All Ireland Club SFC Semi-finals Feb 2016

[From the Bunker]

Loads of other clubs have lost finals before winning. We had an awful day in 88 losing to Midleton while Clan na nGael lost to Burren. It was a miserable drive home. I think someone tipped the car for good measure. We ended up winning 3 titles. Success is all about how a team responds to the bad days.

you have to have the players. CM don't

FFS indy. New players come through, fellas learn fom defeat and journeymen play out of their skins  That is club. It is not the same as county.

They haven't learned anything from two years. Again I couldn't see the optimism beforehand. Boden had multiple county and former county players on view with a bench of senior inter county hurlers with huge fitness levels waiting to come on.

Everyone seemed to think CM just had to turn up today. If you matched the teams up beforehand everything pointed to a Boden win

Fair enough! Hope you made a killing in the bookies?

[INDIANA]

Loads of other clubs have lost finals before winning. We had an awful day in 88 losing to Midleton while Clan na nGael lost to Burren. It was a miserable drive home. I think someone tipped the car for good measure. We ended up winning 3 titles. Success is all about how a team responds to the bad days.

you have to have the players. CM don't

FFS indy. New players come through, fellas learn fom defeat and journeymen play out of their skins  That is club. It is not the same as county.

They haven't learned anything from two years. Again I couldn't see the optimism beforehand. Boden had multiple county and former county players on view with a bench of senior inter county hurlers with huge fitness levels waiting to come on.

Everyone seemed to think CM just had to turn up today. If you matched the teams up beforehand everything pointed to a Boden win

Fair enough! Hope you made a killing in the bookies?

Funny all the people wasting their money on Cheltenham- this was the easiest bet of the day. So yes I made a nice few quid

[imtommygunn]

At 1-2 to 0-0 i thought cb should have been borderline level. They just kept taking the wrong otion past the 45 and it just escalated from there. I can pnly assume the day got to them. Cunnifee should have seen black too and was lucky.

Boden slick and have a lot of players who would make most county teams bar dublin.

[Cortoonsham]

Thought the Cross Castlebar game was superb.

Barry Moran lorded it for Castlebar in the middle of the park for Castlebar and they just dominated Cross in the second half. For me, the game was lost on the line for Cross, why did they leave it until injury time to introduce McKenna when Moran was so influential. He's the only player in the entire Cross squad with the size to match or negate Moran. If Cross could have broken an even or even 40% of the primary ball then they would have won such was the joy Clarke was having inside when the ball was going in.

Once again the old start a melee proved the surefire way to effectively run down the clock, that's not a slant on Castlebar either. Any team that has a serious notion of being successful at that level have to know how to bend the rules to their advantage, but when are referees going to clamp down on it and add the time on? It's the only way to combat and deter this which is becoming all the more commonplace.

How many of those Cross boys will join up with the Armagh panel now? Young O'Neill looks a big talent and Rushe at full back is definitely one to look out for. Actually felt sorry for Rushe today, very much a victim of the Cross arrogance/virtuousness in that he was left one on one on the edge of the square today with a guy who had a 3 or 4 inch advantage of him, maybe that's more of an indication of the modern game that I'm bemoaning that but I felt he did well under the circumstances.

Castlebar should win the final comfortably.

Ballyboden looked really average in the other semi.

Ballyboden have more better players then Castebar in my opinion. They played as bady as could yesterday with 14 men and won.

They have a former inter county footballer of the year, multiple formerDublin minors and u21s , former Dublin senior footballers ,and a number of senior inter county hurlers who are very good footballers with inter county levels of fitness to call on. Boden will have someone to shut down Durkan.

They will win the final in my opinion. I wasn't massively impressed with the quality of either game. I thought both of them were largely crap.

Indy

Club is about how good your weakest player is, not what galacticos are on the team

My club has been lucky enough to have won 3 AI Club Titles . I'm aware of what's required

Are you sure?

Let's see who wins on March 17.

Folks my contacts in Dublin tell me Indian a is not a St Vincents man.he from a small junior club in Dublin who was recently barred from a Dublin forum.

[INDIANA]

Thought the Cross Castlebar game was superb.

Barry Moran lorded it for Castlebar in the middle of the park for Castlebar and they just dominated Cross in the second half. For me, the game was lost on the line for Cross, why did they leave it until injury time to introduce McKenna when Moran was so influential. He's the only player in the entire Cross squad with the size to match or negate Moran. If Cross could have broken an even or even 40% of the primary ball then they would have won such was the joy Clarke was having inside when the ball was going in.

Once again the old start a melee proved the surefire way to effectively run down the clock, that's not a slant on Castlebar either. Any team that has a serious notion of being successful at that level have to know how to bend the rules to their advantage, but when are referees going to clamp down on it and add the time on? It's the only way to combat and deter this which is becoming all the more commonplace.

How many of those Cross boys will join up with the Armagh panel now? Young O'Neill looks a big talent and Rushe at full back is definitely one to look out for. Actually felt sorry for Rushe today, very much a victim of the Cross arrogance/virtuousness in that he was left one on one on the edge of the square today with a guy who had a 3 or 4 inch advantage of him, maybe that's more of an indication of the modern game that I'm bemoaning that but I felt he did well under the circumstances.

Castlebar should win the final comfortably.

Ballyboden looked really average in the other semi.

Ballyboden have more better players then Castebar in my opinion. They played as bady as could yesterday with 14 men and won.

They have a former inter county footballer of the year, multiple formerDublin minors and u21s , former Dublin senior footballers ,and a number of senior inter county hurlers who are very good footballers with inter county levels of fitness to call on. Boden will have someone to shut down Durkan.

They will win the final in my opinion. I wasn't massively impressed with the quality of either game. I thought both of them were largely crap.

Indy

Club is about how good your weakest player is, not what galacticos are on the team

My club has been lucky enough to have won 3 AI Club Titles . I'm aware of what's required

Are you sure?

Let's see who wins on March 17.

Folks my contacts in Dublin tell me Indian a is not a St Vincents man.he from a small junior club in Dublin who was recently barred from a Dublin forum.

Well your sources are wrong then.  2 posts? Yeah I'll take you as a serious poster then so

[moysider]

Congrats to Ballyboden, the settled early and kept the scoreboard ticking over.

We never settled at all. We looked like a team used to runing on sand being put on an Olympic track. Very disappointed we never asked any real questions of them and didn't give a proper account of ourselves.

A shite final showing ruins a very good year - where have we seen that before.
Very hard to sit through something like that today Muppet. Commiserations.

[SouthDublinBro]

Related to this I would ask if today's win will mean as much to Paul Durkin as it will to the player who has been there from under 8? Would it have meant more to Durkin if he had won with his hometown club?

I have heard something about one of the local Ballyboden players actually getting into a serious fight with Durcan over him taking up a potentially more deserving players place in the team. It was well hushed up before this game.

Not at all surprised at the Mayo boys' collapse. Crossmaglen would have given boden a much better game.

[Canalman]

Crikey, where was the snarly streetsmart CM team that dare I say it bullied Crossmaglen in the semis. After today , many teams kicking themselves (St Vincents, Portlaoise,Clonmel), others scratching their heads (Corofin, Crossmaglen) .

Keep saying it, the burden of favouritism just buries Connacht teams in big games for some reason.

Have to say well done to BBSE who proved me wrong big time.

[general_lee]

For those of you complaining about MAYO teams getting to finals! Well tough sh!te! If your your Club or county is good enough to beat us on the way to a final well and good. If not, well put up and shut up! Mitchel were in the final on merit and them not performing was their own business. They don't have to apologise to anyone out side their own town and club for the performance.

I'm sorry but I disagree completely. They f**king shit themselves worse than any team I've seen at that level. They went out without a wimper and they deserve any criticism they get. So what they trained for x amount of months - doesn't make then immune. Not to kick them when they're down but if it was complacency or sheer mental weakness to kick wides from inside 30m they deserve ridicule. There's the same problem in armagh, teams can't beat cross even though they're good enough (and I include my own club) but lack the balls to go into a final and see them off. And they'll be the first to kiss the Crossmaglen holes when they're away playing in ulster for the millionth time instead of figuring how to overcome the mental block in championship

[general_lee]

Because Boden were pretty shit up to now

Only shit sides win AI's by 12 points.

The Clonmel and cross sub benches combined would have bate Castlebar by 12

[From the Bunker]

Because Boden were pretty shit up to now

Only shit sides win AI's by 12 points.

The Clonmel and cross sub benches combined would have bate Castlebar by 12

Ah now give some credit to Leinster and Dublin Champions for their great win today!

[INDIANA]

Because Boden were pretty shit up to now

Only shit sides win AI's by 12 points.

The Clonmel and cross sub benches combined would have bate Castlebar by 12

Ah now give some credit to Leinster and Dublin Champions for their great win today!

Connacht sides have the worst record in this competition.

[From the Bunker]

Because Boden were pretty shit up to now

Only shit sides win AI's by 12 points.

The Clonmel and cross sub benches combined would have bate Castlebar by 12

Ah now give some credit to Leinster and Dublin Champions for their great win today!

Connacht sides have the worst record in this competition.

Well there has to be someone who has the worst record! 

[moysider]

For those of you complaining about MAYO teams getting to finals! Well tough sh!te! If your your Club or county is good enough to beat us on the way to a final well and good. If not, well put up and shut up! Mitchel were in the final on merit and them not performing was their own business. They don't have to apologise to anyone out side their own town and club for the performance.

I'm sorry but I disagree completely. They f**king shit themselves worse than any team I've seen at that level. They went out without a wimper and they deserve any criticism they get. So what they trained for x amount of months - doesn't make then immune. Not to kick them when they're down but if it was complacency or sheer mental weakness to kick wides from inside 30m they deserve ridicule. There's the same problem in armagh, teams can't beat cross even though they're good enough (and I include my own club) but lack the balls to go into a final and see them off. And they'll be the first to kiss the Crossmaglen holes when they're away playing in ulster for the millionth time instead of figuring how to overcome the mental block in championship

I doubt complacency and mental weakness were anything to do with it. For me it was yet another team let down by preparation in run up to final.

[INDIANA]

Because Boden were pretty shit up to now

Only shit sides win AI's by 12 points.

The Clonmel and cross sub benches combined would have bate Castlebar by 12

Ah now give some credit to Leinster and Dublin Champions for their great win today!

Connacht sides have the worst record in this competition.

Well there has to be someone who has the worst record! 

Yeah but it's 50% of the other provinces.

I'm convinced CM's problem's today all came from the fact they were so confident going in.

I couldn't understand it pre-game............ Based on  beating a good but not great Cross side