All Ireland Championship's so far.........

Ulster
Terrible football, good open game today but how often will we see that.
Derry: Hard to listen to Brolly today, lotta Hail Mary scores, poor Armagh defending. How does a team turn around from a 2010 season like they had......
Donegal/Tyrone: Tyrone are Tyrone and you can never count them out. Last hurrah for that current team. Donegal are terrible to watch.

Munster
Nothing outstanding yet suppose it will liven up shortly.

Connaught
Terrible, terrible, terrible.

Leinster
Hope to god the championship finally starts this weekend.

Referee Watch
Aside from a lot of dodgy handpasses no great controversies yet.............. apart from Meath match :p

Officialdom
What planet do these guys actually live on???

Dunno where this game is going, I lament.............

Jaysus that Brolly is so annoyin. He hates us for some strange reason and sickens me with his Ulster Football sh**e.

I wasn't at the KIldare Meath match so I had to watch it on telly and the amount of shite coming outta Brollys mouth was unreal.

"Typical Kildare huffing and puffing their way through a match"
"Maybe they should spent less time in the gym and more on they're shooting practice"

There was loads more and I'm sure he got a dig in there about Kildare just being Athletes not Footballers.

Brolly is a spiteful nasty little man.

Bradley is some footballer up there with Brogan

Yea hes good ok but didnt Kelly have him in his pocket in Derry last year. Blotted his copy book yest with his petulance. Dont rhink hes as good as brogan.

I think it was down to the Armagh full back line being absolutley terrible more so than Bradley was class. Nearly every score he had the time and space to pick his spot.

Sure the real stuff doesn't really start until August! Hopefully Kildare will still be standing.

Derry were impressive yesterday but it's clear that Armagh read too much into their win over Down. McDonnell looks a shadow of the player he once was and they badly miss Ronan Clarke. Jamie Clarke was being bigged up in the papers all week but he has a long way to go to reach the levels of the likes of Cooper. Their half-forward line is non-existant. Wouldn't know what to make of Derry. I'm not sure they have the heads for it when things start going against them in a match but they do look to have better direction from the sideline now. Donegal might be awful to watch but in fairness to McGuinness he seems to have added a bit of steel to them that has been missing in previous years. They'll put it up to Tyrone but I'd expect Tyrone's experience to edge it. I'd be very wary of Donegal in the backdoor though.

Kerry and Cork have just been shadow boxing so far. Kerry's forwards are awesome and their defence will probably get by on experience alone once Tomás Ó Sé returns. However, they have big problems at midfield with David Moran gone for the year. The only way I can see them winning an All-Ireland is by moving Donaghy out from full-forward to plug the gap in the middle. Cork have got the deepest squad in the country but there's nothing in their forwards that would scare you like Kerry's. They'll both be thereabouts and could be the All-Ireland Final pairing.

Standard in Connacht seems poor enough. Hard to believe that Sligo lost to Leitrim given how poor they were against a useful enough Roscommon team. Both Galway and Mayo seem to be at a low ebb and Roscommon will fancy their chances of two in a row with the final in Hyde Park. Hard to see them advancing beyond the quarters though unless they get a favourable draw.

Wexford are motoring along nicely and should be way too strong for Carlow. Ourselves and Dublin is 50/50 but whatever the result next Sunday you'd expect both will be there in the quarter finals. I have a feeling that the absence of both Peter Kelly and Dermot is going to be our downfall this year unfortunately. If both were available we'd really have serious claims. Hopefully the experience built up over the last few years will stand to the rest of the players but I think we would come up a bit short against a Cork or a Kerry.

Down will be a big threat in the qualifiers. They have a nice handy draw against Clare and should be able to build from there. Whoever wins the Louth/Meath fight match will get a big confidence boost too and will fancy going on a bit of a run. I don't think there's anyone else in the first round qualifiers who will make any significant impact on the summer.

Kickingking

Great post there and very honest. Derry are one of thise teams that when their heads are right , they can be a match for anyone.I rate them as a team to watch closely.In my opinion , Donegal will take Tyrone with or without Michael Murphy. I do not see them as AI winners though.I expect the 4 semi-finalists to be Cork , Kerry , Dublin and Kildare ( assuming that they avoid each other in the draw ).From there on I will be praying for us and if we fail , I would like to see the Dubs winning out.

The bookies have us at 5/2 for next sundays match and that worries me because it's a huge price.I thaught that we would be about 6 to 4 on all known form.Maybe the betting reflectts history or tradition but you would still have to put a small wager on us at 5 to 2.

What bookies have us @ 5/2 - 9/4 with PP is the best price i can see on offer?

Flourman

Ladbrokes.9 to 4 is still a big price.

Brolly is something you use in lousy weather, it gets p...sed on, blown about,turned inside out in windy conditions would not like to be a brolly

The Championship has been good so far IMO, Kildare Meath match was very exciting as was the Derry Armagh match yesterday, Eoin Bradley was brilliant yesterday, he's really starting to replace Paddy as they're main man.

The Connacht and Munster championship are a bit of a joke and very predictable, i'd love to see the provincial championships scrapped in favour of an open draw.

A guy has one bad game doesn't mean he's not good. JD has had quiet games. I hate that shit. I remember Tipp coming to Kildare a few years ago and Declan Browne didn't do well and lads were saying, sure he's no good. Declan Browne was one of the best forwards I ever, ever saw. I heard the same about Matty Forde - again, after some horseshite of an irrelevant game in Newbridge in March. I don't put Forde in Browne's class, but he was very, very good.
Bradley IS petulant but sure what about it. Peter Kelly marked him out of it after a slow start. But sure that's a compliment to Peter Kelly. He marked a lot of other top players out of it too. Are they all not up to much 'cos they were marked out of it in a game? I've seen Peter Canavan marked out of it. I've definitely seen Alan Smith and James Kavanagh and Eamonn Callaghan marked out it.
Jamie Clarke is a very talented player, but Joe Kernan said during the week - I won't put the link up here, I'm only browning lads, but he said that if he didn't get his attitude right and go to the gym, he wouldn't develop. He was milled out of it yesterday. He looks about 10 stone I'd say.
As for Brolly, I do actually agree, he is desperately annoying, annoys me much more than Spillane.

Jeez Ogie where did I mention that he wasn't good? In fact I actually said he was good. All I said that imo he isn't up to Brogans (or Coopers) standard. Untwist your knickers there like a good lad.

Perhaps you might read my post properly next time.

hawker wrote:

Jeez Ogie where did I mention that he wasn't good? In fact I actually said he was good. All I said that imo he isn't up to Brogans (or Coopers) standard. Untwist your knickers there like a good lad.

Perhaps you might read my post properly next time.

If you can't take criticism maybe you should'nt give it.

Ive no prob with criticism at all. In fact who was i criticising? I said Bradley was good so did Ogie. I said he was petulant and so did Ogie. So we're nearly saying the same thing.

However I do have a problem with going ott with something trivial. Ogie went on a rant there putting words into peoples mouths and hes more or less agreeing.

hawker wrote:

Ive no prob with criticism at all. In fact who was i criticising? I said Bradley was good so did Ogie. I said he was petulant and so did Ogie. So we're nearly saying the same thing.

However I do have a problem with going ott with something trivial. Ogie went on a rant there putting words into peoples mouths and hes more or less agreeing.

not my first rant and won't be my last..... I guess it was the reference to PK keeping Bradley quiet... I've seen it here a few times about various players and I take the inference to mean he's not as good as people think, instead of saying 'even though PK kept him under wraps, I think he's a good player'.... I find the tendency to put down the abilities of other players while bitching and crying about how our players don't get their credit not just annoying, as you saw there, it drives me around the bend, apeshit and batshit... anyhow, I clearly misinterpreted the what you intended to say, in which case, I most definitely apologise

Yea in fairness I could have been clearer. It was no means a slight on Bradley
That P Kellt kept him quiet. It was meant as a tribute to Kelly.

As a little aside it always seems to be the forward who gets the limelight. Would love to know the statson man of the match and whether how many were forwards

Hmmmm nothing to see in the qualifiers move on

There are some very bad teams out there, really, really bad. The standard of some is terrible.

Even allowing for fitness & ability, the biggest things mcgeeney has instilled into kildare are first of all the belief that they can beat the top teams around. Also, the group has an unbelieveable team spirit, they'd die for each other & that shows on d pitch.

They are two things that a lot of teams lacked today but most also lacked ability and even basic fitness

TheBigFullForward wrote:

They are two things that a lot of teams lacked today but most also lacked ability and even basic fitness

Very true.... Cian Ward cramping up today.... I know he scored 4 goals but at corner forward you shouldn't be cramping.....

Big Full Back wrote:

TheBigFullForward wrote:

They are two things that a lot of teams lacked today but most also lacked ability and even basic fitness

Very true.... Cian Ward cramping up today.... I know he scored 4 goals but at corner forward you shouldn't be cramping.....

He can be as fat as he wants, smoke and drink as much as he wants, i'm sure nobody would care if he scored 4-3 in every match

Stonecold wrote:

Hmmmm nothing to see in the qualifiers move on

hope the kerry v cork on sunday puts smile on your face

TheBigFullForward wrote:

There are some very bad teams out there, really, really bad. The standard of some is terrible.

The same thought struck me after the week end's games. Despite our loss, the level of performance, and the disappointment, you'd still put Kildare probably 4th or 5th in the country behind Cork, Kerry, Dubs in that order (maybe Down if they get motoring again which seems doubtful). When you look at the other traditional contenders, Tyrone seem to be on the slippery slope, Meath blow hot and cold and rely on goals as they don't seem to be able to score points, Galway and Armagh are back in the pack nowadays... Derry and Donegal are so far the best of a pretty average bunch in Ulster.

So far this has been one of the worst championships of recent times, although we all know it will be ultimately judged on the QF's onwards. Just hope we can squeeze through. There are some minefields to cross before we get there and one of these years we are going to step on one.. hopefully not in Portlaoise on Sat week

As I've posted previously on this thread - the championship really doesn't start until the quarter finals in August. It doesn't matter what route you take to get there and recent results suggest that the qualifier route is actually advantageous to a team. Kildare are still there with a fighting chance.

There's fifteen other teams in the qualifiers and only four more will be added to that in the next three weeks. Apart from the Munster final losers and probably Tyrone, I don't think there'll be any team in there that Kildare wouldn't be favourites to beat. Sure there are a few other teams like Laois, Meath, Armagh and Down that you wouldn't be entirely confident of beating, but you have to face these teams and beat them if you have any ambitions of getting to quarter finals, semis etc.