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Post by Mickmack on Mar 7, 2015 16:50:05 GMT
what about Fennell..is he retired or where is he.
Flynn may end up playing in midfield permanently. Savage footballer
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fitz
Fanatical Member
Red sky at night get off my land
Posts: 1,719
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Post by fitz on Mar 7, 2015 22:53:07 GMT
Just for fact, now this is a fact, browse your web or buddies. RE: 06 Cork in Munster Championship, Anthony Lynch tried to headbutt Star but missed, Star never went to ground, no busses about was white hot mind, delusional weather. Lynch got himself sent off, and his county board chairman got his ban overturned on a technicality,that he missed with his butt, so whilst it's totally your right to post your opinion of dislike of Donaghy, you should consider selecting a showcase example 1) that's factual and 2) reflective of true victimized honest footballers. Funny facts, I was at the match. He headbutted with Donaghy behind him?? There was no headbutt, but Lynch did swing with elbow when Donaghy was holding him from behind. The elbow made no contact but Donaghy did go down and Lynch was sent off. The red card was later rescinded based on a TV replay. No need for anyone browse the web, I'll save you the hassle. The journalist below was reporting on the same match, or he's also delusional. www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/lynch-cleared-for-replay-as-red-card-overturned-on-appeal-8444.htmlThe only one being slandered here is me. Fact is Donaghy faked injury to have another player sent off. That's cheating whatever way you look at it. Please stick to the facts. My memory must be letting me down, I thought it was an attempted headbutt, I'll apologize on that count, a genuine mistake. I can't find a video clip on the issue. My memory from Lynch's strike is that Star drew his head back as if stunned from a strike, when he was clearly not hit. I don't remember Star going to ground. I'm not emphasizing the point to have a row, I'm just looking to find out if dementia is coming my way soon (tongue-in-cheek). Maybe a third party can see me right ?. For the rest of your points re: Star's character and Anthony Lynch we'll just disagree.
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Post by MrRasherstoyou on Mar 8, 2015 9:40:41 GMT
what about Fennell..is he retired or where is he. Flynn may end up playing in midfield permanently. Savage footballer Did ya read me reply at all or wha?? Enough with the questions, how about some responses now.
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Post by Mickmack on Mar 8, 2015 9:50:38 GMT
what about Fennell..is he retired or where is he. Flynn may end up playing in midfield permanently. Savage footballer Did ya read me reply at all or wha?? Enough with the questions, how about some responses now. sorry rashers. You did answer that question. What did I not reply to
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Post by MrRasherstoyou on Mar 8, 2015 11:50:53 GMT
Did ya read me reply at all or wha?? Enough with the questions, how about some responses now. sorry rashers. You did answer that question. What did I not reply to My replies!
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Post by Mickmack on Mar 8, 2015 12:26:59 GMT
well I have always rated Basticks effectiveness highly. His introduction v Mayo in the 2013 was crucial. He set up the second goal... a perfect handpass that BB only has to tap in. He wont be bullied and is capable of bullying. So I see him as vital to Dublin in 2015 as well as a fit again MDMA. MDMA is a disruptive midfielder. Why jump highest for a clean catch when you can ghost in from the side and disrupt the opponent and pick up the break or rip the ball out of the catchers hands as he did to Maher in 2013. His runs through the middle and quick offload are impossible to track and he will have to be met with an immovable object early and often when he does that.
Dublin were one of the most defensive teams even to win an all Ireland in 2011. In 2013 they were one of the most offensive teams ever to win it.
Somewhere in between will be needed in 2015. Realistically they can only lose two games...the semi final and final. Gavin knows that and perhaps all his season is geared towards those two games.
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Post by jackeensabhog on Mar 8, 2015 14:48:52 GMT
well I have always rated Basticks effectiveness highly. His introduction v Mayo in the 2013 was crucial. He set up the second goal... a perfect handpass that BB only has to tap in. He wont be bullied and is capable of bullying. So I see him as vital to Dublin in 2015 as well as a fit again MDMA. MDMA is a disruptive midfielder. Why jump highest for a clean catch when you can ghost in from the side and disrupt the opponent and pick up the break or rip the ball out of the catchers hands as he did to Maher in 2013. His runs through the middle and quick offload are impossible to track and he will have to be met with an immovable object early and often when he does that. Dublin were one of the most defensive teams even to win an all Ireland in 2011. In 2013 they were one of the most offensive teams ever to win it. Somewhere in between will be needed in 2015. Realistically they can only lose two games...the semi final and final. Gavin knows that and perhaps all his season is geared towards those two games. Not really sure about Dublin being that defensive in 2011. I would have thought armagh, Tyrone, donegal or even kerry last year were more defensive all ireland champions. I do agree that Dublin will have to moderate their attacking instinct. Unfortunately, I think this year championship will be the most defense orientated ever. I was at Croker last night and Tyrone set up like donegal with Dublin also being more defensive than usual. Dublin were lucky to get a draw in the end. It makes for very poor viewing and one wonders why you'd pay to watch it. It is indeed 'puke'
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Post by playitfair on Mar 9, 2015 11:55:32 GMT
Personally i thought Tyrone played well. Lacking the killer forwards of yesteryear but otherwise in good health.
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Post by MrRasherstoyou on Mar 9, 2015 21:25:44 GMT
Personally i thought Tyrone played well. Lacking the killer forwards of yesteryear but otherwise in good health. Yes I think so too. If they find one or two this year and get another big summer out of SC they will do very well, as they did 2 years ago
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Post by kerrygold on Mar 11, 2015 20:07:06 GMT
Reading through the various media reports this week it would seem that Harte is playing 15 players behind the ball when defending?
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Post by Mickmack on Mar 13, 2015 8:04:21 GMT
Tyrone have given up contesting opposition kickouts. They allow the opposition build from the back till they reach the their own 45 and then its swarm defence, turnover and mass attack.
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Post by MrRasherstoyou on Mar 14, 2015 11:54:34 GMT
Tyrone have given up contesting opposition kickouts. They allow the opposition build from the back till they reach the their own 45 and then its swarm defence, turnover and mass attack. They only really tried it last year anyway. In 2013 they were mostly withdrawn, swarm and counter.
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Post by Mickmack on Mar 14, 2015 14:01:48 GMT
Keith Duggan
Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 01:00
First published: Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 01:00
“What I love about the league is that every game is different,” says Philly McMahon, anticipating tonight’s under-lights extravaganza in Castlebar against Mayo. Dublin road trips attract attention; they are the team that all the others target.
In Croke Park last weekend, McMahon played at centre-back on a night when the Dubs were befuddled by Tyrone’s unabashed conversion to defensive impregnability and typically sussed counterattacking in the grand Mickey Harte tradition.
Predictions that the Dubs would sweep the spring games with their attacking verve have not yet materialised. They cobbled a draw against Tyrone through a well worked if slightly larcenous goal which Dean Rock finished brilliantly. But escaping from Croke Park with a draw is not the customary way for Jim Gavin’s Dublin.
Still, on a bright Monday lunchtime in Parnell Park, where both Gavin and McMahon appeared to announce Dublin GAA’s new partnership with Bavaria’s non-alcoholic beer, there was an unspoken sense that the league champions aren’t overly concerned by struggles in the springtime.
“Look, yeah, when you get beaten by any system you have to look at what worked and what didn’t,” McMahon says, sitting on a bench in a spotless dressing room and resting for what you suspect is the first time since dawn broke.
“Take Kerry . . . they beat us a few weeks ago and we had to look at that. And then you go play a team like Tyrone that has a totally different way of playing. And we didn’t win that either! The big thing for us is to keep doing the basics right. This is what the league campaign is for. We have a big group of really hungry, good young players coming through and Jim is giving them a chance. We have players coming back from injury and they are getting game time.”
Old Firm McMahon talked his father, Phil, out of making the long road trip to Killarney to watch that instalment of the Old Firm of GAA rivalries. His father is a born rambler but Philly persuaded him that he would better off just watching this one on the sofa.
His father calls him “the half-breed” because the McMahons are scattered around west Belfast and Philly and his siblings have a curious combination of strong Belfast and north Dublin influences. His mother’s was the voice of caution and reprimand growing up while his father was easy-going.
“Same time, you wouldn’t want to cross him with the big Nordie accent on him,” he says brightly. He visited his cousins often in Belfast as a kid but once he made it as a Dublin city footballer, he was surprised by just how much it meant to his extended family In fact, he was surprised by how much the GAA meant in his father’s city.
“My da is a Dub now,” he says doubtfully. “But then, we’ve never played Antrim so . . .”
McMahon is a wonderful contradiction. He has cut his cloth as an indispensable defensive element of the all-conquering side which Gavin has engineered. He is a true ball player, as evidenced by his expansive displays at midfield for Ballymun Kickhams and by his ability to contribute to the scoreboard – he was among the quartet that landed outrageous points from distance against Donegal last August.
But he is primarily a close-marking and uncompromising defender with an abrasive edge: cut from the cloth of the late Mick Holden. If he has developed the reputation of someone not to be messed with on the field, he is a disconcertingly open and positive presence in everyday life.
Like most intercounty players, he manages his time with an accountant’s precision and puts in Thatcherite working days, as owner and personal trainer of three boutique gyms, BKfitness, around the city as well as developing Fitfood Ireland, a company which prepares healthy versions of everyday meals. He was always fascinated by the food industry and followed the food shows on television but since he started his company, he is always on the lookout for tips and ideas.
Bounty bar “There is an American show called Dinners, Drive-Ins and Dives and I love that. I love Cake Boss too. My philosophy is that people can enjoy bad food made healthy. It doesn’t have to be a salad. We’ve just brought out a spice bag which is massive in Dublin. It was just bonkers in terms of orders for the past week. So we could have burgers and chips made from healthy ingredients. We do treat boxes with a healthy bounty bar or cookies and muffins.
“They are all sugar, dairy and gluten free. The biggest downfall of owning the company is that I keep eating them. I’m always saying I have to stop eating these. But then, why do I? They are all perfectly good for you. So, okay, another cupcake. I’ve always had a sweet tooth. I don’t drink alcohol so sweet stuff is my downfall.”
McMahon grew up in Ballymun. There is hardly a corner of Ireland where alcohol isn’t easily obtainable by determined adolescents but his childhood in Ballymun coincided with a period when the drink and drugs were not so much available as almost impossible to avoid.
Many of the group that McMahon came up with became entangled with drugs, several fatally so. He tried beer once and hated the taste of it and swore off it. It helped that he became hooked on football at an early age and had a mentor in Paddy Christie. It helped also that his older brother John Caffrey was there to threaten and cajole him and make him promise not to get mixed up in any of it.
“John had his struggles with drugs and it was an embarrassing thing that I used to try and hide,” he says. “It’s just not nice. You want your family to be perfect and drugs have a massive effect, no matter where you are from. But John would always say to me: you see what I’m at. If I catch you at any of that . . . he just warned me. I only realised when he passed away how important an influence he was on me. I said to a friend there recently: for someone to come off drugs is the most inspirational thing a person can do in life. Because it takes . . . unless you have experienced it, you can’t really know. And you don’t want to experience it.
“A big thing for young people is that they need confidence and alcohol and drugs is a way of gaining that. I never needed it. I’d have no problem just socialising or going dancing and having the crack. I’d say people thought I was drunk sometimes, the way I went on. But alcohol – I just didn’t like the taste of it. I tried it and didn’t like it.
“My friends knew I was into sport from a young age and they knew not to put any pressure on me. But it can happen so easily, anywhere. There is the thing of boredom for kids as well. What do you do of an evening? That is why I was so happy to come along and support this today.
“You know, wouldn’t it be great if you can have the whole thing of having a beer without the side-effects that go with it? There is that placebo effect. In Ballymun, more of my friends would have taken drugs than did not. I’ve lost some good friends to drugs. But I was lucky. I had John and I had sport.”
John Caffrey died at the age of 31 in his home in London; he had a heart condition and passed away in September of 2012.
“You kind of take things for granted, that someone close will always be there. When it happens, it is a real big shock. It is terrible, yeah.”
His younger brother’s response was to vow to live as productively and positively as he could. McMahon is sometimes invited back to his school to talk about how he persevered, returning to do his Leaving Cert and becoming the first in his family to get a college degree. His message is simple: “If I can do it, so can you.”
He opened up his gyms, first in Ballymun and then Drimnagh and Tallaght both to prove to himself that he could do it and because he is fascinated by strength and conditioning and by the benefits of healthy living.
“The market has changed a lot in the six years. I’m not doing any of this to become a millionaire. I’m doing it because I love it.”
He is up and out the door by 6am most mornings to give personalised classes to members. Between classes and Fitfood and his Dublin football schedule, the days are hectic.
Energy source McMahon is one of those people who are a natural energy source. It’s in the way he communicates: sincere and open-hearted and good fun. He tells this story about a friend who phoned him asking would he take on a new client. He knew the man’s name and recognised him as being among the many people ravaged from years of substance abuse. He had grave misgivings that the man would be able for even the simplest of fitness regimes. But he agreed to give it a shot.
“So this fella walks in and I nearly started crying. This was after my brother passed away so the whole thing was very close to me. And when this fella walked into my gym, my thought was: how did you do it? His response was: ‘Have a fight with Mike Tyson every morning you wake up. And then one morning you say: Mike, I’m not fighting you anymore.’ And you drive around most areas in Dublin and see people fighting with drugs. And you want to go up and give them a shake. But you can’t know what they are going through.
“We did the training and now he is going on to do a fitness course. Amazing! So I would love any recovering addict to come and train in my gym. Even if he is just going to rehabilitation. Because I think it is amazing that someone can change their addiction into something positive.”
That alchemy is central to the way he lives. Growing up, he was fascinated by what his father’s adolescence had been like, growing up in the violence and turmoil of nationalist Belfast. His Dad boxed a little bit but sport wasn’t a big priority.
“I’d like to tell his story some day, love to tell it to my own kids. It is amazing to see the turnaround up there. When you go through the Border when you are young and you see army men with guns or guys with balaclavas doing blockades. It was strange. My dad was always good at explaining it all to me. He grew up in an era that was rough and in fairness, he is very pro peace.
“I have massive respect for people in the North who lived through the Troubles. Because I think Ulster teams . . . those lads have gone through a lot. Especially the older lads. They would have seen trouble growing up and I respect that. If you don’t have a connection to the North, you wouldn’t understand that. But I have a lot of respect for what the Ulster counties went through because in a way, it was no different to the difficulties in Ballymun.”
McMahon wears the perks and privileges of being a Dublin footballer lightly. He knows the profile that comes with being part of the most intensely scrutinised teams in Ireland helps in terms of business and in making youngsters sit up and listen to what he has to say.
Ballymun has backed him and if he has any kind of influence he wants to use that. Last year, he got involved with the Ballymun-Whitehall partnership in a scheme to take people off the live register by doing a level four fitness course. Of the 20 participants seven found employment and as many went on to further education.
“It was brilliant but it wasn’t supported the following year,” he says, striking a rare note of frustration. “So that’s where the Government comes in: where you can point and say that we need to keep things going. . . I just want to support the community because it has supported me.”
Somehow, in the midst of all this, he manages to put Dublin football at the centre of his life. He shook his head when he was substituted in the second half against Tyrone. The competition for places is relentless and ferocious and none of them can afford to show up with blunted desire.
Tonight in Castlebar, they will scrap for league points but also so they can be in the shake-up for places in the summer.
“You are competing against the fellas coming up behind you and against your opponents too because they can have an influence on who wears the jersey,” McMahon says. “We know that Jim is going to play the best players – as in the players that are showing form. It doesn’t matter who you are.” Except that it does, too.
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Post by Mickmack on Mar 14, 2015 14:02:55 GMT
Uplifting piece there on Philly McMahon
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