All-Ireland Hurling Championship 2019 II*** Up Laois

I don’t think it has to be a case of one or the other.

Easiest thing for the GAA to do is give TG4 the rights to the Joe McDonagh and televise one game every week at 3pm on the Saturday. This is the time they currently take place anyway. Let the second tier football championship take this slot then and maybe look to give the second tier one or two of the main slots slots when round 3 of the super eights and all ireland semi finals are on or ever play them as curtain raisers ahead of All Ireland semis.

You would still have your 5pm and 7pm slots on a Saturday and your 2pm and 4pm on a Sunday.

A small bit of exposure would certainly help.

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If it’s on, some people will watch it.

That seems like a good logical solution.

Logic doesn’t seem to apply to John Horan though so god only knows what kind of a melted welly of a solution we get.

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Midweek or Friday night matches would also be good, but people were driven demented when a senior championship game (maybe involving a Leinster football county like Carlow or Laois) was fixed for a Friday night. It’s grand to fix U20/U21 games for these nights as most of the players are students but you can’t have PJ and Micheál coming straight from the building site to perform at elite senior level.

It’s a psyche problem for your average GAA fan. I recall Limerick and Offaly playing a qualifier in Thurles in front of a handful of fans back around 2003 and Clare and Waterford getting less than 10k to a Munster semi final on a June bank holiday monday back in 2011.

Friday evening games between two neighboring counties could be great events and are worth trying but it will take a few years to catch on.

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I actually think that’s a fair enough complaint.

I would say that the vast majority of I/C players would have the Monday after every championship match booked off work. I don’t think it would be a huge transition for them to take a Friday off instead and have a full weekend for recovery.

I am sure the GAA could expense them for it if they really wanted Friday night games to take off.

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Friday night lights is a no brainer … a lot of muldoons working in the big smoke might find it hard to get home in time tho.

Listening to it here, McGrath is a great man to criticize.

Ger Cunningham just said that the team are relying too much on their Corkness to get them over the line. :joy::joy::joy:

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Are these Cork lads a bit simple or what’s the story?

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You should be working for the GAA.

I have an acquaintance through a mutual friend who is relatively senior in Croke Park. After being subjected to this fella a few times I often see why the GAA gets itself into muddles and lacks foresight from time to time.

This fella is a serious loss for the Civil Service.

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Derek McGrath wasn’t just down in Cork Monday to do the Podcast … Looks like he’s got the gig next year and Meyler is done.

Cork will never hire an outside manager. They are too clanish and parocial.

Meyler is the closest thing they will ever have to an outside manager

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So they’ll never hire an outside manager despite having one at the moment :thinking:

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Derek McGrath wouldn’t understand Corkness or how to use it

He played intercounty hurling for Cork and has been involved in GAA in cork for over 30 years.

Big difference between the likes of Meyler and Larry Tompkin and true outsiders like Derek McGrath being paracuted in to take over the senior hurlers or footballers.

Can you honestly see Cork bringing in someone with no ties to the county as manager?

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Derek McGrath sported and played down around the Mardyke for many a year.

He certainly sounds like he has the requisite quota of corkness for the gig