Calling TWCB

Good article by Eamonn Sweeney today in the Sunday Indo

Put it in the proper thread please

post it up please

the local shop must have sold out as I couldnt see it there today

Squire must be a happy man tonight mate

GGA shame reached new low levels over the wknd.

yes, had an email from him this morning and he was fairly bullish

how are you mate?

[quote=“The Wild Colonial Bhoy, post: 808198, member: 80”]yes, had an email from him this morning and he was fairly bullish

how are you mate?
[/quote]
Delighted for him. One of the few decent Cork people I know.

I’m ok mate. Today will be tough with it being Cab Sav’s anniversary but apart from that, all is well.

Hope you and the girls are all in tremendous form.

[quote=“thedancingbaby, post: 808201, member: 48”]Delighted for him. One of the few decent Cork people I know.

I’m ok mate. Today will be tough with it being Cab Sav’s anniversary but apart from that, all is well.

Hope you and the girls are all in tremendous form.[/quote]

yes, they are flying

have the Galway races been on yet?

Is your horse running?

[quote=“The Wild Colonial Bhoy, post: 808202, member: 80”]yes, they are flying

have the Galway races been on yet?

Is your horse running?
[/quote]
Great to hear. Give them all my regards.

Start today

He’s running on Friday all going well

[SIZE=5][FONT=Trebuchet MS][SIZE=14px]On Saturday of last week, the hottest day of the great heatwave, I went to Pearse Stadium to see Galway play Armagh in the football qualifiers. It was 5.0 in the evening but the temperature was still up around the 30 degree mark.[/SIZE][/FONT][/SIZE]

[SIZE=10px][FONT=Trebuchet MS][LEFT][SIZE=4][SIZE=14px]ALSO IN [/SIZE][/SIZE][/LEFT][/FONT][/SIZE]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS][SIZE=14px]Men who’d given their all poured with sweat, their limbs contorted into various attitudes of exhaustion as they steeled themselves to try and last the whole 70 minutes without collapsing from cramp or heatstroke.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS][SIZE=14px]That was the fans. The players were grand, they kept going at full tilt in conditions when even sitting still proved to be something of an endurance test for the average citizen. And the sight of them continuing to make energy-sapping runs in the closing stages really brought home to me how much we take for granted the extraordinary physical conditioning and mental fortitude of inter-county GAA players. They are, after all, amateur sportsmen with jobs to go to yet for the last couple of weeks as Irish temperatures rivalled those in the Bahamas, they whizzed up and down the pitches of the country with the blithe unconcern of athletes who hail from some high-altitude spot in the vicinity of the Equator.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS][SIZE=14px]Whatever you think about modern Gaelic [U]football[/U], and I think it’s pretty good most of the time myself, you certainly can’t fault the effort put in by modern Gaelic footballers.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS][SIZE=14px]Yet we’re inclined to take that effort for granted. The same goes for another remarkable feature of our native games, the extreme good nature of the spectators. Because when you walked into Pearse Stadium, you didn’t worry about whether the fans nearest you came from Armagh or Galway, you just plonked down in the handiest seat. And you did this because you knew that no matter what happened in the game there would be no trouble between the opposing fans.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS][SIZE=14px]There were flashpoints in the game; Clare referee Rory Hickey denying Galway some obvious frees early in the second half, a couple of off-the-ball incidents as the game wound to a close, yet even during these the opposing fans maintained their benign relationship towards each other. And when the game ended, they drifted down into Salthill together.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS][SIZE=14px]This fellow feeling between GAA fans which means there’s never a question of segregration at matches is a great thing. And it’s not inevitable. For example, as I write this I’m considering a trip to The Showgrounds to watch[U]Sligo Rovers[/U][/URL] play [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Shamrock_Rovers’][U]Shamrock Rovers[/U][/URL] on Saturday night in the League of [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Republic_of_Ireland_national_football_team’][U]Ireland[/U][/URL]. Yet I’m doing so with a certain heaviness of heart. [B]Because on their previous two visits to Sligo the Shams fans have damaged property, attacked a local pub, thrown bottles at players, landed flares on the pitch and generally gave a piss-poor impersonation of the kind of English soccer hooligan your wannabe Irish terrace hard man would run a mile from in real life.[/B] They acted the same way at [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Linfield_FC’][U]Linfield[/U] earlier this season.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[SIZE=10px][FONT=Trebuchet MS][SIZE=14px]This is not unique to Shamrock Rovers, though a certain section of their support is a by-word for nastiness in the League. Earlier this season, some [U]Drogheda United[/U][/URL] fans ran amok in The Showgrounds when they assaulted a handicapped fan and ventured on to the pitch to get into a [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Rowing_at_the_2012_Summer_Olympics’][U]row[/U][/URL] with a player. The League of [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Republic_of_Ireland_national_football_team’][U]Ireland’s[/U] crowd numbers are minuscule compared to those at GAA matches yet this kind of stuff happens too often. So, while I’ll have been in Sligo last night, I’ll have been wary of my eight-year-old daughter witnessing anything untoward. And it goes without saying that there’ll have been no repeat of the unsegregated crowd at Salthill or the heartening ambience they created. GAA fans are lucky that way.[/SIZE][/FONT][/SIZE]

Im commandeering this thread to let @TWCB know that hoops old boy Enda Stevens went on emergency loan to Notts Co. This morning and he will be starting against Liverpool tonight.

Sweeney is right, that Galway/Armagh match was the game of the season:clap:

@The Wild Colonial Bhoy - Anthony Pilkington starts for Norwich tonight.

more crap from Sweeney

[LIST]
[]an anti irish agenda?
[
]celtic being average?
[*]naming teams that might qualify but not taking into account the strength of the groups they are in
[/LIST]
[B]

EAMONN SWEENEY, NNI SPORTS COLUMNIST OF THE YEAR[/B]

[SIZE=5]Giovanni Trapattoni[/URL] has just presided over one of the great disasters in the history of Irish football. Our attempt to make the 2008 European Championships under [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Steve_Staunton’]Steve Staunton is held up as a laughable nadir. Whatever you said about Trapattoni, we believed, he wouldn’t allow a repeat of something like that.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][B]There can’t be a European Cup without Irish provinces, insists Penney[/B][/SIZE]

Yet Staunton’s team did manage to take a total of six points out of a possible eighteen against their three main rivals in the group, Germany[/URL], the [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Czech_Republic_national_football_team’]Czech Republic[/URL] and [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Slovakia_national_football_team’]Slovakia[/URL]. Trap’s men, on the other hand, have earned a pathetic two out of fifteen in the 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign against the slightly weaker trio of Germany, [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Sweden_national_football_team’]Sweden and Austria which will become two from eighteen when Germany put us to the sword in Cologne next month.

Even during the 1986 World Cup qualifying campaign, a legendarily disastrous expedition which led to the appointment of Jack Charlton, Eoghan Hand’s team managed to take the equivalent of seven points from eighteen against the top three teams in the group.

It’s not exaggerating to say that we have witnessed the worst effort by an Irish team to qualify for a major competition since we took one point from six games when trying to qualify for the 1970 World Cup, back in the antediluvian days of part-time managers and players not being released by their clubs in England.

The past two years have been a disgrace. And if only to show that they believe the Irish football public deserves better, the FAI had to give Giovanni Trapattoni[/URL] the road as quickly as possible. The bell had to be put on the cat. There was no point handing the man a glass of whiskey and a revolver and expecting him to do the decent thing. [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/John_Delaney’]John Delaney and his minions had to get their hands dirty.

Time was of the essence not merely for reasons of pride but because for once there is an outstanding candidate available. Martin O’Neill[/URL]'s outstanding achievement in bringing an very average [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Celtic_FC’]Celtic[/URL] side to the 2003 [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Union_of_European_Football_Associations’]UEFA[/URL] Cup final where they were edged out by an [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/FC_Porto’]FC Porto[/URL] side good enough to win the following season’s [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/UEFA_Champions_League’]Champions League[/URL] showed he understands the game beyond the confines of these islands. His managerial career in both England and [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Scotland’]Scotland[/URL] has been an object lesson in getting the most of relatively limited players. As an international player, he played on a [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Northern_Ireland’]Northern Ireland[/URL]team which punched above its weight like no other Irish team in history. And, importantly, fans will believe that he has the best interests of Irish football at [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Heart_(musician)’]heart.

Giovanni Trapattoni[/URL] and [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Marco_Tardelli_(footballer)’]Marco Tardelli, on the other hand, gradually came to seem like two men who had little respect for not just Irish football but the country itself. The buffoonish Tardelli, Leporello to his boss’s Don Giovanni, was especially guilty of this but Trapattoni too seemed increasingly impatient with the country which had brought him back into international management.

It was notable that the most of the players who were shabbily treated by the manager, Andy Reid[/URL], Steven Kelly, [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Darron_Gibson_(footballer)’]Darron Gibson[/URL], James McClean and[URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Wes_Hoolahan’]Wes Hoolahan were Irish born.

His dwindling band of apologists liked to say that Trap didn’t have players as good as those available to Jack Charlton. But this was a nonsensical argument. Ireland[/URL] weren’t playing against Jack Charlton’s Irish team. Right now, with two rounds of games left, [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Bosnia’]Bosnia-Herzegovina[/URL], [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Iceland’]Iceland[/URL], [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Hungary’]Hungary[/URL],[URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Albania’]Albania[/URL], Austria and [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Montenegro’]Montenegro are all in with a chance of making the 2014 finals. It’s the likes of those teams we are competing against. And right now we find ourselves behind Iceland, Albania and Montenegro in the international pecking order. Trapattoni should be ashamed of himself.

The man was paid a huge wage to qualify the Irish team for major tournaments. He did it once in three attempts.

So don’t be sad because one out of three ain’t good.

Insane comment about Irish born players. Eamonn is fairly thick and unfortunately that shows through in his writing. He compares this team’s results to other campaigns and then says you can’t compare the players because Ireland weren’t playing Ireland. What a simpleton.

That “very average” Celtic side would have murdered the current Ireland team.

+1

although we like to use the term smashed on this forum

That’s a very, very bad article.

I had the misfortune of getting stuck in bad traffic in Seabury around 8.30 am this morning. I know some of your investment property portfolio is around there, could you do some work behind the scenes and get it sorted? Ta.

Ta Kev, once I know I hold a different view to you, I know I’m doing ok.