Hurling miscellaneous

[seafoid]

Interesting article here by Sean Moran about Kilkenny

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2012/0711/1224319790624.html

Maher's coaching genius made Kilkenny the pre-eminent modern hurling power. Since his first year in 1957 when, by his own account, he reluctantly agreed to take on the team, Kilkenny have won 20 All-Irelands, whereas Cork and Tipperary have managed 11 and 10 respectively.

[seafoid]

ALL-IRELAND SHC QUARTER-FINALS: Cork selector Seánie McGrath tells JACKIE CAHILL that Galway's victory in the Leinster final has been good for hurling ahead of the quarter-finals

BARRING REPLAYS, the race for the 2012 All-Ireland senior hurling championship will be whittled down to four teams by Sunday evening. Semple Stadium is preparing to host a quarter-final double-header and Cork selector Seánie McGrath is eagerly anticipating the prospect.
First up in Thurles are Cork and Waterford, a rivalry that has intensified over the past decade. Classic Munster championship clashes will be recounted in the various Thurles hostelries before battle commences.
The general consensus is that the winners will play Galway in the All-Ireland semi-final but the proviso for that scenario is that Kilkenny take care of business against Limerick. Win, lose or draw, McGrath will stick around for the second game on the double bill and he's predicting that Limerick will give the wounded Cats plenty to think about.
And McGrath understands what it takes to unsettle Kilkenny, having played on the Cork team that beat the Noresiders on a wet September Sunday afternoon in 1999 to claim the All-Ireland title. McGrath acknowledges too that the pure knockout sense to next Sunday adds an extra dimension.
"Our previous qualifiers against Offaly and Wexford were knockout too," he reflects. "But in the first round of the Munster championship, you always have the cushion of the backdoor. Now, you're gone if the result doesn't go your way. Win, and you're in Croke Park for an All-Ireland semi-final. Then it's down to the last four, where surprises can happen and unusual results can take place. Whoever wins will have a huge challenge.
"If Kilkenny win, they take on Tipperary but a Limerick win blows it open again. But we're not really looking beyond Sunday. Our focus is on beating Waterford and we know that will be a huge challenge against a very good side."
McGrath insists that hurling aficionados are being lured into a false sense of certainty when it comes to the outcome of the Kilkenny-Limerick clash. The fear for Limerick is the Kilkenny backlash will be ferocious following their shock Leinster final defeat to Galway.
When the Cats last lost in the provincial championship, in 2004, they recovered to reach an All-Ireland final but lost to Cork. And McGrath predicts: "It's going to be a cracker. Limerick won't fear Kilkenny and they have been improving all season.
"They have some really good young players like Shane Dowling, Kevin Downes, Declan Hannon and Graeme Mulcahy. They won't be carrying any baggage of defeat. Obviously they suffered a big defeat in the 2007 All-Ireland final but very few of those Limerick lads are left. It's wide open."
And McGrath concedes that Galway's victory over Kilkenny was good for hurling in a wider sense.
"I think it was," the former corner forward agrees. "The first half was nearly freakish. Nobody in my generation has seen Kilkenny getting beaten by that much.
"Kilkenny put up a right good fight in the second half, and had they taken a couple of goal chances and had a bit of luck, they could have been even closer. And they're still an excellent side with fantastic players.
"The championship in general has been good," McGrath insists. "Ourselves and Tipp was a good game, then you had Clare and Dublin in Ennis, Limerick and Clare after that. The qualifier games weren't that bad either. We got a small bit of stick after Offaly and Wexford but they're good sides."
But McGrath concedes that Waterford will represent a considerable step-up in class. According to Déise insiders, losing the Munster final to Tipperary has not unduly rattled morale and they're ready for a new championship.
"It will be a really hard game, really, really hard," McGrath says. "They'll go in with plenty of confidence but we're happy enough. We've been tipping along since the Tipp game and played two reasonable qualifier matches. But it will definitely take an improvement to beat them."

[Ash Smoker]

Interesting article here by Sean Moran about Kilkenny

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2012/0711/1224319790624.html

Maher's coaching genius made Kilkenny the pre-eminent modern hurling power. Since his first year in 1957 when, by his own account, he reluctantly agreed to take on the team, Kilkenny have won 20 All-Irelands, whereas Cork and Tipperary have managed 11 and 10 respectively.

Has anyone read Enda McEvoy's book yet?
I have a queue of books to read.

[seafoid]

Interesting article here by Sean Moran about Kilkenny

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2012/0711/1224319790624.html

Maher's coaching genius made Kilkenny the pre-eminent modern hurling power. Since his first year in 1957 when, by his own account, he reluctantly agreed to take on the team, Kilkenny have won 20 All-Irelands, whereas Cork and Tipperary have managed 11 and 10 respectively.

Has anyone read Enda McEvoy's book yet?
I have a queue of books to read.

Me too. I have ordered that book

[seafoid]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2012/0823/1224322767391.html

The Irish Times - Thursday, August 23, 2012
Tipperary took tactics to new level, says Cunningham



GAVIN CUMMISKEY

LAR CORBETT CONTROVERSY: MANY WELL-REGARDED hurling men in both management and from a perch within the media claim there are no tactics in hurling. Cork selector Ger Cunningham is not one of them.

"Everyone is trying to find their own little niche and their own little tactic. It's a results-driven game at this stage and people are looking at different tactics. Every team is trying something," he said.

"Maybe in the past it was just letting it flow and I suppose Sunday was probably something we hadn't contemplated or hadn't seen before and took it to a new level."

Cunningham was being quizzed yesterday about the Lar Corbett affair, which has consumed most conversations about the sport since last Sunday's farcical man-marking situation.

When the All-Ireland semi-final between Tipperary and Kilkenny was still a competitive event, Corbett, the 2010 hurler of the year, paid little heed to what he does best – scoring goals and points. Instead, he sought out Kilkenny defender Tommy Walsh at every turn, entering a totally separate game of verbals.

Walsh was attempting to mark Pa Bourke, while Jackie Tyrrell was adamant he would cover Corbett so all four men wandered around together. Little of the play came their way and they only scattered when Eoin Larkin's goal after 50 minutes put the game out of Tipperary's reach.

"I suppose people are just trying to come to terms with it really – the situation where one of the best forwards of the last couple of years is running around after a defender," said Cunningham. "It caught everyone by surprise. I can see where you're coming from asking the question. Is it going to be a trend? Hopefully not."

Should the Tipperary management have put an end to the tactic sooner? "Obviously it was a tactic. Every manager will try and come up with a different tactic and will see how it works but it was obvious after 10 or 15 minutes that it wasn't going to work even though Tommy was out of the game and so was Lar, because he was anonymous really. You would imagine that if something wasn't working you would change it and it took them a long time to look at it and change it."

But the word "tactic" doesn't have to hold negative connotations in hurling, Cunningham admitted. "It's just evolution, the way the game has gone. Hurling is changing all the time and some people mightn't like the way it's going from the point of view that they'd like to see the old traditionalist two midfielders, three half forwards, three full forwards.

"That day is probably gone. You probably won't see that any more. You're going to see different variations of forward play and if that means pulling a defender out or pulling the half forwards out or whatever it is, things are going to change, and I think you will see an evolution of that happening, and hopefully it wouldn't get to the situation where it becomes a farce."

That brings us back to the Corbett plan – or, more importantly, the refusal of Tyrrell and Walsh to accept it. "I presume the Tipp management team looked at a situation where they felt they could find an advantage."

That's it really; a tactic that back-fired. Spectacularly.

"You wouldn't be human if you didn't actually think about the opposition," said Joe Canning, adding to the debate. "But this thing about trying to counteract them. I don't believe in it. We have to concentrate on ourselves. Bring our style of play to the game and, hopefully, that will be good enough."

[Asal Mor]

I think the biggest issue with Tipp's tactic wasn't that it was never going to work but how unsporting it was. I know Kilkenny are no angels etc. etc. but I was surprised to see a county team trying something so visibly unsporting.

[seafoid]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2012/0929/1224324603441.html

The Irish Times - Saturday, September 29, 2012
The night Dougal belted out the Rose in Dungannon


James Ryall and Kilkenny manager Brian Cody celebrate victory over Tipperary in the 2003 All-Ireland semi-final at Croke Park.Photograph: Alan Betson



John Hoyne and James Ryall were freewheeling spirits who enjoyed their view from the back seats as Brian Cody drove Kilkenny to glory, writes PM O'SULLIVAN

JAMES RYALL is a natural born storyteller and one of his best involves the time John Hoyne and himself got waylaid by Ulster hospitality in Dungannon.

It was January 2003, the Saturday before the Walsh Cup final against Dublin in Parnell Park. It was Ryall's first start as a Kilkenny senior. Brian Cody had signed off on the trip, instructing them to make the Burlington Hotel for Sunday noon.

Strikingly reminiscent of Spud Murphy, Ewen Bremner's character in Trainspotting (1996), Ryall snorts as he recalls how his comrade had "only a banger of a car at the time". Bald front tyres were replaced and the two of them, tight friends as well as Graigue-Ballycallan clubmen, headed away.

Up grand and they spun through some drills in the afternoon. Afterwards they were to present medals to youngsters, the usual story, and it stayed standard when Ryall, pulling off his boots, turned to Hoyne and cocked an eye.

Reply came phlegmatic, Dougal to a tee: "We were never going to come up here and not have a few pints".

The nickname hopped courtesy of the Father Ted character. Hoyne, before the bar, has a genius repertoire of gags, mimicry and oneliners and is, as they say, a panic. I have been in his company on such an evening and I wish it could be printed, because Dougal is savage goodnatured. But it cannot, because John Hoyne is a rifle.

That Tyrone night, the same pair ended up in a hall dropped from the sky in the middle of nowhere. The medals were presented.

People started lashing down drink in front of them, the Kilkenny lads good enough to come up the day before they had to play Dublin.

Pints, shorts, vodka and Red Bull, all the shades of alcohols rainbow.

Through the warm blur at the counter, the mid-Ulster accents shouting and carousing, after the hours softened at the edges and started making for the centre, Ryall turned at the sound of an odd accent in the throes of song.

Dougal was up on stage, letting loose The Rose of Mooncoin.

"It must have been three or four o'clock in the morning," Ryall says. "And we didn't head off any time soon either . . ."

Eventually they were deposited in a guesthouse as night crept away.

Ryall, wildly ambitious, set his mobile for eight o'clock. Next thing Hoyne was sticking his head in the door and telling him take a look: 'eleven o'clock!'.

They jumped, heads sticky, realising they would have to ring their manager and come some way clean.

Then James Ryall remembered the purchase.

Out on the road, John Hoyne rang Brian Cody and told him their front tyres had been slashed, Free State registration and all that. Phenomenal hard to get a garage open on a Sunday morning up here. Burlington is out.

Okay, said Cody, nothing like as severe in private as his public image suggests and probably undeceived in any case. Head straight to Parnell Park. 'Be as quick as ye can'.

They belted down at a ferocious slant and closed in on Donnycarney.

"Not a scrap to eat," Ryall laughs, shaking his head. "Just a bottle of Lucozade between us."

He makes it cinematic, pure point of view:

"We came in heads down, naturally enough. All you could see was a row of Kilkenny socks, togged out."

They got sat, conscious of knowing looks along the wall, got stripped fair quick.

Cody was over to Ryall with his jersey, telling him 'you have it now and you should keep it' and James Ryall was rummaging in his kitbag, getting as frantic as he ever gets, which is not frantic at all. Then it dawned.

Taking off his boots while sussing Dougal's intentions, he had missed on landing them into the bag and now would have to get them from the car.

Kid Adrenalin took over. He sprinted back, barely, to line out. How did it go? "I hurled well," replies Ryall, still a bit in wonder at that version of himself. "I was substituted near the end, but I must have done enough, because I held my place that year."

Getting out on the field did not solve John Hoyne's headache. Cónal Keaney immediately creased him with a shoulder.

"Never forgot it," Hoyne says. Then his distinctive twisted grin: "Just after the throw in. I was on the ground, he had me on the ground and I was looking up at him. I was fecked. And I was saying, to myself, looking up: 'If you only knew the hardship Ive gone through to get to this match' . . ."

Stock notions of a robotic Kilkenny panel conceal the beauty of nuance. Personality-wise, the grouping has always been a mosaic rather than a wall of emulsion. Cody has long been canny about dynamics, a believer in personalities who leaven the mix.

Sure enough, Hoyne and Ryall were back-of-the-bus merchants, never taking themselves too seriously, never enthusiasts for gym work. They could self-deprecate for Ireland.

Ryall remarks of the draw with Clare in 2004: "A bit of a tennis affair, up and down. I was the free man the first day but not for the replay! They were on about the supply of ball . . ."

John Hoyne hangs candid about 2004's cusp status:

"After 2003, Brian Cody had a schoolroom of a panel. (Charlie) Carter and(Brian) McEvoy were gone. The manager had won three All-Irelands.

"He had total control of the situation, the foundation of everything he achieved since. And you can only get that control, in Kilkenny, through winning."

The moral of the Dungannon story is slanted but clear, a measure of indiscipline bespeaking iron focus from sliver start.

There was never anything but total respect for management. James Ryall's open, alert face is a key to turn. He is testing me out, whether I can see beyond the superficial hint of controversy.

2004 chimes with 2012, as Ryall summarises:

"The way you get caught out, and the way Kilkenny got caught out against Wexford in '04, is that it's hard to get yourself right for every game.

"Everyone was worrying Dublin were coming with a woeful drive. There was big fear in Portlaoise. And then Kilkenny annihilated them. Then the whole county: 'Ah, they'll win the Leinster Final . . .' You'd never be shut off from that as a player. A big performance nearly always means a lull."

Tony Wall wrote in Hurling[ (1965), his still fresh monograph on the most beautiful game:

"The high ball into the full-forward line from centre field or half forward is practically useless".

John Hoyne's conversation is dotted with references to the many GAA books he has read but he has no need to consult Wall. This emphasis is part of his hurling DNA, one he tried to pass on via a six-year stint with the juveniles of Graigue-Ballycallan.

Back in the early 2000s, there was a lazy view of him as a Didier Deschamps figure, a mere hewer of ash. I never agreed. Even now, his recollections are flecked with frustration about an absolute "win your own ball" philosophy, a disregard of finesse about deliveries forward.

"Dougal would be messing and the big gallery," Noel Hickey once said to me. "Then wed go into a team meeting, and start talking hurling, and he'd be the smartest of us all."

"My own form was never consistent enough to be complaining about anything," Hoyne says, not quite grinning this time. Although retired by the time Cha Fitzpatrick became a midfielder, he loved him: "Cha isn't just low ball in the ordinary way. He was able to lob it in, a low lob, if you like, into a space."

Hoyne rounds out matters: "Tommy Walsh crossing the ball to Henry Shefflin against Tipp last year probably wasn't a training ground drill. Can't say for certain, now I'm gone, but that's what I'd think.

"Cody might have picked Shefflin at 12 for a particular reason, that he might win more ball in one spot. But it wouldn't have been 'feed Henry, feed Henry, feed Henry'.

"Tommy comes and he's sweeping the ball that way, and Henry's winning it. So it's more a case: 'Give him another one, give him another one. You go with the flow on the day. Cody lets us at it. And the flow comes alive on the day."

Hoyne instances the Cork puck out in the first half of the 2004 All-Ireland final:

"Cody hardly spoke beforehand about Cusack's puck outs, did he?" Ryall nods. "But everyone knew," Hoyne continues. "We'd all watched the Munster championship, wing forwards coming out and all that.

"We knew what to do: block it out, stand up tall. Nothing went through in the first half. But the wides killed us . . ."

Ryall picks it up: "Beforehand, it's not a matter of Cody saying: 'This is how the game is going to go'. There's no big science behind it.

"Theres no massive science with Kilkenny. And maybe that was what was half lacking the last day against Galway . . ."

Hoyne cuts in: "It was the difference between the first half against Tipp last year and the draw. With Tipp, it was six positions and six positions: six pairs, like an Under 14 match, everyone in their exact position. Against Tipp, all the Kilkenny forwards were on the ball early, Eoin Larkin nearly in for a goal . . . So Anthony Cunningham did his homework.

"When Kilkenny play six-on-six, you'd say: 'Maybe hit the ball in this way or that way'. But, with Galway now, it's hard to have a method for the forwards."

They are alike firm on how use of possession must improve for the replay.

Hoyne notes: "There was a lot of silly stuff going on around the half-back line: on the swivel and boom, up in the air. Eoin Larkin was crippled. He had his own man and a man in front of him, waiting for the breaking ball.

"The same with Colin Fennelly, the one Johnny Coen caught behind him . . . walloped up in the air. Colin needs ball in front of him."

Ryall offers the yang of a defender's perspective:

"An awful lot of the Kilkenny clearances the last day came from around the 21-yard line. What was drilled into me was to try and clear from high up the field. Work it out to between half-back and midfield, if you can.

"Or make sure youre intercepting in the right place. Look at Tommy (Walsh) last September: he's nearly out in midfield when he's crossing those balls to Henry."

Hoyne adds: "I think the two managers' heads must be wrecked with tactics . . . Kilkenny probably have more to worry about, because Galway know the Kilkenny backs will mark, man on man."

Ryall spools back to sport's foundation: talents lunge into genius. "I wonder would Galway have the balls to go out and play a proper XV," he asks. "Play Joe Canning full forward and leave him there for the hour.

"Look at the football: Michael Murphy, like. Started full forward and won the game for Donegal. Say what you like but his goal was pure brilliance. Then (Jim) McGuinness took him out of it . . .

"The second goal was pure luck. Came off the upright and yer man missed the drop. If Donegal hadn't got that second goal, Mayo could have won that All-Ireland with Michael Murphy off out the field, after he did such damage in there off the first ball . . . It's hard to mark pure brilliance."

It is getting late and we have talked ourselves out. Sunday awaits, the skirl of tactics and talent.

John Hoyne offers one last grin:

"Make sure you say I was an awful loss when I retired, that we'd have won the five-in-a-row, not just the four-in-a-row, if I'd stayed on after '05 . . .!"

James Ryall looks over, smiles and sings dumb.

[seafoid]

I wish there was more video about the ould lads online . Surely RTE have more stuff. I think their content could be
used much more creatively. 

This 2 minute snippet about Mick Mackey (after the bit about Ring) is fascinating

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfFnL_o8QS0

[seafoid]

This doesn't look good

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/28/more-forest-sites-ash-disease

More forest sites infected as ash disease takes hold

Forestry Commission says surveys have turned up many more sites affected by ash dieback
Tracy McVeigh and Josh Layton

The Observer, Saturday 27 October 2012 19.23 BST


The number of woodland sites in the east of England found to be infected with deadly ash dieback has leapt to more than 20.

The main concentration of cases of ash dieback – which has wiped out swaths of trees in the rest of Europe – are in mature ancient forests in East Anglia, along the coast where easterly winds arrive from Scandinavia. By Friday there were just two confirmed sites, but surveys have now turned up many more, the Forestry Commission said.

"The new cases will have to be confirmed by scientists, but it certainly looks as if there are more than 20 suspicious sites and we will continue to survey, although we really only have a one- or two-week window now to detect new cases before the autumn leaf drop makes it very difficult to see," said Stuart Burgess of the Forestry Commission.

Ash, which makes up around 30% of all of the UK's tree cover, is a hugely valuable part of the country's natural ecosystem. The Forestry Commission and other forestry workers have been looking for the telltale signs of ash dieback since the disease was spotted in trees at two sites, one in Norfolk and one in Suffolk, this month.

Environment minister Owen Paterson was accused of being "asleep on the job". He announced on Thursday that a ban on importing ash tree saplings into the UK will begin on Monday, but this may be too late to help save Britain's ancient woodlands from the fungus, which has been creeping across Europe from east to west for more than a decade.

Denmark has lost 90% of its ash trees, and Norway, the Netherlands and Germany have been very badly hit. In addition to warnings from scientists in those countries, ash dieback was found in British nursery tree stocks as far back as February. However, the government only opened a consultation into a possible import ban on ash trees from the rest of Europe this month.

Mary Creagh, the shadow environment secretary, responding to reports that a ban on ash tree imports will be introduced on Monday, said: "Like the forest selloff fiasco, the government have been asleep on the job with ash dieback. They discovered the disease in a tree nursery in February but waited until it was found in the wild in August to consult on banning ash imports.

"The government also ignored the Forestry Commission's warning that there was no money to tackle tree disease and cut its cash by 25%, forcing seven offices to close and cutting 250 staff. You simply can't trust this incompetent Tory-led government with the nation's forests."

Harry Cotterell, president of the Country Land and Business Association, warned that while the import ban was a step in the right direction, it might already be too late to stop the disease spreading.

He said: "We are very pleased to hear that the ban is going to be announced. I think the real concern is that geographically, it looks like the disease may have arrived on the wind."

Asked if the ban could halt the pathogen, he replied: "It may not. It depends on the extent to which we find the disease in the wild throughout the rest of the country."

A new website, ashtag.org, and a smartphone app, will be launched on Monday to encourage the public to report trees showing symptoms.

Paterson said: "The plan is to bring in a ban on imports on Monday. It will now be illegal to bring in ash trees and move them around."

Ash dieback, caused by a fungus called Chalara fraxinea, was relatively unknown in the UK until this year. The threat increased this week when the first outbreaks recorded in natural environments on domestic soil were confirmed in East Anglia, where no recent plantings had taken place, and in woodland in Suffolk. The disease, which causes leaf loss and crown dieback, works particularly quickly on young plants, killing them within one growing season of symptoms becoming visible. Older trees can withstand the initial infection but tend to die after several seasons of attacks.

Trees were found dying across Europe, including in forests, nurseries and urban areas, such as parks and gardens, after an outbreak in Poland in 1992, the first time the pathogen was recorded. The Commission is treating Chalara fraxinea as a quarantine pest under national emergency measures and is encouraging the public to report any suspected cases.

Most experts now believe the UK is likely to lose a huge percentage of its 80 million ash trees, in a mirroring of the disastrous outbreak of Dutch elm disease in the 1970s and 1980s, which killed off 25 million mature trees.

[Milltown Row2]

This doesn't look good

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/28/more-forest-sites-ash-disease

More forest sites infected as ash disease takes hold

Forestry Commission says surveys have turned up many more sites affected by ash dieback
Tracy McVeigh and Josh Layton

The Observer, Saturday 27 October 2012 19.23 BST


The number of woodland sites in the east of England found to be infected with deadly ash dieback has leapt to more than 20.

The main concentration of cases of ash dieback – which has wiped out swaths of trees in the rest of Europe – are in mature ancient forests in East Anglia, along the coast where easterly winds arrive from Scandinavia. By Friday there were just two confirmed sites, but surveys have now turned up many more, the Forestry Commission said.

"The new cases will have to be confirmed by scientists, but it certainly looks as if there are more than 20 suspicious sites and we will continue to survey, although we really only have a one- or two-week window now to detect new cases before the autumn leaf drop makes it very difficult to see," said Stuart Burgess of the Forestry Commission.

Ash, which makes up around 30% of all of the UK's tree cover, is a hugely valuable part of the country's natural ecosystem. The Forestry Commission and other forestry workers have been looking for the telltale signs of ash dieback since the disease was spotted in trees at two sites, one in Norfolk and one in Suffolk, this month.

Environment minister Owen Paterson was accused of being "asleep on the job". He announced on Thursday that a ban on importing ash tree saplings into the UK will begin on Monday, but this may be too late to help save Britain's ancient woodlands from the fungus, which has been creeping across Europe from east to west for more than a decade.

Denmark has lost 90% of its ash trees, and Norway, the Netherlands and Germany have been very badly hit. In addition to warnings from scientists in those countries, ash dieback was found in British nursery tree stocks as far back as February. However, the government only opened a consultation into a possible import ban on ash trees from the rest of Europe this month.

Mary Creagh, the shadow environment secretary, responding to reports that a ban on ash tree imports will be introduced on Monday, said: "Like the forest selloff fiasco, the government have been asleep on the job with ash dieback. They discovered the disease in a tree nursery in February but waited until it was found in the wild in August to consult on banning ash imports.

"The government also ignored the Forestry Commission's warning that there was no money to tackle tree disease and cut its cash by 25%, forcing seven offices to close and cutting 250 staff. You simply can't trust this incompetent Tory-led government with the nation's forests."

Harry Cotterell, president of the Country Land and Business Association, warned that while the import ban was a step in the right direction, it might already be too late to stop the disease spreading.

He said: "We are very pleased to hear that the ban is going to be announced. I think the real concern is that geographically, it looks like the disease may have arrived on the wind."

Asked if the ban could halt the pathogen, he replied: "It may not. It depends on the extent to which we find the disease in the wild throughout the rest of the country."

A new website, ashtag.org, and a smartphone app, will be launched on Monday to encourage the public to report trees showing symptoms.

Paterson said: "The plan is to bring in a ban on imports on Monday. It will now be illegal to bring in ash trees and move them around."

Ash dieback, caused by a fungus called Chalara fraxinea, was relatively unknown in the UK until this year. The threat increased this week when the first outbreaks recorded in natural environments on domestic soil were confirmed in East Anglia, where no recent plantings had taken place, and in woodland in Suffolk. The disease, which causes leaf loss and crown dieback, works particularly quickly on young plants, killing them within one growing season of symptoms becoming visible. Older trees can withstand the initial infection but tend to die after several seasons of attacks.

Trees were found dying across Europe, including in forests, nurseries and urban areas, such as parks and gardens, after an outbreak in Poland in 1992, the first time the pathogen was recorded. The Commission is treating Chalara fraxinea as a quarantine pest under national emergency measures and is encouraging the public to report any suspected cases.

Most experts now believe the UK is likely to lose a huge percentage of its 80 million ash trees, in a mirroring of the disastrous outbreak of Dutch elm disease in the 1970s and 1980s, which killed off 25 million mature trees.

Good news if you own Cultec!!