[QUOTE=âmickee321, post: 940243, member: 367â]yeah
the lads are pretty weak this year, virtually an u-20 side
ill talk to the brother later about it as he was playing last night and get the lowdown[/QUOTE]
âThe brotherâ. Will you ask him when youâre round in âthe mothersâ having âthe dinnerâ over âthe Christmasâ. Youâre some bogman 
who the fuck are you?
http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccâŚ-30263126.html
Flair worth coming out for
Eamonn Sweeney â Published 11 May 2014 02:30 AM
Iâm not ashamed of what I am. I was born this way and if other people canât accept it thatâs their problem. Thatâs not to say itâs always easy when people who donât know anything about the lifestyle pass judgement on what you do, suggest itâs somehow unnatural or pass derisory remarks about this sporting love that dare not speak its name. At times like that you do feel like saying, âI wish I knew how to quit you, League of Irelandâ.
But then there are the times when it all comes good and I realise why I made this choice and why the League Of Ireland Phobes are wrong. Like on Saturday night of last week when I watched Sligo Rovers and St Patrickâs Athletic play out a profoundly exhilarating 2-2 draw in The Showgrounds. There had hardly been time to catch a breath as the game flowed and momentum switched back and forth. Iâd gone as far as Charlestown on the way home before I realised Iâd just seen one of the finest League of Ireland matches in decades.
Perhaps the main reason for this was that St Patâs had come to Sligo with entirely attacking intentions. And this was good news because St Patâs 2014 are the most entertaining side Iâve seen in 40 years watching the league, even more so than Damien Richardsonâs swashbuckling Shelbourne side of the mid-1990s, the side of Tony Sheridan, Stephen Geoghegan, John OâRourke, Gary Howlett, Greg Costello and Mark Rutherford.
There has been, by League of Ireland standards, quite a buzz of interest about two players in particular on the Patâs team. Keith Faheyâs return from England was an intriguing prospect for many people, while Chris Forresterâs extraordinary goal against Drogheda United a few weeks ago has, via the internet, catapulted him into the consciousness of many sports fans who wouldnât be able to find Richmond Park on a map of Inchicore.
In Sligo, Fahey was superb. He sat extremely deep in midfield, barely in front of his own back four, and used the time and space gained from this positioning to give an extraordinary exhibition of passing. Almost everything Patâs did flowed from Fahey as he knocked the ball around with the casual mastery of a father placing passes for his children to chase along the beach. Striking the ball first-time, directing sumptuous crossfield passes one minute and angling beautiful deliveries over the Sligo full-backs the next, the former Birmingham City man set the entire tempo of the game.
It wasnât a perfect performance; from time to time he got a bit too ambitious and he didnât exactly seem keen to put in tackles, but it was as aesthetically pleasing a performance as Iâve seen in the League. Lucky Patâs fans to be watching this every week.
Forrester is always a pleasure to watch too and, though no one will ever mistake him for Charles Atlas, he has somewhat lost the waif-like appearance which made you wonder if heâll cope physically with English football when his chance inevitably comes. He drifted round in that weightless way of his, ceaselessly creative, ever inventive, his first touch a thing of beauty.
Yet it says a lot about where Patâs are at the moment that Fahey and Forrester probably werenât even their most dangerous players on the night. That honour fell to Conan Byrne, who is a more direct and pacey winger than Forrester on the other side and has an eye for goal and an ability to cross the ball on the run which often makes him more effective, and to Lee Lynch returning to The Showgrounds where heâd played for the previous two seasons.
I wrote last year that Lynch was the most likely Sligo Rovers player to follow in the footsteps of Seamus Coleman. I stand by that, though it appears now that he will depart from Dublin rather than Sligo.
Criminally underused by Sligo Rovers, his ability to find space, the intelligence which enables him to use that space to maximum effect and the close control which allows him to work âgive and goesâ deep in opposition territory make him another potent weapon in the Inchicore armoury.
Patâs also possess two athletic full-backs in Ger OâBrien and Ian Bermingham, who need no excuse to hurtle into attack, last yearâs Player of the Year Killian Brennan, who was on the bench on Saturday after returning from suspension, and the previous yearâs POTY Mark Quigley, out injured at the moment. Brennan and Quigley at their best are up there with both Fahey and Forrester for flair. Add in the fact that boss Liam Buckley has an almost religious devotion to open attacking football and you can see that thereâs an attacking Perfect Storm taking place in Dublin 8.
But hereâs the rub. Patâs complex and dazzling football is currently attracting a paltry average of around 1,500 fans a week. In reality, they should be seen by everyone. If theyâre playing in your town, go and bring the kids. This team really is something to see. And if your town is Dublin, make the trip to the banks of the Camac. In years to come people will talk about the days when Forrester and Fahey pulled the strings for Patâs. Donât end up being like one of those people who lie about seeing U2 in the Dandelion Market, donât depend on YouTube and rumours, see the real thing as it happens. You owe it to yourself.
Iâm not biased. My Sligo Rovers background means Iâm hardly a partisan fan of Dublin-based League of Ireland clubs. But fair is fair and St Patâs often seem undervalued to me. What glamour and hoo-ha there is in the League of Ireland usually attaches itself to Shamrock Rovers, Shelbourne or Bohemians when those teams are going well. Yet since 1990 Patâs have won five league titles, to the three won by the Hoops and the four won by Bohs. Shels have half a dozen but they find themselves down in Division One right now. There can only be one destination for the neutral in Dublin at this moment.
The eagle-eyed reader may have noticed that for all their fireworks Patâs didnât actually win in The Showgrounds. One reason is that Buckley deployed a hugely adventurous formation; of Patâs five midfielders, not one could really be described as a ball-winner or even defensively minded. So they give the opposition a chance. And the other reason is that Sligo Rovers rose to the challenge and gave one of their most thrilling performances under Ian Baraclough.
John Russell, who played for Patâs when they won the league last year, battled for midfield supremacy with Fahey, snapping at the Irish internationalâs heels so that Fahey became visibly exasperated, as though on the verge of exclaiming that he hadnât come home to be hounded by some curly-headed lad from Moycullen.
Russell also contributed a great deal creatively, arriving in the box to volley the opening the goal of the game after a flowing move which began with the best full-back in the country, Alan Keane, robbing Forrester and charging upfield before picking out centre-forward Aaron Greene who switched play with a sweeping ball to the left wing where Danny Ledwith chipped a perfect cross into Russellâs path. Any team would have been proud of a goal like that.
In Russell, the indefatigable Keane, the athletic Greene, who has been an outstanding defender, midfielder and striker for Sligo Rovers, and the sublimely gifted Ross Gaynor, who could do for the Bit OâRed what Fahey has done for Patâs if he wasnât perpetually and bizarrely marooned at left-back, my home team also have players worth going to see every week.
Itâs actually a kind of golden age of flair in the league. Dundalk have Richie Towell and Daryl Horgan, last yearâs internet goal sensation, Shamrock Rovers have Ronan Finn and Gary McCabe, Drogheda United have Gavin Brennan, Cork City have Billy Dennehy, all of them ball-players with the ability to do the unexpected and provide a memory for the ages. Iâve heard the 2-2 draw at Oriel Park between Dundalk and Shamrock Rovers described in the same kind of terms Iâve used to describe the Sligo-Patâs game. There is a lot of great stuff to come this year.
Watch if you get a chance. Not because itâs local or because itâs âreal footballâ or because youâre morally obliged to, but because right now itâs good and itâs exciting and itâs enjoyable. And if you donât, well itâs none of my business what you do in the privacy of your own stadium. People should be entitled to love what they want.
Itâs just that for me, every week is League of Ireland Pride Week.