Tyrone will win the AI me thinks. ive just thrown 100 on them there today anyway.
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You wont be far off I suspect. It looks a potentially soft year and they have the hardest nastiest edge to them at present. The rest could be bringing knives to a gunfight.
Incidentally, those wailing about Kerry making an All Ireland semi final by only beating Munster teams forget how things used to work before the back door.
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Major doubts now over Tyrone form lines when you see how awfully the Ulster sides have performed outside of Ulster in facing non-Ulster opposition. Reality is Tyrone have faced nothing yet. Mayo or Cork will have every chance of beating Tyrone in the quarter finals.
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Thanks for that, Geoff.
#stick it on the wall
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How many non division four sides have Ulster sides beaten in the qualifiers ?
After doing some research on this I would suspect the statement that Clare have one of the smallest football picks in Ireland if not the smallest is bullshit.
It’s a county with a population of 120,000 odd thousand. It has 5 league divisions with 40 clubs. It has 4 different Championship grades.
While unqestionably there would be a big pull away from football with the dominance of hurling there would be a reasonable pick there compared to other small counties and that is a significant dynamic, it doesn’t really add up with your claims.
Fermanagh by contrast has a population of 60k odd, about 20-25k of that would be a unionist population. It has about 20 clubs in the county, many of whom are absolutely tiny, Eoin Donnelly’s Coa being a prime example. It has 2 league divisions and 2 Championships.
I would assume there are other counties working off far less numbers playing wise, so easy on the exaggeration.
That’s not to take anything away from Clare, they are doing extremely well for what they at their disposal and deserve a lot of credit.
Would they not be better of having a double header in Limerick
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I can’t understand the GAA obsession with double headers.
It actually makes sense for these two matches. And Limerick would be the ideal location. Don’t begrudge Tipp or Clare a day in Croke but the place will be like a ghostown
I agree it makes no sense to play this in Croker, I just don’t understand the GAA obsession with playing two different games at the same venue.
As far as I’m concerned, all games outside the semi-finals, final and Leinster final should be held outside Croke Park unless the demand for ticket necessitate a quarter final be played there.
Nothing worse than playing a game in a quarter empty stadium.
its a no brainer really, bring alot more interest to the games especially where they are hosted. along with a much better atmosphere at the games.
There’s quarter final / semi final combo tickets and the likes sold already for Croke Park so I’d say moving it is a non runner.
There are plenty of grounds in the south of the country well capable of hosting a double header mind you
thats it, its a selling point for ten year tickets too, it just happens that limerick might suit geographically, but teams should relish every opportunity to get used to playing in croker.
I said one of the smallest. Fermanagh is smaller, well done.
But they only play football. Many of Clares divisions would simply be 2nd teams and hurling clubs passing the time. Other than the odd lad most players come from 3/4 clubs in the West. Eire in Ennis tends to provide a few here and there and Cratloe. But its still very largely Kilkee, Kilmurray, Miltown. And the point i was actually making was its deceptive because the numbers would show a reasonably playing population, just like football in East Cork, where as the reality is the licals treat it as fitness training.
If i said it was a bigg achievment than Fermanaghs or undermined Fermanaghs achievments then you could also pull. But i didn’t and this is a perfect example of stats telling an unrealistic picture.
Anyway, ask one of the Clare lads.
Anyway, great achievement by them and Colm Collins.
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Longford, Leitrim, Carlow, Wicklow, Sligo, Waterford etc.
There are plenty of counties with a smaller, similar footballing pick to Clare.
All football counties bar Waterford who probably have a similar footballing area.
You are being fooled by an imaginary line.
I would go out on a limb and guess that the majority of those counties have less registered gaelic footballers than Clare.
Louth is a soccer county.
You could. It would be an awful waste of time though. Go away and prepare yourself for your week or something will ya ffs.
My point has been made.