the make up of the all ireland final teams in both bogball & hurling suggests otherwise
Yeah for sure. They are not coming through all the way to minor and senior. That does need to be addressed as to why they choose other sports.
Iâd advocate more funding is needed to fully solve that issue.
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sounds reasonable
âLook over there, itâs the GGAâŚâ from the government lickspittle when we should be thinking about government revision and incompetence⌠plus ca changeâŚ
ânot everyone who likes GGA is a racist, but everyone who is a racist likes the GGAâ
You hate to see it
Something I think we can all agree on. They didnt like it one bit when the the african American comedian swung a ticket for the hurling final. It seems hurling types are more racist than football countiesâŚ
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Anyone have the full Brolly article?
Santa: Ah come on, be realistic. Choose something else.
Child: Mayo to win Sam.
Santa: What colour unicorn would you like?
In the 50th minute Cillian OâConnor scored a simple free to bring Mayo level at 2-8 to 0-14. The rest was Dublin time. Paul Mannion and Brian Howard had come on. They went to battle speed and you know the rest.
David Hickey said on Saturday morning that he had âno time for this Mayo team, they are a tragic outfit. They win All-Star awards and Player of the Year awards and all that sort of crap. Dublin win All-Irelands.â
Mayo have now played in five All-Ireland finals since 2012 and lost all five. The team embodies the culture of the individual that is at the heart of Mayoâs dysfunction.
Pat Gilroy, who watched the game with me, had a simple mission statement when he took over Dublin, who were at that time very similar to this Mayo group.
âIf you are not completely happy to sacrifice yourself for the team, find another pastime.â
The group talked about this incessantly. Gilroy ruthlessly culled those players who set themselves above the group. It was, as he says, nothing personal.
âThey just werenât suited to serving a cause. It was not their fault. But they could not be accommodated. Otherwise, it is like a cancer. Leave even a little bit of it in and it will spread and eventually kill the culture,â he said.
When Darren Coen came on in the last quarter and kicked several pot-shots into Stephen Cluxtonâs hands and all over the place, Gilroy nodded at me and pointed. âThere you have it, Joe. There you have it.â
Aidan OâShea, for example, was anonymous again, but this is not his fault. He is not built to serve a cause. A lovely, personable lad he is, but a serious footballer he is not.
Like a number of others in this group, he succumbed at an early stage in his career to what Hickey calls âthe curse of individualityâ.
James Horan has a charmed group of untouchables. This is corrosive to the culture.
The others feel they are dispensable and when they are unable to logically justify the disparity in treatment, they become aggrieved, the bonds of togetherness essential for serious success are not forged and the project is doomed.
It would be patronising and dishonest to say Mayo played bravely and were only beaten by the greatest team the game has ever seen.
In 2012, they were crushed by Donegal. In 2014, by a very young Kerry team who galloped through them in the semi-final replay. Kildare beat them in 2018. They shook their heads and refused to go to war in the dying moments against Dublin in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
This group is doomed and will not win an All-Ireland until the celebrity culture is banished by a manager who is not himself a part of the celebrity culture.
Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly tried but were ejected after one season by a coup spearheaded by the charmed inner circle. Stephen Rochford brought them closer than anyone with the excellence of his coaching.
But they were doomed to fail, inevitably losing out when it came to the crunch, because Rochford did not have the courage to take on the problem.
Instead, the players quietly got rid of him after three seasons, preferring to go back to the comfort of their first coach. Things would be just the way they liked them under Horan.
Another three years of plucky failures, plenty of commercial opportunities, lots of TV time and a smattering of All-Star awards.
Dublin were scatty on Saturday and by their standards poor in the first half. Cluxtonâs kick-out was disastrous. He took six long ones, losing all six.
He kicked one too short which was thrown up, then almost gifted Mayo a goal with a kamikaze short one.
Even at half pace, Dublin reached half-time two up, courtesy of an easy training ground goal after 13 seconds and an astounding second goal from Con OâCallaghan, which underlined his all-round magnificence.
The second half was depressing. Dublinâs culture meant victory was inevitable and an easy victory at that.
This Mayo group truly does not understand the joy of football, which is all in the journey, not in the anti-climax of a victory.
They are a team that does not operate in the real world. They do not face the truth and deal with it.
Instead, they are happy with the instant gratification that comes from awards and a victory here and there. A league title. A Connacht title.
Dublin, meanwhile, are all the things that are good about life and sport. Like the All Blacks, they serve something bigger than themselves. They have total respect for the game and the opposition.
They do everything in their body to achieve the perfect performance. The needs of others are considered ahead of their own. It is inspiring and humbling. They provide us with a guidebook not just for sport, but life.
We are lucky to have them, this special, devoted, selfless collective, where the team is the star and tik tok is the sound of a clock.
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A ridiculous line in the context of this group. Nonsense article for the most part too.
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Thatâs some pile of shite from Brolly.
Insulting rubbish
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He seems to really have lost the run of himself has Joe .
The outlaw Josey Harte possibly.
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Iâm only catching up with this now.
My God those boys are some ambassadors for the game. Great taste in music too.
Robots who donât enjoy winning at all.
High on the joy of life. Is there anything Paul Mannion canât do?
Looks better craic than the Limerick lads last week standing around drinking cans.
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They have the Muldoon rattled beyond beliefâŚhappy and confident without a can of hooch in sight âŚwhat an example for the future generations ⌠a truly remarkable bunch .
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I believe he done a cracking mandarin version of Damoâs song in an unnamed Vegan restaurant in the city centre
Poor stuff from Joe
However he hasnât been the same since RTE/Joanne humiliated him