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The reason that the club championship is used is because if you used progress in the county championship were used you could easily have a situation where 2 clubs sides would lose in the county championship semi-finals which would mean a play-off,

Also using the club championship as the decider gives it that extra bit of profile/kudos/prestige as any club knows that winning it could mean a decent chance to represent Kerry in Munster if a divisional side wins the county championship, so it means clubs will treat it fairly seriously , which means more competitive games for players, which helps with player development which probably ends ups with more All-Irelands for Kerry.

Also the reason that there is a rule against Divisional sides taking part in the Munster & All-Ireland stages was that when they could they won the All-Ireland.

The all stars as a format is done. This year proves it. One player plays two games and gets one. Some players play well all year and don't. It is the team of the year and player of the year. Yet it's not picked on the basis of the year. Just August and September. The players getting ones out of position going on too long as well.

The semifinals and finals and to a lesser extent the 1/4s are all that really matter. Picking All-Stars based off the provincial c'ships is like Fifa basing the Golden Ball winner on the qualifying matches.

Kerry lost no inter-county game while Donegal, Dublin and Mayo only lost 1 [Mayo after a replay and extra-time with Kerry]

All other teams lost 2 inter-county games in a lot of cases against far weaker opposition.

Has there been any word on which way Aidan Walsh has decided to go in terms of which code he's going to play next year?

I thought it was a bit strange he didnt say which way he was going when he made the decision he was only going with one code but the management situation wasnt sorted then. However given JBM is staying on I assumed that he was likely to say that he was going the hurling route.

What's the situation with the other lads who were dual last year Cadogan and Cahelane? Will they be going hurling or football or will they be attempting both?

Also the Sligo U21 manager as well

Donegal have been allowed a one week delay to have a team ready to play in the Senior and Intermediate Championships on the 9th of November.  Can't see this being extended.

What was the reason for the delay with the intermediate?

Kerry the other finalist had their final yesterday.

5500, or thereabouts,  in Armagh.

Watched the online stream and the commentator mentioned a figure of around 4k, which still isn't bad considering

1. The Armagh SFC has been a formality for Crossmaglen for the past 20 years
2. The increase in price of tickets up to £13
3. The option to watch the games live online from home for £3

The Stand (capacity 5600) was pretty full, more so than most county games, and there some hundreds, if not one thousand,  in the terrace. I thought it a creditable attendance in the light of the above. I wonder how many did they get on the Internet?

That is a good attendance - maybe the CB will release the actual figures including for online.

As an aside, the online stream is a God-send and albeit temperamental at times - I would recommend anyone from other counties to maybe give it a try next year.

The money stream coming in for the CB at the minute must be pretty significant.  Say there were 4000 full price patrons and maybe another 4000 online watchers(I heard that was an approximate figure for some of the streamed games this year).  That is an income of approximately £65000.  That is a serious taking and should make a fair dent into the financial black hole that is the county finances!

Are Armagh's finances in a bad way? Hadnt heard anything about them being in a bad state.

You'd have to imagine playing in Division 3 isnt going to do much for the counties finances, especially given the teams.

Niall Carew is new Sligo manager.
Interesting character here lads. Was with McGeeney in Kildare and became well known for his antics in the papers. Then went to Waterford and made no impact. During the summer he was in the papers again for winning 250k on a massive accumulator bet! Now he's heading up to us for a shot at Sligo.
I'm not sure what to make of this appointment. Any thoughts out there?

He was fairly scathing about the Waterford County Board and how useless they were in terms of providing any sort of decent support to the footballers compared to the hurlers. IIRC the Waterford footballers wanted him to stay which you'd have to think is a decent sign.

Division 3 looks fairly wide open in terms of promotion [besides Armagh] so will be interesting to see how he gets on.

In terms of championship, their first game is Roscommon(or London) in the Connacht semi-final which isnt the worst championship opener.

Any level? He is the manager of Kilcar.

He's joint manager of Kilcar as far as I know. Therefore has never managed any team, ever, as No.1. Whilst I think he'll do a good manager, there's not many who take on a county job, if any ever? Whos first sole Bainisteoir job is a county job.

Was Fitzmaurice in Kerry's first managerial job not the Kerry U21s?

So who goes in the Munster Club? Austin Stacks if they win, Dr Crokes if they don't?

Yup.

I'd still take Flynn over Connolly, consistent and reliable high-level output over such a long period is worth more to me than a mercurial talent. Connolly does have a good case for PotY, though.

Yeah - Flynn has been so routinely excellent for so long now I don't know how you couldn't pick him ahead of Connolly.

Also I still have memories of the Dublin subs bench collapsing about the place laughing in front of me at Connolly's attempts to kick a 45 in a league game against Kerry a few years back, which I think may have permanently affected my judgement on Connolly.

The thing is that JOD is a certainty to win POTY the way that award works in terms of players on  All-Ireland winning teams winning POTY but it's interesting to ponder what the state of play would have been like if Donegal had won the final. You'd have to think JOD would still be one of the nominations as would McGee. You'd probably think that Murphy would have been a decent shout in terms of replacing Connolly if Donegal had won (this obviously assumes Murphy had put in a match-winning display in the All-Ireland)

Saw this posted on another site

Connolly's intercounty season

Laois 1-1
Wexford 0-2
Meath 0-1
Monaghan 1-2 (1f)
Donegal 0-5(1f)

He scored 2-11 in 5 games with 2-9 of it coming from play.

However I also had a look at the number of shots he took in the various games [from the dontfoul blog]

Against Laois he took 4 shots, 3 against Wexford, 3 from Meath , 5 against Monaghan, and 7 against Donegal.

[These are just shots from play]

So basically he took 22 shots and got 10 scores. [a 45% strike rate]

Overall matches my impression of him - he's capable of getting incredible scores but he's also not particularly clinical. You look at those figures and you have to think Connolly is probably a bit fortunate to be nominated for POTY. T

To my mind Paul Flynn had a much better season (and notched up 1-12 from play) and is much more valuable to the Dublin team than Connolly but because he doesn't get the spectacular scores isnt getting as much praise.

There's a couple of clubs from around Killarney. Crokes would be the biggest at this stage, Legion are a famous old club too, currently making a revival. Spa is also on the outskirts of the town.

I'm pretty sure that Crokes, Legion and Spa are all Killarney parish clubs which means that if you live in Killarney parish you can select which club to play for.

Both Crokes and Legion are historically the Killarney town teams whereas Spa are out the Cork road direction. From what I know neither Legion or Crokes have any particular area of Killarney town where they specifically draw their support from.

I remember asking someone from Kerry about how James O'Donoghue didnt end up playing with Crokes and he said that family connections are a key factor in Killarney and that his family were a Legion family so he was always going to end up there.

I wonder if Mortimer's book will be as good as the statement the family issued during his row with Horan. It will be hard to reach sustain such heights of comedy over the length of a full book but fingers crossed.

I have heard that Shane Curran's Cake book is a decent enough read from a friend who finished it. He's from down that direction so he knew a fair few people mentioned in it but I'd trust his judgement when he says it wasn't just a standard sportsperson's biography.

Galvin's could be seriously interesting depending on how much he chooses to share.

Can't see Daly's book or the one about the Furlongs being anything out of the ordinary.

One thing that can easily be done to help with fixtures congestion is getting rid of the interprovincials competition.

It's clear that despite all the various efforts by some in the GAA that the competition is stone dead in terms of public interest.

To add insult to injury the 2 semi-finals and finals take up 2 weekends which is a seriously poor allocation of resources.

With squads made of of top players in both codes, I'd imagine that letting these intercounty players go back to their clubs as opposed to dragging them off to take part in games would make life a fair bit easier for those scheduling club fixtures.

I also don't buy the notion that it's something of huge value to the players when it was one of the 2 competitions along with the McGrath Cup that the footballers from Tipperary, Clare, Limerick, and Waterford were quite happy to boycott this year as part of their dispute over the seedings in the Munster championship.

The fixtures calendar is already packed enough without these meaningless exhibition games. Get rid of it now.