Messages

[Kerry]

Kerry V Galway - Kerry by 2.5    Kerry Meath v Louth - Meath by 3.5    Louth Down V Westmeath - Down by 2.5    Westmeath Laois v Sligo - Sligo by 1.5    Sligo Waterford v Wicklow - Wicklow by 4.5    Wicklow Kildare v Derry - Derry by 0.5    Derry Dublin v Monaghan - Dublin by 5.5    Monaghan Fermanagh v Clare - Clare by 1.5    Clare London V Leitrim - Leitrim by 2.5    London Donegal V Mayo - Donegal by 1.5    Mayo Roscommon v Armagh - Armagh by 1.5    Armagh Tyrone V Cavan - Tyrone by 4.5    Cavan Offaly V Cork - Cork by 2.5    Cork Limerick V Wexford - Wexford by 2.5    Limerick Antrim V Longford - Antrim by 2.5    Antrim Tipp v Carlow - Tipp by 1.5    Tipp

This thread aged well.

It did indeed, and it's safe to say that the current travails of the Dublin senior team would be much more manageable if they were at least 2 and realistically 3 senior intercounty teams in the county.
The numbers involved at underage in Dublin are so vast as to make them unmanageable for a single team/intercounty outlet. The amount of talent that is lost to gaa is immeasurable. People talk about Dublin's golden generation being a unique collection of footballers, but I'd argue that dublin has the potential to produce similarly talented players on an ongoing basis, simply by weight of numbers. The problem is that players start to drop off when they don't make it through those first development squads at the age of 13/14 and apply their focus elsewhere, that is often rugby in some areas where the schools rugby is prestigious and the setups are quasi professional or soccer in other areas, where again, set ups are impressive and professional.
Unlike in other counties there's no schools system to pick up the slack as gaa in schools is generally a case of pulling together a squad for 5/6 games a year, maybe a trial early in the year, no training and the whole exercise is simply about getting a half day off to go play a game!

Similar sentiments apply at senior club level, crokes and Boden for example typically have 4 boys and girls teams at each age from u8 through to u16 (that's u8,u9,u10...). You could argue that it's a bigger achievement to play 1st team for Boden than it is to play intercounty elsewhere, especially when you factor in the recruits who've moved to the county.

I understand the tradition built on heffo's army of the 70's, but really, to be fair to the youngsters aspiring to play for dublin and to build on the work of the past 20yrs, give them more intercounty outlets and make the prospect of playing intercounty (and senior club) more achievable.

I know the bottom two drop into the Tailteann, but I hope that rule is relaxed this year if Tyrone end up up in that position.

It wouldn't sit well provincially, or indeed nationally, if Tyrone weren't in their rightful place fighting for Sam Maguire.

Good call, except it's not the bottom two, it usually ends up being the bottom 3 at the very least and very possibly the bottom 4.

Limerick V Down. - Down by 4.5
Armagh V Galway - Armagh by 1.5
Derry V Tyrone - Tyrone by 1.5
Kildare V Offaly - Kildare by 3.5
Wexford V Laois - Wexford by 0.5
Carlow v Wicklow - Wicklow by 3.5
Leitrim V Waterford - Leitrim by 3.5
Longford v London - Longford by 2.5
Donegal v Kerry - Kerry by 0.5
Mayo V Dublin - Mayo by 1.5
Louth v Cork - Cork by 0.5
Roscommon v Monaghan - Roscommon by 2.5
Clare v Westmeath - Westmeath by 1.5
Sligo V Fermanagh - Sligo by 2.5
Tipp V Antrim - Tipp by 0.5
Cavan v Meath - Meath by 2.5

Limerick
Armagh
Derry
Kildare
Wexford
Carlow
Leitrim
London
Donegal
Mayo
Louth
Roscommon
Clare
Fermanagh
Tipp
Cavan

O'Kanes Team
1. O.Lynch
2. SM.Lockhart
3. K.McCloy
4. C.McKaigue
5. SL.McGoldrick
6. G.McKinless
7. P.McGrogan
8. A.Tohill
9. B.Rogers
10. J.McBride
11. M.Lynch
12. E.Doherty
13. S.McGuigan
14. P.Bradley
15. E.Muldoon
Hard to disagree with a lot but for me McCloskey & Glass have to be in for winning all stars

Can't fathom a team of the last 25 yrs not having Glass - who, if not yet, then has every chance of being remembered as our best ever player - and as someone else mentioned, tohill only played 2/3 yrs in this millennium.

If Glenullin were from any other county they wouldn't be in Intermediate football its no real surprise they are winning it. They've won 3 out of the last four, realistically they are a senior team playing in a level below what they should be at.

Yes it brings success and good luck to them but it does diminish the competition for actual Intermediate teams in Ulster. I believe they opted to enter Intermediate level?
Whats to stop other clubs on bottom half of senior league just entering it and trying to steam roll some success. Have Glenullin or Ballinderry or Faughanvale improved the most this year, only time will tell.

They certainly did not opt to play intermediate, in 2022 when they won their first title, Derry had started restructuring from 16 teams at senior down to croke park's recommended 12 teams, two teams were relegated from senior and no team was promoted. In 2023 when they won their second (extra time victories in both semi and final) the restructuring continued and two more teams were relegated and nobody was promoted - if memory serves me, paddy Bradley their manager was very public in his disgust at the non promotion. And as others have said, last year, following a vote by the clubs to move back to 16 teams at senior, they lost in the quarter finals when all 4 semi-finalists were to be promoted.

welcome to the board Paddy

Rumbled! Going to have to retire from the board, back to shining my allstar every evening again

If Glenullin were from any other county they wouldn't be in Intermediate football its no real surprise they are winning it. They've won 3 out of the last four, realistically they are a senior team playing in a level below what they should be at.

Yes it brings success and good luck to them but it does diminish the competition for actual Intermediate teams in Ulster. I believe they opted to enter Intermediate level?
Whats to stop other clubs on bottom half of senior league just entering it and trying to steam roll some success. Have Glenullin or Ballinderry or Faughanvale improved the most this year, only time will tell.

They certainly did not opt to play intermediate, in 2022 when they won their first title, Derry had started restructuring from 16 teams at senior down to croke park's recommended 12 teams, two teams were relegated from senior and no team was promoted. In 2023 when they won their second (extra time victories in both semi and final) the restructuring continued and two more teams were relegated and nobody was promoted - if memory serves me, paddy Bradley their manager was very public in his disgust at the non promotion. And as others have said, last year, following a vote by the clubs to move back to 16 teams at senior, they lost in the quarter finals when all 4 semi-finalists were to be promoted.

[Although the proper ages of underage African lads is hugely questionable, hence their domination of the underage game.]

That table looks like a big heap of convoluted B*llocks. 

On the other hand - Soccer teams are benefiting hugely from the onslaught of immigrants coming in. Although the proper ages of underage African lads is hugely questionable, hence their domination of the underage game.

Wtf?
Posted on wrong chatboard maybe?? Meant to be on your gript account??

I see Glenullin won their annual Derry Intermediate championship. They play in Division 1 also. Derry wans were akways slating the Cavan format ,when their own makes no sense.

Haven't seen any Derry wans slating Cavan because we understand it and how the League means feck all

Derry and Cavan endorse a system of meaningless games then wonder why the best among them can't get it up, go figure

I'd love to, but it'll take me a while to figure out what your point is!

I'd be surprised if the 2 point free survives until next year.

A 4 point goal isn't just a mathematical issue though. It fundamentally undermines further the relative value of a point.

The more scores in a game the less impact each score makes.

By way of example. In the 2024 final a point amounted to between 7 and 8 % of a teams total score. So it was significant to score a point.

In the 2025 final a point amounted to between 3.5% and 5% of a teams total score.

If you increase goals to 4 points then you run the risk of there being little to no point (excuse the pun) of going for points. That's something that needs trialled for me

Agree and the maths there makes sense, but if we take the 2-pt from play attempt at being 40% or thereabouts, 1 Pt from play at being 70% and goal from play at about 10% (zero insights into what this even means or how it could be measured), but I guess I'm trying to reflect the difficulty of working a goal relative to a point, then the value of the goal has never been commensurate with point values in that it's worth 3x pts or 1.5 2pter when the likelihood is way below that - in other words the expected value of an attack aimed at working a goal is significantly less than either a one pointer or a 2 pointer.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that 2pters have skewed the value much further away from 1pters than any change in goal value is and an increase in goal value would be unlikely to further skew that significantly.  More trials would be ideal and this one really should not have been dropped after one trial last October.

Interestingly, it seems that at levels lower than the all Ireland championship, goals are on the up. Club results I'm seeing appear to have goal gluts everywhere and gone are the 0.6 to 0.5 scorelines we had become accustomed to. Of course these are mostly group games in good weather and maybe we'll see a change at the business end in October.

I heard Pat Spillane say Jim Gavin thought of his role as "making the best amateur game to play and watch on the planet".


Given the source I wondered if this is true. Seems like an odd brief. What is with Irish people and their desperate need to gush about gaelic games?

"Best in the world".

Silly comparing sports this way, everyone is different. That's an incredible stat on Down.

There were also more handpasses in this year's final than last year!

Yeah I think I heard Gavin on a podcast at the start of the year and said that was his aim.

That was the remit/challenge handed down by the president of the GAA when he formed the committee straight after his appointment, so it came from jarlath, not Jim.

The latest rules trials are simply a response to the feedback surveys and trials of some of the more common suggestions that were put forward. You'd imagine that the most likely change is the 4pt goal which was in the original proposals but were withdrawn because congress wasn't going to support due to delegates poor grasp of maths!!
I'd have liked to have seen the back court rule trialled all year as that surely has potential to be the antidote to lateral passing, but as someone said, it's too late in the day to bring something so radical in which has to stay for the next 5 years when we have no insights into its real world impacts.

One final thing, these going through en masse is not a done deal. Congress will vote and I presume a 2/3rds majority is needed, you'd imagine there will be horse trading before an acceptable package to be put before congress is agreed. The FRC will provide the review and the stats,and make proposals, but ultimately, counties and blocks of like-minded counties will decide what is retained and what is jettisoned.

Im obviously bias but the 2024 final was infinitely superior to the 20025 final.  I think the 2024 final suffers from exaggeration as to how bad it was.  The 2025 final on the other hand is benefitted by a need to portray the current game as vastly superior to the old one.

I actually nodded off last year in the first half watching it on TV.. true. It was typical of where county and club football was at.
I don't think the final this year was good at all due to an abject Donegal performance. The game should be judged on the entire year not comparing two games. But if people think it was better before the changes so be it.. I don't... repeation doesn't strengthen argument..  so that'll do me.

The semis and quarters were all shite as well... not to say that was all on the rules, but people proclaiming that the rules have saved the game and that this was the best championship in years are lying or deluded.

The final and both semis were poor, but the quarterfinals with the exception of Dublin v Tyrone were all good watches.
I agree that the constant media narrative about frc saving football etc and how that translated into attendances is a bit nauseating. It's ignoring that attendances tend to be better when teams are well matched and games likely to be competitive and this year has seen the range in ability between the top 16 at its narrowest in years - I'm not convinced that the new rules contributed massively there, but meath did exploit them to their advantage.
All that said, the new rules have been positive and whilst tweaks are needed (2-pt frees need to be gone and the 4-pt goal should be back), you'd imagine most will make it through congress in October.

"Traditional rules "?
How long does a rule have to be in operation before it becomes a traditional rule?
"Kerry could not dominate under traditional rules"....
38 All Irelands before the FRC...
Two 4 in a rows, don't know how many 3 in a rows.

If 38 All-Ireland was Kerry not dominating under the traditional rules, Christ knows how many Sams they would have if they had been able to dominate under the old rules.

I especially love the notion that the FRC were rewriting the rules to suit Kerry.

The only thing I'm wondering is how Kerry managed to get so many secret lovers of Kerry football from Ulster, Leinster and Connacht plus Colm Collins of Clare (who has proably suffered more than most coming up against against Kerry in the Muster Championship so often ) on the FRC to draft the Kerry friendly rules.

The rules and the way the game is played have changed massively over the last 150 odd years. The examiner has a podcast 'the history of football' which I highly recommend to anyone with an interest in the evolution of the game.
It's been a while since I listened to it now, but for example, even up until the 50's it was common for players to dribble the ball soccer style as opposed to soloing the ball.

So the truth is that traditional rules are difficult to define and Kerry have adapted to whatever has been thrown in front of them because they have the numbers and the tradition of being the best, and that each new generation grasps that torch and works to ensure they're not the guys who come up short and allow the county to fall from grace.

I bought 3 adult tickets and 2 kids tickets off ticketmaster. There's now another kids who wants to go. Having problems buying a single juvenile ticket. Are you allowed to buy a single juvenile ticket or does it have to be bought alongside an adult ticket?

I had no problem buying single juvenile tickets for the Armagh v Dublin game last month.