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Unbelieveable day for Mickey Harte who has reached the summit after being as low as he could be following that Down match when everyone thought it was over.

Lovely to see Tyrone with 3 all-Irelands, no Kerry 3 in a row ..and Armagh still only have one Sam.

Galway are the Lehman Bros of hurling. All that talent and no strategy.
How many underage all-irelands in the last 15 years ? How many senior ?
Mattie Murphy won 4 minor all-Irelands and there were the John Hardy ones and all those u-21 riches ...

Where does it all go wrong ?  How can Kilkenny win 6 out of 8 all-Irelands
when Galway have a ratio of maybe 1 out of 4 ?

There's no excellence mentality. No consistency. One of the saddest things about the litany of failure is the fact that so many good hurlers never get a chance to get to the level of the Cork lads of a few years ago - knowing what the rest of the line will do, just because they have played together and won together for so long. Becoming more than just the sum of 15 individuals.   

The move into Leinster would be a good thing but not enough. The heads need reprogramming too.   

One day it will all come together and then some...
   

AZ:   "My overriding emotion in terms of Waterford is sadness for them. I'd hate anyone to start gloating when Offaly ship a beating like that, so I'd be the last to start gloating at Waterford today."

Sure didn't Uibh Fhaili take a beating in the 84 final only to win it the year after ? 

I feel very sorry for the Deise. I suppose they should have won it about 4 years ago. At least they made it to the final, inspired a lot of young fellas, got a bit of mortas cine going. 

KK were awesome but these things don't tend to last. I look forward to a rejuvenated Galway slaying the cat dragon. Go mbeimid beo ar an am seo aris.

One feature of the GAA that really sickens me is public bitching. I don't think I've seen it in any sport elsewhere. Ger Lock having a go at the Clare hurlers, then his  captain responding. Davy Fitz talking about people who want to cut him down. It's very sad.  Is it a post colonial thing ? 
   

I think on paper KK have it won but the match is still going ahead on Sunday as far as I know.
It is Kilkenny's to lose. Look at what Galway did to them in 2005. 

Waterford via an inhuman effort. For f"ck's sake, it's well past time.
There hasn't been a romantic result in this fixture for 10 years.

Kilkenny don't need any more all Irelands until next century anyway.   

Why don't they just get rid of the holy Munster championship and run it along the lines of the champions league group stages? More hurling, more matches, less old firm all irelands. If Tipp want to play  Cork in early July around hay time I'm sure goal could organise something. 

Even if it's going wrong, 6 points down at half time

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=G7qEivYkgZM

Everyone's a prostitute . E-bay is more dignified than a full interview and spread with VIP magazine.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2008/0829/1219875242019.html

John Allen going on about pre match 'war music' to be played for the Waterford hurling team on the big day.

What songs would you recommend for the Deise ? Youtube links welcome. 

If they go in to Leinster it'll magnify whatever good a manager does. Loughnane doesn't seem to have much tact so that would put his man management skills in question but at the end of the day surely the players have to take responsibility for the cork match. How many of them would get sent off for the maroon as Finnerty (CEO of Tuam supermacs), was it ?, said.

With all the underage hurlers coming through sooner or later a team of monkeys with typewriters will produce the works of shakespeare and a senior all Ireland.

Cork-KK AIHF 2006. The quality of the hurling on display was mesmerising.

Clare- Luimneach 1996 and THAT Ciaran Carey point. 

In fairness to sports journalists writing Phil Space style, at least they aren't as bad as all the finance hacks who recycle corporate PR guff. 
900 words on Armagh of the early 00s - must have been a slow sunday.

When Mandela was released from Robben Island the joke was about the first question he asked ' is Martin Carney still playing for Mayo?'. These days the updated joke would have Mandela asking 'are those Mayo lads still trying to make out that austin O'malley is an inter county standard footballer?' 

One of the features of the present as compared to say 20 years ago is the large increase in  hacks writing about GAA over the period. The volume of published comment concerning the GAA has increased exponentially.  Some of the additional material produced is interesting but much of it could have been spelt out in the pub on a friday night with no need to print and nobody would have been worse off for it.  Who cares about the percentage  of passes completed in the all-Ireland final ?

Armagh will go down as a decent mid 00s team remembered in the same sequence as Paris Hilton and celeb journos the equivalent of Kieran Shannon will write articles about how Paris influenced celebrity over the decade and it'll fluff out a few magazines.  But that's about it. 

Kids in 10 years time will note they won one all-Ireland while Tyrone won more and that's really where it's at.  Who talks about underachieving catalyst teams from the 1990s? Nobody.

An amazing picture. It'll be one of the photos of the year.
I love the contrast between the clasp and the young fella wandering off with the hurl.