2018 All Ireland Senior Football Championship

Beyond cringe. Fucking knobs. Hope Sligo hammer them out the gate

Brilliant.

Best of luck to them, I hope they beat Sligo.

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A lovely bunch of lads, had a great weekend beyont with them earlier in the year for the Laois game.

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I was very skeptical of the whole Connolly absence thing until now. I just felt it was a ruse Dublin were trying to use about a key player not coming back for the year but I think it looks likely that he will not commit.

If he isn’t back this year and it will certainly give other teams in the pack more cause for optimism. The whole circus around it doesn’t do anything for the squad and I’m surprised Gavin hasn’t just drawn a line under it and put an ultimatum to Connolly and announced whether he will be part of the team this year.

From the outside it looks like Connolly is seriously undermining the management team and there is some bad blood between Connolly and the management.

Dublin still have an an abundance of other top players to absorb the loss of Connolly but with guys like McCaffrey probably likely to struggle to get to Championship pace this summer and a few of the defensive stalwarts beginning to creak for Dublin, it will be interesting to see how it develops in the summer. They’re probably as vulnerable this year than they have been since 2014 but whether there’s a team good enough to catch them is the question.

Jim tried to win the all Ireland without Connolly and started o gara ahead of him. He swallowed his pride and Connolly won it for them with three massive plays. Dublin need Connolly and Jim isn’t stupid enough to give him an ultimatum.

Changes are to be introduced to the Ulster Senior Football Championship from 2020.

The Ulster GAA Competitions Control Committee have decided that from that year teams which play in the Preliminary Round will be exempt from playing in the province’s opening fixture for two years.

The change will mean that just five counties will be included in the Preliminary Round draw for the 2022 Championship and the championships thereafter.

Ulster GAA Provincial Secretary Brian McAvoy explained the rationale for the change: "For many years the draw for the Ulster Championship has been conducted on the basis that all nine counties entered the bowl at the outset and the first two teams drawn played in the Preliminary Round. There was a time when the draw worked on a two-year cycle and there were indeed occasions when a county had to play in the Preliminary Round for four consecutive years.

"In my Annual Report to the Ulster Convention in January I highlighted the fact that Ulster was the only province that operated a ‘straight’ draw and that each of the other provinces had some ‘conditions’ attached to their Football Championship Draw.

"This in itself was not a valid reason for change but a close study showed how the Championship draw ‘favoured’ some counties over others when it came to Preliminary Round appearances. Cavan for example have played in the Preliminary Round on seven occasions since the millennium, while Derry have been drawn to play in it on just two occasions.

“While some may validly argue that this is just the luck of the draw, the statistics paint a picture which shows that teams which contest the Preliminary Round have a very poor record when it comes to actually winning the Ulster title. On only four occasions has a team that played in the Preliminary Round gone on to win the Ulster title; Cavan in 1945, Armagh in 2005 and Donegal in 2011 and 2012.”

The decision of the Ulster Competitions Control Committee is not retrospective, so nine counties will be included in the draw for the 2019 Ulster Championship. The two counties which are drawn to play in the Preliminary Round will not feature in the Preliminary Round draw for the 2020 and 2021 Championships. Seven counties will be included in the Preliminary Round draw for the 2021 Championship and from the 2022 draw onwards just five counties will be included in the draw for the Preliminary Round game.

Brian McAvoy said: "It will come as no surprise that counties prefer not to be playing in the Preliminary Round and while some counties will in all probability continue to be ‘favoured’ by the draw more than others, this change will hopefully add some measure of equilibrium to the statistics.

“While there is no ideal figure, a two-year exemption strikes the correct balance as a one-year exemption was unlikely to bring about much meaningful change, while a three-year exemption would result in just three counties being in the Preliminary Round draw and this would significantly increase the prospect of repeat pairings.”

Seismic news

Aboy Psycho, ligind.

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I’ve heard from a reliable source that Lee Keegan is back training with Mayo and will be available for the Galway clash.

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The 2016 Footballer of the Year has been out of action with a dislocated shoulder since the League clash with Tyrone. While Leinster and Ireland rugby star Henshaw made a sooner-than-expected recovery from the same injury, Stephen Rochford isn’t counting on Keegan to return in time.

"It’s only seven weeks this weekend, which is six weeks post-op. He’s back doing some running but hasn’t been in any contact. I don’t see him partaking in the game. I know locally they’re all thinking how did Robbie Henshaw get back. In a professional environment, more can be done. He isn’t in our plans.

“Lee required surgery. We’re planning very much without him.”

Keegan will be available according to my source.

I smell another name change

My source correctly informed me that Keegan underwent a double hip op when people were reporting he had MS.

It’s mad how the abbreviation of the words “more surgery” can be misconstrued by people.

What in the fuck kind of article is this?

Here @gman, wheres yer fancy new jersey?

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I read recently that Eire Og in Carlow had a Leinster championship preview and charged something like €20 in :laughing:

The panel reckoned Dublin would win it.

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young Nevin mustnt have been given the memo.

In any case, we’ll only be wearing it for the Laois game, reverting back to the modern purple haze after that game.

The exit door