Just looking at underage football roll of honour at minor and U20 / U21 level. Its amazing to see Cork top of minor AI roll of honour and 2nd only to Kerry in U20/U21 grade and to be so underachieving at senior level.
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Kilkenny after announcing his retirement on Dublin twitter account. A wonderful servant to the game and Dublin gaa. Is he 32/33?
Can’t be too many times a county does back to back All Star goalie position, with different personnel?
33
after seeing how shit VAR has been in soccer, anybody who wants to bring it into GAA is an utter simpleton who should be ignored.
even in rugby which is stop start in nature it’s still pretty shit. Looking at the ref for 20-30 mins a game while a marginal decision is replayed over and over again
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Mayo played Tyrone earlier in the championship up in Omagh so I’d say they’re well used to verbals and sledging after that. I’d agree that Mayo have been fortunate with the draw having beaten Monaghan, Meath, Cork and Louth to get here. None of them in the top 6 from the league this year. Shades of 2016 when they rocked up without having played any big guns en route and nearly caught Dublin twice.
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Have the new rules zealots said anything yet about the fact we are now 0/5 in terms of good games in the Semi Finals/Finals since Jim and co took the sledgehammer to crack the nut?
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I was thinking to myself the final could be a cracker if it was played under the old rules
That’s where you could have left it
Thanks Captain Hindsight. The comment was put after the shite loss so it was fair at the time.
He’s mugged you right off there
This is the way with the new rules pal. The overall quality of what we’re watching is miles above what it used to be, in particular from 2014-2024. Make up yer mind
Yesterday was a bad advert for the new rules, when two teams drop deep and defend zonal combined with two teams playing slow no risk attacking stuff, the game resembles basketball, high probability you will get next shot off of in possession, the defending dictates where.
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Tbh im a fan of the new rules but yesterday was a very poor game and a lot of it resebled some of worst of the old rules football.
When it develops into one of these ‘slow attacks’ at 11v11, nobody is going to hunt the ball down aggressively and you are left with Paidi Clifford or someone doing keepy uppys by himself somewhere between the 45 and 65 with no fear of anyone coming after him from behind.
When it was 15v15, you could take a chance on it at least. Like what Dublin did so well in the last quarter of the 2019 final even when a man down and the goalie was in use.
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When Kerry were probing & circulating the ball back & around the arc Paudie Clifford would do a little scan over his shoulders most times when receiving it to ensure nobody from behind him was a threat. He could then hold it to his heart’s content.
I think the next development under these shite new rules will be defensive units taking the key learnings from hide & seek, tag & tip the can to disrupt the attacking orchestrator in different ways.
Maybe Clifford’s scan behind him could be the trigger for a defender near the sideline to embark on a sneaky, tippy toe style, shuttle run up the line towards halfway to interchange with a central attacker on halfway.
Once the defender crosses the halfway line then the attacker would be freed up to rush back & potentially dispossess Clifford. This would be the bogball version of a gridiron blitz only it would be a two-part, synchronised affair.
It could work provided the crowd don’t shout “man on” or Clifford hasn’t already passed the ball to the player left free when the first defender trots off up the line.
Plenty of things for GGA analyst types to be wrestling with as the game evolves.
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Dublin have to start forging a game plan that results in shots outside the two point side of the arc instead of just inside it .
I think if you had a type of powerplay where in the last 5 minutes of each half you could play orthodox 15 v 15 with no having to keep 3 men up it would help mitigate some of the keep ball or tippy tappy stuff we have seen at the end of games.
Over 300k spectators at the 4 AI semi finals this year. Even with Limerick and Clare fans travelling in smaller numbers that’s 80k more than 10 years ago and 150k more than 30 years ago. The redeveloped Croke Park will need to be 100k capacity minimum.
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Or “he’s behind you!!!”