Sense of entitlement? 
What the fuck are you babbling on about now?
It’s clear that you think Dublin are entitled to all the excessive advantages they have on their competitors and shouldn’t give any of them up in the name of fairness.
This Dublin playing all their games in Croke Park is a non-issue. The reason why Dublin are dominating in Leinster for the last decade is that the two counties that have traditionally challenged them in Leinster and that have resources, population and tradition - Kildare and Meath have both fallen off a cliff at the same time.
As I’ve pointed out any number of times, Dublin regularly played all their Leinster quarter final and semi final matches outside of Croke Park up until the early 90’s, more sporadically after that. From 1974 to their last road trip to Longford in 2006, Dublin played the guts of 40 Leinster Championship matches outside of Croke Park and the only one they lost was the 1981 Leinster semi final to Laois in Tullamore.
Dublin have only won 3 of the last 31 All Irelands. 27 of the defeats in the other 28 years that saw them eliminated from the championship occurred in Croke Park to a wide variety of counties including - Kerry, Cork, Mayo, Kildare, Meath, Armagh, Down, Derry, Tyrone and Donegal. Playing in Croke Park was no great advantage on any of those days.
Well it’s certainly of no disadvantage for them playing there. Croke Park suits an open, expansive style of play which plays right into the hands of Dublin. No team outside a group of 7/8 teams stands a chance of getting close to Dublin right now on any day but in the interest of fairness Dublin should not get every single game they play in Championsip football in their home ground.
Only the Leinster final, All Ireland semis and final should be played in Croke Park. Dublin have now played 5 games at Croke Park this year. The Leinster final will be their sixth outing there this year, familiarity is an advantage whatever way you look at it.
That Westmeath v Meath match was exhilarating. It certainly made it worth suffering the fiasco that followed. If Tom Cribbin never wins another match as Westmeath manager he’ll still be classed as a success. He will go down in history as the first Westmeath manager to ever beat Meath in championship football and his team did it in the most glorious fashion imaginable. A performance full of passion and great football and a credit to his training methods - they ran all over Meath in the last 20 minutes and you knew they were going to do it. This victory was fashioned during those gruelling 6:30 running sessions over Chrirstmas. A great victory also for the provincial championship system. The championship is just fine as it is.
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It doesn’t matter where Dublin play the likes of Louth, Longford, Wicklow and sadly the once great power of Offaly - they’ll beat them anywhere.
From the quarter final on, games are scheduled in Croke Park. Since the introduction of the back door system in 2001, Dublin have only failed to win Leinster (which puts them in the quarter final ) on 4 occasions - 2001, 2003, 2004 & 2010. Dublin’s consistency year in year out ensures they don’t have to go on these road trips. When they do, they invariably win.
2003 & 04 were the only two of those years, Dublin entered the qualifiers at earlier stage which necessitated going on the road. 2003, Dublin travelled up to Clones and won handily enough against Derry. 2004, they went on the road to and hammered Leitrim and Longford in Round 2 and 3. They did lose to Kerry in Thurles after a replay in 2001, but that was a quarter final.
Actually, 2010 saw Dublin lose at the Leinster semi final stage but they were drawn first in the qualifier draws that year.
How do you want Dublin to warmly deal with their playing resources, population and location?
Nobody should be feeling sorry for the other counties in Leinster who want to play their games in Croke Park. In particular, nobody should be feeling sorry for Kildare today who didn’t even start being cynical until long after they were beaten. It was a fairly gutless display.
I’m not sure why anyone wanted Dublin to be criticised today. They played excellently sporadically and were comfortable the rest of the time. Do lads really want to tune in to watch that match and then have the half time given over to a discussion about populations? The world and its mother knows Dublin has a bigger playing population, pointing it out at every opportunity is boring, not informative.
That would make Dublin possibly the only team in world sport that would bring a bigger crowd to an away game than an exact equivalent home game. Seems a touch unlikely.
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The familiarity with croke park is the huge advantage. Its part of the reason kilkenny have been so dominant there too. If dublin had to go to innovate wexford park or navan on a day when its pouring theyd have to tailor their game plan accordingly. No need now as they know exactly what to expect from the pitch in all conditions at croker. Theyd still win leinster and every game in croker builds their familiarity and advantage so i dont expect them to vote to leave. There is no 40-50k crowd, theres a hardcore of id guess about 12 to 15k dubs that would follow them anywhere. Maybe 2k for their hurlers. It seems to be suggested 100 thousand of them might descend on carlow and armageddon would ensue but while the first road trip would attract a few hangers on fpr the novelty, once it was a regular thing the bandwagon thin and almost all grounds, tullamore, portlaois, wexford, navan, would accommodate their support.
These hammerings do dublin no good though, im not sure they realise it, blaming ulster bpgey men instead. A few years ago they used to sleepwalk through leinster and wer caught badly by tyrone, kerry and mayo etc in their first hard game. They werent tested and thats what killed them against donegal last year. It was the first time they faced adversity and didn’t know what to do. They won two all irelands, but each by a point, and both having controversial enough endings where mcquillan played no small part in seeing them safely home. A few road games might do them the benefit of good. If they start to believe the incessant hype, based on nothing really, they are walking into trouble yet again
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This is what the the Leinster football championship means. I’ve no doubt Dublin supporters will be behaving in similar fashion if they win the final.
Who wants them to be criticised?
Dublin have excessive advantages over the rest of their competitors in terms of population, location, playing all their games at home and financial resources. They are facts but they’re not really commented on and not sought to be changed with any degree of seriousness. Dublin can go out and play this brand of attacking, no-holds-barred football because they have the resources to. Other teams cut their cloth accordingly and I think the media coverage of this is disgraceful. Compare the coverage Tyrone have had other the past 10 years to that of Dublin’s and it is absolutely disgraceful.
I said the other counties in Leinster really need to get their house in order, if the likes of Kerry, Donegal and Mayo can be competitive as they are then there is no reason for the likes of Meath or Kildare not to be challenging for All Irelands. But Dublin enjoy serious advantages which are unfair on the rest and it needs to be redressed but no challenge has been made to it.
Instead the focus has been focused on the wrong areas, championship restructure, introduction of second tier championships, scrapping of the provincials. These will do nothing for the problems in the game.
It’s not just about Dublin bringing too many supporters. The other counties want to play in Croke Park. There are long-term tickets sold for Croke Park and the GAA won’t turn their back on the 55k they got today - and they’d be short-sighted to do so in the absence of a suitable venue that could hold something close to that.
I don’t think playing Kildare in Newbridge today or Longford away the last match would be any sort of genuine test for Dublin at all. They played Monaghan last year - not top level but you would have thought it would be some sort of introduction to playing against one of the big counties. It didn’t seem to help at all.
I don’t think the hype is the problem for Dublin at all. Clearly they’re an excellent team so there’s more to it than just hot air. They may benefit more from their Division 1 league campaign than they will from any Championship run but I think Donegal are the only team that probably have the right blend between not having to go qualifiers route but still getting good opposition.
I had the Marty Squad on this evening driving up the M7. As an aside it isn’t as bad a show as I was suspecting.
Cian O’Sullivan gave a quick interview to Marty, he was accompanied up to the media centre by Dublin Gaa’s communications manager. Now credit where credit is due to Dublin GAA for running such a professional set up but there really is a massive discrepancy between their resources and other counties. Fair play to them for getting their house in order and for running such a set up but surely there should be more of a egalitarian approach to things
This has nothing to do with Tyrone or their media coverage. You seem to want every Dublin match to come with a discussion about the population of Dublin in the analysis. That would be extremely boring. I don’t want to watch Ireland play Germany and get a lecture on the resources or the population of the countries from the RTÉ panel and I don’t want the equivalent every time I watch Dublin play. I think most people take it as a given that Dublin have a larger population than their rivals. It’s not favourtism to not mention that.
Canavan made a good point yesterday about familiarity with the Dubs and pointed to how Derry and Monaghan tweaked their game plans and frustrated them after being on the end of hammerings last year. I would suspect if Monaghan played Dublin again this year they would give a much better account of themselves.
I would think so too. I don’t think playing in Navan would be as tricky as playing Monaghan or Derry at home.
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Incidentally, I don’t think anybody is seriously suggesting that the games today shouldn’t have been played in Croker (or maybe they are, I don’t know). I’d always expect the semis to be played as a double header in Croker if Dublin are involved. Dublin-Kildare and Dublin-Meath games in any round should also be played in Croker regardless I’d have thought given the geographical proximity and the crowds you’d expect, and particularly I don’t think Newbridge could hold it. I don’t think it would make much of a difference or it’s that big a deal in the big picture, but otherwise I think they should play some games away from home.
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No. I’m saying that if anyone is able to play the most open and expansive style of play it would have to be Dublin as the resources they have at their disposal dwarfs that of any of their competitors. It’s not that they are the saviours of the game, they’ll tear into Ulster sides for cutting their cloth and developing a style of play that allows them to compete at the top table against sides with massive resources at their hands.
They won’t put things into context.
That’s just nonsense. Dublin will beat the shit teams in Leinster regardless of where they play them. The top sides are more than familiar with Croke Park and have no hang ups about playing Dublin there.
If anything, the top tier teams facing Dublin in Croke Park, post 2001 and the advent of the qualifier era probably have a better than 50/50 split.
Kerry have faced Dublin 5 times in Croke Park - Kerry won 3 in 2004, 07, 09 and Dublin won twice in 2011 & 13.
Dublin faced Mayo 3 times - Mayo won twice in 2006 & 12, Dublin won in 2013.
They faced Donegal 3 times - Dublin won twice in 2002 (after a replay) & 2011, Donegal won in 2014.
They faced Cork twice - Cork won in 2010, Dublin won in 2013.
When Tyrone and Armagh were strong, they both got a 50/50 break or better.
Tyrone beat Dublin in 2005 (after a replay) & 2008. Dublin won in 2010 and 2011.
Armagh beat Dublin in 2002 & 03, Dublin won in 2010.
Yup, I’m not sure it’s really feasible and obviously would blunt their motivation to make money, but I’d have thought a fair chunk of their revenue should be redistributed around the country. It is an amateur organisation at the end of the day.