Messages

[The Ciaran Meenagh talk is silly,]

Have to agree with those on about the lack of promotion from the county board, its getting worse every year. There was more in the mid ulster back in the day! Surely it cant be that difficult to sort.

Still no word of championship draw either?


On the Senior team, be interesting to see if theres any potential stand outs for a call up but cant see it, i think most of the stand out players are there or dont want to commit.

The Ciaran Meenagh talk is silly, "go all out to get him", why would he leave down now? There mustve been a reason he left derry to go to down so as much as id love to have him back i cant see it happening.

More likely tally will bring mcgilly in. Was he involved with a county team somewhere this year too?

Tally might not happen, but it's far from silly. He was with Derry from Div 4, teaches in Ballinascreen and would know the players and staff well. He technically won an Ulster with Derry and got us within a whisker of beating Kerry in an AISF. From what I gather he was offered the role, but didn't want to be the main man as it would have meant giving up his teaching role which he wasn't prepared to do and is fully understandable given how volatile the Senior County Management roles are.
Owenbeg might be a handier drive than wherever Down train, and with players returning we have a lot of potential.
There'd be a lot of positives for Meenagh should he have the opportunity to return, and a lot of positives for Derry too.

Club football managers were getting paid at Junior fball level as far bck as 1990. There's not a outside manager or trainer in the country not getting paid.

There's plenty of inside men getting paid too, but you are right of course.

For what it's worth, I think Meath are in with a real shout here.
They've come out of nowhere really this year and its a free swing for them. They're young, athletic and can score 2 pointers.
If they can relentlessly run at Donegal, there's scores to be had. It could be a shoot out this one.
I also don't think Donegal are quite as good as they are made out to be - though they are very good.
I just feel the gap isn't as wide as some think.

If you ran at them boys in the early 90s you'd have done it once and not have been doing it again in a hurry.

Just ask the Tyrone men 

To be fair, I loved watching Meath in the 90s. A real hard team with great footballers all over the pitch. I remember Derry v Meath in a Div 1 league final that finished up a draw then went to a replay in Clones with Derry winning a tight game. Big Tohill score a screamer of a goal.
But I get what you're saying about not running at them a 2nd time - they played right on the edge and were brilliant to watch.

Look forward to the multi arrests and court cases for persons unknown putting up flags of illegal organisations.

Had the "pleasure" of driving through Moygashel last week - UVF flags galore.
I saw in the news one night there some new development in Derry has had flags put up by a gang of masked men and a load of graffiti saying things like "flags stay" and "loyalist area". Its a mixed development is my understanding.

 

When it refers to breach of contract I don't think it means any form of management contract.

I think from what I'm reading there that the contract being referred to is the contractual relationship that occurs when two sides agree go to arbitration. In essence in order to take a case to arbitration both sides have to bind themselves to be contractually obligated to respect the outcome of same.

I think the breach of contract being referred to is that by sending the email in question the GAA through their servant or agent Jarlath Burns have undermined that contractual obligation to bound by the DRA decision.

I'm no legal expert but that was my reading of it too.
DRA overturned his disbarment but Burns, by his actions effectively implemented a disbarment.
RG sounds like he's in the right to me.

I've said it before, given that there has been no legal action taken against Gallagher for the accusations, not even charged, then there should be no reason whey he can't coach or manage.

Burns overstepped - he let his personal opinion affect his professional judgement.

I said it on the other thread but surely Darragh Canavan and McCurry will be better the next day too.
Canavan especially looked like he was off balance ALL the time.

If they can get the spread of scorers going...then who knows.

McCurry is hot and cold at the best of times, probably passed his best. Generally reliable from frees if you take last weekends game out of it. Canavan has skill to burn, but I think he's too small against these bigger well condition teams. When you say he looked off balance, to me he was just getting out-muscled. He's still relatively young so time on his side to bulk up. McElhone to me is the most dangerous option - fast and direct. Was the liveliest forward on the field when he came on against Dublin. I see the temptation in holding him as an impact sub, but its a tough call that.
The problem Tyrone will have is that they don't have those big physical forwards, like Clifford, who can win their own ball, take men on and score off both feet. Matty Donnelly is probably the closest they have to that type of player, but he won't get 6/7 points a game. Not many teams do have that player to be fair, but Kerry have a huge advantage in terms of forwards available to them compared to Tyrone.
The way to limit them, will be to stop the supply - so once again kickouts will be key and possession in the middle 8 area vital. Tyrone have big men in the middle but given how Kerry performed against the Armagh kickouts and Morgan's dip in form, I'd say they will struggle.

Monaghan v Donegal - actually missed the first half with match traffic but was listening on the wireless. 2nd half Monaghan completely fell apart and Donegal were in complete control. Should probably have won by more. Donegal looked really strong in that 2nd half. Seems to be how they've played most of the year, with an ok first half then blow teams away in the last 20mins. Can they keep doing this? They have on paper the easier draw for to make the final.

Tyrone v Dublin - a poor game in general. Felt like neither team really hit top gear until Tyrone in the last 10 mins. Perhaps it's in indication of the quality of both sides at the minute though? Tyrone just about deserved it, but will need to seriously up their game if they are to get close to Kerry. Dessie stepping down perhaps the final phase of that great Dublin team and a period of rebuilding needed.

Galway v Meath - Would have bet the house on Galway before this game, but Meath are fearless. I only saw the highlights of this one but it looked like a great game. Will Joyce be under pressure now? Will Meath be a Cinderella story?

Kerry v Armagh - seemed to be evenly matched until Kerry blew them away in the 2nd half. Armagh looked really ordinary. I said early in the year these new rules were brought in to suit the likes of Kerry, and that the kickout rule was an unfair one. The fact you have to keep kicking the ball into an area where you are being over-run is crazy in my view. Kerry took full advantage of it yesterday and Armagh were wiped out in that middle 8 sector. The quality of this Kerry team came through yesterday and I think they will be hard stopped now if they can be consistent.

I think Oisin McConville would be a great shout for Mayo.
He has done well with a limited team like Wicklow - they managed to knock Westmeath out of the Tealteann.
He'd bring some of that directness that I think Mayo are missing.

Having watched how Down played yesterday, particularly that 2nd half, there are strong similarities with Derry 2/3 years ago. Defend like demons and attacking in waves.
I think the Derry County Board should be breaking the bank to coax Meenagh back into our management team.

A really disappointing exit after a serious shift in the last 2 games in particular.
I think we got it wrong tactically - the zonal defending left Dublin in acres of space for their own kickouts on a very small pitch. That was their platform for scores - especially in the early stages of each half. On a pitch that size we should have been pushing up man-2-man which would have made it much more difficult for Dublin. The most worrying part is that management didn't address that throughout the game.
No faulting the effort, though some players didn't hit their peak I felt. To be fair to McKinless, he improved since the Galway game and made 1 excellent save. His kickouts are not good enough though for county football imo. Losing Lynch again was a serious blow.

I think giving Rogers the man marking job was a mistake too - best defence is attack and all that. We were a bit toothless going forward at times without his runs. But, he did a decent job on Con and maybe we'd have conceded goals if not for that.

The positives were that we put up a fight, we have improved over the previous 2 games in particular and with all our players back we can challenge the top teams. Seeing clucky return is a big plus point. We've also blooded quite a few players through necessity and that will stand us well in the future.
However, I think we need to make a change to management backroom. Tally deserves another crack at it, but needs tactical support from within his managerial team. Meenagh would be a great option. Gilligan too.
I don't think very many teams would have coped any better than us with the sheer volume of injuries we had to key players and the management issues, all compounded by a change in rules requiring a complete re-think to how we should play. So it's unfair to be too harsh on Tally.
He made a few mistakes over the year - but if we hadn't got so many injuries, perhaps he wouldn't have made so many. The GK issue being the highlight.

Next year will hopefully be more settled. Div2 is actually a good place to bring the new additions on a bit further than this year and the quality will still be high in Div2. We'll have to prioritise promotion I think.

Dublin will be hard to beat - I just think they are a bit short on quality to win the AI this year.

From what I can make out, Fulton picked up in Randalstown that nite on cctv, and obviously stayed at a safe house, as he was still sighted in Randalstown nxt day. Tad far away from Portadown. He was a known paid informer to some handlers. So u got MI5 covering up the tracks of their informer in the LVF, involved in murdering people. And they trying to hide this all coming out. As it be British govt involved directly in hindering their own police investigations, and hiding paid killers. They also queries on the car route to Randalstown, as it had be through Toome, with the police station at the old bridge with multi cameras.

and the lad who identified a woman in a police line up, he'd spotted in a car with three other men acting suspiciously outside the grounds the night before Sean was murdered.

The other three men had covered their faces when he walked by...


Stinks to high heavens.

Does indeed.
Then add in that there are 25 suspects.
That's incredible that there are 25 with no-one held accountable. Begs the question, how many of those suspects are high profile people in NI government/ruc/psni/mi5/politics? 25 years is usually when state papers become public record, so they must be protecting people still in play today.

I dont think the truth will ever come out on this unfortunately, unless there is a whistleblower.

LVF were going to do this and they told their state handlers, got approval and were then facilitated in carrying out the murder and subsequently protected. Why Sean Brown in particular was chosen who knows.

My teenage kids watched it with me last night - and they wouldn't have had the context beforehand. They couldn't believe that this sort of thing happened.

RTE1 9.35 09/06/25

Hell for Leather: The Story of Gaelic Football - 5 part series

The role of Gaelic football in Ireland's sporting, cultural and social history. This first edition looks back in time at the rough and tumble origins of the sport

Tried getting this on the RTE player and couldnt find it.

Social media seems to be completely overran with these tools, with incessant far right comments on the simplest of posts.  I saw a yank tourist post yesterday enjoying their time in Dublin and their post was filled with comments about how Ireland is overrun with immigrants and that it isnt safe.  What's going on with this targeted push of hate?  Are these paid bots or is it just the empty vessels make the most noise scenario? 

Mostly bots and Russia is behind it. They are fomenting division and unrest in every country in Europe.

I'm sure bots/Russia/china are partly behind it but the algorithms used to decide what content you see also play a huge part.
You watch content on a particular subject, you are more likely to see more of that same subject appear in your feed, which actually skews your overall view of things. You're not actually seeing other contradictory content - which leads you to believe that everyone out there has this pov. Social media has a lot to answer for when it comes to polarised views and even knowing that, it's really difficult to get a balanced view on anything online.

Derry biggest mistake was when 8pts up and getting joy at Midfield on Galways kickouts, they dropped off allowing 3/4 short kickouts on the left side which Galway had worked to getting 3pts.

I don't think that was deliberate. I think it was a combination of Galway subs rattling us a bit and that we'd slightly run out of steam.