Angry Fans
Less than a fortnight to go and already the Waterford fans are moaning about not having enough All Ireland tickets to go round. A lynx-eyed Cork fan spots a major ‘boo boo’ on a trophy in Croke Park’s GAA museum. The embarrassing error involves another type of giant Cat.
TO BORROW Páidí’s comment about ‘animals’. Beware of the wounded variety. Cork may very well celebrate their great escape but hurt can be a huge motivation and I expect Kerry to be on a major revenge mission next week-end. As for the replay and from this humble footballer-on-the-ditch, the following points are relevant (1) Kerry will not be so wasteful again. (2) Time for Cork to address the weakness in certain positions and use the best players available from the start rather than as substitutes. (3) Time and again, Cork players react too slowly to the ongoing play, the quick free etc. Kerry use the open spaces in Croke Park to full effect. Alertness, awareness and concentration from Cork are a ‘must’ for seventy minutes. (4) Better support is needed for Cussen’s breaking balls. This was missing on Sunday. (5) Cuteness. Kerry are the experts. Let’s replace naivety with some cuteness.
Fair play to you for admitting you were one of the early leavers. I can’t understand why fans leave before the end of a big game, no matter what the score line shows. You must stand by your team in bad times as well as good. You’ll hardly make the same mistake again with this bunch of Rebel footballers?
AIDAN O’MAHONY’S dive was a good dive but not a great dive. If he was a great diver he would be diving for Liverpool. The great simulators are always alert to the dive. Their motto is ‘The next dive!’ They are on their way down before the slap/tip/push even happens. It’s instinctive. O’Mahony dived too late. When he stopped roaring into O’Connor’s face after the slap, there was a moment of shock, then indecision. Only then did he throw himself down in a heap. O’Connor had slapped him right in front of the linesman. So there was no need for him to make the dive at all.
Diving for Liverpool? Are you sure you’ve sent this comment to the correct ‘Angry Fans’? KERRY DESERVED to win on Sunday. They were the better team throughout the field. They taught Cork a lesson and but for the showboating at the end would have got their deserved victory.
Why pick on Aidan O’Mahony? This class of playacting has been creeping in for a few seasons past. A few Cork hurlers weren’t beyond dropping to the grass in tight games if they came within a few feet of the likes of Tony Browne or Big Dan. However, it is reaching critical levels now in both hurling and football, along with abuse and name calling of opponents. At least O’Mahony was struck, but how many players fall over even when no contact at all is made?
ON ‘THE SUNDAY GAME’ Dara Ó Cinnéide almost blankly refused to condemn Aidan O’Mahony’s antics and he sheepishly sidestepped the whole issue. If he can’t call things as they are in a balanced manner he shouldn’t be there
Well, Tony Davis had a right ‘go’ off Dara and Kerry in general on Sunday night. For a change, it was good to see a bit of passion in the normally bland studio atmosphere. But, it’s not just Dara. It’s asking too much of human nature to ask former players to openly and strongly criticise alleged infractions by current stars from their own county on a live TV programme. There’s a simple solution. RTÉ should choose their radio and TV analysts from counties that are not playing in the matches. A BUNCH of sissies we have playing football these days. A disgraceful performance all round on Sunday helped by rules that prevent contact in a full contact sport. What do the rule makers want, basketball?
I think you’re being a bit hard on the current crop of players. Still, if it was basketball, wouldn’t Pat O’Shea and his Kerry charges be All Ireland champions at that as well?
BEFORE THE Cork v Kerry match on Sunday I went into the GAA Museum for a bit of a look around. While I was looking at the Tyrone Crystal Liam McCarthy Cup I noticed it said ‘Kilkenny All Ireland Champions 2004’. I looked further down and it had their Roll of Honour and the last year inscribed on it was 2004! Kilkenny have enough All Irelands besides people claiming they beat Cork in 2004. That would have also made them champions of the Three in a Row’ already!
Sure, Bríd what would the lads and lassies in Tyrone Crystal know about hurling? Now, if t’was Waterford Crystal made the trophy I don’t think they’d have made that howler. Well spotted! Maybe they should smash that oul trophy into smithereens and replace it with an accurate one. WHEN YOU PUT places in Mayo in Irish in a match programme, how are people supposed to know where the players are from? This is not the only instance of this happening. It happens with senior teams as well in Croke Park. If they want to have the Irish name in that is fine but they should put the English one in as well.
I wonder what the programme editor will do if someone from the famous ‘Fighting Cocks’ club, in Carlow, makes it onto a Croke Park programme. Your bilingual suggestion seems a good one, especially since most of the players’ and club names in Irish are just mangled anyway.
OUR CLUB in Waterford is only getting sixty tickets for the All Ireland senior hurling final. The scrap for tickets in a famine stricken county like ours will be savage. Loads of decent supporters will be left unhappy while the barstool men will be making a cameo appearance. There will be lots of disappointed people and we’ll have to beg, steal and kill elsewhere. For last year’s final I got a stand ticket and it was in the front row of the Canal End
Still, wouldn’t you rather have that kind of ticket problem rather than moaning over losing a sixth semi-final in ten years? Anyone who really wants a ticket can usually lay their hands on one, and there are often a fair few available for face value in Dublin on the day of the big match.
EVERY COUNTY that has hosted RTÉ’s ‘Road to Croker’ programme has lost their upcoming match in the championship the following weekend.
You could be right. From what I remember it was recorded in Sixmilebridge in Tyrone, Castlebar in Mayo, Newbridge Kildare and Mullinahone in Tipp. It’s beginning to look like a curse worse than even Biddy Earley in Clare or the famous Father Farrell in Waterford. Curiously enough, the show was recorded in Wexford before the Leinster football final as well. The Yella Bellies must be hoping that RTÉ have scheduled this week’s programme for somewhere like Ardboe in the ‘Red Hand’ county.
AS I EXPECTED, Bertie presenting ‘The Road to Croker’ turned into a fawning tribute to the supposed great Dublin v Kerry rivalry of the 1970’s. As usual, they overlooked that the majority of these games were one-sided hammerings by Kerry and the football was pretty much pure muck. But, sure, a bit of reminiscing makes Bertie look cuddly and Páidí got another opportunity to eulogise himself.
Bertie asks Páidí if he would be interested in the Dublin manager’s job. Páidí puts on a big solemn face on him and says ‘Wisha, t’would be a great honour to be asked and I’d have to consider it seriously’. Meanwhile, in a cut away shot Paddy Cullen and Jimmy Keaveny are seen bursting themselves laughing. Still, Páidí’s story of how his lucky underpants got to Croke Park in Charlie Haughey’s Merc was a bit of turn up for the books. It reminded me of the Fianna Fáil Minister from the Midlands back in the Sixties who reportedly used the State car to drawn milk churns to and from the creamery.
KILKENNY ARE on the verge of winning three-in-a-row after playing only six games in total. It’s time to change the championship format, hurling needs more high profile matches. If Waterford are to have any chance of winning since 1959 they must be prepared to run themselves in the ground for seventy minutes, be strong and physical and have no more then five wides during the full match. Maybe, just then, they might succeed.
When you put it like that, Rebel Mick, it does take some of the sheen off the achievement. But, what about those Galway titles where they used to join the championship at the semi-final stage? I remain convinced that a 32-county knockout championship is the way to go in both hurling and football. It would take at least five victories to win that title.
YOU WOULD have to wonder about some of the GAA media. The so-called ‘experts’ in the newspapers, radio and TV strongly went for Tipp. All credit to the ‘Examiner’s’ Jim O’Sullivan for giving Waterford a vote of confidence. Nearly all the others took the easy option and jumped on the Tipp and Dublin bandwagons! Of course, there is one other newspaper columnist I must give credit to Davy Fitzgerald. Well done Davy, a good day’s work. Your fellow media pundits could learn a lesson or two from you.
I’d say if Davy pulls off the All Ireland with Waterford he’ll get more than just a column. He’ll get a whole newspaper supplement to himself. No better man.
goes to Bríd O’Donohoe for spotting the mother of all errors – or should that be All-Ireland errors – on the beautiful crystal replica of the Liam McCarthy Cup in the GAA museum. The lads and lassies are packing His ‘n Hers t-shirts for Bríd to sport around one of the loveliest parts of West Cork.
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