This is the aul Championship thread, don’t you know the real county’s don’t concern themselves with the league?
Ah its all clear now:thumbsup:.
Having a slow Friday
Enjoy it while ye can for the next 7 or 8 years, because in 10 years time Cork will be back on top, don’t you worry about that.
Runt - I wouldn’t be saying that you won’t get a Munster title, i’d say ye have a huge chance this year. But the problem i have with it is that ye could win it against Cork or Kerry goin at 75%. Thats not arrogance, its just the way its set up now is even more in favour of the bigger counties than ever before. I think beating Cork, Dublin, Galway or someone like that in a 1/4 final would be of way more benefit.
The Cork-Kerry first round could be seriously violent i think. I think neither team will care if they loose, and a month for flaking a guy won’t deter too many of them either.
I would at this stage expect Tipp to bate us with 6 or 7 to spare if Denis Walsh continues to stick with last years policies.
Couldn’t have hoped for better, must make a go of the League though with less experimintation.
Leitrim 25k. Kilkenny 85k. Gobshite.
This might be of interest.
Retirements coupled with the lure of Aussie Rules will decimate the All Ireland-winning team in the coming years but you can be sure they’ll find a way to cope
Ewan MacKenna
Just last week broadcaster Weeshie Fogarty sat down with some friends and began to bask in footballing nirvana when the conversation took a turn and a question was asked. What next for Kerry? Even by the standards of a county that sets records for forgetting about the last All Ireland victory and focussing on the next, this was a fast turnaround. But circumstances have dictated that just over a month after picking up a fifth title of the decade, there’s an unease because at no stage in modern football has a championship team been dismantled so ruthlessly.
Tommy Walsh has gone to St Kilda and agent Ricky Nixon has made it a personal ambition to turn him into the first successful Irish forward in Aussie rules. David Moran has followed his clubmate to Melbourne for a two-week trial and if he shows some of the potential that had Kerry so excited, he’ll be gone too. Tadgh Kennelly said he has 10 days to make up his mind about a return to Sydney but such talk is only to sell a book and he too will be in Australia before long. And it is universally understood that Darragh S won’t be back for yet more.
“A long story short,” says Fogarty, “in the end we realised next year will be a huge year for Kerry and for this group of players. It will be the last chance a lot of these guys get at an All Ireland because while we have lost the lads now, there are replacements. But after next season? Well, you can expect a lot more to go and what then? That’s what has people here wondering.”
Fogarty is right. Those losses can be overcome next year if a thinner squad avoids injuries. As much as those absentees will hurt, the possibility of captaincy combined with an unusually cold and barren awards season could yet reinvigorate Colm Cooper, Kieran Donaghy will be back and Seamus Scanlon starts a season as a respected top-tier midfielder. However the real problems are behind the midfield. Remove Killian Young from the defence that started the All Ireland and the average age is 31.
But just like in recent years, those antique legs will be guaranteed last-12 football and if motivation ever is lacking, there will always be a game reminiscent of Dublin this year to lift the camp to their natural level. On top of that this is a group that can afford to peak mid-summer when they realise there’s nothing else they’d rather be at. After all, Cork will be looking to make it four out of five Munster titles next season and Kerry have beaten Cork just once in their last six attempts in provincial football. It’s a game Kerry can afford to lose.
But if 2010 may follow a similar pattern to this season, what of the longer-term concern? By the end of 2010, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that Diarmuid Murphy, Tom O’Sullivan, Tommy Griffin, Toms S and Mike McCarthy will all have left to stage.
Yet as much as Kerry rarely look backwards, a look to their recent past would help to sooth the apparent problems of the next decade. In 2000 a team ready to be retired won the All Ireland but four years later Kerry won again with eight new starters. The team that won the 2006 All Ireland had six changes to the starting line up compared with that of 2004. The team that won the 2007 All Ireland had five changes to the starting line up compared to 2006. The team of this year had five changes compared with 2007.
In fact this decade 33 different players have started on Kerry All Ireland-winning teams and along the way 18 different players have won All Stars. And that’s been the great strength of the county. The ability to continually reinvent the side thanks to a conveyor belt of wonderful players. “The amazing thing about this particular team is they never lacked motivation,” continues Fogarty. “In fairness to Jack O’Connor, he’s ruthless in his own way and if a fella doesn’t show you hunger, he’ll bring on someone else and that’s the choice they have.”
“I have been surprised by the continuity and the fact more players keep stepping up,” adds Dara Cinnide. “There is always a good standard of football. Now there is no one that has people going ‘Wow’ like Gooch when he was 17 but you never know. I wouldn’t have thought Tommy Walsh would have made as big an impression a couple of years back. On top of that you’d expect to see Paul Galvin, Gooch, Declan O’Sullivan and Seamus Scanlon step up and turn into real leaders and lead the guys coming through. Put it this way – it won’t be going back to the drought of the late 1980s and early '90s.”
By the end of their conversation during the week Weeshie Fogarty and friends came up with an answer. What’s next for Kerry is likely to be the same as what’s gone before. The loss of Walsh is a huge blow and over the next 12 months there are likely to be many more defections and retirements.
But in the end it won’t matter, just as long as Kerry’s football factory continues it’s remarkable rate of production.
[quote=“Boxtyeater”]Couldn’t have hoped for better, must make a go of the League though with less experimintation.
Leitrim 25k. Kilkenny 85k. Gobshite.[/quote]
Killkenny is still small, Leitrim is just tiny. They should join up with Rosscommon.
Some GAA man you are.
On Kerry, this is the usual shite they trundel out, trying to get people to take their eye off them again for some reason.
They aren’t producing any superstars recently, but they still have alot of very good players coming through.
On Kerry, this is the usual shite they trundel out, trying to get people to take their eye off them again for some reason.
They aren’t producing any superstars recently, but they still have alot of very good players coming through.[/quote]
Suggesting a county should join up with a parochial rival is completely against the ethos of the GAA.
Small population or not.
[quote=“caoimhaoin”]Killkenny is still small, Leitrim is just tiny. They should join up with Rosscommon.[/quote]:mad:
Ah lovely
Can’t everyone just gang up on Tipp?
Laois and Offaly would be better off joining together too
We plan on annexing Carlow in the next few days, then we will match on Kildare.
Watch this space.