearly all have bad Irish accents. It feels a bit racist to me - why can't they have russian or australian accents?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/sep/28/irish-people-have-faced-centuries-of-discrimination-why-are-lord-of-the-rings-accents-so-offensively-bad

Great article on this here.

Good read that. Accents have been used as a very lazy shorthand to differentiate in the show. A weak play to an undiscerning US audience.

[RB/LB who can get forward and get balls into the box]

Stephen Kenny has to go, he's out of his depth. We need a manager who realises that in international football you have to play the cards you're dealt with regards your approach and your players. we dont have the players for playing out from the back all the time, there's a time and a place. we need someone who is going to be more pragmatic in their approach, Id love to see Chris Houghton take the job, he knows how to deal with players in the lower levels of England and knows how to get a winning formula.

We may not have the players right now for an effective brand of possession based football, but we definitely don't have the players for a return to hoofball.

Outside of the centre backs, we are tiny. Who plays the point man in a hoofball system? Obefemi, Parrott, Ogbene, Robinson, Hogan - none of those guys fit the bill. Maybe Idah, but he's perma-crocked these days.

Whether you agree or not on sticking with Kenny, it's pretty clear that we have it persist with something like his brand of football.

There's a difference in what we're doing now and hoofball. What we do now is try and play with possession. That's great but you have to have players who can then break the lines, that's the part we don't have. Teams will let us have the ball and drop a bit simply because they know we don't have the quality to break them down with the type of play we're doing.

Scotland have the perfect mix they play to their strengths, look at Steve Clarke, he's teams are always built from the back. Strong CB partnership RB/LB who can get forward and get balls into the box, it's not hoofball by any stretch.

There's more than 2 ways to play football

Scotland have FOUR full backs starting regularly in the Premier League. We have none. We can't even think about emulating them with such a talent deficit. Pretty bizarre parallel to draw. You'd be as well saying why don't we try playing like France, or Brazil maybe.

No viable alternative style has been identified here at all. Likely because there isn't one. Not an obvious one, at any rate.

What we're trying to do is probably somewhere along the correct path. High press, playing out from the back, a general emphasis on selecting players for their technical, rather than physical, attributes.

The current crop of not very good players are just not very good in the current system. And these not very good players would still be not very good in any other system. We're especially light on options for creative midfielders and for strikers - the players that might have otherwise created and scored the goals we've been missing. There's not a lot Kenny can do about this, except to wait and hope for some expedited development in the likes of Knight, Obefemi, Parrott et al.

Stephen Kenny has to go, he's out of his depth. We need a manager who realises that in international football you have to play the cards you're dealt with regards your approach and your players. we dont have the players for playing out from the back all the time, there's a time and a place. we need someone who is going to be more pragmatic in their approach, Id love to see Chris Houghton take the job, he knows how to deal with players in the lower levels of England and knows how to get a winning formula.

We may not have the players right now for an effective brand of possession based football, but we definitely don't have the players for a return to hoofball.

Outside of the centre backs, we are tiny. Who plays the point man in a hoofball system? Obefemi, Parrott, Ogbene, Robinson, Hogan - none of those guys fit the bill. Maybe Idah, but he's perma-crocked these days.

Whether you agree or not on sticking with Kenny, it's pretty clear that we have it persist with something like his brand of football.

Hourihan and Hendrick will be relieved! Kenny deserves a bit of luck.

I'm a fan of what Kenny is trying to do, but he deserves shot with a ball of his own dung for how that last half hour went.

Trying to see out a game with a midfield of Hendrick, Hourihane and Knight was ridiculous. Three powder puff lads that hate to be anywhere near a tackle. That was a giddy midfield, set-up by a manager who thought the game was won and went chasing goals for big showboat finish.

Watched most of the last two U21 games. Israel probably the better side overall, but were more than beatable. Same old story with Ireland - disciplined and solid, but no cutting edge going forward. Good campaign on the whole, though. We're becoming more competitive at this grade.

House of the Dragon is very enjoyable. It's not the kind of show you'd have on as background noise though. Need to focus on what they're saying with all the people and place names but it's worth your time.

Rings of power on the other hand is not. Poor writing, slow pace, mostly poor acting and they've made Galadriel, the main protagonist, an insufferable unlikeable brat.

Complete opposite for me.

RoP building a much richer world and is only getting going. It could yet be anything.

HotD is like a boardroom version of GoT. More riding, more violence, more dragons, more incest. It needs to start doing something different or there's just no point to it.

I'd be a huge Tolkien fan which is maybe skewing how I see RoP. Nothing is making sense from a lore point of view. Mithril being a silmaril was a huge wtf moment and was the last straw for me.
Galadriel is portrayed as a horrible person who throws a strop anytime she doesn't get her way (which is alot). It's not the way Tolkien portrays her at all.

Even the lore thing aside, there are writing issues.  I dont get it when they denounce Galadriel/Halbrand as a threat to Numenor etc, then 1 episode later they are following them into a blind battle they know nothing about?   

It is very pretty though, the scenery shots are nice, though I've seen there are replicated extras in crowds of 100 which is unforgiveable with a show this expensive.

I'd give RoP more leeway. It's building a world and is still in very early scene setting mode. Definitely feels like a show that has been written with the commitment to five seasons in mind. I'm no expert on the lore, but, as I understand it, the TV show has limited rights access meaning that there's a bit of tweaking and bending of things in order to create a coherent story.

By contrast, HotD gets to piggyback off GoT and doesn't need to bother with scene setting. Even though it's all supposed to be ~200 years prior to GoT, it's just set in the exact same world. So they can get straight stuck into their new set of horrible characters and all their riding and murdering. I'm still waiting for there to be something more to it than that. It's also relentlessly gloomy, with little of GoT's humour.

I enjoy both enough to keep watching, but for me RoP has a much higher ceiling.