Favourites Tag?

[Orangemac]

Why does this play a part in games at club/county level up and down the country?

For instance Dublin were hyped to the rafters against Tyrone/Kerry in 2008/2009 and imploded yet this year were wrote off and played as though a weight was lifted off them.

Fermanagh also if wrote off can raise their game but if favourites seem to shrink into themsleves.

Every year the lengths players/managers go to relieve pressure on themselves seems to get more and more ridiculous.

For instance this week both Kildare and Down will do their best to paint themselves as underdogs.

i.e " If we play like we did the last day it won't be enough", " X and Y are probably the best forward line in the country" etc.

If Kerry drew Leitrim in the qualifiers you can picture Marc O'Shea being asked about the draw and saying " No one gets an easy game in Carrick On Shannon".

When did this start? Did players in the 60s/70s come out with this or did they say things like "Roscommon should be no bother to us"?

Did stories of opposition players/managers statements being pinned up on dressing room walls for motivation cause teams to make sure they didn't provide this sort of ammunition?

[ziggysego]

The weight of expectation?

[Bord na Mona man]

I think it undermines the whole concept of team preparation. How much should it really matter?

Its like when a team wins and they straight away whoop about how they have came here today to prove the meeja wrong who "wrote them off" (car insurance anyone?). Or how they have responded to some stray word or perceived slight from the opposition camp.

The implication is that team's performance; work rate, hunger and effort during the 70 minutes are dictated by such whimsical factors.
So teams apparently train like Olympic athletes, live like monks and spend hundreds of hours honing their skills. Yet how they decide to perform on the big occasion can be down to a bookie's opinion, or a pundit's verbage.

[Zulu]

I think it undermines the whole concept of team preparation. How much should it really matter?

Its like when a team wins and they straight away whoop about how they have came here today to prove the meeja wrong who "wrote them off" (car insurance anyone?). Or how they have responded to some stray word or perceived slight from the opposition camp.

The implication is that team's performance; work rate, hunger and effort during the 70 minutes are dictated by such whimsical factors.
So teams apparently train like Olympic athletes, live like monks and spend hundreds of hours honing their skills. Yet how they decide to perform on the big occasion can be down to a bookie's opinion, or a pundit's verbage.

I agree but I think it is just the bluster and BS we all go on about to try and verbalise something like sporting performance. the media correctly write off many teams chances and although those teams are in the dressing room before hand telling each other how they'll prove everyone wrong they can't say it afterwards because they just got beaten by 10 points, proving the pundits right. But on the odd occasion when they do upset the odds they go on about how it motivated them, it's just BS but sure they have to say something.

[blanketattack]

Teams should be delighted to be favourites, favourites normally win.
Kilkenny have gone into their last twenty odd matches as huge favourites and it hasn't done them any harm.
Kerry and Kilkenny are usually favourites and they've 68 All-Irelands between them.

[AZOffaly]

Ask Lone Shark about this one. He beat Rhode one year in the Leinster Club by enraging the Moorefield lads in the Offaly Independent I think

[Maiden1]

"You can dress it up any way you like, I can stand here and say Kildare are hot favourites but real GAA fans know this is a 50-50 game," Benny Coulter

[Zapatista]

Much of it is down to 'you're only as good as your last game' which can also mean - You are as good as your last game. Niether of which tells you how good you are.

Fermanagh should never be favourites.