Who/what can stop Dublin?

[INDIANA]

We have our answer

Well at least that's the end of Don't Matter as a poster. Every cloud has a silver lining.

[haranguerer]

China

[Fuzzman]

From today's Irish News
Dublin are blameless for GAA feeding their massive appetite by Cahair O'Kane
IF YOU keep putting a child out food, the child will keep eating. You set a box of biscuits and a few platefuls of sweets in front of a four-year-old and they won't last long.

A few years down the line, when the child reaches the point of no return, the gaze doesn't fall on them for eating. It's the fault of the guardians that fed them. Right now, Dublin are setting out their napkins for another feed. Last Sunday, they won their 13th consecutive National League game.

The reigning All-Ireland champions, the holders of Sam Maguire in 2013 and '11, are 70 minutes away from their fourth straight Division One title. That feat hasn't been achieved since the great Mayo team of the 1930s won six on the bounce.

This Dublin crop has lost one Leinster Championship game in 11 years. The production line behind them has produced six Leinster U21-winning teams in the last eight years and won four of the last seven Leinster minor titles. That's before you mention their progression in hurling.

The GAA's landscape is dangerously blue. If there is any county in Ireland that doesn't really need a leg-up at present, it's Dublin. Now, there's a consciousness of not becoming a Dublin-basher. This is certainly not a criticism of them. They have invested their funding very wisely.

Their county board deserves great credit for putting so much into the development of those teams and not squandering their cash reserves. But then you look at other counties and see that they simply don't have the same options.

Clare have come in for all sorts of criticism in the last few weeks for the job they did of redeveloping Cusack Park. From the lack of legroom between seats and building a press box that only gives a view of half the pitch to dabbing the entrance with Tipperary's blue and yellow rather than the reverse, their county board has come under fire.

In all, Clare spent €1.5m on the south stand at the ground as part of a €2.3m redevelopment of the ground as a whole. That sounds like a substantial sum of money but the ground was so dilapidated that they couldn't afford to rebuild the south stand. Instead, they tore the roof off, took the seats out and then reconstructed it as best they could.

The money didn't exist for anything grander: "If the budget allowed, you'd like to demolish the existing stand and rebuild the stand, but there are certain cost constraints," said county chairman Joe Cooney.

"We were working with the upgrade of an existing facility and governed by the existing profile of the stand, therefore governed by the existing treads and risers of the stand."

Clare's problem now stretches beyond supporters needing to go on extreme diet plans to fit in their seats. Their problem is that the €600,000 capital grant they received from Croke Park in 2015 is the biggest chunk of money they are going to see for a long time, and it is all buried in the concrete at Cusack Park.

That will not help their improving football team push on following promotion to Division Two. It will not provide the next band of young players who dream of being the new Gary Brennan.

The figure they received from Croke Park for Games Development last year was €47,400. As with all these figures, the comparison always goes back to Dublin, who received just over €1.46m to help improve the standard of the games in the county.

Dublin's capital grant of €7,483 for the year would almost look to have evened it out were it not for this new National Games Development Centre on the site of the National Sports Campus. The north-west corner of the Abbotstown site has recently been completed, handing over five playing pitches - four of them full size and all floodlit - a 3G pitch, gym, hurling wall, etc etc.

Even the covered stand that houses 400 people may not seem like much of an advantage, but the elevation it will allow Dublin's coaches to watch in-house games from is something few counties have. A total of €12m has been invested in the 25-acre centre.

Paráic Duffy has insisted all along that the centre is not Dublin's and that it belongs to everyone. Except, it's in Dublin  and even their neighbouring counties appear none too set on using it.

It's a 90km round-trip from Kildare town; the same from Navan. It's 140km there and back from Wicklow. Good luck to the players trying to get away from work to make those trips three or four times a week.

"Have Dublin any special first say on it? The answer is no. Nor have they sought it to be fair to them. I'm sure they will use it," said Duffy at the venue's official opening last week.

"Our goal is to have teams of all shapes and sizes using it. I think clubs from all over the country will be thrilled with the opportunity of coming here for a weekend and maybe using the gym for a session, playing a match here. I think it will be used by all 32 counties, 2,000 clubs. That's what we want and I believe that will happen."

They would have been better if they'd just come out and said it was a new centre of excellence for Dublin. A few days after those statements were made, it emerged that Dublin had funded the on-site gym and that Bryan Cullen was overseeing the installation of equipment.

Abbotstown will become the base for Dublin GAA. It will be their centre of excellence. Dublin's conveyor belt, adding to their already successful football and hurling teams, will be sculpted in its luxury.

It's not Dublin's fault the GAA are feeding them.  The guardians need to stop making excuses for it.
---------------------------

Who are the guardians and where are they from?
Of course for years the GAA powers that be have been saying we Dublin to be winning things to bring the crowds and keep the money rolling in which I can understand to some extent but when are they gonna admit that they could have a major problem in the hands.
Older people have told me there has always been an imbalance in money being poured into Dublin and even to Kerry years ago so they can have better training sessions etc and that they dominate for a while but then others catch up.

For years people have been saying with the population Dublin have they should be getting their house in order much better and have a much better quality player than other parts of the country.
Well it looks as if that has finally happened and Dublin has gone GAA crazy. The amount of kids at nursery groups each Sat around Dublin is amazing and you see much more kids now with GAA shirts and hurls that you would have years ago.

Rather than bash the "guardians" at this stage we would just like them to acknowledge what they have done and maybe correct it asap.
A lot of Dublin fans have already got so used to winning games easy that they say its already become a bit boring unless they're playing Kerry. It's already been said on here that Kerry v Dublin in the semifinal this year is really the final. Of course shocks can happen like Donegal's win against them in 2014 but it's happening less and less.
Is it Dublins fault? Who cares who's fault it is but lets admit it sooner rather than later and go about changing it before the who championship has become a non event.
The excitement of the GAA championship among gaels around the whole world gets us up at 4am in Australia to watch our team play. Many fly home for the All-Ireland final to see our team. If its Mayo v the Dubs this year in the final I wonder would many be bothered flying home any more.
If something doesn't change then it really will be Hill 16 is Dublin ONLY.
I

[Rossfan]

The monster has been created.
Now it is in danger of devouring its creator.
Time for GAA's elected officers to act now before it's too late.

[seafoid]

Second year syndrome
the Dubs are far less ruthless than Kilkenny.
I think the crap standard in Leinster handicaps them making an ambush in August more likely

[AZOffaly]

Would they get a better rattle in Connacht seafoid? Ye haven't exactly been sickening Mayo recently.

[Hound]

Second year syndrome
the Dubs are far less ruthless than Kilkenny.
I think the crap standard in Leinster handicaps them making an ambush in August more likely

My worry is that bar Monaghan, and maybe Cork for a half and Roscommon for 20 minutes, the teams we played in the league saved their worst performances for their games against the Dubs.

If you wanted to set the Dubs up for an ambush, this would be way to do it. 8 wins out of 8 and have mixed the good with the very mediocre.

[seafoid]

Would they get a better rattle in Connacht seafoid? Ye haven't exactly been sickening Mayo recently.

4 counties have won connacht in the last 15 years in fairness. Leinster football is a shambles. Stockholm syndrome .
Mayo will be knocked off their f**king perch (copyright Ferguson) soon enough. I just wish they would win the all Ireland. 

[AZOffaly]

In the last 15 years? Meath, Westmeath, Laois have also won Leinsters in the last 15 years.

[Dinny Breen]

Would they get a better rattle in Connacht seafoid? Ye haven't exactly been sickening Mayo recently.

4 counties have won connacht in the last 15 years in fairness. Leinster football is a shambles. Stockholm syndrome .
Mayo will be knocked off their f**king perch (copyright Ferguson) soon enough. I just wish they would win the all Ireland.

And 5 counties in Leinster have won it in the last 16 years.

Dublin if they existed in Connacht would do the exact same and more. Meath/Kildare/Laois/Westmeath would have all flourished in Connacht. This isn't a Dublin problem, it's not a Leinster problem it's a GAA problem.

[seafoid]

In the last 15 years? Meath, Westmeath, Laois have also won Leinsters in the last 15 years.

it is 3/5 over 10y vs 2/12 in Leinster
Even Kilkenny didn't win 10/11.

[AZOffaly]

In the last 15 years? Meath, Westmeath, Laois have also won Leinsters in the last 15 years.

it is 3/5 over 10y vs 2/12 in Leinster
Even Kilkenny didn't win 10/11.

You're missing the point. Dublin would do exactly the same, or probably worse, in Connacht. If Offaly could escape into Connacht for Football, I bet you €100 they'd be in a Connacht Final within 5 years, at the very least.

[seafoid]

Would they get a better rattle in Connacht seafoid? Ye haven't exactly been sickening Mayo recently.

4 counties have won connacht in the last 15 years in fairness. Leinster football is a shambles. Stockholm syndrome .
Mayo will be knocked off their f**king perch (copyright Ferguson) soon enough. I just wish they would win the all Ireland.

And 5 counties in Leinster have won it in the last 16 years.

Dublin if they existed in Connacht would do the exact same and more. Meath/Kildare/Laois/Westmeath would have all flourished in Connacht. This isn't a Dublin problem, it's not a Leinster problem it's a GAA problem.

Dinny did the qualifier system contribute to the problem in Leinster?

[Dinny Breen]

Would they get a better rattle in Connacht seafoid? Ye haven't exactly been sickening Mayo recently.

4 counties have won connacht in the last 15 years in fairness. Leinster football is a shambles. Stockholm syndrome .
Mayo will be knocked off their f**king perch (copyright Ferguson) soon enough. I just wish they would win the all Ireland.

And 5 counties in Leinster have won it in the last 16 years.

Dublin if they existed in Connacht would do the exact same and more. Meath/Kildare/Laois/Westmeath would have all flourished in Connacht. This isn't a Dublin problem, it's not a Leinster problem it's a GAA problem.

Dinny did the qualifier system contribute to the problem in Leinster?

In what way?

[Jinxy]

Galway would make bits of Dublin if they were in Leinster...