Connacht SFC 2012

[Rossfan]

As there seems to be very little interest in the incestuous love in on 18th September I thought it was time to start thinking about the real Championship.
Whose turn is it to play London and New York ?
Can Galway and Sligo up their game next year and put it up to the Big 2?
I think a trip through the Qualifiers is what we need next year .

[ross4life]

Jaysus your starting this thread a bit early Rossfan you could have waited for the draw in October

For the record New York v Sligo & London v Leitrim

Anways Club,FBD,NFL & U21 football fixtures before then.

[muppet]

Jaysus your starting this thread a bit early Rossfan you could have waited for the draw in October

For the record New York v Sligo & London v Leitrim

Anways Club,FBD,NFL & U21 football fixtures before then.

Not to mention an entire season of Premiership statistics to do a Síle Soeighe at a Kylie concert over.

[ross4life]

Jaysus your starting this thread a bit early Rossfan you could have waited for the draw in October

For the record New York v Sligo & London v Leitrim

Anways Club,FBD,NFL & U21 football fixtures before then.

Not to mention an entire season of Premiership statistics to do a Síle Soeighe at a Kylie concert over.

Meh to Rugby union.

[muppet]

Jaysus your starting this thread a bit early Rossfan you could have waited for the draw in October

For the record New York v Sligo & London v Leitrim

Anways Club,FBD,NFL & U21 football fixtures before then.

Not to mention an entire season of Premiership statistics to do a Síle Soeighe at a Kylie concert over.

Meh to Rugby union.

I was talking about Enda.

[ross matt]

Jaysus your starting this thread a bit early Rossfan you could have waited for the draw in October

For the record New York v Sligo & London v Leitrim

Anways Club,FBD,NFL & U21 football fixtures before then.

Not to mention an entire season of Premiership statistics to do a Síle Soeighe at a Kylie concert over.

My my Muppet I thought you were the spelling police on this board.

[muppet]

Jaysus your starting this thread a bit early Rossfan you could have waited for the draw in October

For the record New York v Sligo & London v Leitrim

Anways Club,FBD,NFL & U21 football fixtures before then.

Not to mention an entire season of Premiership statistics to do a Síle Soeighe at a Kylie concert over.

My my Muppet I thought you were the spelling police on this board.

Apologies. Typo rather than blatant abuse of an apostrophe.

[Syferus]

So basically we have at least 66% chance of drawing Mayo or Galway (we could get the semi-final bye and still meet the winners of Galway-Mayo in a semi-final) in our first match next year. It's probably time for a real test pre-Connacht final and given we'll have Galway at home they'd be the more attractive option. I wouldn't be going to McHale Park expecting much less than a close and hard-fought game, though.

I don't buy into any team 'needing', or it being all that more helpful, to enter the minefield of the qualifiers. Winning Connacht titles is still hugely important to us and I'd take beating Galway, Mayo, Sligo, whoever, and winning another Nestor Cup over maybe scoring a relatively meaningless victory over a Meath or Laois coupled with a few wins over teams we're expected to beat any year. People remember who wins their provincial title; they rarely remember 'heroic' round 2 qualifier victories. We'll get even better tests if we come through the front door.

[ross matt]

Jaysus your starting this thread a bit early Rossfan you could have waited for the draw in October

For the record New York v Sligo & London v Leitrim

Anways Club,FBD,NFL & U21 football fixtures before then.

Not to mention an entire season of Premiership statistics to do a Síle Soeighe at a Kylie concert over.

My my Muppet I thought you were the spelling police on this board.

Apologies. Typo rather than blatant abuse of an apostrophe.

Ah dont beat yourself up about it.

[Rossfan]

.

I don't buy into any team 'needing', or it being all that more helpful, to enter the minefield of the qualifiers. Winning Connacht titles is still hugely important to us and I'd take beating Galway, Mayo, Sligo, whoever, and winning another Nestor Cup over maybe scoring a relatively meaningless victory over a Meath or Laois

We'd have been far better this year playing Laois/Meath or other "meaningless" teams than untested strolls past NY and bloody Laythrum.
At least if we got to Round 4 then we'd have been more up to speed than we were.
Now batin' Mayowestros ,Galway and Sligo .... that's a different story.

[Syferus]

.

I don't buy into any team 'needing', or it being all that more helpful, to enter the minefield of the qualifiers. Winning Connacht titles is still hugely important to us and I'd take beating Galway, Mayo, Sligo, whoever, and winning another Nestor Cup over maybe scoring a relatively meaningless victory over a Meath or Laois

We'd have been far better this year playing Laois/Meath or other "meaningless" teams than untested strolls past NY and bloody Laythrum.
At least if we got to Round 4 then we'd have been more up to speed than we were.
Now batin' Mayowestros ,Galway and Sligo .... that's a different story.

That's much more to do with the pace of matches by comparison than the level of competition; Mayo are routinely D1 and are All-Ireland semi-finalists, any meeting with Sligo is sure to be a highly charged affair and our recent record against Galway shows that beating them by any margin will be something notable. If we can put in good performances at the stop-start pace of the Connacht championship then there's little reason to think it'd be any harder to do the same on the week-by-week basis of the qualifiers.

Say we lose a Connacht semi-final to Mayo, and we draw a Cork or Kerry team that lost a Munster quarter-final and have already won a subsequent match - how would that help the team, assuming they don't pull something unbelievable out of the bag? The qualifiers are a second chance lottery for teams that lose; no team should be counting on losing. There's plenty of worthy tests in the province to help further the team, I'd only ever have any eyes for the qualifiers if we lose.