Donaghy i will give you.
Others are young. Young has never been as fit for as long.
Was he aware of the concussion?
Given that pretty much everybody in the stadium was immediately aware of the concussion, my strong belief would be that yes, he was.
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But you don’t know.
Have you ever stood on the sideline at a match as a coach. Even underage or Junior level?
They are not young.
O’Sullivan is 30. Has been on the panel since 2005.
Young turns 30 in January. Has been on the panel since 2006. If he is in the shape of his career then surely that flies in the face of your panning of Fitzmaurice?
Walsh is 32, he has been on the panel since 2006.
That’s 6 of the starting 14 outfield players who are 30 or well overy it. It’s an old team and mother nature will take its course. They got overran by Dublin in the end - that was always going to happen. They have done well to milk so long out of some of these players but Fitzmaurice now needs a major overhaul.
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What a weak response, and by such you’re incredibly now actually implying that managers should never be expected to be able to recognise emerging patterns of play during a game and/or tactical switches that need to be made, and also implying that Gavin and pretty much every other manager in the game haven’t a clue what they’re doing by standing on the sideline.
O’Carroll was obviously barely able to stand up, the game was held up for a number of minutes as a result and yet you’re implying that it would be acceptable for a manager to not recognise this because he’s standing on the sideline.
There were 2 Dublin players concussed that day I believe. Who was puking on the bench?
Edit - it was Cooper. Not sure why he was left there and not ambulanced to hospital.
Major overhauls rarely work, especially in amateur provincial based sports.
Connolly - on Dublin squad 10 years
Brogan - on squad 11 years
Cluxton - on squad 15 years
McManamon - on squad 7 years
Bastick - on squad 7 years
McCarthy - on squad 8 years
O’Sullivan - 7/8 years
Plenty miles on the clock there too.
A well looked after team, on a constant basis, can remain healthy and at the top for longer.
Why would Gavin leave him on if he knew he was concussed? It wouldn’t be clever to leave a concussed full back on the field. It’s not like he was going to change the game with a moment of genius.
Nothing weak about it, and i woukd criticize Gavin on it, but your want to undermine my points on another manager (who i actually think gets an awful lot right) by using a very sketchy sotuation another manager was in without the slightest knowledge of his knowledge is embarrassing really. And typical of your moving the goal posts policy of recent years.
I have said my piece. I have work to do. Carry on.
Bastick didn’t play.
Cluxton is a keeper.
Dublin had 1 outfield player over the age of 30 start against Kerry in Bernard Brogan.
Kerry had 5 starting.
It’s a young man’s game now.
The decline of players can be rapid once they hit 30 - see Karl Lacey - particularly the more the game evolves.
All subs were used. O’Carroll finished the game out with concussion and O’Gara finished it out with a torn hamstring
Kerry teams over the last decade have all had a fair sprinkling of players well into their 30s.
Aidan O’Mahony was still there this year at 36.
Marc O’Se also still there at 36.
Colm Cooper is still there at 33.
Kieran Donaghy is still there at 33.
Donncha Walsh is still there at 32.
Tomas O’Se played until he was 35.
Paul Galvin played until 35.
Darragh O’Se was at the top of his game until retiring at 34.
Tommy Griffin played until 34.
Eoin Brosnan played until 33.
Tom O’Sullivan played until he was almost 33.
Seamus Moynihan was a month shy of 33 when he retired after a 15 year career after the 2006 final.
Michael McCarthy went on until 32.
@caomhaoin tells us that Kerry players are suspicious of modern preparation methods, that they don’t know what they’re doing. This simply doesn’t tally with facts.
Kerry players are generally able to play for longer at a higher level than players from other counties.
That doesn’t happen if those players don’t know a thing or two about how to prepare properly.
Dublin had already made all their substitutions. O’Gara also stayed on despite being injured.
They generally are fresher as they have a free run until August pretty much every year while sides from Ulster have to slog it through from May.
But if they are caught by a younger team for legs then it’s hardly surprising. They’re old.
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How would a manager not be aware of one of his players not being concussed when it was so obvious to everybody else in the stadium?
Does that really sound like a plausible situation?
Your theory is that Fitzmaurice wilfully ignores every bit of knowledge of preparation he has picked up over his twenty-odd years with the most successful squad in the country, and that’s working with some very highly-rated people. That doesn’t make any sense for a guy who comes across as intelligently as Fitzmaurice does.
You “know” he took over the prep himself? Is that from the same source you “knew” he was quitting the job?
You seem to have arrived at a conclusion about him a while ago and now every little utterance and half-baked rumour is presented as supporting that conclusion.
“Any time we’re doing the runs in training, they’re always up there at the top of the group. So there’s no lack of legs, it’s more about having the ball and that’s why when people look at Dublin they say they’re full of pace and full of running, but that’s because they have the ball so much and they’re very good at supporting each other and driving on.”
This one sentence (taken as gospel) apparently “expised a very fundamantal misunderstanding of speed and physical preperation”. That’s a fair leap.
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Old rating.
A player in his mid 30s, no matter how well they look after themselves, will not be able to last the pace as well as say, a 25 year old. That should be obvious.
I agree that if there are too many players from say 32 and up in a team, then against a team like Dublin, fresher legs will probably tell in the end.
But all those players I mentioned clearly know a thing or two about preparation if many of them are playing until their mid-30s. It’s just about getting the balance right in terms of age. But you still have to work with what you have. Fitzmaurice clearly felt that those players were too valuable in terms of football ability to leave out in favour of younger players who aren’t as good. There was really very little more he could have done in the semi-final or in the preparation for it that would have changed things - Kerry performed at pretty much the peak of their ability and were beaten by one of the greatest teams ever.
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Dublin have an average age of 27.3
Kerry have an average of 27.6