Kildare v Meath

Feels like there has been a tipping point this year & a lot of fans, journalists & players clamouring for change.

Just to want say to our county board, and others around the country (particularly in Leinster) - any time you want to step in here...

HauntedGraffiti wrote:

Feels like there has been a tipping point this year & a lot of fans, journalists & players clamouring for change.

Just to want say to our county board, and others around the country (particularly in Leinster) - any time you want to step in here...

Big Daddy has spoken

Some county boards in Leinster are that badly ran they cannot organised clubs championship fixtures correctly

Last nights "Debate" was a disgrace, why they couldnt get somebody from the Leisnter COuncil and Croke Park to debate the issues.

While Des is a hardly a neutral party in the whole thing a Cuala man who have benfitted from the coaching in Dublin !

Must be very weird playing for & supporting Dublin these days.

Literally no one gives a shit how good the team is - every game they play is followed by a discussion by what a pathetic state the sport is in.

Did anyone watch the Sunday Game? Sweet Jesus. McEntee stunned by the conversation he was brought on to discuss while Pat Gilroy asks for more money for Dublin because no one plays the sport between the two canals, says money doesn't make a difference, and suggests amalgamating Kerry and Cork, "Sligo and Leitrim, whatever, as those lads know each other from DCU" and Monaghan and Cavan because they are the same. With that gobshite Des Cahill sitting there calling this "fascinating". All for just a few thousand of your licence fee.

Pat Gilroy is a capable guy & was an excellent manager so to hear talking such shite was kind of remarkable in its own way.

Is there an argument he was so incoherent he has actually accelerated the process of splitting Dublin?

I do think this issue has reached a point of critical mass & the next couple of trophies Dublin accumulate is going to push it over the cliff... GAA response as yet unclear as no leadership apparent & head in sand main policy for last five years.

Definitely funniest response was Conor Counihan - retweeted by John Fogarty - saying Pat Gilroy made a lot of sense. Counihan’s underachievement with his Cork team instantly made more understandable.

McEntee also incredible for the wrong reasons... Colm O’Rourke had teed up the issue & McEntee shat the bed.

It was a shocking interview. Des is an absolute clown and have no intelligence at all. An big eejit is all he is.

McEntee was like a rabbit caught in the headlights and those headlights were the 2 dubs with him. In fairness to him it was a difficult position for him to be in alone. Gilroy being the businessman he is was the dominant one.
It was an actual disgrace. RTÉ needed to do it correctly and they made a balls of it.

It was embarrassing

I'll give you one about RTE. I was asked to do their Prime Time special on it last year. Did an interview for about 45 minutes that was officially going to be cut way back but they actually cut out all the facts and figures so it looked like just some opinion based on nothing. Told later the producer a big Dublin fan and didn't like what I'd said, thus what we were left with before some lad from Na Fianna was on talking nonsense with no one to debate him!

So Glad I skipped the Sunday game last night

Andy Mc shit himself infront of Gilroy woulda been some great tele if TK was on it instead though LOL.
In all fairness that was toxic dya no whadda meehan on repeat from gilroy who is seemingly going to volunnteer his services to kildare thank fuck i dont pay a tv licence.....

Sad that my main intake of GAA media on Mondays now is analysis on state of the game rather than matches.

As usual, I found Colm Parkinson’s GAA podcast to be a long way ahead of everyone else. I think Colm’s conclusion - that splitting Dublin is the easiest solution, relatively speaking, amongst a fairly unappetising array of options - is going to land with the GAA fairly soon.

Because here’s the thing: if you take out the grotesque corporate monster Dublin have turned into, I think inter-county football does generally work.

Not perfect, yes, but it is definitely competitive and, on a given day, lower ranked counties can take out teams from a higher division as happened with Cavan & Tipp this year.

As for generating revenue, if there’s a renewed rivalry between Kildare & Meath for example, you just watch those Leinster final tickets sell like hot cakes. There were 80,000 at the Kildare-Laois Leinster final in 2003.

I do think 2020 is a watershed & I don’t think this debate going away. In fact I think it’s going to amp up with each successive trophy Dublin accumulate.

What if they do decide to split dublin , north and south.
What if they made it through to meet each other in an all ireland final.
Would anyone go ? Would anyone even watch ? Would we not be in an even worse place than we already are at the moment ?

They would have to make them play against each other in a leinster preliminary round or something because both teams progressing in a championship would be a disgusting spectacle and would destroy the game.

Was listening to Matt Cooper on the way home this evening and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He had Marc O’Sé, David Brady and Paul Early on. O’Sé used the fact Mayo took the Dubs to a replay to justify the current fix. He talked about the whole golden generation shite which Cooper shot down and rightly so. You’d swear the same 15 had won 10 Leinsters. Brady as usual talked nothing but shite, clueless fool who shouldn’t be given airtime on any show. Early was the best of the lot, he kept being up the funding which neither Cooper or the others mentioned but largely went ignored. Brady and O’Sé would change their tune fairly quickly if Dublin was in their province. There’s guys debating this stuff on national media with too many vested interests which ultimately will cost them jobs and money if they are honest in what is happening. Nice gigs on RTE and other media.

As proven with Covid19, journalists in Ireland are cowards, afraid to speak their minds, afraid to step out of line, afraid to tell the truth.

They're afraid to because Dublin has that much of the market that you dare not piss it off. You play to the crowds and take their money. If you dare step away from that, you're on the outside looking in sadly. Look at the names wheeled out to not point out the obvious reality around Dublin 17 years later but rather ask if there's an issue. None of them have done the research or hard yards on this but those that did aren't allowed anywhere near it as it upsets the apple cart. The national game is dead, I'm afraid. 17 years later and there are gentle discussions around if there's a problem, it'll be another five years before a chat about fixing the problem, and that'll take about seven or eight years. Sorry to say but nobody is going to be handing over their money for this in two years, never mind 12.

After joe Brolly’s article in the sindo, pat gilroy on TSG and Cian ward on the GAA hour there’s an increasing view that the Intercounty system is as big a problem as Dublin dominance. That Dublin can be split but every other county with the exception of maybe cork should be amalgamated with others into regions.

Splitting Dublin will help Kildare, Meath, Kerry, Mayo etc. it won’t help Louth wexford, sligo much.

After 133 years maybe the intercounty system should be allowed die a peaceful death.

The intercounty system has told us that Kerry are the best at football, counties with large populations normally share out the rest of the all Ireland’s. It unfortunately tells us that our own county aren’t very good at football.

What will continuing with the intercounty system really tell us anymore that we don’t already know.

I wouldn't mind Joe. I did an event with him a year ago where for 30 minutes on stage he said money makes no difference to Dublin and that the rest need to cop on and stop being losers and that this Dublin team should be admired for the hard work and admiration. He has said this on TSG for years too while laughing at Mayo for actually going toe to toe with them.

TommyKeegan wrote:

I wouldn't mind Joe. I did an event with him a year ago where for 30 minutes on stage he said money makes no difference to Dublin and that the rest need to cop on and stop being losers and that this Dublin team should be admired for the hard work and admiration. He has said this on TSG for years too while laughing at Mayo for actually going toe to toe with them.

No time for him either. The actual issue he and others brought up is what I’m wishing to draw attention to.

After listening to the absolute guff spouted in the last few days from certain people, added to the total silence from the GAA, nothing is going to change. It was only last year that the president went on Parkinson's podcast and said all is well and Dublin will continue to be funded (financially doped to the rest of us).

The modern corporate GAA is only interested in one thing. Money. Take that away and your in business to change it.
County Boards won't rock the boat as they want development money for infrastructure. As if the Kildare CB is going to suddenly rise up while at the same time look for millions in stadium grants.

There are only two groups who can bring about changes. The players and supporters. One idea is that all other 11 County panels should just "retire". No strikes or fuss just say no one is coming back for next year.

The second and more possible direction is for supporters in all 11 other Counties to just not attend Championship matches. It's already happening on a smaller but ever growing scale. Now is the time, if ever there was to make a stand together for the good of the game. If it's not done there will be no game in five years.

It just needs a focal point to kick it off.

Lads we have reached the tipping point on this. Sean Moran - who has buried his head in the sand for five years - has now written second column in a week on the subject. On the same day, Martin Breheny written the piece below.

I can’t tell you what happens next but I can tell you unlike other years, the issue isn’t going away. Regardless of what happens in AI final, unless GAA takes action in the new year, the next major flashpoint will be 2021 Leinster championship. As soon as Dubs start doling out the hammerings again, there is going to be a massive bust-up. Should have happened a few years ago but better late than never.

https://m.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/dublin-the-split-and-the-most-important-strategic-review-ever-required-39843017.html

Jack McCaffrey on radio gigs and podcasts everywhere saying how he had lost all desire to continue, the hunger just wasn't there, not enjoying the game etc, Looks like even the Dublin team are getting fed up, most players in other counties would kill for an All Ireland chance.......

KILL BILL wrote:

Jack McCaffrey on radio gigs and podcasts everywhere saying how he had lost all desire to continue,   the hunger just wasn't there, not enjoying the game etc,  Looks like even the Dublin team are getting fed up,  most players in other counties would kill for an All Ireland chance.......

inter county is nearly full time job