Donal Og Cusack's jacket

[optimus cheese]

Was he waiting tables after The Sunday Game tonight? Paul Galvin influence him too much? Doing it for charity You decide

[johnneycool]

Was he waiting tables after The Sunday Game tonight? Paul Galvin influence him too much? Doing it for charity You decide

My wife asked me whether he dressed like that before he came out!

TBH, that jacket would have went well with the red trousers he'd on the previous week.

Knows his hurling though.

[Asal Mor]

This is off the topic of Donal Og's jacket but I was just thinking about what a brave and important thing it was for him to come out. There was huge press coverage in America recently for Jason Collins, the basketball player who came out. He was the first major American sportsman to do so. And yet, Donal Og did it two years ago in a country like Ireland, and he's playing a mostly rural-based, traditional sport like hurling. It took some balls to do it and it's a huge part of changing people's attitudes. He's a brave man, fair play to him.

[Milltown Row2]

Aye I know, I might come out myself 

[theskull1]

You'd wanna get yourself one of these

[deiseach]

There are two Donal Ógs. There's "One of Ireland's most loved athletes", then there's that fella who played in goal for Cork.

[orangeman]

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/hurling/yes-men-and-stooges-donal-g-lays-into-cork-gaa-officials-in-epic-sunday-game-rant-31405336.html


I sense another strike coming.


The last one got over 500 pages.

Bring it on.

[magpie seanie]

Frank Murphy should appoint Donal Óg as Director of Cork hurling. We'd see how much he knows then.

[imtommygunn]

I liked Shefflin's point, though he couldn't be bothered with going into it with the hassle I think, of what age are Conor Lehane and Harmody. While I don't think all is rosie in Cork they are still producing good young hurlers. YOu don't need to win underage every year to be challenging for AIs - yes it helps but 2-3 players a year for your squad and you'd be grand.

[magpie seanie]

I liked Shefflin's point, though he couldn't be bothered with going into it with the hassle I think, of what age are Conor Lehane and Harmody. While I don't think all is rosie in Cork they are still producing good young hurlers. YOu don't need to win underage every year to be challenging for AIs - yes it helps but 2-3 players a year for your squad and you'd be grand.

Absolutely.

Maybe Donal Óg needs to organise another strike. That was a huge success wasn't it?

[Bord na Mona man]

I liked Shefflin's point, though he couldn't be bothered with going into it with the hassle I think, of what age are Conor Lehane and Harmody. While I don't think all is rosie in Cork they are still producing good young hurlers. YOu don't need to win underage every year to be challenging for AIs - yes it helps but 2-3 players a year for your squad and you'd be grand.

That applies in most counties. A small county might send out a minor team with 5 cracking prospects at one end of the scale and 5 weak players filling jersies at the other. These would void their chances of winning anything but it would still be considered a good minor crop all the same.

With the sheer vastness of Cork - population and number of clubs, they shouldn't be sending out underpowered underage teams. They should be mopping up the titles in the years when the smaller counties don't manage to pull rabbits out of hats.

[deiseach]

There's a good piece in the Echo which sums up the problems facing Cork. I've highlighted what I think is the money quote.

CORK HURLING IS FLATLINING
 
MONDAY, JULY 27, 2015

Éamonn Murphy

WE should be used to it by now, horrifically disappointing trips to Tipp and beyond, but it doesn't lessen the pain.

Yesterday at Semple Stadium was another humiliation for Corkonians. There is no positive spin you can put on a defeat like that whether you're a player, in the management or on the terrace. Galway beat Cork by 12 points and could also afford the luxury of a crazy tally of 23 wides to seven.

This wasn't a defeat it was a massacre. And there are no cold crumbs of comfort to be found elsewhere.

The intermediate hurlers take on Galway in two weeks in an All-Ireland final and while that will be a special day for those involved and their families, retaining that particular title won't have any impact on Cork hurling general. It's a numbers game at that level, and let's not forget Cork have more clubs than anyone else.

At minor – even if they suffered from a provincial system which sent them up to Limerick in a knockout tie having beaten them the first day – Cork are on the outside looking in again. It's the seventh year running they haven't even made the Munster final.

The U21 situation is even worse, with Waterford pushing the Rebels aside without breaking sweat in a provincial quarter-final, only to lose themselves to Clare in the semi. Now they're pretty despondent in the Banner over the manner of their loss to Cork in the qualifiers, but at least they know they've the potential of an U21 team in a fourth successive Munster final to tap into.

Cork didn't field or introduce any U21s yesterday. They couldn't afford to because none of those youngsters have shown the potential to compete at the level required yesterday. The best two minors of the 2013 crop, Pa O'Callaghan and Michael Cahalane, aren't available to Cork.

It gets tiresome trotting out the same stats and facts about Cork's regression at every level across the past 10 years, but it doesn't make them any less accurate or pertinent. Cork are simply not good enough to compete for the biggest trophies anymore from minor up.

That's not scaremongering either, it's the grim reality.

There's no doubt a big effort is going in from the clubs – a trip to an U8 Hurling Monster Blitz organised by GDA Colm Crowley in Blackrock on Saturday confirmed as much – but it's just not being co-ordinated properly. The Development Squad plan, which we can only hope yields an improvement in minor results, is another commendable effort.

The problem is Cork have conceded so much ground to all their rivals that it'll take serious investment – which won't happen as funds are locked into redeveloping Páirc Uí Chaoimh – and a few independents voices to make a real difference. More likely we'll keep running to stand still.

As always Rebels travelled in numbers yesterday among a decent crowd of 33,150 in Thurles, but from the first minute when Jonathan Glynn slalomed in far too easily to pop the ball past Anthony Nash this shaped up to be another meltdown. Cork were pretty economical in the first half, in stark contrast to Galway with their host of wides, and somehow found themselves just four down at the break.

Equally astonishing was that they trailed by just four in the immediate aftermath of Damien Cahalane's red card, thanks to a couple of neat efforts from Conor Lehane and Paudie O'Sullivan. Realistically given the power, aggression and confidence oozing out of very Galway pore it was a matter of when rather than if they've take over.

The Rebel masses tried bravely to cajole the most unlikely of comebacks out of Jimmy Barry-Murphy's but then came two errors in a row from Mark Ellis, coughing up points to Cathal Mannion and Glynn to make it 1-22 to 0-19, before the punishment came. Seanie

This was uglier than the bloodiest episodes of Game of Thrones when all your favourites characters are massacred. Stephen McDonnell and Aidan Walsh fluffed sidelines that led directly to Galway points. Ellis was turned over three times and the Tribe's use of possession and drive wiped out his effectiveness as a sweeper.

Glynn thundered into Daniel Kearney – one of Cork's best players not that it mattered – and Lorcán McLoughlin in the space of a couple of minutes and generally brought an animalistic intensity to his play that set the tone for his team-mates. Joe Canning wasn't perturbed by his eight wides when another of the attack, Mannion, rifled over 0-7. That was only one less score from play than Cork's best forwards Lehane, Patrick Horgan and Seamus Harnedy combined for.

The early word is JBM will remain in charge. It's a thankless task because as unacceptable as that display was for the Cork hurling faithful there's nothing to guarantee a similar filleting won't happen in 12 months.

[AZOffaly]

There's something going on in the coaching in Cork. I couldn't believe how poor their first touch was in the U21 against Waterford, and I believe the minors had similar issues against Limerick. You could always take for granted that a Cork player would be able to execute the basic skills at a very high level. That seems to be a problem nowadays.

[manfromdelmonte]

There's something going on in the coaching in Cork. I couldn't believe how poor their first touch was in the U21 against Waterford, and I believe the minors had similar issues against Limerick. You could always take for granted that a Cork player would be able to execute the basic skills at a very high level. That seems to be a problem nowadays.

Not throwing dirt here, but the same problems are in Offaly.
Whereas Cork used to have a huge pick of talented players from a huge base and that always got them by, Offaly had a supply of talented hurlers from a small base.

[orangeman]

Teddy Mc Carthy says that the players should take a good hard long look at themselves first before Donal Óg rounds on Frank and co.