FAO Kieran Shannon

[peig]

Are you single?

[Mickmack]

Does anyone have access to his weekly column in the Tribune............. and if so could ye post it in here.

He is in my three favourite GAA writes.......along with Colm o Rourke and Jack o Connor. His offering today is excellent again.

[austinstacksabu]

Here it is. But remove the green and gold tinted glasses everybody and realise that he has valid, balanced points. Just because he challenges Liam Hayes' comments doesn't make it a great article. It has some very good points regarding Kerry in the big three year of 2005.
--------------------

IN THE KINGS' SHADOWS






TOO often it's too easy to cast a frosty cold eye on the present and a misty eye on the past, especially our own. After the epic 2005 All-Ireland semi-final clash between Tyrone and Armagh, probably RTE's most measured panellist, Tony Davis, complained that the game hadn't been "open" enough when there had been 17 scores after half-time and Tony's Cork side of 1987-1990 only once broke the 12-point mark in their five All-Ireland finals.

Last autumn, buoyed by his team's demolition of Mayo, Jack O'Connor questioned the quality of the vanquished's mesmerising semi-final shootout with Dublin. O'Connor is one of the most knowledgeable men in the country when it comes to football and its history, and as a winner, it's his right to write it, but the view here is he was mistaken; just because time would prove that Mayo were well short of being great does not mean they weren't great that one day.

Last Sunday was in keeping with that recent tradition of vintage semi-finals. True, it was probably short of the classic status we'd confer on Armagh-Tyrone '05 or DublinMayo and the Armagh-Kerry quarter-final last year, but it was still stirring, seismic stuff. Dublin were heroic, the only blot on their honour being that tasteless in-your-face taunting that one of its early-summer victims, Niall McNamee, predicted would not work against a top-four team; their one misfortune being to come up against the only side in the country with even more firepower than themselves. Last Sunday, both sets of players produced the most gripping game of the football year, and the '77 classic apart, the most satisfying Dublin-Kerry championship match of the last 50 years.

As you'll find elsewhere on these pages, not everyone in the Tribune agrees. Even though it featured more scores from play than any Kerry-Dublin championship match in history . . . Kerry notching 1-13 from play, the Dubs, 0-10 . . . Liam Hayes claims it was not a "thriller' which could compare to the "contests" of the past, despite the fact only one of those five famed clashes of the '70s was decided by less than seven points. Whatever it is about the way the planets are aligned at this time of year but when Liam has to assess KerryMayo, Mayo-Dublin or Dublin-Kerry, he tends to go into an orbit and solar system all of his own.

It's unfortunate. Throughout this summer he's made a lot of bold but prescient judgements. As far back as May he stated Armagh wouldn't even make the last 12, that Tyrone wouldn't make the last four, and three weeks ago declared a Masters-less Cork would still beat a Meath side that had yet to pay its dues.

Even with matters Kerry he's made a lot of valid observations, rightly speculating whether the county in the post-Darragh era would be better served with Kieran Donaghy in midfield; foreseeing that Monaghan would scare the living daylights out of them in the quarter-final. And heretical as it may sound in Kerry, it is time that someone in football has prompted the kind of debate about Seamus Moynihan and Maurice Fitzgerald's assumed greatness that hurling has long held about DJ Carey's (Football Knowledge, Higher Level, Question 1: 'Maurice Fitzgerald had as many poor performances in Croke Park as good ones and all Seamus Moynihan had over Cork's Ciaran O'Sullivan were his Celtic Crosses.' Discuss).

Ultimately though any analysis of the last 20 years would conclude Maurice would walk onto a team of the '90s and ditto Moynihan onto that of the '00s.

Reports of Colm Cooper's demise these past two seasons have also been greatly exaggerated . . . and not just by Meath's finest. Last year Cooper was the league's third leading scorer from play and in the final set up both goals to secure the win over Galway. The AllIreland quarter-final win over Armagh turned on a couple of plays of his before half-time, he scored 1-3 from play in the final and then embarked on a run that would inspire Dr Crokes to a county final, Munster club title and All-Ireland final. In the Crokes' march through Munster and right through to Croke Park, he scored five goals before putting on a masterclass on Patrick's Day; in truth it's hard to think of a better one-man campaign in the history of that competition.

Then he turned right round to dictate his one league match with the county this year and then nearly single-handedly win the Munster final in 10 minutes, taking the best defence in the country for 1-2 from play.

About Cooper's only brush with mediocrity over the past two years . . . actually make that six years . . . was last month's game against Monaghan and last year's Munster championship, a performance and spell every player experiences. We may have seen some forwards as good as him . . . Canavan, Connor, Sheehy . . . but we have never seen better.

What was particularly baffling about Liam's post-Monaghan match assessment was that after being the one commentator to foresee the potency of the Ulster side's challenge, he then dismissed it, attributing Kerry's scare solely to the champions' shortcomings. But Kerry were always going to struggle after a six-week lay-off. Between 2001 and 2004 in hurling and football, when provincial champions had to routinely wait more than a month for their next game, only seven of those 28 champions won that next game.

If Kerry beat Cork in a fortnight's time they'll become the first team since Meath way back in 1999 to win the Sam Maguire winning every game en route. Every other champion either drew or lost somewhere along the way. They all had a blip. Monaghan was Kerry's blip . . . and still Kerry won.

Too often we resort to lumping and comparing the Kerry footballers of the last 10 years with the All-Ireland winning sides of yesteryear, and spiel on about the tradition of Kerry, ignoring the state of Kerry football these players inherited and the tradition they've carved out on their own. From 1987 to 1995, Kerry were a distant second in Munster. But under Paidi, they regained power in Munster to the point it was assumed. No one, upon his appointment, could have foreseen such dominance. Or seven All-Ireland final appearances in 10 years. Or as is the case now, eight All-Ireland semi-final appearances in eight straight years when Tyrone have managed only two.

The time has come to say it. If Kerry win this year's All Ireland, it will confirm the Kerry side of the '00s as definitively the most consistent and probably the best team football has seen or spawned since Mick O'Dwyer's incomparable Team of All Talents.

And park that side of O'Dwyer's for a minute:

has there really been another Kerry team better than the one of the past seven years?

Radio Kerry commentator Weeshie Fogarty, who has been watching Kerry All Irelands since 1955, contends the Kerry side of this decade is probably the second-best Kerry side of all.

Of course they've been beaten. By Armagh . . . in a classic they contributed handsomely to.

By Tyrone . . . twice. In truth, in 2005 when the Big Three were all in their prime and football had its great gathering, Kerry finished second, and there's a case they were even third.

Maybe that's Liam's point. That Tyrone at their best were better than Kerry at theirs.

Ditto Galway at the turn of the century; even Moynihan declared on the podium in 2000 that his friend Ja Fallon's absence was probably the difference between him collecting Sam and not. But look at all the players have to do without and replace this decade. In '02, Maurice. In '05, Crowley. In '06, O Cinneide and Hassett, . In '07, Moynihan and McCarthy.

And yet in each of those years, they were playing into September. Just like the Liverpool team of the '70s and '80s, they've kept evolving and winning, never leaving the top three this decade.

No one else can say that. Kerry never beat Tyrone but they've outlasted Tyrone. They've beaten Armagh more than Armagh have beaten them. Galway had five times to beat them in major games and failed every time.

And the thing is, when Kerry lost, it was only to fellow champions. They've never lost to a Fermanagh, a Sligo, a Monaghan, a Roscommon, even a Laois or a Mayo, the kind of teams that have tripped other temporary members of the Big Three up. It's easy . . . if justified . . . to highlight Kerry's soft passage through Munster but this past seven years there's been a backdoor and All-Ireland quarter-finals, and every Kerry side negotiated that quarter-final, beating fellow heavyweights like Galway, Armagh, Dublin and Mayo.

All through this decade Kerry have been The Standard. Occasionally teams like Tyrone and Armagh have surpassed it but Kerry were their measure, their achievement. If you mock Kerry, then you deride Armagh and Tyrone's achievement. Yes, Kernan and Harte's forces brought an unprecedented intensity to our game but just as significant as that and just before that John O'Mahony's Galway and Paidi's Kerry brought sexy back from the dark place football was in the hurling revolution years.

In the past 20 years there has been no team better to watch. And in this writer's view, no one better, period.

Scorn not their consistency, Liam. It's the hallmark of greatness.

[Mickmack]

Focus on the fine points, not the final points
KIERAN SHANNON




IT was deja vu, as they say, all over again. Two weeks ago in Clones, Armagh, for the second time this summer, were in control of a championship game. They were three points up on Derry with scores at a premium, and if any team looked like scoring more, it was Armagh.

But then a strange yet familiar thing happened.

Armagh seemed to sit back, inviting Derry onto them. Before they knew it they were out of the championship proper by the same manner as they had left the Ulster championship. Just like against Donegal in Ballybofey, they had been cruising, only to again lose by a point, again being outscored by 10 scores to nine. It would take a lengthy discussion with the Armagh players to know exactly what went on in the closing quarter of both their defeats to Donegal and Derry, but we can hazard a good guess that they made the cardinal if common mistake of thinking of the outcome instead of the process of winning. And as a result of such a distraction, their play became more cagey and less aggressive.

To avoid that trapdoor, they could have done with setting what sport psychologists call 'performance' goals. In Ballybofey Armagh had scored 1-8. With 10 minutes to go that looked like being enough to win but nine scores had been the lowest an Armagh team had scored in the championship in 10 years.

Before playing Derry it would have been a reasonable goal to say that whatever happens, any Armagh team should register at least 10 scores, minimum, probably 12. Armagh though didn't push on like a side that had set out that performance goal.

It's strange that the lack of performance goals might have contributed to the demise of Armagh because performance goal-setting had been the foundation of their greatest success.

It is now part of folklore how at half-time in the 2002 All Ireland final, Joe Kernan chucked his 1977 runners-up plaque against the shower wall to "motivate" his troops. But motivation by definition is both an intensity and direction of effort. By throwing the plaque, Kernan might have helped raise Armagh's intensity of effort, but that would have been futile if there was no way of channelling effort. Something else he said during that half-time break provided that, something far more significant than the plaque theatrics.

After his players had trooped in, trailing Kerry by four points, Kernan read out a series of stats from the first half, one of which instantly startled his players: "Breaking Ball . . . Kerry 19, Armagh 17." It had only been the second time all season that Armagh had been beaten in that category after a half of football. Armagh resolved to win that category in the second half. They did, by 71 per cent to 29. And they won that game by a single point.

Kerry themselves would later benefit from such a principle. Before last year's All Ireland semi-final, Jack O'Connor set the performance goal of keeping Cork to five points or less per half; achieve that and winning the game would take care of itself. Kerry kept Cork to five points per half . . . and won, with five points to spare.

It applies to every sport. At the start of last season Alex Ferguson realised that just trying to win the Premiership was too vague a goal; a better way of achieving it would be to meet the goal of at least 90 points.

Before the 1996 All Ireland final, Liam Griffin told his team that if they held Gary Kirby to four points from frees, Wexford would win the All Ireland. Wexford held Kirby to two frees . . . and won by two points.

Earlier that same year, the Tralee Tigers won the national basketball superleague under the inspirational leadership of their coach, Timmy McCarthy, the RTE basketball commentator who also acts as Ger Canning's stats man for GAA games.

With RTE, McCarthy's signature comment is to exclaim "Get that stuff out of here!" after a defender has jumped up and blocked an opponent's shot, yet one of McCarthy's signature rules as a coach is for his players to refrain from even attempting such a defensive play. While 'checking' is a spectacular and athletic play, to McCarthy the coach it's a low-percentage play that invites much more foul trouble for his players than it reduces opponents from scoring.

Instead he prefers his players to stand straight up and put their hands up straight. If teams can shoot and score over them, fair enough, but they're not going to get cheap visits to the free-throw line.

In 17 of Tralee's 18 league games that season, they went to the free-throw line more than their opponents. Only twice all season did they reach seven team fouls in a half and have a player fouled out. By setting the process goal of his players being merely shot adjusters instead of shot blockers, Tralee achieved their performance goal of avoiding foul trouble and getting more free-throws than their opponents and, in doing so, achieved their outcome goal . . . winning the league.

Elite athletes in individual sport especially know the value of performance goals. When the UK swimmer Adrian Moorhouse was a youngster, he changed clubs shortly after seeing David Wilkie win the 1976 Olympics. When his new coach asked him what his long-term goal was, Moorhouse said, "To win the Olympics." The coach instantly replied, "Okay, what time are you going to win it in?"

After that Moorhouse would set a series of performance goals and on the eve of the 1984 LA Games, was favourite for gold. He only came fourth;

the reason, he would later admit, was because he was so worried about whether he'd win or lose. In Seoul his goals were different. Naturally, one of them was to win . . . that's what kept him motivated for four years . . . but the others were to swim in a particular time and particular way, to stay strong and hold his stroke in the last 10 metres.

Moorhouse won that Olympics. By a fingernail. By holding his stroke in the last 10 metres.

The lesson is there for everyone. Think of outcome and you're likely to get the outcome you don't want. But focus on performance and process, and the outcome you desire is more likely to care of itself.

Kieran Shannon is a qualified and practising sports psychologist and can be contacted at kshannon@tribune. ie

[Mickmack]

FOR a moment Noel O'Leary was sure he'd got away with it. It was down in Tralee on a *ty wet Saturday night, Kerry had just beaten them, and towards the end he'd snapped. The Kerry boys had been winding him up all night and then Tomas O Se kicked the ball at him and O'Leary had gone and eyeballed him, lashed out, and picked up his second yellow card for his troubles. As he was walking into the dressing room tunnel, Billy Morgan tapped him on the back and halfgrinned, "Well done, Noel!" At that, inwardly, O'Leary smiled too. Someone understood. If anyone could, it was Billy. The sight of that green and gold jersey, the passion, the fury; sure he knew all about it himself.

And then? Well then when they were inside, Morgan closed the door and proceeded to give his wing back, as O'Leary so eloquently puts it, "an unmerciful fecking". In front of everyone. He shakes his head and grimaces bashfully at the memory, thought and accusation. Too fiery and volatile . . .

even by Morgan standards. "But he was dead right too, " says O'Leary. "I was a bit mad that night. A rush of blood to the head."

Admit it. It's how you know him, perceive him. There mightn't be a better attacking wing-back left in this year's championship or anyone on the Cork team more adept at playing that ball into Michael Cussen, but to you, he's that serial yellow-carder who keeps getting into scrapes. He'll probably take up Geraghty today and, well, it's hard to see both of them lasting the distance. But, as Dan might say, if you don't know him, don't judge him.

He's from a place called Cill na Martra, the second smallest parish in the biggest county in Ireland, a few miles outside Macroom, off the road to Ballyvourney, but as a kid he developed a passion for west Cork football and west Cork footballers more than 50 miles down the road. There was Castlehaven and Tompkins and Cahalane. And even though they were junior, there was Urhan and Ciaran O'Sullivan too. He remembers going with his father Donal as a 12-year-old to see them play Midleton in a county junior championship replay in 1992 in Ballingeary.

"I'll never forget it. The first day Ciaran was awesome. The second day he was having a brilliant game again when one of the Midleton lads turned round and made * of his nose. Ciaran was down for three or four minutes, blood pissing out of his nose.

Next thing, he gets up, the ball comes in and Ciaran grabs it underneath his own goalpost, goes straight up the centre of the field and shoes the ball straight on the '45 and splits the posts.

My father turns round to me and says, 'That man will be playing for Cork next year.'" And at that, his son vowed that's how he'd play for Cork too. Like Cahalane, like Ciaran. Blood and bandages, boy.

And that's how he played for them as a minor. With passion. Raw passion at times but passion, and when the Cork senior hurlers were presented with their 2000 Munster medals the same night as O'Leary and his colleagues were presented with their All-Ireland minor football medals, Diarmuid O'Sullivan, a two-time All Star even then, made a point of going over to O'Leary to tell him how much he loved the way he played the game.

A year later they were teammates winning an All-Ireland junior medal together, and a year later, on the senior panel, winning a Munster football championship together. O'Leary had to wait until he was 21 to break onto the starting 15 though. When he did, he did with intent.

"I thought, 'Feck it, a tougher attitude to this setup would be no harm at all. We'll try not to take any prisoners if we can.' I suppose I went a bit bald-headed into it though. Did a lot of stupid things."

Whatever about doing anything stupid, O'Leary managed to do something unique in that 2003 league campaign, picking up a yellow card in each of Cork's seven league games, and just for good measure, picking up two in the last game against Tyrone. But over the years he'd like to think he's tempered down that temper.

He's no longer the wild buck of 2003, though, he'll admit, some sort of red mist does seem to descend upon him when he encounters that green and gold.

And on days like that, he's reminded it's only a game, that there's more to life. And he'll agree. Yeah, it's a game, there's more to life, but what you must understand it's that game which has helped him get through the life he's had.

The first to go was Mark. They were cousins but more like twins; the same age, the same humour who'd "more or less lived with each other; him living up in our place or me down in theirs". Then, in January of '99, Mark and his girlfriend broke up and all of a sudden he was dead. Suicide.

"It was an awful shock at the time. Because nothing like that had ever happened to us before. But that was my first year with the Cork minors and the football was a great thing to have. It gave me something to turn back to."

O'Leary and Cork would win that year's Munster final, inspired by a magical display from another dynamic wing back called Tom Kenny, but a few weeks before the following year's Munster final, tragedy struck again.

This time it was Benny, his best friend.

"Benny, " he smiles, "Benny was a gas man. Strange, he had no interest in football but we had a bit of an old business going there. We bought a quad-bike between us, spraying weeds and spreading manure on farms for farmers. A couple of weeks before we played Kerry, there were about 13 or 14 of us out the back at home. Benny was spinning around on the bike. And feck it, it was a case of the two of us getting too used to that bike; we'd wear no helmets or anything like that, you know. And sure, whatever way he went across this little slope in the field, didn't the bike turn and fall on top of him.

"At the start we were saying to ourselves, 'This man is going to hop up now any second', because he was a bit of a joker, like. But we went over, and Jesus, when we looked at him he had gone blue in the face. Myself and my brother Ciaran tried to clear his mouth but it was no good." By the time the ambulance had hit Macroom, Benny was gone.

Again football offered some measure of solace and that summer Cork went on to claim Munster and then the All Ireland. O'Leary's eyes light up at the memory of it and old teammates. Some of them you've heard of: Masters and McMahon, the latter of whom will play with him in Croke Park today; Conrad Murphy, who was the best of the lot of them; Kieran 'Hero' Murphy from Erins Own. But then there were others who you mightn't have heard of. Paul Deane, Dinny O'Hare; "maybe not the most skilful but hard men and great lads as well." Only in the last year or two with the seniors, has he experienced a team chemistry and bond like the boys of that summer enjoyed. It was the time of their lives and should have been the year of their lives, but before 2000 was out it had been the worst of O'Leary's.

He'll never forget the game that was on the box that day: Glenflesk and Nemo in the Munster club final, and himself and the father watching Moynihan and Johnny Crowley trying to win it nearly on their own. But as the day and game went on, his mother was becoming increasingly anxious. Ciaran, Noel's 17-year-old brother, had yet to come home. There was no word from him or of him. Noel and his younger brother, Donal Og, told her to relax, reminding her that it wouldn't be the first time he'd have stayed over at a friend's. After the game was over though, there was still no word. They'd phoned Ciaran's girlfriend who he'd visited the previous night and she'd said he'd gone home.

"The father was saying then, 'God, maybe he was drunk coming home and fell somewhere. Donal Og, go into the shed and get our wellingtons and we'll go to the fields and look for him.'" Donal Og went into the shed only to find Ciaran already there. Same story as Mark. Seventeen. Just finished with the girlfriend. Gone.

"Definitely what happened to Benny was a big part of it. Ciaran was there when it happened and he used to get upset about it. He'd always be on about it at home. But in saying that, you wouldn't have taken much notice of it. I mean, it was natural enough he was upset about it.

"I think it was a pure spur-of-themoment thing. It and drink. In most of these cases that's what it is; a spur-ofthe-moment decision brought on by the drink. Looking back, Ciaran wouldn't have been the best to take drink. He was only 17, a bit of a wild lad but a good lad, but you could see that he used to get upset after drink."

That's why he'd tell anyone: know the people who don't react well to it.

Be there to tell them the one that's one too many, especially when that one might be the first. Be there to say hang on, everybody hurts, but it passes. It's maybe not the normal message or cause advocated by a GAA player, but O'Leary feels strongly about this.

So do his younger brothers, who hardly drink at all.

"A lot of people mightn't like talking about this, shy away from talking about it, but it's happening every day in other homes. People might learn from it. I have no problem talking whatsoever about it. Or Benny or Mark. It was an unbelievable run for us at the time, but it happened. It's a big part of who I am."

There's little O'Leary isn't upfront about. At times he might sound all bashful like Paidi O Se just like he plays like a young Paidi O Se but the 'Yerrah' response is not for him. There is a refreshing honesty as well as affability about him. In the tree surgery business he set up a few years ago, beating around the bush is kept to a minimum. It's the same in conversation. He cuts through the bull*.

The Cork under 21 team management during what he now calls the lost years, for instance. "It was the worst set-up I've ever seen. Selectors turning up late; poor locations, no tactics before games, no buzz in the camp. For them three years we didn't even threaten to win an All Ireland when we had the players to do it. In 2003 we ended up losing to Waterford. Rightly so. That was the game they parachuted Setanta [O hAilpin] and [John] Gardiner in for before the [senior AllIreland] hurling final. No disrespect to the two lads but they never trained with us that year while they were taking the places of fellas who'd trained all year. Sure that's not a team."

He'll accept his discipline could be better too. Okay, he doesn't think he should have been suspended for the Louth game this year, because as he showed the guys in Croke Park, that time in the Munster final Paul Galvin was holding and twisting his ankle . . .

"I'm not saying he was doing it intentionally" . . . and O'Leary was only trying to wriggle his way free. Then you push him on it.

"That was all though, Noel. You were just trying to get him off you."

"That's right."

"Genuinely, Noel."

He smiles. "Well, maybe there was a slight bit of a kickout too."

He'll be straight up about the support of the current senior team as well, or lack of it, to be precise. Last week Waterford lost their fourth AllIreland semi-final in the Justin McCarthy era and a country, let alone, county, nearly went into mourning.

Lose today and the Cork footballers will likewise have lost four semi-finals in six years, and yet the masses on Leeside will be indifferent to their plight. O'Leary is close friends with some of the hurlers, especially O'Sullivan, but as much as he wishes them well, at times he can't help but be envious of them.

"It's unbelievably disappointing, our support, even if we're long over it now. The hurlers get caught in a sticky situation and are down three points and the crowd roars them on which is a huge help to a team. We go three down and people just turn their asses to us. That's when we need them.

There's absolutely no doubt about it, if we win this All Ireland, it'll be for this panel of players and management team. I honestly think there's only about two or three hundred genuine Cork football supporters out there."

He'd love to win it for Morgan ("His head for the game is unbelievable.

And his passion. Even watching him giving speeches and seeing the veins start to pop; you'd be proud to play for a man like him"). For old teammates like Ciaran O'Sullivan who was probably as good as Moynihan but never seen as such because he never won that Celtic Cross. But as he says, mostly for the men around him each night in training. That's what it's about.

Right now, they're near and yet so far. They're only one game away from a final but the way they've been playing they seem a lot further away than that. Maybe the hurling snobs have a point; the team hasn't played with any flair; it's yet to cast off its inhibitions.

He'll admit that. But the 2000 minors should have lost in the first round to Clare. They went on and won the All Ireland. That team and this team have a lot in common. This crowd could go all the way too.

"Look, there's no doubt that if we play like we did the last day against Sligo there's no hope for us against Meath. They're playing a nice brand of football and seem to be able to find space all the time while we seem to be getting clogged up an awful lot. But we know the football we're capable of and the football we've played. It's going to come out some time again, hopefully on Sunday. [James] Masters is going to be a loss alright but the man himself, pure gentleman, said it openly in the papers that his injury gives lads like [Daniel] Goulding a chance and they might burn up Croke Park."

He'll feel for Masters today. This is about the only year O'Leary himself has been free of injury. A week after his championship debut against Limerick in 2003, his old buddy Diarmuid O'Sullivan gave him a clatter in a county championship game. O'Leary played on but he had taken the Ciaran O'Sullivan spirit to extremes . . . his ribs had been cracked, something that kept him out of the qualifier defeat to Roscommon. The following year in Killarney his medial ligament gave way; the following year against the old enemy in Croke Park himself and Conor McCarthy collided and he had to be taken off, and then last year, a viral infection from a very costly halfhour of sunbathing in La Manga kept him out of the starting line-up for the summer.

But he kept coming back, kept bouncing back up, kept walking on.

He knows no other way.


(Kieran Shannon, Sunday Trubune, Aug 19)

[MrRasherstoyou]

A brilliant article, sums up most of my thinking. It's quite likely that Kerry & Tyrone will clash again, Tyrone are still very young. I do agree that they have lacked consistency/longevity of achievement, but allowance must be made for the loss of players in the past 2 years

[Mickmack]

I said in another thread that the Tyrone of 2005 were the finest champions of the past 20 years.......... 10 games and a super forward line.

Kerry are the standard as Kieran Shannon says.......... occasionally teams with rise up and beat us but Kerry are always there or thereabouts.

[MrRasherstoyou]

Except from 1987-1996

[Mickmack]

mrtierneyesq said:

Except from 1987-1996

funny you should mention that. In the documentary shown after the Kerry -Dublin match Ogie Moran makes the point that the future wasnt thought about and no effort made to blood new players. They all grew old together. Thats why an ould lad like me is so delighted to see Killian Young, Padraid Reidy, Brian Sheehan etc making the breakthrough. The mistakes made during the Golden Years period must not be repeated.

[MrRasherstoyou]

mickmack said:

mrtierneyesq said:

Except from 1987-1996

funny you should mention that. In the documentary shown after the Kerry -Dublin match Ogie Moran makes the point that the future wasnt thought about and no effort made to blood new players. They all grew old together. Thats why an ould lad like me is so delighted to see Killian Young, Padraid Reidy, Brian Sheehan etc making the breakthrough. The mistakes made during the Golden Years period must not be repeated.

Achtung! Ve shall not tolerate inkompetence! Ewerything must be in order!

Since 1974, Kerry have been in 17 All-I finals, winning most, and 5 Semis. Dublin have been in 12 finals, and 5 Semis

[Mickmack]

VE HAVE VAYS OF VINNING DE ALL IRELAND!!

[kerrygold]

Nobody will convience me in an arguement that kerry were at their best in the final of 2005.

its fact now,kerry and tyrone and will never meet at their best again.

so just because kerry didnt meet tyrone in '04 and '06,tyrones poor years and kerrys great years we can assume without doubt that tyrone were better than kerry,thats rubbish.

[Mickmack]

kerrygold said:

Nobody will convience me in an arguement that kerry were at their best in the final of 2005.

its fact now,kerry and tyrone and will never meet at their best again.

so just because kerry didnt meet tyrone in '04 and '06,tyrones poor years and kerrys great years we can assume without doubt that tyrone were better than kerry,thats rubbish.

I think that you can say that Tyrone were better in 2003 and 2005. And that 2005 all ireland was one of the hardest won ever. I am no less of a Kerryman when i say that.

Tyrone were hit with the greatest plague of injuries imaginable. Imagine if Declan, Gooch, Donaghy and Galvin were injured.................

We would struggle..... to say the least

[kerrygold]

we have replaced,seamus,maurice,kirby,mike mac,daly,hassett,cinneade,crowley,o keeffe,eamonn,laide,dywer,mike hasset etc in the last few years.

i agree '05 was one of the greatest all-ireland finals ever.