What has happened Ulster Football?

[Elias]

O'Neills post where he mentioned Peter was in jest I'm pretty sure. Fuzz did start a tread about Tyrone's 1/4 but realised his error, surely this is an issue that the mods should be addressing?

Answer me this Bud - would you prefer for your team to go into a match with no other tactics other than attacking the opponents goalline, but get beat out the door because you were unable to change the plan when the game wasn't going your way? Tactics win games nowadays, in football anyway. I have no authority to speak on hurling but I'm sure this has to apply here also?

[mrgaa1]

nothing has happened to Ulster Football that ain't happening anywhere else - what we are seeing is the demise of championships.  This is all to do with the back-door system now engrained in players and coaches minds - we have a second chance.
Lets go back to the old way - knock out championship.  So what if players train hard blah blah blah - if your good enough you'll win.  SIMPLE.

[crossfire]

The standard of the hurling hasn't been great either this year with some of the better games being the likes of Clare v Waterford and Galway v Offaly.

Attendences are also well down as I've been to many's a Munster final where tickets were like hens teeth yet there was plenty of empty seats at both the replay and the initial final.

That is because the drink drive laws are being adheered to more than ever now, pubs closing down and punters won't travel from the five mile radius around Semple Stadium.  It is also because the GAA have failed to engage with Iarnrod Eireann to encourage train timetables that would allow punters to travel.  I saw on the hurling thread where some lads came from Down to Semple Stadium but stayed overnight.  If you check the timetables this week you will see the last train from Thurles was about the same time as the final whistle and it is the same in Galway, Limerick and Killarney/Tralee and every other ground.

When you have people from Down and Antrim travelling to Thurles for a hurling match (see the hurling section) it tells you what the state of football in Ulster is like. The GAA need to take teams like Tyrone one year, Armagh the following year and Derry etc on an annual basis and put one of them into Leinster or Munster or Connaught and let them get a bit of bottle to bring back excitement to Ulster football.  If the slide continues at its present rate nobody will be going to a football game in Ulster in a few years.

And they should put Laois into the Ladies football championship and they might then win something

[Zapatista]

O'Neills post where he mentioned Peter was in jest I'm pretty sure. Fuzz did start a tread about Tyrone's 1/4 but realised his error, surely this is an issue that the mods should be addressing?

Answer me this Bud - would you prefer for your team to go into a match with no other tactics other than attacking the opponents goalline, but get beat out the door because you were unable to change the plan when the game wasn't going your way? Tactics win games nowadays, in football anyway. I have no authority to speak on hurling but I'm sure this has to apply here also?

No. There are no tactics in hurling. It's basically win the hurling ball and get it past your opponents line as quick as possible.

[Hardy]

Hardy, happy in himself going around correcting apostrophes

Your nuts

[Redhand Santa]

Big day for Ulster football today. Would be a bad sign if just one team was in the quarter finals. 3 teams and Ulster would be the best represented province.

[Bud Wiser]

nothing has happened to Ulster Football that ain't happening anywhere else - what we are seeing is the demise of championships.  This is all to do with the back-door system now engrained in players and coaches minds - we have a second chance.
Lets go back to the old way - knock out championship.  So what if players train hard blah blah blah - if your good enough you'll win.  SIMPLE.

There you have it.  Most sensible post on the thread, which isn't hard considering  that someone said Ulster still have two teams in the championship.  FFS, they have to have the winners of their Ulster final and the back door team, no calculators required.

Remind me again, how many teams from Ulster are still in the championship?  Ye'd want to get a big roll of that attic insulation with the silver foil backing on it and wrap it around Brian Dooher because if anything happens Brian there will be none of ye left.

It would also appear that if you left a hurling ball down on the street in Clones, not to mention Donegal all the natives would gather around it asking "What is that and if it jumped up and bit them they still would not know what it was?"  Can you imagine how long it would take to explain that you can hit it with a stick off the ground over a crossbar from sixty yards out? 

Hardy thinks I am nuts?  You'd want to be a complete f**king lunatic to spend upwards of a hundred pound to go and watch any game of football at the minute, much les Ulster football  and Donegal.   Look at what was served up yesterday for football, a Leinster team having to play an Ulster team and people expected to pay to watch it, only for the TV coverage allowing the ordinary joe soaps to see the skills and commitment of the great Dermot Early it was a damp squib.  True the manager is from Armagh, I mean how could we forget when the camera keeps zooming in on his film star like features but it takes more than the Sundance Kid to win an All-Ireland and Early is the commander in chief of this Kildare team that I predicted will be there or therabouts on All-Ireland Final day.

The GAA  need to now, without delay, stand up and say that they will reorganize the football championship in such a way that games will be exciting and attract more attendance.  This thing is spreading into Leinster, yesterday we had the 6 million euro Vodafone Dubs against the few drops of diesel and cigarettes team from Louth who had engraved in their minds that it was not possible to win in Croke Park because of the madness of aan Ulster referee - for Jaysus sake, they did not even have the sense or decency to offer the young lads from Louth a home game, because no, its the Dubs and it has to be Croke Park.  The acceptance of what is happening in Ulster is a dangerous thing and if the boys in the suits in Croke Park do not do something about the format of the championship then there should be a complete clear out of every office in it. 

[Maguire01]

It would also appear that if you left a hurling ball down on the street in Clones, not to mention Donegal all the natives would gather around it asking "What is that and if it jumped up and bit them they still would not know what it was?" 

You're right. The natives would probably recognise it as a sliotar - not a 'hurling ball'. 

Although i'm not sure of the relevance of this to a football thread.

[lynchbhoy]

No Elias, I have no chip on my shoulder, I am just trying to shine a light for you to see, not necessarily follow.  Three threads about Tyrone's next game and they are still talking about Peter Canavan for f's sake.  You have Antrim playing Cork tomorrow in an All-Ireland quarter final and Armagh minors playing Dublin in an All-Ireland Semi-Final.  If the two teams brought shovels with them to Crossmaglen and started to open a coal mine they would get more coverage than they are getting and the reason for that is simply because there is so much shite talk about Tyrone and Armagh and Ulster football in general when there is not really much to talk about proportional to the excitement that the championship has provided.  Donegal have a lot to answer for as well, like watching paint dry seeing them play lately.  Tactics, tactics, tactics, but all bad ones and win at any cost that is destroying the game as a spectator sport.

I'd contend Bud that football is less 'win at all costs' than in days of old as we have mostly eradicated the dirty fighting and off the ball slaps that dominated football for its entire existence up until year 2000.
Skilful footballers will usually win out these days- not the teams that beat opponents into fear and submission.
Even with overly tactical gameplans - the top teams (Kerry and Tyrone) still have to have ultimate footballing ability to not give away the ball and score and win !

In all of these regards all four provinces are equal imo !

I'd also suggest you go up to the Burt/urris areas of Donegal (around south inishowen penninsula) and see their single commitment to hurling - with slitors and hurling balls !

Hardy can insert the apostrophes where he wants above !

[Bud Wiser]

Skilful footballers will usually win out these days- not the teams that beat opponents into fear and submission.

So do you think that Armagh would have won an All-Ireland without Francie Bellew.  Imagine playing against him and me walking in and shaking his hand and saying, hello Francie, I am Tom from Laois, I hope we both have a very skilful game, enjoy and may the most skilful team win. There is a strong possibility that I would be lying on my back looking up at jet plane vapour trails before a ball even came near me foir jaysus sake.  Are you saying that Ulster teams are soley concentrating on skilful football and that is why the championship is a non event?

[Bud Wiser]

O'Neills post where he mentioned Peter was in jest I'm pretty sure. Fuzz did start a tread about Tyrone's 1/4 but realised his error, surely this is an issue that the mods should be addressing?

Answer me this Bud - would you prefer for your team to go into a match with no other tactics other than attacking the opponents goalline, but get beat out the door because you were unable to change the plan when the game wasn't going your way? Tactics win games nowadays, in football anyway. I have no authority to speak on hurling but I'm sure this has to apply here also?

No. There are no tactics in hurling. It's basically win the hurling ball and get it past your opponents line as quick as possible.

No tactics in hurling?  Ask Gerald McCarthy, his tactics caused a strike for jaysus sake.

There are even more skills required to take a free in hurling than there are required in an entire game of football.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lj113j2QYU&feature=PlayList&p=B2B4DD85DCF22228&playnext=1&index=6

[Bud Wiser]

It would also appear that if you left a hurling ball down on the street in Clones, not to mention Donegal all the natives would gather around it asking "What is that and if it jumped up and bit them they still would not know what it was?" 

You're right. The natives would probably recognise it as a sliotar - not a 'hurling ball'. 

Although i'm not sure of the relevance of this to a football thread.

What in the name of jaysus are you on about, you are worst than the lads patrolling the board correcting commas and dots.
Here is 58,800 pictures of a "Hurling Ball"

[Hardy]

Hardy thinks I am nuts? 

No I don't. Where did I say that?

[Redhand Santa]

Why are hurling snobs so obsessed with football? Especially in a year when there has been far more entertaining matches and shocks (a shock in hurling is Kilkenny winning by less than in the football than hurling. They constantly try to bad mouth football for some reason.

[Bud Wiser]

Hardy, happy in himself going around correcting apostrophes

Your nuts