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Having spent 4 years studying at QUB and 4 years working at UUJ, I can safely say that both institutions are monuments to wastage.

I wasn't taught anything in QUB. The lecturers tended to be old men with missing marbles, young women with no life experience, or grad students who were normally hungover.

The assessment earlier in this thread that UU us a more relevant university these days is far from the reality though. What a third level education should show, first and foremost, is an aptitude to learn and analyse. The subject isn't as relevant as the experience. And all I got from my time working in UU was a horribly narrow focus to education. Understanding the subject was nowhere near as important as understanding what the lecturers knew and liked about their subjects.

The vocational year is an interesting point. But if the value of it is so high, then surely there is an argument for bypassing academia entirely, and serving the engineering apprenticeship on site?


Anyways, anyone expecting to be enlightened through academia would be best off avoiding either institution. If you must choose one, at least QUB feels like a seat of learning and not a prison camp.

Absolutely magnificent.

Rory Best MoTM for me , but any of the pack has earned it.

Two very evenly matched teams. Can't believe so many people have Oz as finalists and Ireland as also rans.

We are not going to get a shoeing. Oz had 10 minutes of possession and a supportive referee - the result was 3 points.

The 1995 Maghera team were something else - they basically ran straight over the top of St Colman's in the MacRory final.

Maghera also obliterated the Abbey in the semi-final that year, even though the Abbey had Aidan O'Rourke, Enda McNulty, the McEntees, Barry Duffy, Mal McMurray, Paul Cunningham and Gavin Treanor in their ranks. Val Kane had a lot to answer for at that time; Abbey had gifted players throughout the 90s.

But, not too many of the Maghera men them made any impact at senior level. Sean Marty Lockhart obviously went onto great things and David O'Neill played strongly for a few years, but I can't think of too many others. The other stars of the team were Adrian McGuckin and Mark Diamond, but McGuckin was pretty much injured from then onwards, and Diamond's powers waned dramatically when he went to Queen's - not even drink related, he just seemed to slow up or something.

Down fanatic:

Paudie Matthews, retired from playing with Clonduff a couple of seasons back.

Eugene O Hagan, Clonduff man too. Would have won a SFC in 2000 and played for Down around then. Think he went to America a few years ago.

Think K Doran is Ciaran Doran of Loughinisland. Either him or the brother was still playing last year, mostly at wing back.

Stephen Caulfield of Rostrevor scored 3 goals in the 1st round game that year. Never played much senior football for the reds.

Paul Cunningham played centre forward for Ballymartin until last season I think.


I've no idea who Gallagher or Hynds are. That was my minor year and I never came across either. You'd assume a Hynds is from Drumgath, but I dont think it for this one.

I'm pretty sure Daly played corner-forward in that fateful day against Antrim in 2002.

Burren Tokenism - are you serious?? he is nearly 37 and in all my years watching burren play i have yet to see him having a bad game.. he is their mr consistent and you coming on here suggesting different really shows what an idiot you are

I didn't suggest different, I suggested a sense of realism. Learn how to read before turning on the personal insults.

Interesting list.

I'd say Liam Doyle hasn't played 20 games for Liatroim in those 10 years.

Putting Ronan McGovern on it is Burren tokenism. A very good player, but nowhere near a list like this. Same with Pio; if we must include a Clonduff man it would be Shane Ward.

I'd put Devlin up there with or maybe even higher than the likes of Ward, Conor Daly, Aidan O Prey as outstandingly reliable Division 1 players of the past decade. Once you get past the county mainstays, these are the fellas who did it for years.

RFC Bryansford
ACPRFC Kilcoo

I can't understand Keith Earl's inclusion but the rest of it is good.

Jinxy, I'm like a fat American tourist when it comes to hurling. I understand the concept because it's based on the same structures as football, but I find some of it quite bizarre (like why anyone would actually want to play a game where you can get hit by a stick).

The pause and expectations that arise from a sideline ball are rarely, rarely warranted. It's mad that a game in which all other aspects of it are universal in the use of your hands as well as the stick, are put to the side for these restarts. 

NP, I've never been at a hurling training session in my life, but I could imagine that before and after every juvenile session, all they do is practice sideline cuts - in the same way that "45 practice" is an "essential" part of a training session for so many corner backs. In truth, the skill involved in both is simply beyond most players, even most top players.

While you might marvel at the 1 in 100 that sail over in top-flight hurling, I can't help thinking that the sheer skill levels involved make it as good as an impossibility for most hurlers, thereby making it a completely random restart function, rather than one with an advantage.


With regard to your other point about players not lying down, this has more to do with the way the games are refereed than the way they are played. Football's more officious style means that players expect to get awarded frees for nothing and for everything. As such, they'll do what they can to gain one. In hurling, where frees are gold dust, the players have to remain focused on playing the game at all times.

The refereeing in hurling is definitely strange.

I commented after last year's final that the ref doesn't use his whistle so much to blow up for a foul, but as to signal a rest period after a particularly frantic piece of action. This year's final was even more of this persuasion.

Personally, I prefer this style to football's over-zealous approach to refereeing. The game does flow better, and the players are more "manly" for it; they actually do play to the whistle. When things are particularly frantic, it seems that the spirit of freeflowing action means that even technical fouls such as throwing the ball, taking too many steps, or lifting it off the ground, are rarely called. The best thing though is that nobody seems to complain. If a man takes five steps in football, all his opponents stop what they're meant to be doing and make a charge to inform the referee. Which is wrong.


I know as much about hurling as I do about relative theory, but I wasn't that impressed by the game itself. Power's goal was simply sublime, while a couple of the points that Tipp's midfielders got were amazing. Your man Walsh was brilliant, a proper edgy but skilful bastard if every you wanted one. Reminds me of Paul Galvin.

But I never got the feeling that Tipp could win it. They never seemed to realise that lumping aimless ball into their full-forwards was playing into Kilkenny's hands. The last five minutes seemed to me like a comical macho "I can puck the ball further than you" contest, with no thought, no skill – just an utter reliance on long ball luck. If Kilkenny had a weakness yesterday, it was facing up to halfbacks and midfielders carrying the ball at them, but Tipp never gave it a rattle.

Just to finish, the sideline cut is still one of the most nonsensical things I have ever seen in sport. It simply doesn't present an opportunity to retain possession in a meaningful way, and the game would be better off with an Aussie Rules style throw-in over the head by a linesman.

Arsene Wenger doesn't have 9 All-Star awards.

or a bag of Celtic Crosses! ..................

FFS these comments epitomise the sheer pointlessness of this thread. Pointing out that a Frenchman hasn't won Gaelic Football honours. WHY?