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Carrick back as the merry go round continues. He did ok with three tough games on paper on his short spell the last time

lost away to Watford on Nov 20th with Ole.

Away to Villareal - Nov 23rd
2-0 win (1.14 to 0.56 xG), 49% possession, 11 to 13 in shots.

De Gea
AWB Lindelof Maguire Telles
Mctominay Fred
Sancho VdB Martial
Ronaldo

Subs: Bruno, Rashford, Matić, Mata.
Unused subs: Henderson, Heaton, dalot, Bailly, amad, Lingard

Away to Chelsea - Nov 28th
1-1 draw (0.90 to 3.11 xG), 34% possession, 3 shots to 24

De Gea
AWB Lindelof Bailly Telles
Mctominay Matić Fred
Bruno
Sancho Rashford

Subs: Ronaldo, Lingard, van de beek
Unused subs: Henderson, Dalot, Jones, Mata, Martial, greenwood

Home to Arsenal - Dec 2nd
3-2 win (1.94 to 1.44 xG), 44% possession, 14 shots to 17

De Gea
Dalot Lindelof Maguire Telles
McTominay Fred
Rashford Bruno Sancho
Ronaldo

Subs: Lingard, Martial, Van de Beek
Unused subs: Henderson, Bailly, Jones, Amad, Mata, greenwood

Rangnick came in for the game vs Palace on Dec 5th.

Doesn't get any tougher than to play Man City,Arsenal in his first two games on his return. I expect a 7th or 8th place finish to the season at best.

So Fletcher was the interim, interim manager.

Cheapskate Ratcliffe will be hoping he does a decent enough job so that he can pay him buttons to take it on over the summer.

Eoghan Campbell is a big loss.

What age would he be?

Only got to see parts of the Toureen/Upper Church game and thought it was evenly matched the whole way with the goals in extra time being the difference.

If Toureen come out of Mayo next year are they still intermediate in Connaught?

Kilkenny refused to play on a 4G pitch even after the referee deemed it fit to play on.

I really don't like 3/4G pitches especially for competitive games and can sympathise with Lyng and Kilkenny but the referees decision should be final.

 Westmeath won the toss so probably fair but the GAA needs to make a call on the use of these pitches

Yesterday was the first time I've heard of this "tolerance level" of 5cm that you're allowed to be offside now. They used it to explain why the Wirtz goal stood. Apparently it's only in the premier league and the goal would be offside in other leagues.

Firstly he looked more than 5cm off and secondly, why have they used it here but not in other incidents this season were goals have been ruled out for an armpit or toe being mere millimeters off?

1) The frame chosen by VAR (the correct frame) showed him within 5cm. The TV coverage used the following frame (incorrectly) where yes he appeared more than 5cm.
The actual frame is available online and shows Wirtz is clearly onside. The TV cameras have a frame rate half that of the VAR cameras, hence the discrepancy.

2) The fact that it would be offside in other leagues is completely irrelevant. Would have been a forward pass in rugby too.

With my engineering head on me I always wondered what tolerances were possible with VAR technology and +/- 5cm isn't bad.

It was that tight the attacking team should get the advantage.

Just be consistent

Not sure how Venezuela is going to play out for Trump and the US in the immediate term let alone the long term.

This new Venezuelan leader hasn't toned down her rhetoric during the inauguration.  That may be for the die hards loyal to Maduro but for Trump to get his oil there will almost certainly need to be US boots on the ground and then the fun begins in the oil regions heaving with heavily armed militias  .

Guerilla warfare in terrain these lads know like the back of their hands could make this an expensive and yet another stupid foray for the US army as the body bags start arriving back in the US.


Trump is yet another evil **** to be in the hot seat of the US presidency and military interventions in Latin America, coups funded by the CIA have been going on for decades so this is nothing new, he's just more brazen.

I thought it was getting resurfacing work done.

It was awful for the Hurling final

Tullycarnon

Where exactly is Tullycarnon?

A quick search online shows there are two townlands in Down with the name- one in and around Portaferry, the other about Ardglass.

Bottom of the peninsula. Think they were a junior club in the 40s and 50s.

Tullycarnon is a townland outside Portaferry.

They and Carrig Uladh were the two teams who merged to become St Patricks, Portaferry as they are now known.

The parish priest at the time insisted on the name having religious connotations as the pitch was on parish ground.

Is Ballyvarley and Banbridge not one and the same thing?

The thing about the Epstein files is that it should implicate both Republicans and Democrats in equal measure.

Did Slaughtneil underperform yesterday or was there a massive gap in standard? From what I seen, I thought Loughrea were superior in nearly every sector.

Reality is Ulster has only won 2 All Ireland senior club titles. Same as county, we're just not at that level. Ulster is probably Slaughtneil's ceiling. Loughrea whole other level.. unfortunately.

That's two more than won at Senior Intercounty level and a heck of a lot more AI final appearances also than at Intercounty level.

It's been a good while since an Ulster Team looked out of their depth at senior club and even though Sleacht Néill were beaten by a good margin in the end they didn't let anyone in Derry or Ulster down by their performance.

Hurling can be cruel on a team when it comes to the scoreboard whereas in football a crap team can park the bus, get beat by 4 or 5 points, but never actually look like ever winning the game.

I think he may have a club football one as well. (Edit, that was DaithI Burke, the fullback)

Both hatchet men.

Some of us are old enough to remember Noelie Crowley thrashing Tipp weeds in a Waterford jersey back in the day, sure every team needs a few lads with that bit of divilment in their locker.

Did Slaughtneil underperform yesterday or was there a massive gap in standard? From what I seen, I thought Loughrea were superior in nearly every sector.

A bit of both.

Rodgers had a serious off day by his own standards, fumbling, missing lifts, catches, even striking the ball the few times he did manage to get hold of it. He wasn't the only one for Sleacht Néill to have similar days.

If anything Loughrea did to Sleacht Néill what Sleacht Néill have been doing to the rest of Ulster for the last 10 years, they denied their forwards any space to operate, won the dirty ball, were cleaner in their hurling, worked it out to their 65 and then hit the space in front of their 2 man ff line who were well able to hold up the ball for the runners coming through or get the space and time to take their man on and create a score.

What surprised me was how Sleacht Néill allowed that space in front of Burns and the other lad Morgan to happen, it's not something they do in Ulster, but they were losing all the duels up the field as well, especially in the second half and resorted to long, high balls into a crowded area and couldn't get going from there.

It was a very good performance from Loughrea and barring the stupid swipe, I don't even think it was a full blooded pull, from the young fella Killeen they would be happy where they are going into the final v an injury depleted Ballygunner.

Those injuries to Fitzgerald and Kevin Mahony which both looked to be hamstrings could well swing the final in Loughrea's favour if they don't make it.

St Martins give it there all, and played some really good hurling, but they were always going to run out of steam as the effort they put in in the first half was unreal, there was no way they could sustain that for the 60 minutes and they didn't have enough of a lead to hold onto with the Gunners firing over a serious amount of scores in the second half.

It'll be an interesting final, if Fitzgerald especially can make it back then I'd slightly fancy Ballygunner but Loughrea have some really good defenders and it will be interesting how they go about closing down Fitzgerald and Hutchinson.

I don't think Sean Stack had his best day on the whistle yesterday, in particular the goal, not goal incident which ended up being a free out to Ballygunner...

It's easy with the benefit of replays and all, but there was at least one blatant swing on the Martins lad before he hit the ground, so in the very least it should have been a penalty.
When the ball somehow ended up in the net with the Martins lad lying on the ground with the ball in his hand, to a certain extent I can have sympathy with the ref in thinking it had to be a throw ball, he was badly let down there by his umpires who should have seen that the ball was kicked out of his hand by the Ballygunner defender.

Fine margins an all that, would have meant Martins going in at half time 1-6 to 0-4 up, who knows if that would have made any difference come the end, as Martins were blown away in the second half altogether.

SN Loughrea fixed for Parnell, horrible venue for any game, will definitely guarantee a physical game.

One of the worst grounds in the country you could pick for a hurling match.
Tight pitch, very slow sod.
I think Loughrea will win by about 5 or 6 either way.

I'm always interested in the perception of pitches being "tight" and what they actually are and it turns out Parnell at 141m x 82m is pretty narrow for a pitch used for IC games, length wise, not so bad.

Parnell is about 81 metres wide, but with high sideline walls tight to the pitch, it's claustrophobic.
On the other hand Thurles is only 80 metres wide, yet people have been traditionally convinced that's it's a big pitch.

There's quite a big run off area on the sidelines in Thurles but I am surprised to hear that it's only 80 metres wide .

Someone has peddled that myth a long time ago because people believe it. Who? I've no idea. However, in the 15 years of debate about this stadium, I don't recall anyone ever saying publicly that all of Ulster GAA's funding must be spent on Casement Park.
I find it inconceivable that the IFA had autonomy to allocate their portion of the funding in whatever way they deemed to best suit their stadium needs but that Ulster GAA were under obligation to pour all of their funding into one stadium at Casement Park. Why would that be? Why would we accept it?

I'm calling absolute ballix on that. Ulster GAA want all of their funding to go into one stadium at Casement Park but would be able to change that at the drop of a hat.

Probably but I haven't seen the actual text of the 'arrangement' so can only go on what we all heard from whoever at the time was giving us the info

Without ever questioning it.....

Literally everything about this project needs to be questioned. And re-questioned.

Fair play to Martin Sludden for breaking rank. This funding was for GAA people in the north and has been fumbled by those supposedly working on our behalf for 15 years now. It's value diminishing all the while. It needs called out.

My sources are telling me Croke Park have been telling the Ulster Council to stop chasing rainbows with extra funding from Stormont/UK Gov, interest or otherwise and come up with a solution based on the money they do have.
Sludden isn't breaking rank, he's just bringing it to the Tyrone publics attention.

Sean O'g McAteer had more or less the same sentiments in the Down County Convention report last week.