Angry fans
I AM NOT able for the
disappointment of Limerick
being beaten anymore. I hate
losing. I really do! Just the
whole horrible empty feeling. I
looked forward to Sunday’s
match for months and then
bang!! I stayed in on Saturday
night and rented ‘No Country
for Old Men" (which I enjoyed)
and little did I know that it
would be as good as it would
get for me!
A sad
case. Try Kevin
Costner’s ‘Field of
Dreams’ before the next
game. It’ll really get you
in the mood. Or
‘Dances with Wolves’, starring
Brian Cody and the 2008
Kilkenny panel.
I FULLY AGREE with Tony
Considine when he stated on
yesterday’s ‘Examiner’ that the
Munster Championship is dying
on its feet. Maybe the novelty
is wearing off seeing the same
counties battling it out year
after year, but I have my
doubts. I believe the back
door system has a lot to do
with it. Over the years, once
the draw for the Munster
championship was made,
people would plan ahead for
that day in the knowledge that
it might well be the only day
out they would get. But the qualifiers changed all that.
Now some of the greatest
supporters in all the counties
are not travelling to the earlier
rounds.
For example, Clare v
Waterford and Clare v
Limerick.
Next year the GAA will be 125
years in existence. Just for that
year alone let’s forget about
the Munster and Leinster
Championships. Let’s have an
open draw involving the five
Munster and five Leinster
counties plus Galway and
Antrim. If Nickey Brennan and
Central Council are worried
about losing money they can
have it played on a home and
away basis.
If
the Munster
championship is dying
on its feet where does
that leave poor
Leinster? Six feet
under? Time to move on to
an open draw in both hurling
and football, with no back
door. Only a trap door into
exterior darkness for the
defeated counties. Harsh,
maybe. But it will concentrate
minds again.
ANY good hurling team
would have beaten
Wexford easily on
Sunday. We need a complete
revamp of the team from
management to players and
let’s start playing our underage
talent rather than having them
sitting on the bench. I fear
forWexford in the final. I
suppose we’ll give Kilkenny
their usual 30 minutes run for
it and still end up getting
hammered in the end.
A Tick in the Book for
not looking at Sunday
this way: Wexford now
have Leinster finalists
in both hurling and
football for the first time in
more than fifty years. That’s a
proud chievement! I admire
counties likeWexford who
keep both codes going to a
high standard rather than just
cynically concentrating on one
to the exclusion of the other.
Funny, how it often happens in
counties whose names begin
with a ‘K’. And we don’t mean
‘Kildare’.
Sligo were no test for the
green and red of Mayo. The
game underlined once again
how the standard of football
has fallen off in Connacht.
Sligo and Roscommon are
nowhere. Galway and Mayo
are just average. Leitrim will
feel aggrieved that they are not
in the qualifiers as I'd rate
them third best in the province
at the moment.
Leitrim
were unlucky not to have been
drawn against Sligo because, on
Sunday’s form, they’d have
beaten them. But isn’t it time
to scrap a 5-county provincial
championship that is
increasingly just an annual
‘Round Robin’ between two or
three counties and move
instead to an open draw with
the rest of the country?
I think it is time for
Paddy Crozier to step
down as Derry football
boss. The disgrace of Saturday night was a massive
let down for all genuine Derry
fans. GAA managers at
county level are not judged on
League results. It’s the
championship that counts and
that’s three years in a row
Derry have capitulated when it
counts.
A
touch of the Justin
McCarthy approach?
The guy brings the
county to a League title
and then you dump him? Paddy Crozier got the job for
three years. Why not give him
that time before wielding the
axe? Or at least wait and see
how this season pans out.
This idea of dropping the
manager after the first set back
is a recurring one in Derry
football and partly explains why
the county has taken so long
to return to the top ranks of
football.
THE BEST BIT of ‘The Sunday
Game’ was the Aprés Match
skit that was on just before it.
They certainly got Spillane right
down to a ‘tee’.
I
thought the guy who
played Pat in the sketch
was even better than
the original. In fact, I
had to look carefully
every few minutes to see
which of them was really
presenting the ‘Sunday Game’.
Good to see RTÉ having the
courage to satirise on of their
own.
AM I THE only one who gets
upset at ‘The Sunday Game’
pundits and the like calling for
common sense refereeing?
What they are basically saying
is to ignore the rules and go
with what they think is best.
How would soccer worked if
they ignored off sides because
they wanted to let the game
flow. It is up to the players to
make the game flow. The
referee does not have a quota
of fouls he is allowed blow for
and then he has to stop. If
there is constant fouling there
will be constant frees and it is
not the referees fault.
There’s a lot more
media analysis now of
refs than there used to
be and – to be honest
– some of them are
not standing up too well to the
extra scrutiny. Still, they have
a very difficult job to do. If
every one of them applied the
rules strictly every game would
be just stop / start from
beginning to end. So, they
apply some common sense but
they don’t always make the
right call. Hey, that’s life!
I WANT TO vent my
frustration regarding the
admission of students to
games.At the Cork vs Limerick
football match, my brother
wanted to join me in the
Mackey Stand for the game.
He asked if there was a student turnstile and was told:
‘Sorry, but you can only get a
student rate for the terrace
today. If you wish to go into
the stand, you must pay the full '25’. Was this a Munster
Council decision, or some local
officials flexing their financial
muscles? No turnstiles were
available on the open stand
side of the pitch either, where
many supporters prefer to
watch the game.
The
GAA shouldn’t scrap
the tradition of special
concessionary rates for
students and Old Age
Pensioners even at
major games. It sounds like
some ‘ofeeeeshal’ was out to
maximise the revenue from
bums on seats at the Limerick
game. However, a Tick in the
Book for not solving the
problem by giving the kid
brother the "25 and letting
him wash your SUV in return?
DEPENDING ON THE draw,
Cork could well be contenders
again in hurling by August. You
wonder though, if the players
might have been better off
attending training rather than
strike meetings last Spring?
I’ve
no doubt they would
have been ... and the
footballers too. Both
panels will pay a price
for the crazy start to
2008. I get the impression all
is still not well between the
hurling manager and his panel.
On the other hand, the timing
and quick conclusion of the
Waterford push on Justin
seems to have worked like a
shot in the arm, if latest
reports from the South East
are to be believed.
WHILE WALKING in the
hurling wilderness recently, my
son asked,‘Why is this place so
quiet?’. I replied that since the
Déise departed it some years
ago it had been this way. The
standard of those left in the
wilderness had declined to
such an extent that Kerry were attending prayer meetings on a
regular basis. Their prayers
had finally been answered.
They are no longer alone in
the wilderness. The Déise are
back and for probably much
longer than the last time.
They will be in their nineties when Waterford next contest a
League Final or even a Munster
Final. That means their
grandchildren will remember
them for the stupid men they
must have been because of the
action they took against the
man who had actually led them
from the wilderness.
So, now that things are almost normal again in Munster, on behalf of the Wilderness
Hurling Committee, to the Waterford senior hurlers and
their future fans a resounding –
‘Welcome back!’.
Barry, thanks for that
lyrical, almost Biblical,
description of the poor
Déise wandering in the
wilderness. At least the
lads and lassies who followed
Moses around for forty years
finally reached the Promised
Land. Let’s hope it won’t take
that long for the Tribe of the
Déise.
I WANT TO suggest a
new format for the
championship. 16
teams in Sam and 16 in Tommy.
However, while you can suggest
the 8 provincial finalists as 8 of
the 16 in Sam I am sure that
the other 8 would cause
controversy as their selection
would have to be subjective.
A very radical solution would
be to use the 4 National league
divisions as follows...GOES ON
LIKE THIS FOR ABOUT TEN
PARAGRAPHS… I suppose
this still doesn’t really solve the
league problems but maybe the
play-off format could be used
for each cup but based on your
selection criteria.
Thanks, DO, for penning
no fewer than 1,600
words on ‘reform’ of
the championship but
you’re still getting a Red
Card. If I published it all, there
wouldn’t be room for anyone
else’s comments this week! Your email is typical of the
many schemes and stratagems
people dream up to try to
improve the championship and
balance out the standards. But
isn’t the solution staring us all
in the face? Scrap the
lopsided provincial
championships. Have an open
draw for a 32-county knock
out competition. No side
doors or back doors. And the
winners play five games to truly
earn the title of All Ireland
Champions.
No doubt about this
week’s winner of our
‘Comment of the Week’
and the fantastic His ‘n
Hers t-shirts from our
pals in Puckout.com.
His colourful description
of the wandering Déise
shows that if Barry
Doyle ever gives up
attending GAA matches
he can use his
undoubted writing skills to become Ireland’s next
great novelist.
get AFR’s reaction to what you have to say. For the ‘Comment of the Week’, we have a fabulous prize of exclusive his and hers GAA t-shirts, supplied by our old pals at Puckout.com, where you can design your own club or county leisure wear.
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