2017 All Ireland Senior Football Championship

[Appendage]

Worse in Dublin it seems.

[Nembo_Kid]

It’s always made a difference.

[Fagan_ODowd]

@TheUlteriorMotive

Why did Dublin’s population not make a difference for 100 years?

Dublin have organised itself underage, put structures and coaching in place and now is reaping rewards as the virtuous circle starts to reinforce the culture of excellence.

It is now leveraging numbers because it is structurally set up to do it. Cork will do the same at hurling (cc @myboyblue)

Other counties with big populations like Kildare, Galway, Cork are underachieving at football. It’s about creating structures and creating that excellence.

However with that you encourage GAA into more elitism and take kids away from clubs at 14 into development squads and make them choose hurling or football. Can see it permeating GAA more and more where you have social players and elite players from a younger age. They split feile this year i think.

Dublin are at a stage now where all they need is add three or four a year to a squad and it will recycle itself. They will be there because of the underage structure.

on the flip side a young lad chance of Playing senior football for Dublin are tiny and not a realistic expectation for 99 per cent of the lads chasing around the pitches in Dublin on Saturday morning. At some stage Dublin being split will make sense financially and it will then happen

Dublin North
Dublin South
Or variations of the two would attract 80k each to Croke Park and be potentially the two strongest teams in the country anyway. Once you allow counties to join up which will happen then two Dublin teams will make sense because not organised strictly on county boundaries.

GAA’s success in making itself an elite sport could also kill it off as that elitism permeates all the way down and you start to lose players earlier because “they won’t make it” whatever “make it” means.

The fall off in participation of all sports in teenage years must be increasing every year as “just playing” is less and less valued. nowadays life seems all built on success and being good at stuff and less about learning a few lessons and building or revealing character so kids are whipped out of stuff before they “fail”. The fetishisation of IC at expense of everything else has driven this. It’s why Brolly talks out of both sides of his mouth about club v county when he lavished praise on this Dublin team which is a product of the elitism he rejects other times and places.

That’s a cracking post.

[gilgamboa]

@thedancingbaby

Is this Mayo team the greatest never to win an All Ireland ?

Yes

[iron_mike]

@TheUlteriorMotive

Dublin have organised itself underage, put structures and coaching in place and now is reaping rewards as the virtuous circle starts to reinforce the culture of excellence.

It is now leveraging numbers because it is structurally set up to do it. Cork will do the same at hurling (cc @myboyblue)

Other counties with big populations like Kildare, Galway, Cork are underachieving at football. It’s about creating structures and creating that excellence.

However with that you encourage GAA into more elitism and take kids away from clubs at 14 into development squads and make them choose hurling or football. Can see it permeating GAA more and more where you have social players and elite players from a younger age. They split feile this year i think.

Kilkenny have been at it for years.

[gilgamboa]

@Nembo_Kid

Travel is a problem Dublin players need not worry about. Armagh players may not have complained about it but it will never be an issue Dublin players will have to or not have to complain about.

The biggest issue isnt so much the inter county lads having to travel long distances to training its that over the last 10 years Ireland especially outside of Dublin was decimated with economic situation. Clubs struggling for numbers & lads on fringes of inter county panels cant/wont bother making the committment/will go to dublin or abroad. The loss of these players from clubs and countty panels reduces competition for places and reduces quality of club competition. All grinding away at overall quality of player within a county and standard of club football.

The migration of club rugby players to dublin became such an issue the IRFU developed a significant set of rules to try to combat it. Little bit more difficult to transfer in GAA I suspect but must be huge attrition in playing numbers or at least in the level of committment those players are giving to their home clubs.

None of this is dublins fault and it just happened to coincide with them getting their shit in gear in a major way and having a superb crop of players. I completely disagree with Ewan McKenna view that this is an unsolvable structural problem. Its a cycle. Dubs will sooner or later make a shit managerial appointment or have some massive fallout and they will start to reverse into the pack bit by bit. Outstanding team yes the end of competitiveness no

[Fagan_ODowd]

You get this in most sports. Team wins a few titles and pretty soon there is a widespread view that they will continue to win ad infinitum. Things can change in sport overnight. A team can already be on the slide but you can’t see it. Ten years ago people assumed the Kilkenny machine was unstoppable. Kerry the same in the 80s. I remember seeing a BBC Newsnight programme about how the West Indies would continue to churn out fast bowlers and destroy cricket for everyone else. That was in the 80s and they hadn’t lost a test series in ages. Similarly in the late 80s I remember Eamon Dunphy writing an article that suggested that Liverpool would win all the league titles out to 2000.

[gilgamboa]

@Fagan_ODowd

You get this in most sports. Team wins a few titles and pretty soon there is a widespread view that they will continue to win ad infinitum. Things can change in sport overnight. A team can already be on the slide but you can’t see it. Ten years ago people assumed the Kilkenny machine was unstoppable. Kerry the same in the 80s. I remember seeing a BBC Newsnight programme about how the West Indies would continue to churn out fast bowlers and destroy cricket for everyone else. That was in the 80s and they hadn’t lost a test series in ages. Similarly I the late 80s I remember Eamon Dunphy writing an article that suggested that Liverpool would win all the league titles out to 2000

Correct.

[TheUlteriorMotive]

Cheers Fagan.

[mikehunt]

With the resources at their disposal and preferential treatment from the GAA, Dublin should be winning the football and hurling All Irelands every year. Just as well hurling is a game that requires skill and money can’t buy that.

[GeoffreyBoycott]

@Fagan_ODowd

You get this in most sports. Team wins a few titles and pretty soon there is a widespread view that they will continue to win ad infinitum. Things can change in sport overnight. A team can already be on the slide but you can’t see it. Ten years ago people assumed the Kilkenny machine was unstoppable. Kerry the same in the 80s. I remember seeing a BBC Newsnight programme about how the West Indies would continue to churn out fast bowlers and destroy cricket for everyone else. That was in the 80s and they hadn’t lost a test series in ages. Similarly in the late 80s I remember Eamon Dunphy writing an article that suggested that Liverpool would win all the league titles out to 2000.

For the most part true. There is the odd exception to that rule though - New Zealand in international rugby the example most readily springing to mind. The fear in any sport is that level of almost complete domination as that just kills off competitiveness and interest.

[iron_mike]

@TheUlteriorMotive makes a great point regarding elitism to one code or another. I see it here every year when we run an u12 tournament every year and we have teams from Kildare, Monaghan, Mayo come down for the two days. There is little if no difference in skill levels.
The issue arises once kids hit secondary school and depending on what county they are residing in , they are forced to make a choice. Kierans College and the CBS been two big examples in Kilkenny city.
The other issue is of course resources and it is becoming more and more obvious that counties are choosing one over the other.
Ypu would imagine that counties like Cork and Dublin would have the resources /finance/population to field strong teams in both codes but Cork in football and Dublin in hurling seem.less inclined to invest on the so called “weaker code” Is ir a bad thing? Yes and no. In any given county ypu will have a crop of players from the other code that would given the resources have the ability to make it at elite level.
I think.it will be a long time before you see both Liam and Sam.heading to the same county in the same year.

[gilgamboa]

@GeoffreyBoycott

New Zealand in international rugby the example most readily springing to mind

They still went 24 years without winning a world cup

[iron_mike]

Yes but Geoff, is there serious competition to rugby in New Zealand?

[anon70480284]

Tyrone are missing a few tramps like Ricey McMenamin in their team

[GeoffreyBoycott]

@anon70480284

Tyrone are missing a few tramps like Ricey McMenamin in their team

What they’re missing most is a few fellows with a bit of skill that can play football.

[myboyblue]

@anon70480284

Tyrone are missing a few tramps like Ricey McMenamin in their team

Name me a team that couldnt do with a tramp like Ricey? Dublin have two of then in the full back line alone.

[anon70480284]

That too but if they’d a few tramps like Ricey they could have stuck in to the Dubs a bit and who knows. A Tyrone team from 10 years ago wouldn’t have lied down like those soft fuckers yesterday they would have got in their opponents faces and fought, bit, spit and abused them

[Little_Lord_Fauntleroy]

Yes

[Ashman]

And only for a cheating bastard …