Divide Dublin in two rears its head again

[Eamonnca1]

I wonder would colm agree with another approach, leave Dublin as they are and amalgamate meath, kildare and west meath and then that new team could challenge Dublin. Sure 100 years of tradition would be down the toilet but sure Colm wouldn't worry about that.

We have had tradition thrown at us in a different concept all my life. The up coming marching season will raise the point again. Tradition is not all its cracked up to be.

Is that what we're doing now? Comparing the existence of a single Dublin GAA entity to orange marches? 

[Jell 0 Biafra]

So is the argument to split Dublin up
A.  The population of Dublin is too big, or
B. Dublin are likely to dominate in the coming years?

(A) is surely irrelevant.  The relevant population is not the million+, but the amount of clubs/players.
(B) is just bizarre.  Dublin might win a lot over the next few years, so we'd best put a stop to it?
Where was this argument when Kerry were dominating in the late 70's-early 80's?  Or in the hurling for Kilkenny?

I don't get it.

[theoriginalmup]

story goes that this was brought up in the 90's. Dublin were going to put two teams into the league.North and South Dublin .There was a players meeting where this was brought up. One of the players(not the wisest one) stood up and said "sure Meath have be doing it for years ,so why dont we .Meath and Westmeath"

[INDIANA]

McKenna writes a lot of decent articles to be fair.

No big mention of Dublin hurling I note in the articles.

Why would there be? They've done little of real note in that code and most of the best dual players are choosing football so I'd imagine their domination of hurling is a way off yet.

I really don't agree with the idea of splitting Dublin but there is no point in ignoring the possible problems an overly dominant Dublin might pose for the GAA as a whole. A situation to be monitored but the idea of splitting Dublin would be worst case scenario stuff IMO.

Does he? You might put them up I've never read on these decent articles. Miracles do happen I suppose.

Split Cork in half they have more clubs then us. Its a tired old argument built on sand tis debate

Vast tracks of Dublin don't even play GAA and probably never will if the truth be known.

Meath would have beaten Carlow by 25 points at least and this wouldn't have been a story.

This has more to do with the standard of other counties underage teams in Leinster being crap rather then Dublin being good.

Leinster at football is in a crisis in my view and its completely tilting results in making Dublin look like a superpower.

Other counties are well able to beat us at all levels. In my view its not dublin that needs to be split its the provincial boundaries that need to be reshaped to add a bit of balance to the provincial championships.

[Hound]

Feck sake, its a bad sign about how far Meath have fallen that O'Rourke thinks the only hope they have of beating Dublin is to drag them down to their level, rather than doing something to improve themselves. There's not a hope in hell O'Rourke would have put his name to that if Meath had a good team.

If we think radical changes are required, they should be about improving teams not making them worse!

Amalgamations rather than divisions should be first on the agenda. Although only if strong agreement is reached in those counties. For example in Connacht, you could play the Connacht championship as normal. But for the All Ireland series, instead of Roscommon, Sligo and Leitrim entering individual teams, they enter a combined team (unless one of them wins Connacht, in which case they enter on their own).

[Declan]

Listened to Tommy Carr and Nicky Brennan on Newstalk last night debating this - same arguments as above.
Can't see it happening myself. Is there an argument for doing it at underage level if as the projections seem to indicate Dublin will dominate for the next 10 years and we all know how well projections go in this country!!

[heffo]

McKenna writes a lot of decent articles to be fair.

No big mention of Dublin hurling I note in the articles.

Why would there be? They've done little of real note in that code and most of the best dual players are choosing football so I'd imagine their domination of hurling is a way off yet.

I really don't agree with the idea of splitting Dublin but there is no point in ignoring the possible problems an overly dominant Dublin might pose for the GAA as a whole. A situation to be monitored but the idea of splitting Dublin would be worst case scenario stuff IMO.

He writes good articles? I've yet to see one, his blog is awful. More than half of that blog is copied and pasted from last year.


Fielding two teams will never happen. Uninformed bloggers like that gobshI8e can write as many blogs as they want.


I also find it hard to read his blogs with any credibility after I read this - to anyone unaware he's 'Tommy Keegan'

http://kildaregaa.boardonly.com/t457-joining-dublin-club

Posted this on Dublin website. Basically haven't played in about five years, living in city centre on south side and just looking to join a club for a bit of craic and to get fit, preferably with country feel to it as don't fancy walking into a dressing room with 40 locals who've known each other since they were robbing houses together at 7. Have had St James's Gaels and St Brendan's recommended. Anyone with any knowledge of either of these or any other nearby clubs that might fit the bill up here?

---------

[nrico2006]

The other Leinster counties need to have a serious look at their underage structures as they don't seem to be producing top quality players/teams.  As for Dublin going forward, I don't think they will dominate any more than Donegal, Cork, Tyrone or Kerry will.

[heffo]

The other Leinster counties need to have a serious look at their underage structures as they don't seem to be producing top quality players/teams.  As for Dublin going forward, I don't think they will dominate any more than Donegal, Cork, Tyrone or Kerry will.

That Carlow team got together for the first time two weeks ahead of the 25 point drubbing.

They took us to extra time under Luke Dempsey in 2010 when we one the U21 AI.

If teams are going to have shambles of preparation then it shouldn't be used as a barometer for us.

Team needs to take responsibility for their own preparation levels.

[Canalman]

Only and only when there are discussions of counties merging ( like clubs) imvho will the issue of Dublin being divided be a serious issue.
We have c 83 GAA clubs here in Dublin and I wish (yeah right!) that the journos would maybe on the odd occasion mention that.............. they much prefer the census figures   ( we pale into comparison with Warwickshire, London and New York by the way). For every BBSE/ Kilmacud Crokes etc there are  2/3 clubs struggling to field teams at alot of grades.

Thinly disguised default Dub bashing is what alot of it is.

Oh and did I forget to mention the fact that Dubin is seriously trying to drag its standard of hurling up from a low base to become a genuine dual county.

[Hardy]

Colm sure knows how to poke the Dubs with a pointy stick just for the fun of sitting back and watching the resulting splutters of indignation. GAA silly season. For what it's worth, I couldn't disagree with him more. One f****n' Dublin is bad enough.

[Dinny Breen]

His point about Dublin's financial resources are fair comment, forget about population, the money Dublin have at their disposal gives them a competitive advantage over every county in Ireland

Here's an article on Ireland's wheelchair rugby team. An very enjoyable piece

http://www.irishexaminer.com/archives/2013/0209/world/refusing-to-be-defined-by-twist-of-fate-222213.html

[heffo]

His point about Dublin's financial resources are fair comment, forget about population, the money Dublin have at their disposal gives them a competitive advantage over every county in Ireland

Here's an article on Ireland's wheelchair rugby team. An very enjoyable piece

http://www.irishexaminer.com/archives/2013/0209/world/refusing-to-be-defined-by-twist-of-fate-222213.html

Lots of things give counties competitive advantages - you could say having a large, well organised supporters club with access to apartments to entice IC players from other counties gives an unfair competitive advantage

[Shamrock Shore]

you could say having a large, well organised supporters club with access to apartments to entice IC players from other counties gives an unfair competitive advantage

LOL

[Zulu]

McKenna writes a lot of decent articles to be fair.

No big mention of Dublin hurling I note in the articles.

Why would there be? They've done little of real note in that code and most of the best dual players are choosing football so I'd imagine their domination of hurling is a way off yet.

I really don't agree with the idea of splitting Dublin but there is no point in ignoring the possible problems an overly dominant Dublin might pose for the GAA as a whole. A situation to be monitored but the idea of splitting Dublin would be worst case scenario stuff IMO.

Does he? You might put them up I've never read on these decent articles. Miracles do happen I suppose.

Split Cork in half they have more clubs then us. Its a tired old argument built on sand tis debate

Vast tracks of Dublin don't even play GAA and probably never will if the truth be known.

Meath would have beaten Carlow by 25 points at least and this wouldn't have been a story.

This has more to do with the standard of other counties underage teams in Leinster being crap rather then Dublin being good.

Leinster at football is in a crisis in my view and its completely tilting results in making Dublin look like a superpower.

Other counties are well able to beat us at all levels. In my view its not dublin that needs to be split its the provincial boundaries that need to be reshaped to add a bit of balance to the provincial championships.

He has written many fine articles and the one at the start of this thread is a recent example, just because the Dubs around here don't agree with him doesn't make it a poor article. While I agree with a number of his points, I don't think splitting Dublin is a solution but he doesn't propose that either, he simply doesn't rule it out as a solution to a potential future problem, which is a sensible thing.

The point that seems to be escaping our Dublin contributors is that unlike any other county, Dublin has the potential to utterly dominate the GAA IC scene through advantages no other county could hope to enjoy. This has to be a concern for everyone, Dubs included, as the integrity of our championships would be undermined if one county dominated not, primarily, through excellence but by population, infrastructure and finances.

Personally I think we are a long way from that happening and sport isn't all about numbers or money, English rugby proves that, but I think it is fair to raise the issue as a talking point and it's something worth tracking to make sure the worst case scenario doesn't transpire.