Messages

BA11 BAG is probably the most suitable

 

Thoughts on Sesko?

Unless he can play as a centre back or defensive midfielder with good feet then United's priorities are all wrong.

Even in the US the United team couldn't cope with the Everton high press and coughed up lots of chances.

If Amorin wants to play out from the back he needs players actually able to do so under the slightest bit of pressure.

He must be going for the out scoring opponents type approach with the transfer 'strategy' so far 

The main issues still not addressed, as you say JC

You score five, we'll score six mentality.

Thoughts on Sesko?

Unless he can play as a centre back or defensive midfielder with good feet then United's priorities are all wrong.

Even in the US the United team couldn't cope with the Everton high press and coughed up lots of chances.

If Amorin wants to play out from the back he needs players actually able to do so under the slightest bit of pressure.

"Under previous rules Donegal were probably looking at going into the final 10 minutes maybe 2 or 3 points down even when being outplayed for large parts of the game"

You cant make that assumption though, as Kerrys game plan would have changed and maybe they may have went more direct for goals.

With the old rules we can be sure Donegal would have had all 14 outfield players behind the ball at every opportunity so goal chances for Kerry would have even fewer and farer between than they were with the new rules.

In the final the new rules had the intended consequences of making scoring easier, Kerry adapted and have the players to take advantage of the new rules, Donegal didn't adapt and never offered enough attacking wise to win the game.

Jim Gavin and co can feel vindicated and coaches need to spend more time coaching kicking for scores, kick passing in an offensive situation and working on attacking patterns rather than zonal defending as it isn't as effective anymore.

Limerick hurlers target 30+ scores per game with an 80% or better conversion rate, in football you'd need to be targeting 20+ scores to win a game now with a few 2 pointers in there.

Are doing homecomings for losing teams - just one big embarrassment?

Why do we do them in Inter-county GAA? Does having them have any plus points?

Depends on the county. If you have massively overachieved making the final, probably no harm. But for established top counties, not a chance. Celebrating failure

So did Donegal overachieve reaching the final, or was it a failure that Kerry tore them a new one?

Baring in the mind Donegal have only appeared in 4 AI finals, winning 2 and now losing 2.

No venues up for the JHC yet apart from Con Magees V Ardoyne in Glenarm at 12am. 🤷�♂️

Are these not round robin games with the first team out having a home venue?

Stopping 3 extra men flooding back into defence leave gaps vs what we were used to , allowing less pass intercepts in attacking zone and more gaps to play in.

Of course its too small a sample to be definitive at this stage but it seems simple cause and effect.

It cant be cause and effect though because theres rule that is fundamentally impacting on the cause that is there presently. If its removed it doesnt follow that the same pattern will continue.

At the minute statistically speaking if you have a better than 40% chance of scoring a 2 pointer you are better to try that shot than to hold the ball and try and work an opportunity to score a say near 80% one point score. Conversely teams are better to try and force you to eschew the 2 point try in favour of the one.   If you remove that 2 point incentive what is equally likely to happen is that a lot of teams will defend deeper making the longer supposedly harder shots slightly easier but reducing the space inside to reduce the ease of creating high percentage shots.  The consequence of that is teams may become more conservative in their approach not wanting to shoot the low percentage shot from distance because there is not an incentive to do so and instead focusing on keeping the ball in tight spaces and recycling it to create higher percentage shots that are harder to come by.

What I am trying to say is that we don't know what a removal of the 2 point score would with the 3v3 rule intact. It might result in more scores but equally it may result in more passive play as teams defend deeper whilst attacking teams become more patient in looking for a score.  Thats why I would be reluctant to just say ditch the 2 point rule even though I dont like it
 

Most coaches and their tribe of backroom staff and statisticians are risk averse and if that figure of 40% success rate when taking on a 2 pointer is accurate you can be sure coaches aren't encouraging it.

Yet if you look at the AI final the 2 pointer was the reason Kerry had such a big winning margin over Donegal. It's not the reason they won as they were much the better team.

Under previous rules Donegal were probably looking at going into the final 10 minutes maybe 2 or 3 points down even when being outplayed for large parts of the game and maybe would have changed things up a bit for a final push to the end. The margin and the use of the 2 pointers by Kerry meant that they'd no chance of of closing the gap and TBH they never really looked like having a real go at Kerry which for me is poor management from Jim when the game was going away from them.
He'd thrown the towel in.

Donegal did everything to avoid a shootout with Kerry, but Kerry went and had their shootout anyway.

The new rules favour the teams with the best scoring forwards, is there anything wrong with that?

Time to encourage scoring forwards to go for scores and time to teach lads how to defend one-on-one.

First bid for Isak submitted - and rejected.

Newcastle are now in the full throes of the transfer death spiral. They are going to lose Isak, but they need to get as much cash out of it to save face and quickly to get a decent replacement in

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2025/07/31/trump-gaza-envoy-humanitarian-crisis/
"Everybody, unless they are pretty cold hearted or worse than that nuts... there's nothing you can say other than it's terrible when you see the kids," Trump said aboard Air Force One on Tuesday.

Photographs of emaciated children in the war-torn territory are beginning to turn the tide of public opinion against Israel's military campaign against Hamas.

This isn't a military campaign against Hamas, it's a total wipe-out of the Palestinians in Gaza FFS.

Remember when people were claiming that getting 'Genocide Joe' out of the White House would be a massive boost for the Palestinians.

Some of us also noted that both the Democrats and the Republicans are bought and paid for by APAIC, so it's immaterial to the Palestinians who is in power in the Whitehouse, they'll always do the bidding of the Zionist paymasters.

Newcastle have all the money, but are PSR hamstrung, while city continue to face 115 charges and not a word.  Villa will do well to keep the squad that they have, despite the champions league money, they are PSR hamstrung.  United can spend away despite being 600m in debt. The system is completely f****d lads.

I think Newcastle will also always face the image/location problem unfortunately. Even their star players will have one eye on greener grass.

Liking Everton's business, plus they had a good end to last season. Moyes slowly getting that house in order.

Not sure about Everton...

Alcaraz is a good option to have secured long term but they are still light on creative players and need two full backs.
They've just secured a left back but seriously need a right back as Patterson is poor and playing O'Brien there isn't a long term solution even if he did very well there last season.

New striker as well and he'll need to have a better conversion rate than Beto and the departed DCL

[The amount of defenders who "shadow" by that I mean run alongside a forward without putting a hand in is crazy. Every game you see defenders too afraid to try and actually win the ball.]

You need to be tighter definitely but a smart set up can drop a sweeper in.
The issue is lads are too used to shadowing. Everyone is raving about Rafferty from Meath but back in the day most teams had 2 or 3 lads like him.

The craic of lining up and not engaging is surely on tge way out.

The amount of defenders who "shadow" by that I mean run alongside a forward without putting a hand in is crazy. Every game you see defenders too afraid to try and actually win the ball. The tackle does need better defined so that both the refs and players know what actually is allowed.

One thing I don't want to see is Gaelic turning into basketball where is just constant scoring. Defending is an art and in my opinion seeing a diving block is just as good as seeing a 2 point score.

I think a large part of this is that players had become so reliant on using the 2nd defender and sometimes even 3rd player in to force a turnover. You could basically see players thinking hold-up/delay/stop the player's forward movement and because of how deep teams were set up defensively a second player is going to be close enough that they will be in within seconds to force the turnover. This wasn't helped by the fact that refs/the rules seemed to give so much leeway to the defending team in that basically all they had to do to force the turnover was surround the player in possession. So many turnovers were won by just surrounding the player in possession and simply not letting them play the ball away. This required little to no actual skill but was just based on the athletic ability to get close to the player in possession quickly. It's really not a surprise to see a number of players lack of actual defensive skills being badly exposed in relation to this.

2 of the biggest scourges on the game and i've said this for long before this "new" game.

Steps and throwing the ball. tidy up the refereeing around those two rules and you create space for defenders to tackle far too much of the game is sided towards the player with the ball.

Same in the hurling.
As a defender you always used to count the steps when the attacker had the ball and once they were about to take their 4th step you made the tackle.
Now they could be on 5 or 6 steps and no blowing a free from the ref.

Interesting that in the trailing Interprovincial games that the steps rules were being enforced much better, but like everything else GAA it goes into decline as the year goes on.

Was there a conscious decision by Donegal not to kick 2 pointers?

There were at least two occasions in the second half that Murphy had frees just inside the 40M D and rather than take a step or two outside the D to get the 2 points he took the 1 point, one in particular was pretty central and he put it over with plenty to spare, the other was the time Paul Murphy played the ball before it had left the 20 metre line from a kick out and was very tight angled so maybe more understandable.

I don't think Donegal scored any 2 pointers and maybe only went for one of two the whole day.

YPOTY in fairness, but yes.

Wasn't it John Tennyson who basically derailed his career by, allegedly, telling Cody there was more to life than hurling?

There's a few lads who didn't meet his hardline ways and were thrown by the wayside, but I thought this article from Richie Hogan gives a real insight into how Cody ruled.

Richie Hogan: Brian Cody told me to 'shut the f**k up and sit the f**k down'

And then poor John Mulhall bit the dust for a bit of a singsong

If and it's a serious big if, this is actually what happened, the minute the team tells the manager they are against his decision then it's done for me.

It's not a democracy, it's non debatable, the manager lives and died by his decision and the fall out if it's fails is on him

The players whether they like it or not have bought into the management throughout the year and had plenty time to leave the panel, halftime in a final is not the place to create the so called going ons or scenes described

If senior players have an opinion discuss it, but on a one to one, ok to voice an opinion

Taking the fullback off wasn't the winning or losing of the game, he was walking a tightrope of his own making

Cork misfired all day and Tipp didn't, they literally turned the screw when on top

I wouldn't be surprised there was a little bitta aggro at halftime, that can be positive, but it suits a narrative now that it was a flashpoint that ultimately was the reason they lost..

Missing basics scores, playing Hail Mary balls into space and playing as individuals the whole game was the only reason they lost

Player power is a thing in Cork and has been since they decided to deride a hurling legend in Cork in Gerald McCarthy to get "their" man into a management position.

Cork players need to take a good hard look at themselves, not one of them has an AI medal to their name and if you're not listening to the management, going out and playing as individuals no matter how good you are you should be gone from the team.

Do you think Brian Cody would accept that? Just ask former PoTY, Cha Fitzpatrick.

a few rumours coming out that all was not well in the Cork changing room at half time and after the game in the Burlington, management travelled home together and the team on the train hence the cancelled homecoming...

allegedly management wanted to make a few substitutions at half time and players refused to come off and after the game things were said that can't be unsaid...

Could all be shíte.