Was talking to a lad that covers them yesterday and he said the word is that the Canadians will put mega money into the team on the pitch if they get up.
He thought himself it might be as much as two years too early but the team have trained like dogs this season (sometimes twice a day) and deserve every success they get. Reckons there’s a lot of good local young lads not playing because it fucks their work situation with the weekday away games.
Thanks for all the well wishes and pm’s. Myself and @Little_Lord_Fauntleroy are taking them all in
KOH
Hope it works out
Second that
Is the Supervalu beside the RSC the way to go parking-wise for Waterford? @Corksfinedtboy
Ciaran Kilduff has resigned.
Not looking good for Dundalk.
Yeah
Small walk to the ground
I’d imagine Kilduff will steer clear of both Waterford and city if offered
Wouldn’t blame him
Hope Dundalk sort out their woes,
As we don’t deserve a second craic at a premier place
October 30 2025 12:37 PM
HAS it been a good League of Ireland season?
As the finishing line approaches for domestic action – European games will continue until December 18 – it’s a fair enough time to consider the point.
Certainly, for ardent followers of the league, it has been compelling although followers of clubs entering Saturday’s finale with uncertainty around their standing might use different adjectives. The fact that we have three teams on 51 points and three teams on 38 points heading into the last round of fixtures backs up the view that a ten team topflight is best for drama.
Yes, it’s true that the race for fourth will be irrelevant if Cork City shock Shamrock Rovers in the FAI Cup final and I do expect that the team who finishes in the relegation spot will prevail against the First Division side but, still, we don’t have a dead rubber in the final round of fixtures.
In the negative column, the title race has basically been over since the summer despite the illusion created by the delayed Shamrock Rovers coronation. Aidan Fitzmaurice was there last night for the final leg and heard Stephen Bradley speak of his relief that it’s now out of the way. Sean O’Connor’s piece on how the league was won has been repurposed several times in the last month.
Virgin Media took on extra games along the way and it’s just a shame for the sole rights holder that they haven’t been given a storyline to compare with Damien Duff’s success with Shelbourne that generated a record-breaking audience for the league. As it happens, the audience for Cork City’s FAI Cup semi final success on RTE has been the clear pick of the autumn figures because it fell on a good night and had that winner takes all sense of jeopardy around it.
There is no doubt that Duff’s exit from the scene has reduced eyeballs on proceedings in general. Figures back this up. His ability to say things that went way beyond the usual parish was a major asset and it’s been noticeable that certain general interest shows aren’t paying as much attention now without the easy reference point.
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Shamrock Rovers manager Stephen Bradley, right, and assistant coach Glenn Cronin celebrate after winning the SSE Airtricity Men’s Premier Division title following the Premier Division victory over Galway United at Tallaght Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile
Granted, that could also be traced to the one-horse nature of the league race. But there’s also slow ticket sales for the FAI Cup Final at this point with Cork City’s indifferent year and a busy Rovers schedule contributing to the lack of energy around that fixture.
That might change when the weekend is out of the way and there’s a full focus but nobody is talking about a sellout, even though Rovers’ search for a double should draw out some of their floaters at the last minute. 25,000 tickets ‘gone’ at this stage is now underwhelming because of the view that 45,000 attendees is attainable with the right combination.
Perhaps this is an important reality check around the positivity of recent years. Ultimately, the post-covid buzz was largely created by the evidence that more people were attending games and speaking positively about it but there had been warnings that a plateau was likely. Leading clubs hit the ceiling of their ability to entice new fans because of capacity limits, and those issues remain around marquee fixtures. Hence the value of the Bohs-Rovers Aviva experiment and there’s a strong argument to do this again going forward.
Tallaght has space but there seems to be a degree of complacency creeping in there unless it’s an extremely enticing encounter. Season tickets are priced so reasonably that supporters can afford to pick and choose but the example of Cork City shows what happens when you go too far with prices, so it’s a delicate balance.
There is a niggling feeling, though, that while the league generally remains in a good place – and the recent academy funding award proves that the penny has dropped about the importance of building it further – there is a need for some fresh storylines heading into next term.
Mason Melia’s exit will remove one angle of interest and the hope is that Victor Ozhianvuna and Michael Noonan will step into the breach although the latter is eligible to leave next summer, but some of the better youths are at clubs where they will need to be outstanding to play regularly at this age. Owen Elding was a great story this year because he blossomed in an environment where he was guaranteed minutes once he showed what he could do. And we’ll probably be saying goodbye to him too. The talent pool still isn’t deep enough to be able to comfortably absorb the annual loss of the brightest lights.
But still, if 2024 was a vintage year, almost a culmination of that early 2020s buzz and enthusiasm then 2025 is a reminder that the bar of expectation has now been raised. “Can anyone stop Rovers?” cannot be the theme for the rest of the decade. Fans of the league have been wrapped up in this season’s drama, but a fresh cast of characters and plotlines is required to bring it up another notch.
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KOH
Gent! Thanks as always chief.
Welcome
And bate them fuckin stupid pls
Ahhhhhh lads are A1 Tbf
Fecking langers
Tut tut Starry
That pod kept a lot of us from going OTT reference because club has been ran into the ground by usher and company,
Fans voice
Bit of craic same as all pods, but they made a tit of themselves with their predictions in that clip bud.
has to be done
Honestly despite the perceived anti shamrock craic at city it’s really Bohs the pretend wokies that we can’t stand, then Shels.
Nobody cares about Cork mate
Great party atmosphere building already in Tallaght
KOH