Hi everyone!
My names Cian and I would hope you'd like to answer a few questions of mine.
The reason I'm posting here is because I just love the sport but living in Denmark which makes it hard to follow. Also that I wasent brought up with this sport, it is just recently I found out about it. (And my dads Irish, sigh.)
Ive been reading this board a few months or so, aswell as every single source of infomation on the Internet that I could find, but there is still som missing pieces..
The only games that I can really watch are the big finals, that are shown in Irish pubs etc. but so few games a year isen't enough for me.
So, do you have any ideas as how I can watch games outside Ireland/UK?
From what I have understood, there are several clubs in every county, but when the finals around, you take all the best players from one county, lets say Down, then you have county vs county, then 1 progress from each county, and 1 goes thru an other cup and ends up in the final aswell? Where 2 teams from each province plays against eachother for the Sam Maguire Cup. Is this somewhat correct? A further explanation for someone, who dosen't know about the sport to begin with would be fantastic.
Are club games being broadcasted, television, internet etc.
Where can I find dates for important matches.
That was all for now, I'm sure I can come up with a dozen more, but don't wanna scare you all away so soon.
Thanks in advance
Cian
http://www.gaa.ie/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_Athletic_Association
How many kegs of Carlsberg is this worth?
Is this a piss take or what?
Quote from: T Fearon on October 02, 2008, 03:29:22 PM
How many kegs of Carlsberg is this worth?
Jaysus Tony, you're some man for the freebies ;)
Take anything these Nordies tell ya with a pinch of salt Cian ;D
Quote from: Cian on October 02, 2008, 02:56:13 PM
Hi everyone!
My names Cian and I would hope you'd like to answer a few questions of mine.
The reason I'm posting here is because I just love the sport but living in Denmark which makes it hard to follow. Also that I wasent brought up with this sport, it is just recently I found out about it. (And my dads Irish, sigh.)
Ive been reading this board a few months or so, aswell as every single source of infomation on the Internet that I could find, but there is still som missing pieces..
The only games that I can really watch are the big finals, that are shown in Irish pubs etc. but so few games a year isen't enough for me.
So, do you have any ideas as how I can watch games outside Ireland/UK?
From what I have understood, there are several clubs in every county, but when the finals around, you take all the best players from one county, lets say Down, then you have county vs county, then 1 progress from each county, and 1 goes thru an other cup and ends up in the final aswell? Where 2 teams from each province plays against eachother for the Sam Maguire Cup. Is this somewhat correct? A further explanation for someone, who dosen't know about the sport to begin with would be fantastic.
Are club games being broadcasted, television, internet etc.
Where can I find dates for important matches.
That was all for now, I'm sure I can come up with a dozen more, but don't wanna scare you all away so soon.
Thanks in advance
Cian
Hi Cian. Glad to see you are interested in the sport. Some people here will take great pride in confusing you more than helping you I suggest you ignore them. Here is how it works (this is a simple overview)
There are four provinces in Ireland - Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connaught. Within each province there are a number of counties. For example there are 9 counties in Ulster - Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Derry, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Monaghan, Tyrone. Within each county there will be a large number of local clubs. These clubs are the building blocks of the GAA. A club could represent a village (say 500 inhabitants) or a larger town (say 3000 inhabitants). On average there are probably around 50-60 clubs in each county.
Clubs play in a competition within their own county to see which is the best club. The county team then picks that they feel is the best players in the county. Therefore the county team is made up of a mixture of players from loads of different clubs. The county then plays in two different major competitions. The first is the league. This starts in February and finishes around May. The counties are split into 4 divisions, div 1 teams being the best, div 4 being the worst. Top 2 teams in each division get promoted, bottom two get relegated. A team is crowned league champions by winning div 1.
The second (and most important competition) is called the All Ireland Championship. This is initially run at provincial level. So in each province there will be a draw made. All the teams in the province will play each other on a "knock-out" basis until one team is left. They are called the provincial champions. This is an important thing in itself. Any team that gets beaten in the provincial matches gets a "second" chance as they get entered into another knock out system called the "qualifiers". 4 teams progress through the qualifiers and they get to the quarter final of the All Ireland where they meet the 4 teams that won the 4 provincial finals.
Now the quarters, semi finals are played and two teams will get through to the final. This year it was Tyrone and Kerry. Tyrone won making them All Ireland champions for the 3rd time ever.
I hope that helps you. If you have any questions just ask.
In regards to games being televised a lot of the All-Ireland Championship is televised on Ireland's national broadcaster RTÉ (with some games on TV3). All games from the quarter final stage onwards would be televised along with all the provincial finals and some other games from the provincial series and the qualifier series.
Most of these games are streamed on RTÉ's website but it is only opened to Irish viewers (unless you use a proxy) although I think a satellite tv channel called Setanta broadcast games around Europe.
The league games and some of the club games are broadcast on TG4 with highlights on RTÉ. TG4 is an Irish language station so all of these games will be presented in Irish. I'm not sure what the story is with steaming on these games.
TG4 show County League games, Ladies Football and Club Championship games.
They are all shown live on their website and to my knowledge, accessable anywhere in the world. However they are speaking Gaelic, so you may not be able to follow.
www.tg4.ie (http://www.tg4.ie)
Thanks alot for the answers, specially mylestheslasher!
"Posted by: heffo
Take anything these Nordies tell ya with a pinch of salt Cian"
I figured people looked down upon "outsiders" like me, but I don't mind being laughed at if answers like mylestheslasher's answer is inbetween.
One question though, you said "The counties are split into 4 divisions, div 1 teams being the best, div 4 being the worst. Top 2 teams in each division get promoted, bottom two get relegated. A team is crowned league champions by winning div 1.", this would be for all 4 provinces? How do you rank which teams are going in division 1 etc. Also I cant really figure out how the leage works.. Each division plays and top 2 gets promoted, and in the end you'd have 8 teams in division 1, fighting for the title as league champions?
Thanks alot
Quote from: Cian on October 02, 2008, 05:04:45 PM
Thanks alot for the answers, specially mylestheslasher!
"Posted by: heffo
Take anything these Nordies tell ya with a pinch of salt Cian"
I figured people looked down upon "outsiders" like me, but I don't mind being laughed at if answers like mylestheslasher's answer is inbetween.
One question though, you said "The counties are split into 4 divisions, div 1 teams being the best, div 4 being the worst. Top 2 teams in each division get promoted, bottom two get relegated. A team is crowned league champions by winning div 1.", this would be for all 4 provinces? How do you rank which teams are going in division 1 etc. Also I cant really figure out how the leage works.. Each division plays and top 2 gets promoted, and in the end you'd have 8 teams in division 1, fighting for the title as league champions?
Thanks alot
No one's laughing at you Cian!
It's good that people are taking an interest in the sport, Myles answer was pretty comprehensive, but if you have any more specific q's - post them..
Quote from: drici on October 02, 2008, 05:34:24 PM
Quote from: hardstation on October 02, 2008, 04:32:02 PM
TG4 does my head in. They show all these games and that's alright but they should have an option of commentary in English.
Aye was in a ground last Sunday and there was no commentary at all. Not sure if any one knew what was going on because of it.At the end of the first game one of the teams just stayed on the pitch waving a silver trophy about and chanting but loads of people went into a bar which was part of the grandstand except underneath and drank pints for a while and went out again and there was another match except hurling this time - again with no commentary- so a fair few people went into the bar again at half time and probably because there was no commentary they were saying things like "It's over,there's no way back the way they're playing" but it wasn't over as there was still the second half to come.Anyway,they must have realised as everybody went back out again - still no commentary though - and one of the teams stayed on the pitch at the end waving a silver trophy and chanting and lots of people went into the bar underneath the grandstand again and then after a while somebody came round with the big silver trophy and said "Do you want to drink out of the cup?" and it was full of lemonade.
Same thing happened me! was it casement you were at?
drici, were you having a pint with me at Casement? that was exactly my day on Sunday. though i dandered down to the club and fired in as many pints as i could before the wife and kids came to rescue me from throwing in a sick line
The league divisions have had a lot of changes over the years but this is how it works now. There are 8 teams in each of 4 divisions. Only one of the 8 teams in div 1 can win the Div 1 league. If you finish in the top two in Div 2 then you get promoted to Div 1 for next year. If you finish in the bottom two of Div 2 you get relegated to Div 3 for next year.
As someone else pointed out, there is no connection between the league and the all ireland championship, they are two seperate competitions.
think the best way to see games outside ireland is the setanta package on the net, know a few guys who do that in the states anyway not sure about the rest of europe tho...