The fact he would not go to Dublin and went to Wicklow shows how far Dublin have come.
What do you allocate for the potential players you want to attract to the game ?
Maybe there should be a smaller separate stream of funding for that? Or if money is allocated annually on the basis of players then funding will catch up every year with the numbers attracted and should never be too far off.
Is funding currently based on players you want to attract? Is that why Dublin get so much disproportionately more?
Better than last year I’d say. They blow hot and cold, but if they blow hot they’ve a chance.
They do that every year.
I presume so if the extra money was initially given to grow GAA in the capital …
They have so many facilities they don’t need to bother with abbotstown. Says it all really.
I reckon if they gave the pale back to the UK everyone would be happy.
I had a look at FOTY and All Star betting this morning. FOTY market has Kilkenny 7/4, Fenton 5/2 and Cillian O’Connor 4/1, all the way out to Rock at 12/1 after that.
Some stand outs on the All Stars - Eoghan McLaughlin 6/4, Faulkner 5/2 (the best placed defender from outside the final pairing, rare there would be a clean sweep of all 6 from 2 teams), Con O’callaghan 11/10.
What you are saying is for the most part spot on but Kerry and Mayo have in most of their championship meetings against Dublin over the last decade pushed Dublin all the way.
Dublin v Kerry
2011 Dublin won by 1
2013 Dublin won by 7 (level on 70 minutes, 2 Dublin goals in injury time)
2015 Dublin won by 3
2016 Dublin won by 2
2019 Draw and Dublin won replay by 6
Dublin v Mayo
2012 Mayo won by 3
2013 Dublin won by 1
2015 Draw and Dublin won replay by 7
2016 Draw and Dublin won replay by 1
2017 Dublin won by 1
2019 Dublin won by 10
Outside of Mayo and Kerry, since Dublin started their 5 in a row run in 2015, nobody else has given them a game.
The biggest factor in a lot of those Dublin wins over Kerry and Mayo was the Dublin bench and the calibre of substitute they could bring on. Mayo probably had the bare 15, if even that.
Kevin McManamon off the bench swung 2011 & 13 v Kerry, Alan Brogan 2015 v Kerry, Cormac Costello 2016 replay v Mayo, Diarmuid Connolly 2017 v Mayo.
Reducing the number of substitutes is a simple enough move that could be implemented quickly enough.
1 Like
You also have to point Out that those Kerry teams that ran Dublin so close weren’t great teams either. They were usually carrying two or three passengers at least and maybe one or two lads who were well past their best. Kerry had some fairly bad defeats in the football championship this decade to Down, Galway and cork in particular. They weren’t much of team.
Dublin clearly have had a really great team but it’s slowly breaking up now but they were also blessed to have a great side in an era when any county capable of matching them were a basket case Or in transition. Only really mayo have had their house in order in the last decade.
It’s all a conspiracy …before both semi finals were even played John Horan was on the late late show saying Sam will not be leaving Dublin this year …
Player ratings are gas. In the Examiner no Tipp player got less than a 6 with a good few 7s and two 8s thrown in
I’ve long thought that simply reducing the game to 13 a side would be most simple and effective way to improve it as a spectacle and make it more competitive.
At a stroke it would create loads more space on the pitch and likely mean more kicking to cover more ground.
It would make the game more competitive as you’ve rightly pointed out that other teams don’t have the spread of quality Dublin have.
1 Like
I’m old enough to remember when 31 counties sneered and laughed every year when Dublin crashed out of the championship - McStay on co-commentary barely able to keep the glee from his voice.
You don’t hear much sneering these days thankfully 
2 Likes
McStay has some about-turn done, if that was true
Yes and no. Dublin had just 6 starters the other night who started the 2015 final against Kerry - Cluxton, Cooper, McCarthy, Fenton, Kilkenny and Rock. They’re still some force of nature for a side that has lost players of the calibre of Alan & Bernard Brogan, Paul Flynn, Diarmuid Connolly and Jack McCaffrey over the last few years. Cian O’Sullivan and Philly McMahon you could say as well from the full back line. The likes of Kerry 1975-86 and Kilkenny 2006-15 just stopped winning for a long time once their great players retired en masse and it was cylical as they simply didn’t have those calibre of players to replace them.
The days of counties with small picks wining All Irelands like you had from the 1930’s through to the early 1990’s with Cavan, Roscommon, Offaly and Derry are long gone. Nearly all the counties at the top of the roll of honour - Kerry, Dublin, Galway, Cork, Meath, Down, Kildare, Tyrone, Mayo and Donegal are counties with decent sized populations and traditions, some more so than others. They’re the only counties really with the weight of numbers that could now aspire to win an All Ireland.
Quite apart from issues relating to Dublin, the standards in Meath, Cork, Galway and Down have been shocking for a very long time. Galway possibly getting their house in order and Cork winning again at underage level. They’d all be better advised getting their own house in order rather than carping excessively about Dublin.
2 Likes
So Dublin rented out a gym for their football team. Shocking carry on. How can a normal county compete with that?
Why don’t they get their house in order.
Why don’t they pull their socks up.
When Dublin could do neither for decades and had to get millions in special funding and country people to organise it for them. Look at the dublin posters here who refuse to acknowledge that overfunding (which they asked for and got) brings any benefit
2 Likes
Like saying other cyclists should stop whining about Lance Armstrongs success and get their house in order.
Ah for fuck sake.
1 Like