International rules

Have a look at this lads / lassies, www.daraghoconchuir.ie , it contains an interview with Mickey Harte on his views on the international rules. While I would consider Mickey one of the best managers in the game I would be off the opinion that he is protesting a bit too much. Watching the Aussies play over the last few weeks, particulary the way they take their kickouts, was a bit like the Tyrone tactics in this years championship, I would doubt that they were coping that from one from Tyrone. A lot of guys seem to think that the AFL are taking lots of Gaa players but there is far more being lost to other sports and much more to other pastimes without any comment. I have read else where that Louth are losing 3 players to Oz next year due to the lack of work in this country and that wiil be a problem for all counties over the next few years. I think some people are taking a very selfish view, who are we to deny players the opportunity to become full time sportsmen in any code just because we want them to be our entertainment. Finaly I was a bit disappointed with this quote from Mickey '' players will always want to play because of the perks and profile they receive, in much the same way that children love Santa because he brings presents'' a little condescending I would have thought, but thats just my opinion. Have a look at the interviw in full and see what you think

was at game last night great night . heator was great . tommy walsh was very poor last night. the irish tactics are very bad ireland have learn how master the tackle in the game, the hand passing is to slow were AFL lads to if very fast ,really u look at the AFL players know were each other on pitch, the irish marking was very bad .the best part of night was shinty match their some skill their alright. the daily mail had a bag goodies and irish flag a each seat .JME are un right 304 section of cusack briilant view of pitch .the the music group THE WALLS played at half time

really at end of the day tohill was not the man for job

I was sitting beside a fella from Down and he told me that in a perfect world every player here serious of making it to the top should go over there in their late teens for 6 months and play Aussie Rules even at a local amatuer level. He said they would come back twice the player they were...............interesting suggestion IMO. Their accuracy with the foot was a joy to watch and their quickness of thought is on a different plane to the way we paly our games.

At least it got livelier... thought Jimmers would get more game time and couldn't understand Michael Murphy being taken off after kicking too brilliant overs... I think the key was to commit numbers to the attack and we left it late to do that. The kick-passing is a problem but to be fair, we don't, as a rule, aim kick passes into a lad's chest in football. Still, if the Aussies can master the round ball in a couple of weeks, surely we can - Kevin Reilly said it was a different ball to what we use but Tohill said that was rubbish on Saturday night, that it was an O'Neills ball without the logo... so yeah, I think we can learn a lot from Aussie Rules.
AS for Mickey Harte, I like the man, he's a brilliant manager, a deep thinker obviously, but we lose a few players to the AFL - we're losing a helluva lot more to soccer and rugby - okay, we don't play a mixed code with them, but really, losing players shouldn't be the issue if you have a problem with international rules. The money spent should. But then, if it's making money?

in the fourth quarter we were 3 points behind in the series and martin clarke won a mark on the 45 we had so much momentum built up at this stage, he went for a crazy shot and he kicked it wide, even a behind might have kept some momentum going but to miss all the posts was disasterous for us and the aussies built on the next kickout picking there marks all the way up the field and getting a over that was us dead and buried
also didnt see that mckernan lad missing any of them outside of the boot chances against kildare

Finian Hanley gave one of the worst footballing performances I have ever seen on Saturday night. How he lasted the whole game I'll never know.

On numerous occasions, he stood 10 yards behind Goodes as he collected an easy mark 30 yards out from goals! This may not be too bad in GAA as you can stand the lad up and he then has to score on the move but giving a lad free catches 30 yards out in this game is criminal. Its like giving away needless frees away in GAA.

I found myself getting very frustrated on several occasios during the match on Sat, not because I cared too much about us winning, but at the fact that Ireland were doing such stupid things. I lost count of how many times an Irish player collected the ball and then proceeded to saunter forward at a snails pace tapping the ball on his toe before being flattened by an Aussie. In contrast to the Aussies who always collected the ball at full pace and kept going!

Another mismatch was in how the aussies used the ball. They would use their 3 hand passes gaining 10/15 yards in the process and then play a nice easy kick pass (mostly on 10/15 yards) to a free player for a mark. They would do this process twice and suddenly they are in front of goal 30 yards out. The Irish struggled to gain any ground with their hand passing and then lumped 50/60 yards in the hope of a wonder catch from one of the forwards or even worse giving a bouncing ball in front of a player with an aussie up his arse!

You'd have to wonder what they were at in training the last few weeks. Wouldn't be touching Tohill for a job anytime soon!

Also, Cluxton's kickouts were shite!!

Amazed more people haven't been on to congratulate jimmers on his goal - he just has a knack of being in the right place at the right time... was surprised he didn't get more game time with some of the other lads struggling... saw one report saying how dangerous Brogan looked.... in the first 60 seconds maybe but after that, he was no danger to the Aussies anyway... like Gooch, I think Gaelic's more his game, even if he is better built. Coulter, Canty, McKernan are lads who are made for international rules, although Canty's kick-passing was badly off