Messages

i'd rather he didn't do that in all fairness - what happens if that team gets a lot of good players?

Then all the rest of us suffer equally with those players not being available

There are still only 13 teams. That means every week there is a bye. Some teams get two byes others get one

AZOffaly could you create a 14th unmanaged team (auto pick for the draft and no changes during the season) This would even up the numbers.

Now, if you have this sort of stuff, what else have you harvested from sites no longer around?
After all, we are but keepers of the flame...

Unfortunately I don't have anything else. gaalore.com also had national league results but they were harder to use, just results not listing what division the teams were in. I used the results to develop a little results search website but it never really amounted to much. gaelicgazette.com used to have some historical info but Richard Behal seems to have let the domain name lapse.

I attached a file to this post http://gaaboard.com/board/index.php?topic=277.msg6091#msg6091 which has all the results through 2000. You will need to change the file extension to .zip. I had to use a .doc extension to be able to upload the file.

They play Australia or South Africa on Tuesday

No, It will be England assuming they beat Kenya. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Cricket_World_Cup

Pakistan 349 (49.5 ov)

It will take a miracle for Pakistan to lose with that total.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto,General Zia-ul-Haq,Benazir Bhutto,Imran Khan,Jahangir Khan,Pervez Musharraf! Can you hear me Pervez Musharraf ? Your boys took one hell of a beating! Your boys took one hell of a beating!

rain

Updates here http://www.cricinfo.com/wc2007/engine/current/match/247461.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/northern_ireland/gaelic_games/6430701.stm

Cross's quiet man By Sinead McNicholl

It's a chilly night in Crossmaglen and as usual, Francie Bellew is doing his talking out on the field.

The only time I've ever heard him talk was a very short post-match interview after last year's Ulster final when he had been named man-of-the-match.

In fact, I'm not even sure I'd recognise his voice if I heard it.

Crossmaglen manager Donal Murtagh agrees.

"The phrase 'quiet man' sums up Francie down to a tee. They used to say that I was the quiet man but Francie is even quieter than me.

"But he's a pleasure to work with. The only thing you have to watch out for is that he's in and out of the dressing-room very quickly after training.

"There was an occasion when we were to meet up but Francie didn't even know about it because he had gone out of the dressing-room that bloody quickly after the previous session," chuckles Murtagh.

Francie was equally mobile on the night I was at training.

While I waited for my chance, I chatted with a few Cross players who know him better than most.

"He's a very unassuming fellow. He's a very quiet fellow but he can be very witty also," reveals Armagh star Oisin McConville.

"He doesn't do much talking but he seems to do most of it on the field. His actions speak louder than his words and he's an inspiration to us all."

Tony McEntee says simply that "Francie means to the world to us as a player and as a team-mate".

"From the fans' reaction in the All-Ireland Club semi-final against St Brigid's, he wasn't expected to be playing but when the team was announced and he was playing full-back, it was the only cheer from the two teams being called out.

"He's an icon to our players but also to the youth of the area."

Clearly Francie is loved in Crossmaglen and Armagh but what about outside his county?

You'd think that Armagh's biggest rivals wouldn't have too many kind words for Francie but Tyrone's Philip Jordan is happy to surprise you.

He spent some time with Francie on the All Stars tour in Hong Kong a couple of years ago.

"He's a tough defender. He gets a lot of stick because maybe some people think he doesn't have the football skills but the art of defending is a skill as well and Francie has perfected that," says Jordan.

"Everybody knows when they play against him that they are definitely not going to get anything easy.

"He's quiet enough but he has his moments as well - especially when he's out on the dancefloor. But we'll say nothing more about that."

Francie the dancer? If only we had had a camera in Hong Kong.

Francie has been accused of being a dirty player but did you know that he has never been sent off for his club and that he has seen red on only two occasions during his Armagh career - and one of those dismissals was later rescinded.

Bellew's hardman image is something which annoys Armagh manager Joe Kernan.

"I've been looking after Francie from a manager's point of view since he was 17. He is one of those model footballers who you never had a problem with. He goes out and trains and there are never any complaints," says Kernan.

"Even when he's injured, he probably doesn't tell you how serious the injury is.

"Over the last few years, I've been worried for Francie because of the reputation that he is supposed to have got.

"The way the media have treated him which been totally unfair. This has rubbed off on a lot of referees and Francie now is nearly booked before he even leaves the dressing-room."

But the hardman image doesn't seem to bother the man himself as much.

It took 10 minutes to persuade him to do an interview and he needed to see a list of the questions beforehand.

However, the answers soon started to trickle out.

"When I saw Armagh playing against the likes of Kerry, I was sitting there and thinking that I'd like to be out there. Yeah, that was my dream."

You wonder whether Francie's tongue is left slightly in his cheek when he ventures legendary Meath hardman Mick Lyons as his favourite player during his youth.

Perhaps, that demonstrates the Bellew wit mentioned earlier by Oisin McConville.

As regards, the biggest influence on his career, there is no hesitation.

"It has to be Joe Kernan for taking me under his wing with Armagh."

Would you have played for Armagh if Joe hadn't been manager?

"Probably not," is the candid reply.

Looking back on Armagh's emotional All-Ireland triumph in 2002, Bellew recalls "an unbelievable experience".

"If you couldn't play football there, you should just quit."

Francie seems almost embarrassed about his cult status among Crossmaglen and Armagh fans.

Are you aware of it, when you are out on the field?

"I am because Benny Tierney comes up to my face and tells me all about it. It's good fun."

And what about the Francie Bellew tee-shirts and the website?

"I haven't seen the tee-shirts yet but I want to know who is making money out of them.

"I have been made to have a look at the website. It's a bit of craic."

And that was it.

I had gone where very few reporters had gone before.

I'm not sure how much we've learned about Francie but one definite, is that Armagh GAA supporters think the world of him.

We'll leave the last few words to Joe Kernan.

"Respect him from what he is. A genuine man who gives 100 per cent every day he goes out.

"He loves his football. Please don't spoil it."

http://www.soccertv.com/england.cfm

It is on live on ESPN2

and it is also on ESPN360 http://broadband.espn.go.com/espn360/

Big Apple Orchards

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/northern_ireland/gaelic_games/6412997.stm

Queen's reach Sigerson Cup final

Hosts Queen's University are through to the final of the Sigerson Cup thanks to a 1-11 to 0-6 win over Cork IT.
They will play the University of Ulster Jordanstown or Sligo IT who are playing in the second of Friday's semi-finals.
The UUJ upset the odds by beating the holders DCU earlier in the competition and they will be determined to make it an all-Northern Ireland decider.
The final will be played on Saturday at the Dub playing fields in south Belfast with a 1430GMT throw-in.

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=95&si=1776127&issue_id=15250

Pressure mounts to widen the back door
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PRESSURE is mounting to change the All-Ireland football championship format so that provincial champions get a second chance if they lose at the quarter-final stage.

Ulster Council secretary Danny Murphy wants provincial champions treated the same as teams who lose earlier on by granting them a reprieve if they lose a quarter-final. He is supported by Armagh manager Joe Kernan, who claimed the current system is loaded against provincial winners.

Murphy has proposed a new format whereby the four provincial winners play off against each other with the two winners advancing directly to the All-Ireland semi-finals, while the losers get a second chance against two survivors from the qualifiers.

Under the current system, provincial winners face four qualifiers in the All-Ireland quarter-finals. It means that where provincial winners lose quarter-finals they are eliminated from the All-Ireland race, without getting a second chance.

Writing in his annual report, which will go before the Ulster Convention on Saturday week, Murphy said that they had engaged in preliminary discussions on a new proposal that may go before Congress in April. That involves giving beaten provincial winners a second chance.

"Provincial champions should have the opportunity of a clear route to the All-Ireland semi-finals and this can be best achieved by having the provincial champions play each other, with the winners advancing to the semi-finals.

The defeated provincial champions would get a second chance against two teams emerging from the qualifier series. I believe that this will ensure a more appropriate and consistently competitive championship," writes Murphy.

Qualify

His remarks come at a time when it's being mooted that hurling plans to return to a system whereby the Leinster and Munster champions qualify for the All-Ireland semi-finals.

However, there will be opposition at official level to any proposal to change the football system if it involves extra fixtures.

Paraic Duffy, the new Players' Welfare Officer, who previously chaired committees that proposed the introduction of the 'back door' in 2001 and its slightly amended version which comes into effect this year, said that any change involving more fixtures would be detrimental to clubs.

"If you create a mechanism to allow provincial winners who lose their next game back into the All-Ireland race, it will take at least one extra weekend.

"That would have a negative impact on the club scene which is already an area of serious concern. My own personal view is that we should be very reluctant to add an extra round," he said.

Duffy concedes that it's frustrating for provincial winners who lose All-Ireland quarter-finals to find themselves totally eliminated whereas their conquerors, who lost a game earlier on, head into the semi-finals.

"When we designed the 'back door' system back in 2001, it was on the basis that there were two ways of qualifying for the All-Ireland quarter-finals. Provincial winners qualified automatically and were joined by the four remaining qualifiers.

"In effect, we treated the provincial and All-Ireland championships as two separate competitions. We also proposed that the provincial winners would have home advantage in the quarter-finals but that never happened. Central Council didn't think it was practical in terms of ground capacity and it also emerged that counties wanted quarter-finals in Croke Park if possible," he said.

Joe Kernan, whose Armagh side lost All-Ireland quarter-finals in 2004 and 2006 after winning the Ulster title, said that it wasn't fair that some teams got second chances whereas others didn't.

The records show that of the 24 provincial champions crowned since 2001, ten have been beaten in the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

"A team that does everything right and wins the provincial title have the safety net pulled from under them, whereas a team that loses in the provinces are welcomed back in through the qualifiers. We benefited from that in Armagh in 2003 and went on to beat Leinster champions Laois in the quarter-finals, so we have experience of both sides.

Sharper

"Look at what happened us last year. We won the Ulster title on July 9 but didn't play Kerry in the All-Ireland quarter-final until August 5. Kerry had two games in that period which left them that bit sharper than us," he said.

Had Danny Murphy's proposed system been in operation last year, Armagh, Mayo, Dublin and Cork would have played off with the two winners entering the semi-finals and the two losers heading for quarter-finals.

Up to now, four qualifiers reach the quarter-finals but under the new system it would be reduced to two. In 2006 that would have meant a further qualifying round involving Westmeath, Kerry, Laois and Donegal.

They would have played off down to two for the right to beat the losers from the provincial champions play-offs.

"A change in the system might mean one extra weekend but surely it should be possible to find it," added Kernan. "In the interests of fairness, it should be tried because there's a blatant anomaly in the current system."

Martin Breheny

I don't think this is a good idea. It adds an extra round and you still have the situation of a zero loss team versus a one loss team this time in the semi finals.

Here is a list of the provincial champions that have lost to a backdoor team in the quarter finals. There are only two cases where a clear underdog won Donegal 03 and Fermanagh 04. In the other cases the winning teams were at least the equal of the provincial champions that they beat.
2001
Roscommon (beaten by Galway)
Tyrone (beaten by Derry)

2002
Galway (beaten by Kerry)

2003
Galway (beaten by Donegal)
Laois (beaten by Armagh)

2004
Westmeath (beaten by Derry)
Armagh (beaten by Fermanagh).

2005
Galway (beaten by Cork)
Dublin (beaten by Tyrone)

2006
Armagh (beaten by Kerry).

The playing rules are at the "Official Guide 2006 - Part 2" link on this page.
http://www.gaa.ie/page/official_guides.html

Part 1 is the rules of the association.