Connacht Club Championships 2016

[Zulu]

You think Crokes will beat the Nire by 6 or more LS? Don't know about that at all. The Nire have plenty of county footballers or hurlers and would be a dogged bunch and in Conor Gleeson they have one of the best forwards Waterford have produced in many years. I wouldn't know enough about either team to comment on who will win but from what I do know I'd be surprised if Crokes win handy.

[twohands!!!]

You think Crokes will beat the Nire by 6 or more LS? Don't know about that at all. The Nire have plenty of county footballers or hurlers and would be a dogged bunch and in Conor Gleeson they have one of the best forwards Waterford have produced in many years. I wouldn't know enough about either team to comment on who will win but from what I do know I'd be surprised if Crokes win handy.

I've found that the bookies are generally very good in terms of setting the score handicap for intercounty football games.  Club competitions are a bit tougher I'd imagine though.

Crokes have about 8/9 lads who have played senior for Kerry and pretty much all the rest of the squad have represented Kerry at U21/minor level. Apparently about 4/5 of the younger guys who haven't done so yet are possibly in with a shout of representing Kerry at senior in the next few years. I'd fancy Crokes to win but 6 or more points is a big win this time of year. I wouldn't write a lot into the fact that the Nire beat Carberry as by all accounts they were only average enough in the Cork championship and were missing 2/3 for the Nire game, including John O'Rourke who was their best player in the county championship because he was off on holiday in the Far East. Still it took extra-time for the Nire to get the win.

[Lone Shark]

You think Crokes will beat the Nire by 6 or more LS? Don't know about that at all. The Nire have plenty of county footballers or hurlers and would be a dogged bunch and in Conor Gleeson they have one of the best forwards Waterford have produced in many years. I wouldn't know enough about either team to comment on who will win but from what I do know I'd be surprised if Crokes win handy.

It's only an opinion, I'm not saying it's a cast iron certainty or anything. But this is a freescoring team and as was pointed out above, Carbery Rangers were very ordinary. If it was Crokes against them, I'd be similarly bullish.

[Zulu]

I'm not strongly disagreeing or anything as I don't know enough about either to be honest but from what I do know about both and it being winter football I'm a bit surprised anyone would feel it will be one-sided. Always hard to tell with club football but I think the Nire would have 3 or 4 of Waterford's strongest footballers and from what I've seen of Gleeson, he would be a future Kerry senior if born in Kerry.

[Lone Shark]

With teams like the Nire, it's never their best four or five footballers that are the problem - the problem is their weakest four or five, plus the bench. The last two or three names to be filled into the Crokes teamsheet will be players that would almost certainly make the Waterford county team and probably either have in the past or will in the future play for Kerry. That depth is where the mismatch will be - not in the top players, even allowing for Cooper/Buckley/Brosnan etc.

Also, winter football is still a factor but not nearly as much as it used to be. Yes you get dour 1-8 to 0-10 games in winter, but they tend to be between teams where the score would be 2-9 to 0-12 if they met in the summer. I don't have any stats on this, it's pure gut feeling, but I suspect that modern pitches - certianly like the one in Mallow - tend to take the winter far better than what we traditionally associate with Winter football. I covered a schools game today and the field was in superb order, I've no idea how they did it - and that was a school field. These two teams are well able to score and they will attack as normal - which is why I suspect that there will be plenty of scores both ways, and thus I'd be happy to punt the handicap. 

[twohands!!!]

With teams like the Nire, it's never their best four or five footballers that are the problem - the problem is their weakest four or five, plus the bench. The last two or three names to be filled into the Crokes teamsheet will be players that would almost certainly make the Waterford county team and probably either have in the past or will in the future play for Kerry. That depth is where the mismatch will be - not in the top players, even allowing for Cooper/Buckley/Brosnan etc.

Also, winter football is still a factor but not nearly as much as it used to be. Yes you get dour 1-8 to 0-10 games in winter, but they tend to be between teams where the score would be 2-9 to 0-12 if they met in the summer. I don't have any stats on this, it's pure gut feeling, but I suspect that modern pitches - certianly like the one in Mallow - tend to take the winter far better than what we traditionally associate with Winter football. I covered a schools game today and the field was in superb order, I've no idea how they did it - and that was a school field. These two teams are well able to score and they will attack as normal - which is why I suspect that there will be plenty of scores both ways, and thus I'd be happy to punt the handicap.

This matches what I've heard and read of the Crokes squad compared to previous years - the "lesser"/squad players are far better than they were in previous versions of the team - plus they have realistic quality options off the bench. The bigger names are a bit older but that has less of an effect in club games

I'd at least be waiting to see what conditions are like on the day, but this Crokes side seem to have a good consistent spread of scorers plus seem to be a bit tighter defensively.

[Syferus]

Good luck to Brigids today.

[macdanger2]

One way traffic so far

[Cunny Funt]

0-4 to 0-1 A flying start by Corofin. Brigids look stuck to the ground.

[Zulu]

Corofin very impressive but Brigid's have been very very poor.

[Cunny Funt]

If ever a side in decline were in action Brigids are that today. Corofin have been ruthless.

[twohands!!!]

Horror show stuff from Brigids.

Corofin turning in a serious performance.

[Rossfan]

That mad favouritism  was well justified sadly.
Embarrassing  today by our Co Champions.
Despite being well bet 5 points and 13 wides is inexcusable.

[INDIANA]

You think Crokes will beat the Nire by 6 or more LS? Don't know about that at all. The Nire have plenty of county footballers or hurlers and would be a dogged bunch and in Conor Gleeson they have one of the best forwards Waterford have produced in many years. I wouldn't know enough about either team to comment on who will win but from what I do know I'd be surprised if Crokes win handy.

I've no idea how you thought the Nire were going to be competitive today. Crokes are dripping with AI Medals. Some lads on the Nire play football for 2 months a year

[INDIANA]

Syfín must be gone all nervous about his favourite bandwagon club's chances!
Corofin raging favourites but Brids not without hope.
Hope they can upset the apple tart and prove the experts wrong.

Tarts alright.

Sice trying to say Corofin have forgotten 2011 and 2006 and that it's a different team now. Watch the yellow bellies go out on Sunday and try to decapitate Brigids players and we'll see how in the past it is.

Well he's hardly going to say yes we're mad for revenge, watch out Brigids is he? Corofin certainly won't be short on motivation for Sunday, hopefully they do it. I think they have more quality from midfield up, they need to be careful with the amount of frees they're giving away in scorable positions though, could easily have been a different result against Castlebar with all they gave away. And hopefully Ronan Steede's nose will have a better day out!

Darren Dolan, Senan Kilbride, Cathal McHugh, Karol Mannion and two good young lads about to break onto the senior county panel in Brian Stack and Connor Murray. Frankie still laces up the boots and if he wasn't manager he'd probably still be starting games. Corofin have good forwards too but I don't see them having much of an edge there. Defensively there might be more of a difference but even then I think this is a match between two teams with a good mix of experience and youth in the three sectors. The fact bookmakers and neutrals by extension have written off Brigids will be plenty of motivation for them because they hardly consider themselves inferior to Corofin.

Bookmakers are rich for a reason. The Longford champions would have comfortably beat Brigids today.