This has of course being going on for a couple of months. Usually, the poster formerly known as Analogue Bubblebath or Machungus Hibernus start this thread and they are certainly more knowledgable about the sport than me. I felt that that Dublin 0-13 Meath 5-9 has to be marked somewhere. Conceding five goals in the football championship is unheard of. Dublin haven't been beaten in Leinster for 6 years until this match (although that's more to do with the state of Leinster football than Dublin being brilliant).
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
AB started last year's thread, titled "Seventeen Wides", signifying Dublin's contribution to their opening game against Meath. Perhaps this year's should be called "Five Goals".
Shambolic defending from Dublin yesterday. They really didn't have a clue as to where they should be positioned when Meath launched balls into their forwards. Fine finishes that they were, the open spaces offered to them was criminal. And even though the margin of victory was very high, Meath never dominated midfield or overall possession. Victory handed to them on a plate.
Gilroy/Whelan are bluffers. They have the tactics board and the convoluted systems designed to stymie the opposition. Yet, as yesterday showed, two players sucked into the one area over and over again shows an abandonment of the basic skills. Ditto the previous game against Wexford, with basic handling and kicking errors. The aura surrounding Mickey Harte and Jack O Connor, and their successful methods, has led to the likes of Gilroy & Whelan to over-complicate the game, devising strategies and systems that may or may not even be suitable. I hate it. It's not the Gaelic football I know or love.
Anyway, it's Dublin v Tipperary in the qualifiers. If Dublin lose, the outcome could be similar to when those two sides met back in the early 1920's. -
The All Ireland Championships 2010
But even then somebody will still tell me that Dublin are better than Cork.Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
Hailing from The Kingdom as I do, I of course will greatly underplay Kerry's chances this year.Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
Braai Jan wrote:
No they won't. Not here anyway. You really have to rid yourself of that sky blue and navy coloured chip on your shoulder, Bryan. Every year you mention something along these lines.But even then somebody will still tell me that Dublin are better than Cork.
Big mention for Sligo, the team of the championship to date. Hammering Mayo, blowing a massive lead against Galway but coming back to beat them in the replay. It's been the story of the year, and the best entertainment to date.Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
Today was the story of two last minute goals. Louth haven't won anything for fifty years and were leading going into injury time. The referee made a terrible decision and allowed a Meath goal that was clearly illegal. There was a pitch invasion at the final whistle and the referee was shoved and jostled by supporters - not good to say the least.
In the Munster hurling final, the source of thousands of articles extolling it's mythical properties, Waterford equalised from a dubious free. Waterford's first goal was as fine a goal as you will see.Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
If Howard Webb thinks he had a tough evening, he should thank himself lucky that he doesn't referee gaelic games. Today's Leinster Final between Louth & Meath finished with the greatest injustice I think I've ever seen in my 30 years watching GAA and soccer. Meath win with the last play of the game through one of their players falling over the line, rugby-style, with the ball in his hands. Goal given, Meath snatch victory. Needless to say, the umpires stood there with their arms behind their back, unwilling to get involved.
It was a farce, but this has been coming. The umpires in GAA games are charged with assisting the referee in making calls. But they're not even qualified referees. The ref basically brings his trusted friends to make crucial calls. So, a man who has never refereed a game of football or hurling in his life can adjudicate on matters. And as we see week-in-week-out, the umpires stand there with their arms folded watching the game and only getting involved to wave the flag. But then, having chosen to ignore all that's happened under their noses (square balls in particular), some will decide to get involved on a big call. They can make calls on goal-line incidents where they have the optimum view, but todays lads didn't want to know.
So a game is decided by a man who is not even a referee, who just watches the game and has very selective eyesight. It's wrong.
And to add to the madness, the referee was assaulted a number of times by irate Louth fans on the pitch at the final whistle.
And in the Munster Hurling Final, the referee fabricated a free for Waterford in stoppage time to snatch a draw against Cork. It was a real makey-uppy free, the sort refs give when the attacking team is three points down. Had Cork been leading by just two instead of three, he would never have awarded a free.
Eamon Dunphy thinks that soccer is in a bad way just because of what he sees as bad refereeing. Just as well he doesn't watch GAA.Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
I can't believe you didn't mention what happened after the final whistle
Actually in this instance, the umpire with the clearest view clearly reaches for his flag to give the score, but only stops when he realizes that he is the one who waves his flag for points not goals. He can see that it's a square ball, and that he carried it over the line before throwing it into the net.
I heard that the louth fans were pretty unpleasant even before the goal. One meath fan, no stranger to banter himself said that they were much worse than the dublin fans on hill 16, and those lads can be pretty unpleasant.
It was still ridiculously unfair on louth. If those arseholes hadn't come onto the pitch and hit the ref, I reckon the meath county board would probably have offered a replay. The ref and player incidents made it easy to say no.
Waterford beat cork in the munster final hurling replay in a rather dull match that had one amazing goal by Ben O'Connor, which hopefully will be up on youtube soon.Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
Tipp and Galway served up an absolute belter of a game at Croke Park today. The best in either code for a number of years. Tipp will beat Waterford in the semi, I reckon, giving us a re-match of last year in the final. That's where my money is anyway.
The football has thrown up Tyrone v Dublin in the quarters. Dublin have been fortunate to get handy draws in the qualifiers, allowing them to progress with relative ease but also to give their collection of Championship debutants some game-time together. They're slowly improving, but unless Tyrone implode on the day, there's no way Dublin will beat them.
Cork got the easiest draw, being paired with Roscommon. Should be a comfortable win. Roscommon are nowhere near as good as the Limerick side that Cork made hard work of yesterday. I think there's alot more to come from them this year, and they really should have beaten Kerry at the start of the Championship.
Kerry drew Down who have been helped by meeting the right teams at the right time. Kerry will beat them easily.
Meath v Kildare is a hard one to call. Meath are the poorest Leinster Champions for a long time, even disregarding the injustice that brought it about. Kildare will be playing for six consecutive weekends so you wonder if it will finally catch up. Tough to call but I'll pip for Kildare.
So, I predict a semi final line up of:
Tyrone v Cork
Kerry v KildareComment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
Well, the Football Championship has been blown wide open with the unexpected defeats for Tyrone & Kerry. Both Down & Dublin gave displays of ferocious workrate and noteable discipline to upset the odds. In Dublin's case, their superior fitness was telling, but they were helped by Tyrone's sloppy kicking, particularly from Sean Cavanagh.
With Cork's expected win over Roscommon, and Kildare finally exposing Meath as nothing more than an average side, we now have the toughest Championship to call at this stage for many years. At the moment, Cork are 7/4 favourites and Down are 4/1 outsiders. At the semi final stage, the favourites are usually a smaller price than 7/4, and the outsiders are always longer than 4/1. It's anyones title now. I can't call either semi, and I doubt that will change on the eve of the games.
The competition has proven yet again to be very flawed. Progressing in the provinces, then waiting around three weeks for your next game is clearly a less successful path than losing early in the provincials, regrouping, then playing every weekend through July. Hopefully the GAA will change it over the winter.Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
Machungu Hibernus wrote:
The ideal would be to run the provincial championships in January as warm-ups for the National League, then when that's finished organise the Championship into eight seeded round-robin groups, with either winners in QF's, or two teams in last 16 games. Traditionalists though might worry about the impact on local club fixtures, even if county squads rarely feature in these any longer.
The competition has proven yet again to be very flawed. Progressing in the provinces, then waiting around three weeks for your next game is clearly a less successful path than losing early in the provincials, regrouping, then playing every weekend through July. Hopefully the GAA will change it over the winter.Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
I'd like that. I think we've reached the point where the provincial and All-Ireland titles need to be seperated. Progress or failure in one's province should not affect All-Ireland participation. The provincial championships won't be dispensed with - too much history and tradition, particularly where Munster hurling is concerned - so they would have to be moved to the spring.
I quite like the idea of winning a 'double' of province and National titles. It would set some successful sides apart from others.Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
Bring it on, biatches.Comment
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It's been brought.Comment
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Play us down in Cork!Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
The battle of the chokers resumes for the second half.Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
19 million wides and counting.Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
My trash talk is looking a bit premature. The number of wides are unreal.Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
G'WAN DA FUCK!Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
Harsh on Dublin, but a good young team, they'll be back.
But don't try to take the expert chokers on at their own game.Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
Bollix. I'll have some of that humble pie please.Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
None left, I polished it all off at half time.Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
Good old Dublin, finding new ways to throw away victory. Although, unlike Armagh in 2002 and Mayo in 2006, there's few complaints about this one.
It's all about keeping the head and not panicking. The game had panned out with Cork enjoying alot of possession and Dublin happy to defend this. And for 55minutes it was going to plan for Dublin. But Cork didn't panic. Dublin kept the four or five point lead, Cork kicked some terrible wides, but they didn't panic. One of the consequences of Dublin's pressurised tackling game is that you effectively have two or three men covering the ground that one opponent in possession covers, so over the course of the game the Dublin players had more mileage in the legs than Cork. Tired legs and bodies lead to desperate challenges and loss of discipline, and the free kicks and penalty that Dublin conceded in the last 15 minutes were the result of this.
It was another stunning display of football from Bernard Brogan, by the way. Footballer of the Year by some distance.Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
I was in a very uncomfortable position during this game, of cheering for Cork. God I felt dirty but it needed to be done.
My thinking ran as follows..... cork people are going to be fucking cork people win lose or draw. If they won it wouldn't make the slightest difference, and ultimately it's just another all-ireland final for them.
But if dublin won the game, England could have been wiped out in a storm of fire and ice and we wouldn't hear about it with all the shite in the media.
But god i felt dirty.Comment
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The All Ireland Championships 2010
The thing that upsets me the most is that it's no longer Barrys Tea vs Arnotts.
Please tell me that Meath are still sponsered by KEPAK.Comment
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