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Sunderland are a pretty solid outfit who seemed to have much more pace all over the park than Liverpool and that's not something you could say about Liverpool the last few seasons...

The press, yet again from Liverpool was half hearted and easily played through by the Mackems who looked pretty comfortable for most of the night at Anfield.

Time for Slot to get the inhalers out again.

Great night but last time we pumped Chelsea at Elland Road we went down so need to build on it too. 352 seems to work quite well. I'm a massive Tanaka fan. Proper duracell bunny leading the press and then DCL and Nmecha are everything the modern centre half hates. It gives us a fighting chance. I'd still bite your hand off for a 17th place finish.

Image playing with 2 up top being a new thing.

Mike Bassett would be proud

Might we see the yanks  causing trouble in Tyrone with all that  gold  in them thar hills?

Who's the president  of Tyrone these days?  Peter Canavan? Malachi Cush?

Think it's Adrian Logans term at present.

Surely Philomena Begley is still the Queen down there among the bushes..

The hurling is looking at moving the ball forward for dissent, and the black card maybe? 

I'd sort the rucks out double quick by allowing a lad to go in pulling on the ball.

That'd sort that hoking and footering shíte out once and for all.

Sure you can already move the ball forward for dissent, are they talking about moving it further than the 13 metres?

for us the .5 school year works to keep the friendship groups forged in the school together at training and blitzes and they're more likely to stick at it.

When it comes to secondary education they are split up anyway so its not so important and hopefully by then we've been able to nurture the grá for the game before that.

Larger clubs pulling from more than one primary school don't probably see it as an issue either way.

I'm not having any issues understanding how it happened, but by that logic, would it not be apt to argue that Loughgiel or Ballygalget should enter Ulster Intermediate as they're the second best teams in their respective counties? Or that Dunloy and Ballycran should be entering the Ulster Junior Championship as the third best teams in Antrim and Down?

If there's only 5 clubs in a county like Donegal and to a lesser extent Derry with 8 clubs vying for all three championships I can see why they're doing that TBH.

Antrim have multiples of those clubs and are doing their championships at the levels that works for those clubs internally.
They're all at their competitive levels.

Down are similar for me and whilst on the Down thread there may be a bit of consternation that the bottom two teams in the senior round robin drop down into the intermediate semi-finals and have more or less dominated that the last few years the winners of Down intermediate haven't been winning Ulster championships by the bucket load, so for instance this year Liatroim came up just short in their game v Glenariffe in Loughgiel.

If anything in Ulster the teams are pretty well matched, in particular intermediate and junior, The two Derry teams came up short and most games were only won by a few points barring the odd exception.

Is that not a good thing for Ulster hurling in general?

Should be new rule that only 3/4 per side allowed in 18yard area and none in 6yard box

That pulling and jostling shite does my head in

Follow me for more good suggestions 😎😜

square ball ref?

How about you grow up. I dont support nonsense like park name changes or hoisting flags over Belfast City Hall because it's performative nonsense. The genocide is a totally separate issue, but you all know that here yet still act like children.

It's as performative as the ladies in Dunnes stores refusing to sell Apartheid South African produce.

Israel is losing the culture war, they know it and are doing their best to suppress dissent for their genocide.

We're seeing a lot of articles in UK papers accusing Ireland of antisemitism.

Why would genocidal Israel give two shiny shítes what a small island in West of Europe care  considering they have the  US government in the palm of their hand?

https://www.ft.com/content/abf8b0b1-7f04-4a61-85bd-001f7cfec30b

The revolution will not be televised; it will come via meme. We will know soon enough whether Donald Trump decides to oust Venezuela's regime. Trump's seemingly random obsession with the country is a distillation of his foreign policy. He is targeting it for domestic US reasons, building his case via social media and is contemptuous of law and ethics. Since Venezuela is in America's backyard, regime change would carry few risks of global escalation.  The question is whether he can pull off regime change without putting US boots on the ground. The roughly 15,000 US military personnel Trump has put within striking distance of Venezuela is a measure of his ambivalence. By a factor of at least 10, the US presence is too great for even an intensified anti-drug operation. That is why even fishing boats are not safe. Yet the US build-up is too small for a land invasion. This puts Trump in a no man's land between overkill and underprepared.  His hope thus seems to be to remove Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, via intimidation. That Trump's manoeuvres are performative makes them no less real. Last weekend, he announced a no-fly zone. Yet he did this on social media rather than through the Pentagon. Though it would be a brave aircraft that strays into Venezuelan airspace, Trump's edict carries no operational force. "Don't read anything into it," he said the next day. Naturally pilots are reading into it. Venezuelan airspace has gone quiet.   

Oil, oil and more oil.

Any word where Loughrea v Slughtneil will be?

Kingspan Breffni in Cavan probably the most Central?

They might have to ensure they put the 65m lines on the pitch there...

Are them O'Connors sons of George?

BH won't be easy beat but definitely aren't as good as they were. The Leinster final should be interesting.

BG are a great team but as someone said they have only won one and tbh they were lucky enough that day. If they'd have got the goal any other time I think BH would have come back but the time they got it was just as good as you can get.

Barry is Georges son and Rory is John's son, both the Da's played when Wexford won the AI in 96.

No kneecap can shout "up Hamas" at a concert, and most posters on here conveniently ignore the fact that Hamas actually murdered hundreds of concert goers on October 7th

Actually its borderline comical levels of hypocrisy and double standards on here

Not alone did no-one call for them to apologize, people like me who pointed it out were accused of engaging in a witch hunt

They did.

The IDF also murdered and burned 100's of Israelis that same day as per their internal Hannibal directive.

The IDF have been murdering Palestinians on a daily basis prior to this date and regularly talked about "mowing the lawn" in Gaza for years and years.

the 7th of October didn't happen in a vacuum.

This isn't condoning the actions of Hamas, it's just putting it in context.

[most]

You know, I've found an odd thing over the past couple of seasons Johnnycool; that mentors are almost entirely more civilised and balanced at u14 football (competitive) than they are at u10.5 and u12 Go Games levels.

I'd harbour a few guesses as to why. Real referees would help. That the kids are older and don't need so much of a "protective arm" would help. That the teams are streamed more evenly would help.

But I would think the main reason is that as mentors go through the ranks and gain experience, most of them come to realise that treating a juvenile league match like a senior championship final helps nobody, but does stress everyone.

——

All under 12 footballers keep score whether the referee does or not. There's pretty much always one team cheering at the final whistle.

I'd agree with that sentiment from my experiences as well but that's due to the coaches (and parents) being conditioned with the go-games mentality from P4 (U8.5) and P6(U10.5) that they need to involve every kid in those short sided blitzes.

Not sure how the football works @U12 in Down, but in the hurling they still involve mini-blitzes with 3 or 4 teams playing slightly longer games amongst themselves so every kid gets an opportunity to play and winning is very much for the kids and not something the coaches get excited about.

I'd not be rushing to change that in Down.

As for the intercounty model change to U17, for me it was well intentioned to take the heat out of minor in what is an exam year for a lot of kids, reduce the load on the 1% of elite players, but wasn't thought through enough in terms of the impact at club level.

The reduction to U17 meant you didn't have a transition year for 17yo's who weren't getting exposed to adult hurling and then the only hurling available the following year was adult and that can take time for some lads and some drift away.

At least with club being U18, they have their core agegroup of minor and in our case we let the 18yo's also train and play adult hurling, but those who struggle will also have their minor games to keep them involved.

That's my experiences of it, other clubs and counties will vary.

[Is Tyrone u12.5 league football and no championship?]

Seen a thing on facebook/instagram outlining the underage structures across the country with the majority of counties (20) using even ages, 5 using odd ages & 7 using a mix.  Just wondering if its accurate.

Derry's structures are
U7.5 (p2&3), U9.5 (p4&5) & U11.5 (p6&7) for go-games
Then u14, u16 & u18

You have 3 years at u14 if you've a "good" birthday.

In Derry there was an u12.5 league last year, mostly clubs with bigger numbers, to give players just out of u11.5 competitive football - not sure if it will be scheduled for the 2026 year group.

I know of clubs exploring the option of going to the Inishowen u12 league but apparently the county board are starting to listen to the clubs re the u12 situation

Tyrone has u10.5, u12.5 then u14s, u16s, minor.
For those with a bad birthday coming out of u14s, they only get 1 year at u14s then straight into u16s.
Not great for development of your mid/lower tier players and contributes to a drop off in numbers imo.

I personally think the even numbers the whole way up are a better fit.

Tyrone also just played 5 rounds of an U13 League as well. Good to see it back in the calendar.

Noticed this from clubs posting on facebook... is this to sort seedings/leagues for incoming u14?  Is Tyrone u12.5 league football and no championship?

It's played as Go-Games. Clubs grouped based on numbers, no scores officially kept etc.

I would've thought it was a push to keep the go-games format for first years (and will be second year by the time the season ends)... maybe this is why Tyrone have brought back the u13 league to bridge into competitive games.

I'm a big advocate of the go-games format but looking in, with primary school tournaments and the tournaments that clubs organise (and tell everyone to keep the photos off social media), that kids are mostly ready for competitive action after P7.

Kids are by nature competitive at any age, it's the ballbags along the line are the issue.

"Benefit fraud in Northern Ireland rises to £233m, says minister".

Clearly there's more than a blind eye being turned towards it + there's over £119m in unpaid rates & whatever else goes on.

Instead of going to the Brits & asking for more money, every single time, maybe they could put their own house in order, for a change.

Is the unpaid rates figures part of the benefit fraud £233?