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Did Kelly O'Rourke take the Keady job or what?

[Devolution of policing has arrived]

Interesting Willie McCrea was not there as apparently he was at a funeral... remembering the recent revelations about him, he has kept  a very low profile since. 
Sounds like his political funeral is also taking place.... hopefully...

Devolution of policing has arrived

Members of the assembly have voted in support of a motion to devolve policing and justice powers to Northern Ireland.
As expected the Ulster Unionist Party did not support the move, however, the motion received the necessary cross-community consent to be passed.
Eighty eight of the assembly's 108 members voted in favour of the move, while 17 MLAs did not support it.
All 44 of the nationalist MLAs supported the vote, with 35 out of 52 unionists also supporting it.
Nine other members also voted in support of the powers being devolved.
Policing and justice powers will now be devolved on 12 April.

Thirty-four out of 36 DUP MLAs voted in favour of devolving justice. The only exceptions were the Speaker Willie Hay, who does not vote in this instance, and South Antrim MLA William McCrea who, according to the DUP, is attending a funeral.
Disagreement on the timing of the devolution of the justice powers had threatened to collapse Northern Ireland's power-sharing administration.
However, in February, Northern Ireland's two main parties made the agreement which, if the powers are devolved as expected, will see a justice minister elected.

The Hillsborough Agreement allows for the first and deputy first ministers to identify a candidate who would command cross-community support in the assembly.
Alliance leader David Ford is favourite to take the post.
The two smaller parties in Northern Ireland's mandatory coalition - the UUP and the SDLP - have insisted Alliance has no right to the post under the d'Hondt system for selecting ministers, which was agreed in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

The UUP also said they could not back the Hillsborough deal on policing and justice because it failed to address matters such as education, parading and "the dysfunctional nature of the current executive".

Did I miss something, what has Willie allegedly been up to?

I'm suprised there has been a thread devoted to Reg Empy, seems a shockingly bad error of political judgement on his part.  Suppose he can act the tough guy at the next elections thou.

Heard that injury story at the Westmeath game, so it obviously isn't that bad!

Didn't make it last night, but a decent win nonetheless.  There's the makings of a very good team, going to take a bit of time though, glad to see the positive mentality continuing.

Didn't think there was extra time and turned over, knobhead   Galls were clearley the better team, worst squareball decision ever for Corofin's goal, joke.

Well done Galls.

Not impressed with the departure of Robson at all.

Time for SF to turn the screw.

Expect an ultimatum from Gerry very soon.

Can see that myself. It's already overdue. Either a date is agreed on policing or SF should walk. Feck the Robinsons and their problems the show must go on.

I think that's exactly how it will play out ... and it won't take six weeks either.  It makes sense for the Shinners to strike when their opponents are weak ... the DUP are buggered with Allister circling like a vulture and Reg Empty rubbing his hands too, leading to a more even 3-way split in unionism that will see the Shinners emerge as the biggest party (the SDLP are also finished IMO)

What exactly will be achieved by bringing down Stormont? 

Shinners become largest party - eh... so what.  They can do nothing more than they can now. 

NI politics drives me bananas, nobody gives a shite about praciticalities as long as they can absolve themselves from blame and maintain the moral high ground.

Peter Robinson as a politician is finished and the DUP as a party are finished.  When the Robinson affair is over there is another story waiting quietly in the wings which will knock the "God" fearing voters over the edge completely if they haven't gone yet.  This will be revealed before the election and will take out one of their stars by the roots and they will lose a massive following.  Unfortunately there is not great leadership elsewhere in the unionist "family" and there will be a big split.  SF will come back as largest party if they can get over the Liam Adams issue without too much damage.

Still looking good for a 2016 handover

Dont see how this is good for anyone tbh, in times of doubt and crsis Unionism seems to lurch further to the right, which can only mean one thing - TUV making huge inroads.  The UUP are frinished IMO, I would be delighted if they were to make some sort of comeback, but I cant see it happening.  Hard to see what the TUV can bring to any shared future - only an increasing number of fuckwits.  I hope Pedar toughs it out.

The overall standard in the BDO is poor. Yes there are a few good players, but you would like to think they would be if they have been playing for 10/15 years. I have only seen a few matches, and as AZOffaly has said, the scoring is poor and the checkouts are also poor. I think it was in the Hankey/Chisnall game the other night, they must have had 12 darts each to try and finish a low enough double and kept missing and going bust. YVery rarely would you see that in the PDC.

Shit happens, doesn't mean it's endemic in the BDO for christs sake. 

There's little doubt the PDC is a higher standard, as someone who watches a fair bit of darts, I think there's as much dross in the PDC as there is in the BDO.  Taylor is such a phenomenom that his averages etc..mask a lot of the average players there are.  The premier league being a prime example, only Taylor, Wade, Barney & Jenkins (Lewis at a push) are worth watching.

The PDC semis this year were contested by 2 recent BDO defectees - Webster & Whitlock.  The biggest concern the BDO must have is that it is in effect acting as a nursery for the PDC

What concern is it of yours Wanderer? I thought you were on Ogsman? well, pretending to be anyway.

I am not making any case for Strachan, though you have to admit he did win three titles and gave us some great European occasions.

It is my view that Celtic are in a worse place now than this time last year and I don't see any signs that Mowbray is the man to turn things around.

strachan was also responsible for gifting away two titles and while a couple of great years and last 16 in CL were fantastic - the alternative seasons where Celtic were a joke and beaten out the gate even the achievements up.

Martin O'Neill lost at least one if not two league titles in last day fiascos. 

'Burnout' is not caused by overplaying, over training maybe. 

I wouldn't slate anyone after the game today, just one of those days where Celtic did everything right but couldn't score(enough).  16 goal attempts to 4, 8 on target, Rangers 1 on target   Thought McGinn would have got 10 or 15 myself.  McCullough slipped Cauldwell for the goal, didn't think Cauldwell was too bad apart from that - and I think he's woeful generally.

Some Co Boards may view the U21 grade as a bit of a nuisance (Armagh anyway), but the clubs who have a realistic chance of winning certainly dont.  When we won it in 2005 there were some fantastic games, the semi v Dromintee being a particular stand out.

Fair play to Creggan for trying to inject some enthusiasm into the grade, churlish to say they are only diong it because they have a good side(no doubt they are), as hopefully it will will still be going strong when Creggan are not competing in it.

if a cat had kittens in a stable, would it make them horses?

Fair enough Leenie. Maybe that's along the same line of thinking by the London Film Critics' Circle.

point being it's what nationality they are...

A bastardisation of a quote from the Duke of Wellington(I think), when someone said he was an Irishman!  If a dog is born in a barn does that make him a horse?  A proud englishman

Vernon must not be bothering with the Poly this year then?

QUB til he dies. Seemingly

Heard him say that at the start of the year. Don't believe a word of it... neither does any of his old teammates.

From what I have heard I severly doubt he'll be playing for UUJ.