International (Lack of) Rules

Just reading about the game in Croker yest…haven’t seen any of it, was it that bad? The Aussies are a thuggish shower of fooks when they don’t get their own way in this thing, but apparently they’re denying all knowledge. Anyone there? Or anyone care? Been to a couple of tests in Croker and came out a bitter man. Dirty bar stewards.

The GAA were as much to blame. I didnt watch the match outright but i seen the news reports. It was a shocker, there was a punch up in the middle of the field involving about ten player and the referee allowed play to continue and a subsequent score stood.

There were rumours that Graeme Geraghty was deliberately targeted - he got knocked out at one stage.

This only re affirms my position that the GAA is an amateur organisation played by animals and it incites violence (yes i know this was compromise rules but its the GAA players).

I know one thing for sure, with all the moral high groound being taken by that fat fook of a GAA president that they will not, in the foreseeable future, scrap the game. Its too much of a money maker for the greedy Irish bastards.

It’s not worth debating beacuse the game is a waste of time. I don’t think that there was anything particularly nasty about Sunday’s game - the tackle on Geraghty was fair apparently but its just an absolute joke of a game.

Apaprently Croke Park was completely full on Sunday. Who are the people that went to it? They are the real criminals. I had a free ticket to the game in Salthill and was in Galway for that weekend and still didn’t go…

Farmer - I have an email in my inbox from you moaning that you had your name down for a ticket and you didn’t get one in the original distribution.

Only caught the last quarter as I was excelling in my own sorting field on Sunday, however I don’t see what all the fuss is about, on Saturday everyone was moaning that there was no bite to it and now when we get it, everyone is going mental. I wonder would we have the same uproar if the Irish team were the ones dishing out the punches? Would we f**k! We’d all be loving it. We’re just upset cos our boys took one hell of a beating. And does anyone really give a sh!t that Graham Geraghty was knocked out?! Pity McGeeney wasn’t knocked out-now there is a tosser. One All-Ireland Ciaran.

You must understand Brian that the ‘moaning email’ was a matter of principle. I was passed over and I wanted to know why. The proof of the pudding is in the eating and I didn’t go to the stupid match.

Agree totally re bolloxness of Geraghty and McGeeney but this rant isn’t connected to us getting beaten - if we had won I would be the same - its the actual game that I am against and the fact that so many Irish people will pay 60 odd bucks to see a scrap

Thats a shocking statement. Utterly shocking, whatever ones personal opinion of the man his achievements in football are quite impressive, given the fact that his career only blossomed at 28 and he only has 1 cruciate ligament. 5 or 6 Ulsters, 1 All Ireland and 3 All Stars. Not too fookin bad for a lad from a non traditional county. And the fookin leader all the way.

To say one All Ireland Ciaran(Its Kieran) is just stupid. A legend.

Non traditional county?

Non traditional means jack shit. If you look at the Armagh team when McGeeney got his success it is quite impressive. Francie Bellew, McNulty brothers, Mallon, Andrew McCann, Hughes (right half back 2002), Kernan, McGrane, Loughran, Toal, McKeever, the McEntees, McConville, McDonnell, Clarke, Marsden - in fact I would argue that Armagh had as strong as team as anyone since the turn of the century. So to commend McGeeney’s success with him being from a ‘non traditional county’ is a terrible argument. The fact is he was in a hell of a strong team. In fact you could view McGeeney’s inter county career as a failure that he has only won one All Ireland

How is he a legend exactly? All I have ever seen him do is set himself up as some sort of representative of the GAA players, when he has clearly no right to be. If it was Dara O’Se, a man who has actually won 4 All Irelands then fair enough, but McGeeney???

I remember before our match with Mayo this year, Dessie Dolan came on the Observer saying that preparations had been great this year as they took the players away to a hotel ‘popular with Kieran McGeeney’. He went down in my estimation after that. People are buying into the hype and you, Appendage, are one of them

Fair enough - you may have differing views on McGeeney but to call briantinnion’s statement ‘shocking’ is itself a shocking statement

No I stand by it, I’ve said elsewhere on this board that tradition counts. McGeeney is a vastly inferior footballer to the likes of Dara O Se, and comparing the conveyor belt in Kerry to an exceptional generation in Armagh is like comparing chalk with cheese. If tradition doesn’t count why do Kerry, Cork and Kilkenny consistently dominate?

McGeeney is pretty much a self made man and has been a massive driving force in Armagh, like him or loathe him. Granted a statement like Dessie Dolan’s is stupid, very stupid but I won’t let stuff like that detract from McGeeney’s achievements in football. He’s 35 years of age and still considered good enough to represent his country, albeit in a dubious game of made up rules.

His personality may not be the best, and a winner at all costs possibly but so what? A great player.

I am beginning to lose track of the argument

We are talking about McGeeney here. BT stated that he was an idiot (which I think that you are agreeing with) and wrote off his achievements as being small in the overall scheme of things. I mentioned the team he has had around him for the last six plus years (excellent agreed?) and have said that if anything he and Armagh have underachieved by only winning one All Ireland

You used the word ‘legend’. I think it is much more difficult to call someone a legend when you don’t like their personality. Sure it is impressive that you are still playing top level football at 35 but I am sure that other people have done it before him (Our own Mickey Quinn (5’11") for example destroyed Liam McHale (6’4") in midfield in 1997 at the grand old age of 37) and people will do it after him. My essential point is that McGeeney has done nothing to deserve legendary status and is deeply obnoxious for believing himself that he does…

McGeeney is no legend. He puts himself on a sporting pedestal akin to that of Roy Keane and the media and the public lap it up, I for one will not pander to that crap. A decent footballer, but no legend.

Tradition counts for f**k all, just because the Kerry team of the 70s were a great team, it does not translate that the Kerry team of the 2000s will be great. On any given day it’s 15 players against 15 players and what has happened before is meaningless. Tradition only counts when teams are mentally weak and allow it to affect their game. Without doubt, that Armagh team underachieved, the players they had were as good as what was in the country and one All-Ireland is a poor return. Fair play to Tyrone for doing it the second time.

As for the debate that McGeeney deserves credit for turning out for his country at 35, I do not agree. Boylan made some shocking selections, three players from Meath and omitting Matty Forde.

I was in Wexford Park earlier this year for the Wexford Armagh game and I watched Rory Staffrord put McGeeney on his arse with a shoulder and I can honestly say it was one of my most joyous sporting occasions in recent years.

Haven’t had a chance to reply to this but I watched the game on Sunday. I think there’s been a massive over reaction myself. The Irish lads were equally as culpable as the Aussies and even at that it was far from the bloodbath it’s been made out to be.

There was a bit of general off the ball scuffles at the start - mainly holding and grabbing - and it seemed as if the Aussies were trying to lay down a marker this way by targeting the key Irish players, letting them know they’d be tightly watched and waiting for a reaction. Of course the Irish lads had probably heard talk all week about an Aussie backlash and didn’t want to be seen to back down. This resulted in 15 minute sin binnings for McGeeney and Galvin among others along with their markers when this holding turned into wrestling on the turf.

What disappointed me was the failure of the Irish lads to stand up physically to this attempted intimidation within the confines of the rules of the game. (Fair play to McGeeney who was the only Irish to come out on top in one of these tussles - he firmly had the Aussie lad’s head stuck in the turf when it was broken up and they went on their merry way to the sin bin).

As for the actual dirty incidents their guy elbowed Coulter which was nasty but one of our players headbutted Ryan O’Keeffe (I know who his direct marker was but I won’t post his name because I didn’t see the incident) and burst his nose. Shane Ryan was late with a bad challenge and the one bout of group boxing developed after Aidan O’Mahony hit a lad a dig after the whistle. The Geraghty incident was marginal. The initial tackle was fair but to then sling him to the turf was illegal and dangerous. (By the way what a turncoat prick that Jim Stynes guy is - the fooking cooont).

As for the other strand to the debate. I tend to agree with Appendage here as to the tradition stakes. Initially I used to think it was a lame excuse for falling below the required standards but in amateur sport like the GAA I think the tradition factor is quite high. Will a player from a lower tier county put in the huge effort of one from Cork, Kilkenny or whoever? Probably not but because of the tradition of achievement in the top tier counties the standards are set at a higher bar, the fight to get hold of a jersey is greater and equally you have to keep performing to retain it. There’s undoubtedly players at lower level counties going through the motions who don’t or won’t make the necessary sacrifices because the tradition and expectation of winning and winning consistently isn’t there.

We have seen that for a lesser team to break the monopoly of the great sides you need a special manager - a Griffin or a Loughnane perhaps - to instill that belief that was not there. Equally Armagh under McAlinden and Canavan were forever the bridesmaids. I remember a cracking All Ireland semi final draw and replay with Kerry in 2000 when Maurice Fitzgerald was awe inspiring and Armagh were left wondering if they would ever make the breakthrough. They did primarily because of Joe Kernan along with his lieutenant on the pitch, McGeeney.

To me McGeeney is a legend. He has been a phenomenal footballer for the last 10 years and is still performing admirably at the age of 35. If someone said to me that Liam Dunne wasn’t a legend because he only won 1 All Ireland I’d tell them to take a good look at themselves and learn how the game of hurling operates. McGeeney has been the driving force and inspiration of Armagh and still is. I admire the guy greatly.

Thats bull shit . Plain and simple, Bandage and I share sentiments on this one so I’m not going to retype my argument but I think I outlined in the Mayo Dublin thread maybe. Thats not to say non traditional counties can make a breakthrough, just that it is harder.

And how does McGeeney put himself on a pedestal? All he does is train like a pro, if the media choose to hone in on this and quote him then so be it.

And another thing, it’d be alot nicer to be called 1 all ireland Ciaran than no all ireland Ciaran.

Maybe just ban football altogether, although I hear your former club are progressing nicely in Europe sam?