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Post by Mickmack on Feb 27, 2015 8:01:42 GMT
PADDY has been reading our debate. Presume the cheque is in the post.... PADDY HEANEY: Kingdom’s unique structure keeps them well ahead of all pretenders The above is very accurate. There has been a huge number of players down through the years that made it from small clubs. It has happened so often that it is correct to say that these players bring something special to any Kerry team. Because they have talent and come from areas of small population, they have to carry the local team from an early age - win the kick out, be in the square under the dropping ball, cover for a weak wing forward and wing back at the same time. They develop into players of character and intelligence. The magic happens when you put a bunch of these fellas together in the Kerry jersey. Players like Liam O'Flaherty (Ballydonoghue), Tommy Doyle (Annascaul), Ambrose O'Donovan (Gneeveguilla), Éamonn Fitzmaurice (Finuge), Donnchadh Walsh (Cromane) – the list goes on and on. You remind me of something Jack O'Shea said one time. As a kid of 10 he used to stand behind the goals and kick the ball back out to Mick O'Connell and Mick O'Dwyer during the evenings. Waterville were the best club in the county at that time and they carried Waterville. The club is the womb and success at county level, colleges level, divisional level etc is dependent on clubs at grassroots level putting in the work. Colm O'Rourke says that there isn't that much he can do in St Pats Navan if the skills of the game haven't been developed by the time he gets them. Its even more stark in hurling. The most obvious example being Sean OhAilpin. Leaving aside the mans guts, determination, athleticism etc, he always looked awkward with a hurley. The hurley didn't look like an extension of his arm like say Tommy Walsh of Kilkenny. The siblings of Sean were a lot younger when they came to Cork and were much more natural hurlers as they started younger.
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Post by keepitsimple on Feb 28, 2015 0:51:15 GMT
Sean Og is a very strange example to use in this context. I felt he was as comfortable with the hurley as any of his peers at intercounty level and actually better than quite a few....
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Post by An Tarbh Rua on Mar 15, 2015 10:25:43 GMT
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Post by glengael on Mar 15, 2015 11:22:12 GMT
Hopefully they will be two good games on Tuesday. Sometimes they can be and sometimes they're a bit lopsided as one team doesn't settle in to the big occasion.
There was an interesting feature on Slaughtneil in yesterday's Countrywide show on Radio 1 at 8 am.
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Post by Mickmack on Mar 15, 2015 13:19:10 GMT
KEITH DUGGAN
The first thing that needs to be said about The Toughest Trade, which aired on TV3 on Thursday night, is that Jackie Tyrrell is one of the very few men, of any colour or creed, who can get away with wearing a baseball cap backwards.
The Kilkenny defender has developed a reputation for not being easily intimidated but it is doubtful even he will have the temerity to show up in Nowlan Park with the peak of his Marlins cap pointed to the rear. The look of reproach from Brian Cody would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Tyrrell’s contribution to the The Toughest Trade, in which an elite hurler and baseball star, and an elite soccer and Gaelic football player swapped lives, was the most fascinating aspect of a documentary born of a curious idea which somehow worked brilliantly.
Tyrrell, possibly buoyed by the eight All-Ireland medals he has won, somehow persuaded Cody and company to allow him to skip the rigours of early spring training with Kilkenny for the balmier climes of Miami, where like all true boys of summer, he had top pulled down and those Ray Bans on. The task for Tyrrell was simple: could he slug a baseball as thrown by a major league pitcher – and one who specialised in striking lefties out.
The reason that The Toughest Trade worked so brilliantly was the producers found four terrific participants for their show. Brian Schneider, the 13-year MLB veteran who was drafted to the major leagues straight from high school, not only auditioned for the role of goalkeeper with Tyrrell’s club James Stephens, he also took on his day job as a representative with a dairy company.
Former Armagh playmaker Aaron Kernan headed to Sunderland to test his athleticism and agility against a Premier League teams.
David Bentley, who walked away from professional football at the age of 29 declaring himself out of love with the game, submitted himself to the caustic tutelage of Oisín McConville and John McEntee at Crossmaglen Rangers, probably the best GAA football club in the history of the association.
Praising any of our pathologically wayward national banking institutions doesn’t come easy but it is impossible to deny that AIB’s campaign for the All-Ireland club championships, which have their big day on St Patrick’s Day, has been brilliantly devised.
The short, terse adverts featuring Brendan Cummins speaking in a genuinely bereaved tone of losing a big club game, and Colm Cooper recalling the moment he snapped his cruciate while playing for Dr Crokes, are easily the best GAA advertisements of recent years. They leave the campaigns for the bigger and glitzier summer All-Irelands in their wake.
Antithesis of glamour Club football and hurling is the antithesis of glamour: the calendar means that the best teams invariably meet in the heart of winter, often in appalling weather conditions. The club championship is the darker, truer heart of the summer All-Ireland championships.
The contradiction is that it is the most elusive medal of all: you can win a fistful of All-Ireland medals by playing for the Kilkenny hurlers or Kerry footballers without ever getting near the windy, intimate splendour of Croke Park on St Patrick’s Day, where the two best hurling and football teams in the country will finally bring the curtains down on their season. At least for a few weeks: next year’s championship is only around the corner.
The Toughest Trade exploited the true point about Gaelic games. Even for the very best footballers and hurlers – and managers – the county dressingroom is just a temporary home. Everyone is passing through. In the end, GAA players end up where they started, back at their club, either as coaches or managers or administrators or just as occasional spectators.
But there is a place for everyone who wants it in a local GAA club. That was something Brian Schneider and David Bentley understood and related to straightaway. Over in Sunderland, Aaron Kernan didn’t try to hide the fact he was taken aback by the level and detail of the conditioning of the first-team professionals at Sunderland – and by the emphasis on community placed by the club. There was one admittedly stagey moment when Kernan visited a school and was inevitably asked how much he was paid as a GAA star. Still, the expressions on the schoolkids couldn’t disguise what they thought of this arrangement: what a mug.
Of course the idea of anyone parachuting into the elite end of any sport as an adult and trying to “make it” is slightly daft. The reason Brian Schneider got drafted as a teenager into baseball is that he spent most of his childhood hours learning and perfecting his facility for the game. Only Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest American athlete of the 20th century, had the ambition and chutzpah to try to take up Major League Baseball as an adult. The experiment was one of the few failures in his sporting life.
Compelling But there was something compelling about Tyrrell’s brief exposure to the American pastime. In the early stages of his apprenticeship, when told by Luis Alicia, his batting coach, that the ball will be travelling “between 87 and 90 oomph”, Tyrrell nods and asks the questions that too many gardaí have heard on the stretches of roadway on the edge of towns: “Is that miles or kilometres?”
Tyrrell’s impatience with the mitt, which he ditched to catch balls barehanded as an outfielder probably impressed the professionals as much as the speed with which he adjusted his swing and eye as a batter. The pity was that The Toughest Trade wasn’t extended into four documentaries as Tyrrell’s training programme was absorbing.
Baseball looks to South America for foreign talent now but in the early development of the sport in America, it had a heavy Irish influence and had a roll-call of Irish-born players who made it in professional baseball: Patrick Redmond’s book The Irish and the Making of American Sport has almost 50 Irish men following the lead of Andy Leonard, the Cavan man born in 1846 who won two National League pennants with the Boston Red Stockings in 1877 and 1888.
That early influence has long since dissipated. Still, Tyrrell’s cameo –and his introduction to Giancarlo Stanton, whose $325 million deal with the Marlins (over 13 seasons) exceeds any previous contract in American sport, was an intriguing crossing of two bat-and-ball sports with rich traditions.
The speed with which Tyrrell adapted to the movement of the baseball was, his hosts, declared, exceptional. Tyrrell was understandably delighted to have connected with one of the fastballs thrown by Todd Moser. But once he had achieved that, he seemed anxious to be on his way. Tipperary play Kilkenny this Sunday and Tyrrell knows too well that he will be getting as much as fastball as he can handle.
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Post by Mickmack on Mar 15, 2015 13:21:55 GMT
Powerful bit there by Keith Duggan
Antithesis of glamour Club football and hurling is the antithesis of glamour: the calendar means that the best teams invariably meet in the heart of winter, often in appalling weather conditions. The club championship is the darker, truer heart of the summer All-Ireland championships.
The contradiction is that it is the most elusive medal of all: you can win a fistful of All-Ireland medals by playing for the Kilkenny hurlers or Kerry footballers without ever getting near the windy, intimate splendour of Croke Park on St Patrick’s Day, where the two best hurling and football teams in the country will finally bring the curtains down on their season. At least for a few weeks: next year’s championship is only around the corner.
The Toughest Trade exploited the true point about Gaelic games. Even for the very best footballers and hurlers – and managers – the county dressingroom is just a temporary home. Everyone is passing through. In the end, GAA players end up where they started, back at their club, either as coaches or managers or administrators or just as occasional spectators.
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Post by glengael on Mar 17, 2015 11:46:51 GMT
Henry looking for No 15 is it today? It will be some achievement if he gets it.
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Post by Mickmack on Mar 17, 2015 12:33:47 GMT
looking back 2014, Limerick were not far away at all. Kilmallocks ability to score long range points in Munster was unreal.
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Post by kerrygold on Mar 17, 2015 21:29:17 GMT
Corofin were very impressive today in the football final with a high quality performance and comprehensively beat Stacks conquers on the day.
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fitz
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Red sky at night get off my land
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Post by fitz on Mar 17, 2015 23:02:28 GMT
Both finals were very one sided. It looks like Stacks would have got the same punishment dished up.
From a footballing perspective I would cautiously venture that having a high quality county championship with many closely matched teams has a minimal impact on the success of their respective inter county teams. Corofin look to be a brilliant team, and contribute a number of players e.g Lundy and Sice to the senior county team, but Galway won't be winning an All Ireland in the short term anyway. Tradition looks to be maybe the biggest raw factor in producing the best players. Examples Declan at Dromid, Killian at Renard, Maher from Duagh, small clubs. Anyway just an opener for a discussion on this?
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Post by Mickmack on Mar 18, 2015 0:07:34 GMT
Following up the previous post, there are a lot of small clubs represented here in the u21s
1 Shane Ryan (Rathmore) 2. Cormac Coffey (Kerins O’Rahillys) 3. Gavin Crowley (Templenoe) 4. Brian Ó Beaglaoich (An Ghaeltacht) 5. Ronan Murphy (Beaufort) 6. Denis Daly (St Mary’s) 7. Cathal Ó Lúing (An Ghaeltacht) 8. Jack Barry Na Gaeil) 9. Barry O’Sullivan (Dingle) 10. Brian Crowley (Templenoe) 11. Jack Savage (Kerins O’Rahillys) 12. Micheal Burns (Dr Crokes) 13. Matthew Flaherty (Dingle) 14. Dara Roche (Glenflesk) 15. Conor Keane (Killarney Legion) Subs 16. Darragh O’Shea (Ballydonoghue) 17. Cathal Murphy (Rathmore) 18. Greg Horan (Austin Stacks) 19. Conor Jordan (Austin Stacks) 20. Gary O’Sullivan (Listry) 21. Kevin McCarthy (Kilcummin) 22. Eanna Ó Conchúir (An Ghaeltacht) 23. Donal Maher (Kilcummin) 24. Liam Carey (Beaufort) Extended training panel Adrian Spillane (Templenoe) Cillian Fitzgerald (Churchill) David Foran (St Senan’s) Killian Spillane (Templenoe) Niall Sheehy (John Mitchels) Pádraig Ó Conchúir (Dingle) Sean T. Dillon (St Senan’s) Tom O’Sullivan (Dingle)
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Post by Mickmack on Mar 18, 2015 0:08:46 GMT
Following up the previous post, there are a lot of small clubs represented here in the u21s
1 Shane Ryan (Rathmore) 2. Cormac Coffey (Kerins O’Rahillys) 3. Gavin Crowley (Templenoe) 4. Brian Ó Beaglaoich (An Ghaeltacht) 5. Ronan Murphy (Beaufort) 6. Denis Daly (St Mary’s) 7. Cathal Ó Lúing (An Ghaeltacht) 8. Jack Barry Na Gaeil) 9. Barry O’Sullivan (Dingle) 10. Brian Crowley (Templenoe) 11. Jack Savage (Kerins O’Rahillys) 12. Micheal Burns (Dr Crokes) 13. Matthew Flaherty (Dingle) 14. Dara Roche (Glenflesk) 15. Conor Keane (Killarney Legion) Subs 16. Darragh O’Shea (Ballydonoghue) 17. Cathal Murphy (Rathmore) 18. Greg Horan (Austin Stacks) 19. Conor Jordan (Austin Stacks) 20. Gary O’Sullivan (Listry) 21. Kevin McCarthy (Kilcummin) 22. Eanna Ó Conchúir (An Ghaeltacht) 23. Donal Maher (Kilcummin) 24. Liam Carey (Beaufort) Extended training panel Adrian Spillane (Templenoe) Cillian Fitzgerald (Churchill) David Foran (St Senan’s) Killian Spillane (Templenoe) Niall Sheehy (John Mitchels) Pádraig Ó Conchúir (Dingle) Sean T. Dillon (St Senan’s) Tom O’Sullivan (Dingle)
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Post by glengael on Mar 18, 2015 11:05:29 GMT
Unfortunate that both games were so one sided really.
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hugh20
Senior Member
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Post by hugh20 on Mar 25, 2015 22:11:55 GMT
Following up the previous post, there are a lot of small clubs represented here in the u21s 1 Shane Ryan (Rathmore) 2. Cormac Coffey (Kerins O’Rahillys) 3. Gavin Crowley (Templenoe) 4. Brian Ó Beaglaoich (An Ghaeltacht) 5. Ronan Murphy (Beaufort)
6. Denis Daly (St Mary’s) 7. Cathal Ó Lúing (An Ghaeltacht) 8. Jack Barry Na Gaeil)
9. Barry O’Sullivan (Dingle) 10. Brian Crowley (Templenoe)
11. Jack Savage (Kerins O’Rahillys) 12. Micheal Burns (Dr Crokes) 13. Matthew Flaherty (Dingle) 14. Dara Roche (Glenflesk)
15. Conor Keane (Killarney Legion) Subs 16. Darragh O’Shea (Ballydonoghue)
17. Cathal Murphy (Rathmore) 18. Greg Horan (Austin Stacks) 19. Conor Jordan (Austin Stacks) 20. Gary O’Sullivan (Listry) 21. Kevin McCarthy (Kilcummin) 22. Eanna Ó Conchúir (An Ghaeltacht) 23. Donal Maher (Kilcummin)
24. Liam Carey (Beaufort)
Extended training panel Adrian Spillane (Templenoe) Cillian Fitzgerald (Churchill) David Foran (St Senan’s) Killian Spillane (Templenoe)
Niall Sheehy (John Mitchels) Pádraig Ó Conchúir (Dingle) Sean T. Dillon (St Senan’s)
Tom O’Sullivan (Dingle) I'm not sure if I would classify Kilcummin or An Ghaeltacht as small clubs??
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Post by Mickmack on Mar 31, 2015 8:47:38 GMT
Maybe someone knows the full position on this as I don't as I could only pick up bits of it from radio Kerry at the weekend.....
A new system is being put in place to reduced the number of clubs playing in the Senior County Championship from 11 to 9. A separate competition involving 3 groups of 3 (9 clubs) will play in a special competition to decide things. I think the two clubs that reach the club final will automatically retain their senior status. Winners of intermediate from 2016 onwards wont automatically become senior. I think the meeting was on last night. That proposal is coming from the county board. Mitchells have an alternative proposal.
I could be wrong on some of these details............
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Post by A.N. Other on Mar 31, 2015 10:06:48 GMT
To quote Murt Murphy who was at the meeting last night, "SFC Review Committee proposals passed - 3 senior clubs will be demoted from senior championship for 2016 by means of the 9 clubs who do not make Senior Club Final - on a 3 groups x 3 basis with bottom team going down"
And he went on to say the vote was passed 45-27.
Edit: And Stephen Wallace and his backroom team were ratified for another term with the Juniors.
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Post by givehimaball on Mar 31, 2015 10:13:45 GMT
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Post by thechosenone on Mar 31, 2015 10:37:43 GMT
I think it is only the intermediate winners in 2015 who aren't promoted to senior.
In 2016 it reverts to intermediate winners promtoted to senior while one senior team drops down.
Big changes in Junior and Novice championships also. Not sure of full extent of them though.
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