All Ireland Semi Final: The Dubs v Cavan, 1730 Saturday 5 December 2020

[GiveItToTheShooters]

Glad to see Dublin win and win well! Last thing we needed was Cavan only losing by a couple of points. 


Outside of Leinster, Dublin have played a cycle of Mayo, Kerry, Donegal, Tyrone in championship the last decade.

A game like tonights game for Cavan is a baptism of reality.

Most counties are hidden away from Dublin and have no comprehension of what they are like up close.

Hoping Dublin win the final by a landslide.

You're from Mayo, a team Dublin will likely be meeting in the final. How embarassing.

[sid waddell]

Ciaran Fitzgerald's immortal line "Where's your f**king pride?" comes to mind

[mrdeeds]

Ciaran Fitzgerald's immortal line "Where's your f**king pride?" comes to mind

Where's your pride and empty the tank. Then you'll win all irelands.

[dublin7]

Glad to see Dublin win and win well! Last thing we needed was Cavan only losing by a couple of points. 


Outside of Leinster, Dublin have played a cycle of Mayo, Kerry, Donegal, Tyrone in championship the last decade.

A game like tonights game for Cavan is a baptism of reality.

Most counties are hidden away from Dublin and have no comprehension of what they are like up close.

Hoping Dublin win the final by a landslide.

You're from Mayo, a team Dublin will likely be meeting in the final. How embarassing.

FTB is the ultimate bad loser/whinger and should be ignored.
He can't handle the fact Mayo could never beat Dublin over the last decade so now his only form of consolation is cheap shots at Dublin GAA

[Fear Bun Na Sceilpe]

complete snoozefest

[armaghniac]

The GAA is supposed to be about participation

But not when it comes to Dublin

Participation in Dublin is bad for the GAA, apparently

No, we all want to maximise participation. I absoliutely favour the GAA spending money in every new estate getting Latvian kids to play GAA with Nigerian ones.But there must be two things, there must be equal effort in Dundalk or Derry City, and the spending in Dublin must not be allowed create monster club or county teams that provide unfair competition in national competitions.

And tallking about amalgamations of other counties is sheer whataboutery. Every county has small clubs and big clubs and that works well enough so long as there is a number of clubs of similar size, and Kerry also allow small club amalgamate for certain purposes. You can't have one club with one quarter of the population and you can't have one county with one quarter of the population either. If Leitrim and Fermanagh are happy as they are then they are not bothering anyone else.
Dublin is the problem, not Fermanagh.

[seafoid]

If tonight's game had spectators as in a normal year what would the attendance have been
15,000 Cavanites excited to be in a semi?
20,000 bored Dubs turning up for a routine home victory
A few hundred corporate types on the way home from the rubby?
Any neutrals paying €50 to see a foregone conclusion.

How many were at Dublin's semi final games 2011 to 2015?

Sad to see a couple of "Nordies" still trotting out the official on message line.

Tsk tsk

[seafoid]

There's 2 games to go this season, but people are saying Dublin are too good so they have to be stopped. Shame on Dublin for being brilliant. That's unfair on everyone else.

It's like the kid in school taking his ball home with him because he's not any good compared to everybody else.

The begrudgery is something else. Only in Ireland do people get abused for being brilliant at what they do. Its some stupid jealous trait that people in Ireland want to see successful people fail and get abused rather than acknowledge their success.

You are asking for others to show insight...please look in the mirror. This is nothing to do with begrudge ry or Anti-Dublin. We are just highlighting dreadful inequality.

The Munster Football Championship has survived for 130 years with dreadful inequality, far worse inequality than exists in the current All-Ireland football championship

There have never been calls for Kerry to be split up, say, to field divisional teams

It's difficult to think that the calls to split Dublin are not motivated by anti-Dublinness because the reaction to Dublin's success is entirely different to the success of any team in the history of the GAA

Agree totally re Munster. You could go back to previous posts I made in 2009 about this , but presumably you actually have a life and won't bother 😂. The provincial titles have their place but they lose credibility if they confer an advantage in the All ireland stage. Kerry and cork benefitted from this for years, as they only had to get serious in July , as even a Munster final defeat meant continued involvement in AI. This is accentuated by the "success breeds success" phenomenon, whereby players from Dublin and Kerry can realistically expect to play regularly in Croke Park. Antrim however , with relatively good population resources have a much more difficult path to Croker.

In the same way that the Irish Labour Party is sometimes referred to as the biggest political case study of failure in Europe, Antrim is the biggest case study of failure in history of the GAA

You're right there are similarities. There are longstanding advantages enjoyed by FFG as a result if their origins in AI war and civil war. Labour were not able to fight this right wing axis for 2 reasons : 1. Many FF supporters who would be centre left, felt a responsibility to stick with their civil war family loyalties. 2. Labour in Ireland did not enjoy the same unions attachment and support of benefactors, as their counterparts in the UK. 3. The media and business promoted the FFG axis
Labour and other parties, could have challenged the status quo but didn't ever manage this successfully, therefore the status quo perpetuates to the advantage of FFG.

Antrim GAA were disadvantaged by being a minority sport in a sectarian state, and still as Ireland's second largest city Antrim's subsidies from GAA are dwarfed by Dublin. The AI fixture inequality keeps them away from the glamour if the AI series and the national media ignore their plight and favour Dublin. Their home venue is not an 82000 masterpiece, it's a silage field , for several reasons.
Much like the Irish Labour Party , Antrim has problems, but most of them aren't if their own making.
Let's do our talking on a Level playing field.

Well it seems to me that Antrim has never made a real effort to get its house in order

West Belfast has the biggest concentration of GAA clubs anywhere on the island, there are 615k people in the county and of that somewhere between 200 and 250k are Catholics

To be as bad as they are at Gaelic football is pretty shocking

Kerry hasn't staged an All-Ireland semi-final since the 1930s or 1940s, it hasn't stopped them winning 37 All-Irelands

If you want a level playing field, then the inter-county system thus has to end

Like, Tyrone v Fermanagh is not a level playing field, Galway v Leitrim is not a level playing field

A level playing field means a level playing field - if it means splitting Dublin, it also means amalgamated franchises and the end of county teams

Hello the Down/Armagh/Louth/Monaghan franchise - AKA The Tex-Mex Titans or the Border Bandits, or the Sinn Fein Country All-Stars

Maybe we can make this simpler .
1.Dublin have a population advantage which is longstanding and increasing. The GAA needs to consider if the Intercounty teams as they stand best serve the GAA as a whole, are there modifications to county boundaries which can benefit the GAA as a whole whilst retaining identity?
2. Dublin and other counties have other advantages , can we rectify these to make a more competitive, and sustainable All-Ireland series?
3. Can the improvements in Dublin GAA be replicated in other counties?
4. Are there any honest Dubs out there who will admit advantages conferred by the GAA in Dublin are unfair

Nobody in Dublin says Dublin do not have advantages

I would suggest very few people in Dublin would object to common sense measures like Dublin playing less championship games in Croke Park

I have continually suggested the league be revamped to make it less elitist and give a greater number of teams more experience of playing against better teams

I have suggested that clubs have more access to players over the summer in order to cut down on the influence of inter-county set ups

I have suggested the number of substitutes in the inter-county game be reduced

I would also suggest redistribution measures in terms of sponsorship, say a certain percentage of individual county sponsorships going into a central fund to be redistributed evenly per county

Yes, improvements can be replicated in other counties, it takes will and it takes organisation

The problem with the funding debate is every article I've ever read about it is completely loaded and sensationalist and people will massage statistics to suit their narrative

I don't believe many people are capable of debating about it in a genuinely honest manner

It's alright for people in other counties to say split Dublin and you can keep your identity, but GAA identity in Dublin is the county, as it is everywhere else

There is no North Dublin or South Dublin GAA identity, only Dublin

If I suggested Meath and Westmeath amalgamated to form a Greater Meath and therefore they would not lose their identity, Id be told where to go, that I didn't have a clue what I was talking about - and those people would be correct

Does Colm O'Rourke think there is an allegiance to South Dublin County Council, set up in the 1990s? He appears to

Dublin have created an Irish franchise for a European Gaaball league. They are so far ahead of the Irish teams that they belong on the European stage playing teams from places like Copenhagen and Brussels

But it doesn't seem as if any outreach work has been done.

[marty34]

Great attitude by Mickey Graham after the game last night.

Honest and refreshing instead of the moaners on here.

[manfromdelmonte]

This is getting embarrassing now.

Dublin stuffed a team that's nowhere near their level.

If Mayo take their eye off their game tomorrow they'll lose.

That's what senior inter county is all about at the moment.

Dublin are too good so they have to be handicapped or hindered. The fact everyone else isn't good enough is Dublin's fault as well. Being brilliant is a crime in the GAA apparently. Strange how Kilkenny hurlers never had to put up with this sort of ignorant bulls**t

Nobody complaining about the Dublin hurlers getting the same stuff - why?

Because they're not winning anything.

But from base they were at to where they are now is massive improvements. Plus All Ireland Hurling Club winning team. If you said that 10 years ago people would have laughed.

But, but, but.

Always excuses.  I'm not from Dublin by the way.

This attitude of 'they're better than us' etc. etc.  They've put the work in and are now reaping the benefits.  Other counties are looking at the quick-fix solution with brown envelopes for manages instead of investing it in the clubs and development.  Then f*^k the manager out and "employ" another one.  Same result.

Would counties not go to Dublin and see their plans from 15 / 20 yesrs ago?

We are going down the American sports' routes - franchises in each county with population caps on it etc.

Who will fund the other counties?

[Rossfan]

They don't need funding - just increase their populations to 1.4m and keep repeating "we're as good as Dublin" and of course get their volunteers to work harder.

And play all their games at home.

[From the Bunker]

But, but, but.

Always excuses.  I'm not from Dublin by the way.

This attitude of 'they're better than us' etc. etc.  They've put the work in and are now reaping the benefits.  Other counties are looking at the quick-fix solution with brown envelopes for manages instead of investing it in the clubs and development.  Then f*^k the manager out and "employ" another one.  Same result.

Would counties not go to Dublin and see their plans from 15 / 20 yesrs ago?

We are going down the American sports' routes - franchises in each county with population caps on it etc.

Where are you from?

[Angelo]

Donegal have Neil McGee still playing because we have no one to replace him. Don't even want to think about Michael Murphy, who we'll be lucky to replace with someone comparable two generations from now. We'll not see another Karl Lacey for years either.

Meanwhile, Dublin have an endless conveyor belt, with no end in sight, allowing them to seamlessly supplement and replace their best players, almost unnoticed, year after year.

Have Bernard Brogan or Paul Flynn been missed? Alan Brogan? Brian Howard spending time on the bench?

Jack McCaffrey is arguably the best player in the country when on form.

He took a year out in 2016 and his replacement John Small got man of the match in the all Ireland final.

He takes a year out this year, McDaid comes in and wins man of the match today.

Hard to compete with that.

Eamon Breen left the Kerry panel, he wasn't missed, they got Tom O'Sullivan instead
Maurice Fitzgerald left the Kerry panel, he wasn't missed, they got Colm Cooper
Johnny Crowley left, he wasn't missed, they got Declan O'Sullivan
Liam Hassett left, he wasn't missed, they got Paul Galvin
Dara O'Cinnéide left, he wasn't missed, they got Kieran Donaghy
Mike Frank Russell left, he wasn't missed, they got Darran O'Sullivan
Seamus Moynihan left, they slotted Michael McCarthy in
Darragh O'Se left, they got David Moran
Tommy Walsh left, they got James O'Donoghue
Colm Copper left, they got Paul Geaney
Kieran Donaghy left, they got David Clifford and Sean O'Shea


Unfair!

Maurice Fitzgerald left having won 2 All Ireland's in a 14 year career.

Gooch left having won 5 All Ireland's in a 16 year career.

Fenton will probably be going for his 7th medal in his 7th season next year - as much as Cooper and Fitzgerald won in 30 years combined.

[manfromdelmonte]

They don't need funding - just increase their populations to 1.4m and keep repeating "we're as good as Dublin" and of course get their volunteers to work harder.

And play all their games at home.

Train the volunteers to work harder
Get all those big businesses in rural Ireland to finally start bankrolling county boards like in Dublin
(On that issue why is a semi state company like Bus Eireann allowed to spend tax payers money on sponsoring the Dubs)

[From the Bunker]

They don't need funding - just increase their populations to 1.4m and keep repeating "we're as good as Dublin" and of course get their volunteers to work harder.

And play all their games at home.

Train the volunteers to work harder
Get all those big businesses in rural Ireland to finally start bankrolling county boards like in Dublin
(On that issue why is a semi state company like Bus Eireann allowed to spend tax payers money on sponsoring the Dubs)

Yes, why not?