Dublin

[Beffs]

Yep. Plámás Central.

Is this Greatest Dublin Team Of All Time, the same one that got their arses handed to them by Donegal 18 months ago?

Donegal fairly handed it back a few weeks ago. Donegal aren't even AI contenders anymore.

And that is exactly what Dublin thought 18 months ago. The truly great teams don't underestimate the opposition.

[Zulu]

Eh? So a great team, athlete, boxer never got beaten by an opponent they should have been too good for?

Dublin are a great team, one of the best ever, and an odd blip doesn't change that. Jesus, if this team can't be viewed as a great team then we've had a holy heap of shite All Ireland winning teams.

[Syferus]

Yep. Plámás Central.

Is this Greatest Dublin Team Of All Time, the same one that got their arses handed to them by Donegal 18 months ago?

Donegal fairly handed it back a few weeks ago. Donegal aren't even AI contenders anymore.

And that is exactly what Dublin thought 18 months ago. The truly great teams don't underestimate the opposition.

Donegal of 2014 had Jimmy. Now they have mad Rory and creaking bones. Similarly age has caught Kerry in a big way too. Neither have the capacity even on their best day to beat Dublin. Maybe only Mayo do and that's a stretch.

[Farrandeelin]

Exactly Beffs, 18 months ago. A lot has changed since then. Maybe if Dublin scored an early goal chance they missed it might have been different too.

[Kuwabatake Sanjuro]

Donegal of 2014 had Jimmy. Now they have mad Rory and creaking bones. Similarly age has caught Kerry in a big way too. Neither have the capacity even on their best day to beat Dublin. Maybe only Mayo do and that's a stretch.

Mayo were at the level required the last two years, if things click for them again this year they should be there again. They cannot have more than a couple of seasons left at their peak though. After that plenty of people think Tyrone can step up but I am extremely sceptical as they have been here before a couple of times since 2008.

[Syferus]

Donegal of 2014 had Jimmy. Now they have mad Rory and creaking bones. Similarly age has caught Kerry in a big way too. Neither have the capacity even on their best day to beat Dublin. Maybe only Mayo do and that's a stretch.

Mayo were at the level required the last two years, if things click for them again this year they should be there again. They cannot have more than a couple of seasons left at their peak though. After that plenty of people think Tyrone can step up but I am extremely sceptical as they have been here before a couple of times since 2008.

That team is already past its peak. Just not as far past it as Donegal or Kerry. Tyrone not contenders either. Can't see why people tip them when there's nothing between them, Donegal and Monaghan.

[Beffs]

Eh? So a great team, athlete, boxer never got beaten by an opponent they should have been too good for?

Dublin are a great team, one of the best ever, and an odd blip doesn't change that. Jesus, if this team can't be viewed as a great team then we've had a holy heap of shite All Ireland winning teams.

I am not questioning their being a great team. I am questioning their being the greatest Dublin team of all time, which is what Tomas O'Se is claiming.

The famous Dublin team of the 1970's made it to 6 All Ireland finals in a row. This Dublin team have not been in 6 finals, never mind 6 on the trot. The team of the 1970's had no semi final brain farts, or bad losses, the way that this one suffered in 2010, 2012 & 2014. Therefore I think it calls into question, Tomas O'Se's assertion that this is the greatest Dublin team ever.

Then there is the fact that 1970's team beat the greatest Kerry team of all time, on the way to winning their All Irelands. The current Dubin won their recent 3 titles against a fading & aging Kerry team and Mayo, who have won fcuk all.

[longballin]

Kerry also annialated Dublin in 1979 and with a lot of under 21s beat them in 1975... was a great team but i think this team is up there

[Jell 0 Biafra]

It was an easier road to the finals back in the 70's too.  Ulster teams had yet to emerge as a serious force, and no back door meant that good teams like Cork or Offaly were out once they lost a single game.

This team is better than the 70's Dublin team without question; they've a few more AI's left in them before they're done too.

[Beffs]

I suppose if anyone else were saying it, I'd be more open to being convinced that it is a valid, agenda free argument. I just get suspicious at Kerry men putting that level of spin, on losing a relatively meaningless league game in April. Is it legit, or are they playing silly buggers to get the Dublin hype train charging ahead, even faster than usual? The cute hoors !

[Jell 0 Biafra]

I know it was "only the league" but you only have to look at the post-game expressions/reactions of Cooper and Sheehan to know that this wasn't a meaningless game either.

[Beffs]

That is why I said "relatively" meaningless.

Ten years from now,  no one will remember who won the 2016 league. It will be a trivia question in a pub quiz. It will be an appendices to the over all story of the 2016 AI championship....a far bigger and flashier appendices than normal, given the full house at Croker, it was Dublin v Kerry, the historical weigh of it being 1916 etc, but it will be an appendices none the less.

Who wins Sam is what matters. Losing the league final - and losing it in the manner that they did - meant that Kerry are even further away from cracking the conundrum that is Dublin. It also meant that they failed to atone for their performance last September. That is what led to the sad faces imo, not any sense of loss over losing the league final, as a stand alone competition, taken on it's own merits.

[Jell 0 Biafra]

Fair enough.

[skeog]

tomas corrigan has had a short dublin club championship run for 2016

[Hound]

One of the comments says several U14 Dublin club teams went to Portugal for a week warm weather training before feile. Surely that can't be true.

Nope. One team went after winning the Dublin Feile iirc. Funded it themselves. Not from one of the affluent areas of the city also.

Certainly eyebrows were raised, but afaik it was never done since or before. 

Was definitely frowned upon

I see Dublin are sending Division 1 champions (Castleknock) to National Feile Division 1 this year (along with the Dublin Div 2 and Div 3 champions going to play in lower divisions at National).

Last year we sent the Division 3 and 4 champions to National Feile, while the four Division 1 semi-finalists all played in smaller Regional tournaments - I think there were 6 or 8 Regional Feiles played.

So looks like there's a big change and we're back to having a genuine All Ireland National Feile, good in one sense, but apparently a lot trouble in prior years about how competitive this gets!

I remember hearing last year that Austin Stacks deliberately played Division 2 in Kerry so as to be able to go to National Feile as Kerry's representatives (the Division 1 Kerry champs only got to go to a Regional Feile), and Stacks went on to win the National Feile. Dunno if that has anything to do with the change this year and all the best teams going to Feile.