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Post by kerrygold on Oct 25, 2007 8:59:20 GMT
Micko's new books is coming out shortly.
The indo are having a look at it over the next three days starting today,it should make for an interesting read over the christmas.
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Post by hatchetman on Oct 25, 2007 11:34:21 GMT
From todays Indo
Mick O'Dwyer: Glory game's leading man By Eugene McGee Thursday October 25 2007
Mick O'Dwyer attended the removal in Shillelagh of a close relative of an officer of Wicklow County Board who had passed away.
As is customary, he went into the mortuary to sympathise with the family members and having done so, he was approached by a local man who asked him for his autograph.
Within minutes a queue had formed of people looking for the Great Man's signature and, as always, he duly obliged and the obsequies had to take a back seat for quite a long time. The brother of the deceased passed a piece of paper to Mick, asked him to sign it and then placed the autographed slip in the hands of the corpse in the open coffin. "That man idolised you Mick," he said.
This story was told to me by a man who was there so we can accept that it happened. I doubt if there is any other GAA person in Ireland who could extract such a stunning example of public admiration and respect as that, but then there has never been a manager like O'Dwyer either.
The fact that the O'Dwyer life story being published now is the third such book is an indication of the many and varied careers he has had as player and manager. And the overriding theme running through them all is that of success. Success as a player, as manager of the greatest Gaelic football team of all time, and as manager of Kildare, Laois and Wicklow.
Dramatic
Some would question if the word success should be applied to his terms in the three Leinster counties but they are wrong. Kildare had not won a Leinster Championship for 42 years until O'Dwyer steered them to victory in the 1998 final against Meath and when he repeated that feat with Laois in 2003, it had been a staggering 57 years since their previous Leinster title.
By any standards, that is success for those counties. In his first year in Wicklow, O'Dwyer saw the team win the Tommy Murphy Cup in dramatic style in Croke Park which, by the pathetic standards of Wicklow football in modern times, was certainly success and who knows what has yet to come from the county?
Like all great managers, there has always been a slight air of mystery about Mick O'Dwyer which has added to his charisma. Very few people know the man well because he has mastered the art of being all things to all men in the nicest way possible.
His trademark greeting of 'how are you keeping' is the same whether he is talking to one of his neighbours in Waterville or a VIP from any walk of Irish life.
He is a master of diplomacy in the best Kerry tradition of that art and his ability to talk up opposing teams when everybody knew they had absolutely no chance of beating his Kerry teams, in particular, was legendary.
Mick O'Dwyer was reared in a hard school as was any person from rural Ireland in the 1930s, '40s and '50s. The name of the game was survival on the economic level but in Kerry there was always one way of rising above the commonality of economic depression, emigration and poverty and that was through Gaelic football. Win a few All-Irelands and you had status and status brought opportunities, even in the barren economic environment of O'Dwyer's youth.
His ability to make money from small beginnings in Waterville when he started his working life as a mechanic is legendary and, he has certainly clocked up plenty of mileage when it comes to expenses.
But it is not money that has kept him in the team management business for over 30 years with four different counties. No, the money may be significant to O'Dwyer as it was to anyone reared in the times the Waterville man was, but it is the fact that he is addicted to Gaelic football that accounts for his longevity as a manager. Lots of other managers are also fond of the game, but none have come near matching the longevity that Mick O'Dwyer has.
The experts said he was mad to get involved with perennial losers Kildare, madder still to go into Laois with their capacity to self-destruct and totally barmy to start all over again with one of the weakest teams in the country, Wicklow, at the age of 70.
Totally barmy
Granted, in all three cases there was serious money available for spending on all aspects of the county teams, but while the package involved O'Dwyer being at the helm in each county, Kildare, Laois and Wicklow would say now it was the best investment they ever made. O'Dwyer is addicted to football just as others are addicted to smoking, drinking or drugs. He cannot imagine a year going by when he would not have a hands-on role with some team, chasing up and down the sideline with the match programme rolled up in hand, cleverly chatting up the linesman but with a facial expression that never gives any indication of what he is really thinking.
His sideline role, however, is one area of O'Dwyer's managerial career which is open to question. He has sometimes been slow to make switches or substitutions and this cost Kildare dearly in the 1998 All-Ireland final against Galway when problems in the Kildare team were allowed to develop for over 40 minutes before action was taken.
It may well be that he was a late developer as regards tactics like this because when he was managing Kerry, the team was made up of such talented players that substitutions or switches were never very important. In the modern era, of course, these things are critical.
When viewed in the larger context of Irish life, Mick O'Dwyer is a phenomenon. He is recognised in any part of Ireland and in GAA circles he is one of the few icons who seems to have no enemies, a rare achievement in the bear pit that is the GAA world. That is mainly because he has avoided GAA politics all his life and, apart from sitting on some special committees, he has stayed well clear of the smoke-filled rooms where great GAA decisions are made.
That has also allowed him to be critical of various events in the GAA and, for example, his trenchant views on compensation for inter-county players were being aired 20 years ago, long before the GPA or Player Welfare Officers came on the scene.
Indeed, O'Dwyer would claim that his refusal to court favour with GAA officials over the years is the reason why the only major honour that has eluded him, manager of the Ireland team for the games with Australia, was never offered. He is sore about that and is perfectly entitled to be considering he was available for the position for about 25 years.
While Mick O'Dwyer has been the most successful manager in GAA history, he also suffered the biggest single disappointment when Kerry were beaten by Offaly in 1982 as they were on the brink of winning an unprecedented fifth successive All-Ireland.
Photographs from that day show the sheer desolation on his face but in a huge act of true sportsmanship he still came into a rampant Offaly dressing room to make a most generous congratulatory speech, an act which defined his attitude to the game. He said later that he hardly left his house for six months after that game but, in what I consider his greatest achievement, he brought Kerry teams back to Croke Park to win the All-Irelands of 1984, '85 and '86.
What distinguishes O'Dwyer, or 'Dwyer' as he is invariably called in Kerry, from other managers is his outgoing, friendly personality. To this day ,he has no trouble stopping to talk to a group of Wicklow farmers or posing for a picture with a couple of elderly women he never met before.
He is the ultimate 'good mixer' and as they say in rural Ireland: "He will talk to anybody". Fame and instant recognition rest lightly on his shoulders as the Wicklow funeral incident proves.
Mixer
One could argue that Mick O'Dwyer has been the greatest public relations person the GAA has ever had after Micheal O'Hehir, as he seems to have been ever-present for the past 50 years.
But what keeps him going is his addiction to the game of football, the training, the plotting, the matches, the plámásing of the journalists afterwards and the sheer 'craic' of the whole thing.
He has suffered more agonising defeats with the four counties he has managed than any other GAA manager yet, he has retained his sanity and his love of the whole thing into his seventies.
Next month he will be off to New York with Wicklow, who will play at the official opening of new floodlights in Gaelic Park with the same boyish enthusiasm as for his first trip abroad 50 years ago. Some man!
- Eugene McGee
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Post by islandexile on Nov 3, 2007 11:05:10 GMT
There is an extract from his new book "Blessed and Obsessed" in the Sunday Independent tomorrow. It's focuses on why he said no to Charlie Haughey who tried to get him to run for the Dail, on why he said no to Dublin when they wanted him and why he always said no to alcohol even though he was a successful publican.
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JOAN
Fanatical Member
Posts: 2,492
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Post by JOAN on Nov 3, 2007 16:51:05 GMT
we have the pleasure of hostin the launch of the book here on the 16th on Nov while he is out with the wicklow team thay playing New York on the 17th..
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Post by sullyschoice on Nov 3, 2007 23:38:38 GMT
tell the ref to arrive in a station wagon. (that way the wicklow supporters cant lock him in the boot)
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Post by ciarrai33 on Nov 4, 2007 9:39:15 GMT
If I had taken the Dublin job in 2004 they'd be All-Ireland champions now
By Mick O'Dwyer Sunday November 04 2007
Of all the jobs in inter-county management, three stand out as the most desirable. Any manager or coach worthy of the name would have to be excited by the prospect of taking over in Kerry, Dublin or Galway.
Every county has its own appeal but that trio top the list in terms of glamour and tradition. So much so, that any manager who didn't feel a tingle of excitement at the possibility of walking into those dressing rooms should be checked for a pulse. I was lucky enough to manage Kerry for 15 seasons and I could have returned many years later but I declined. I was offered the Dublin job in 2004 but turned it down for very specific reasons and I was linked to Galway in 2006 but nothing came of it because the timing was wrong, both for me and them.
I had so many great years as a player and manager with my beloved Kerry that when the chance came to return towards the end of 2006, people might have thought I would jump at it but that was never going to be the case. I was sounded out as to whether I was interested but there was always going to be only one answer. For a start, I had just taken over in Wicklow so it would have been dishonourable to walk away from them, but even if I had been available, I wouldn't have taken the Kerry job. I had done my time in Kerry and could see no reason to go back. Coaching teams is all about testing your team and yourself and after managing Kerry to eight All-Ireland titles there would have been very little challenge for me in returning all those years later. That would have been spotted very quickly by the players so things probably wouldn't have worked out and the last thing I wanted was to be remembered for messing up a fine team.
Anyway, Kerry appointed a good manager in Pat O'Shea who did an excellent job in 2007. They have won three of the last four All-Irelands, losing the other one by a single score. It is some record. There's a sound balance to the team and when you have a forward like Colm Cooper, anything is possible. The 'Gooch' would have got on any forward line on any team in any era, including the great Kerry side that I managed. Everything about his game is totally natural which makes him the unbelievably talented player that he is.
Now if only Dublin could find somebody like the 'Gooch'. They have a lot going for them but lack the touch that Cooper brings to Kerry. Over the years, I often wondered what it would be like to manage Dublin. How would I gel with their approach to the game? How would they react to me? There was always a fascination about the Dublin scene and, having been involved in so many great battles with them as a player and manager, I reckoned it would have been exciting to be on the their side of the fence for a while.
Dublin have played a huge role in my football life, first during my playing days and even more so as a manager. Indeed, it was ironic that the day I featured on the Kerry squad for the last time in Croke Park coincided with the launch of the Dubs and the Heffo era.
It was back in May 1974 when Kerry and Roscommon replayed the National League final. I was among the substitutes (I retired a few weeks later) for a game which Kerry won quite easily. In these days when Croke Park is packed almost every time Dublin play, younger people will find it difficult to understand why a Dublin v Wexford first round Leinster championship game would be downgraded to curtain-raiser status on a double bill with a League final replay.
The answer is simple. Interest in Dublin football was very low at the start of the 1974 championship season as they had failed to win a Leinster title since 1965 and had fallen well down the pecking order. Less than 23,000 people turned out that day and it was estimated that at least half of them were there for the Kerry v Roscommon game.
It changed pretty quickly as Dublin began their upward climb that day and ended up as All-Ireland champions four months later. Some 16 months later, I was in charge of the Kerry team that beat Dublin to begin a decade of fiercely intense rivalry. It shows how quickly things can change because that looked an unlikely scenario on that May afternoon in 1974.
The possibility of me managing Dublin many years later might have seemed like heresy back in the days when I was leading Kerry in the near-annual battle for supremacy with Heffo's boys but it very nearly came to pass in 2004. It wasn't something that I actively pursued but my friend Arthur French, always a mover and shaker in football and business circles, discovered after Dublin were knocked out of the championship that they wanted me to replace Tommy Lyons. John Bailey was Dublin County Board chairman and he had discussions with Arthur to find out whether or not I was interested.
I was having some problems in Laois at the time over poor attendance at training and, while I was always one to honour my commitments, I wasn't going to be treated like a fool if others weren't prepared to put in as much effort as me.
While all this was going on in Laois, Arthur set up a meeting with Bailey and Michael Fingleton, the head man at Irish Nationwide. We met for lunch at the K Club so that if any GAA people spotted us, they would think we were out for a round of golf, rather than discussing the Dublin job. I have to say I was very tempted to have a go. Bailey was extremely anxious that I take over and told me that if I agreed, he would be able to sell the idea to the Dublin County Board. I told him I would think about it and we left that meeting on the basis that the job was mine if I wanted it. Certainly that was the impression Bailey gave me.
I went away to think about it and weighed up all the options very carefully. I had a suspicion that some people in Laois wanted to see the back of me and if that were the case, I wasn't going to stay where I wasn't wanted. It transpired afterwards that the extent of the opposition to me was exaggerated as the Laois squad and key board officers were keen for me to stay, but I wasn't too sure of the situation during some crazy days that October.
While I was still mulling over the Dublin situation, I was spotted chatting to Bailey at the All-Ireland ladies football final in Croke Park and suddenly a very lively cat sprung from the bag. We didn't even discuss the Dublin manager situation that day but shortly afterwards word broke I was in the frame for the job.
The impact was immediate and the odds against me taking over in Dublin tumbled dramatically. It would have taken a considerable amount of money to trigger the change but obviously there were informed whispers in the long grass. The reaction was interesting. Some high-profile Dubs made it clear that they were horrified at the prospect of an outsider taking charge, let alone an outsider from Kerry who had been involved with a team that had brought them such heartache. It seems they felt it would be akin to Osama Bin Laden becoming US President.
- Mick O'Dwyer
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Post by ciarrai33 on Nov 4, 2007 9:40:19 GMT
I should have walked when my alarm bells started ringing in Laois
By Mick O'Dwyer Sunday November 04 2007
It isn't in my nature to walk away from a challenge and Laois very definitely represented one serious challenge at the end of 2005, but I still should have left.
The truth was that my authority was being undermined from within and I should never have stood for it. Laois had won a Leinster final and reached two others which had been lost in the cruellest of circumstances. Yet, instead of seeing the glass as half-full many Laois people seemed to regard it as three-quarters empty. They had damn short memories.
What's more, it appears the three-quarter empty feeling was all my fault. Defeats by Armagh in 2003 and 2005 and Tyrone in 2004 raised doubts among Laois supporters -- and players too, I have to say -- about my training methods, my selections and my tactical approach. It seems I was out of touch with modern trends and demands. Never mind that I had been training teams since my teenage days or that my record with Kerry, Kildare and Laois suggested that I managed to get some things right over the years. Times had changed and now Mickey Harte and Joe Kernan were the managerial Messiahs whose methods had to be copied.
That would appear to have been the feeling in the Laois camp in early 2006 when the Laois players got together and declared that what we had been doing in training wasn't going to take them any further. They demanded a change in the system, claiming that it was vital if they were to put themselves in a position to win the All-Ireland title. They didn't think they were physically strong enough and kept referring to the Ulster way of doing things.
They didn't say it directly but there was only one interpretation to take out of it. As far as they were concerned, the type of training that had stood to me for years was out of date. John Doran, who had worked with me as trainer in Kildare and Laois, had gone back to Kildare so now there was a vacancy.
A change of direction in training wasn't the only thing the players wanted -- they also pressed to have a psychologist brought in to get their mental approach right. God almighty, how did I manage all down the years!
It was at that stage that I should have said goodbye, thrown my gear in the boot and headed out of Laois. I still regard it as weakness on my part that I didn't head for home.
We all make mistakes and I have never tried to cover up mine. But there are times when, if you're to be truly honest with yourself, you have to look in the mirror rather than at somebody else when you're trying to find out why something went wrong. I certainly felt at the end of 2005 that some mirrors wouldn't have gone amiss in the Laois dressing room. Instead, they were being turned in my direction.
My response to the doubts raised over our training methods should have been short and sharp. My way or no way -- take it or leave it. Instead, I agreed to allow another trainer be brought in. Gerry Loftus was chosen and he set to work immediately. He did a very good job too. He is an exceptionally fit man and he ran an excellent training programme. The players seemed very happy with him and I reckoned if they felt good about themselves and what they were doing, it would show in their performances. However, the fact that my authority had been questioned should have set my alarm bells ringing. However good Gerry was, he did nothing that I felt would advance the team any more than I had.
Not once in my 15 seasons with Kerry or my ten with Kildare had the players queried anything I did. Not to my face anyway, and as for what anybody said behind my back, well I couldn't care less. A bit of back-biting is no harm, it happens in every camp. It would have been easy for the Kildare lads to raise doubts when I came back for a second time. They might have thought: 'If we didn't succeed under him for four years, why should it be any different this time?' But they didn't. In fact, they bought into it straight away and the lads who had been there in my first stint redoubled their efforts.
I was annoyed by the inference in Laois that my methods weren't good enough but, having given my word that I would stay on, I stood back on the training ground and let Gerry get on with it. Besides, I had plenty to occupy me and it wasn't all pleasant either. We tipped along quite nicely in the 2006 League, actually topping the group after losing just one game (to Meath by a point) to qualify for the semi-final against Kerry in Killarney.
And then the fun started. Yet again, we had been ravaged by injuries so we looked to the U-21 team. They hadn't been training with us because they were in the middle of their own championship campaign and had qualified for the All-Ireland semi-final. But as our injury problems increased, I looked for a few of them.
They were told by the team management that if they played for the seniors they would be left off the U-21 team which put them in an awkward position. We started the two Colm Kellys (Stradbally and St Joseph's) against Kerry but took them off at half-time because we would never have heard the end of it if we played them for the full 70 minutes.
We didn't play Donie Brennan but he got caught in the crossfire because he was among the first to let it be known that he would play for the seniors if we wanted him. He was even dropped from the U-21 panel for a few days while the two Kellys were told they wouldn't start the All-Ireland semi-final against Cork.
It was crazy stuff. The senior team should always be number one in every county. By all means, facil-
- Mick O'Dwyer
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Post by Mickmack on Nov 4, 2007 22:52:14 GMT
so Micko would have taken the soup........
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Jo90
Fanatical Member
Posts: 2,693
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Post by Jo90 on Nov 5, 2007 14:48:41 GMT
I have to say I always feel a bit cheated when I buy someone's autobiography and then a few years later they bring out another one.
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falveyb2k
Fanatical Member
"The way this man played today, if there was a flood he'd walk on water. Jack O Shea"
Posts: 1,920
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Post by falveyb2k on Nov 5, 2007 15:06:52 GMT
Well that wan't an "autobiography" to be fair. Owen McCrohan wrote a biography on him and wisely enough interviewed him and took a lot of quotes from him. I enjoyed it because I'm sure a lot of what was in it won't be repeated in this book
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Post by kerrygold on Nov 5, 2007 19:20:49 GMT
I have to say I always feel a bit cheated when I buy someone's autobiography and then a few years later they bring out another one. that comment would be fair jo90 if micko had walked away from the game like most others when he felt he had his bit done for the game,but the micko menia keeps going on and on and on as he approaches his 72nd birthday.
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osama
Full Member
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Post by osama on Nov 5, 2007 19:33:20 GMT
He is one of two of the Greatest GAA people of all time. Con Murphy won it all asa player and then became the greatest administrator ever in the GAA, Micko won it all as a player and the became the greatest managerever in the GAA. Also a very otspoken person who in all fairness is rarely wrong in what he says. He made some very good points in the Sunday Indo about the consumption of alcohol in the home and the detrimental effect it will have for years to come. Also reading about his tax audit was very good and that he had done nothing wrong, I once heard a rumour from a Kildare man that the Kildare Co. Board had a golf classic that raised 70,000 and Micko had it gone before the first round of the Leinster Championship, bull**** obviously.
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Post by leixman on Nov 6, 2007 9:33:38 GMT
Probably best address your question here Mick.
Micko is a true legend for what he achieved with Laois in 2003. The talent was there, but they were all pulling different directions and there was a complete lack of focus. The defeat to Meath in Moore Park in 2002 was the nadir for Laois GAA. I could safely say 12 of the team that own Leinster started that day in 2002, yet never had I seen as disjointed a team, as defeated a team before they even went out, as I saw that day in Portlaoise.
Micko changed all that. the players who thought they had missed their chance, the minors of 95 96 and 97, the contemporaries of Tomas O Se, the Keneallys, Mike Mc, Brosnan, Mike Frank, who thought the momentum was gone, were given a second chance by Micko. He believed in them, so they believed in themselves.
For that Micko should never be forgotten.
2004 was a disappointment however, that Westmeath team was imminently beatable and it was the chance to strike on and build on 2003, Dublin were still pathetic, and Westmeath were poor. But we didn’t. And the chance was gone. We went into the Tyrone game playing our 3 game in 2 weeks and crippled with injuries, it was a bridge too far.
As for Micko saying he should have walked, well when Micko was told he wouldn’t be kept on, he had intimated that he wanted another year, so I don’t know how much should be read into that.
There were troubles in the Laois camp when the players wanted a more physical approach brought in. If Micko felt this marginalised him, then he should have walked there and then as he said. However he didn’t and I think he regrets that now. I will say, I'm not sure how I felt about him talking to the Dublin Chair about their job when he was still manager of us, but that’s a small matter and not worth getting into.
I will say the incident with the U21's on the way to Killarney was a disgrace and I stand fully behind Micko on that one. The U21 management should be ashamed of themselves for what they done to those players that day, some of which have never featured for the County since. How they were treated was nothing short of embarrassing for all concerned. Micko was right on that one.
Overall, Micko will never be forgotten up in Laois for what he brought to the County. Micko still has a lot of friends in Laois and the true Laois fans who toiled for years will always thank him for 2003. We're sorry for what might have been in 2004 and 2005 but I think Micko is too.
He hasn't lost a friend here anyway that’s for sure.
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Post by kerrygold on Nov 6, 2007 10:25:03 GMT
good post leixman,micko doent always get the respect he deserves for the great work he has done in kildare,laois and now wicklow.
i was at the replay leinster final in 2004,laois had nothing in the tank,it was a game that was there for the taking,they didnt seem to have the hunger to win it.I'd imagine that would have troubled micko.Croker was half empty with a poor atmosphere and westmeath werent outstanding,it fell nicely for paidi in the end.
it might be fair to say that if micko had stayed with kildare in 2003 he proberly would have got one more leinster championship out of an ageing kildare set up.kildare shouldnt have let dublin best them in 2002.
the u21 thing and the league game was rediculous from a laois point of view and made no sence,i'd imagine micko had formed the opinion that the will wasnt in laois to move up to the next level.
theres people out there who feel micko's methods were out dated and he underachieved in laois,i'm not one of them.kerins didnt deliver last summer,i await '08 with baited breath from the laois kerins point of view.
on a positive point of view,yere sucess at minor level over the last 10 years amazes me greatly,its massive coming from a small population of 50 or 60 thousand people when you compare it kildare,meath,dublin and wiclow with far bigger populations.
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Post by Mickmack on Nov 6, 2007 18:37:52 GMT
I was in Portlaoise in 2002 for Laois v Meath game. The Kerry v Fermanagh game was on that day too.
I was in Croke Park in 2003 when they won the Leinster title. I even went onto the pitch after such was the buzz. Adults crying and both Kildare and Laois fans applauded Micko.
The transformation was incredible in 12 months.
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Post by Mickmack on Nov 6, 2007 18:40:23 GMT
ps....... I could never imagine Kevin Heffernan or Billy Morgan coaching Kerry.
I find it amazing that he would contemplate coaching out arch rivals Dublin.
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Post by kerrygold on Nov 6, 2007 19:06:51 GMT
what he did with kildare was more spectacular,12 of the team that lost the '91 league final to a fluke vinny murphy goal had played in div.3 of the national league the season before.
seven seasons later they came within 35 minutes of winning an all-ireland to bridge a 70 year gap as geniune all contenders have beaten the three previous all-ireland champions en route to the all ireland final,dublin'95,meath'96 and kerry '97 all-ireland champions in their three previous games that season.
now that was serious performance in fairness.
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Post by leixman on Nov 6, 2007 19:42:34 GMT
Yea and you wouldnt have said the talent was in Kildare that was in Laois. We really underachieved under Micko, I do think the change with the back door done us no good in that in 2003 we won Leinster only to "win" the privilige of playing Armagh in a 1/4 final and not a semi as had been the case in previous years.
But such is the luck of the draw.
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Post by Mickmack on Nov 6, 2007 21:27:43 GMT
Westmeath got done in by Derry in the quarterfinal when they were leinster champions in 2004.
The elephent in the room is; no Leinster county since Meath reached the final this decade and no Leinster team has won it.
Kildare in 1998 were awfully unlucky...... they beat the all ireland champions of 2005,2006 and 2007 on the way and were a spent force when the met a Galway team that took the frame of the back door.
Then along come Meath in 1999 and go all the way.
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Post by leixman on Nov 7, 2007 8:47:01 GMT
Yea, Derry, they should have been ashamed of themselves. 2003 was out year, but we met an Armagh side that few teams could live with back then, worse luck.
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Post by kerrygold on Nov 7, 2007 9:07:58 GMT
winning all-irelands leixman is all about being good enough to beat the best in a given year,kerry,galway,armagh and tyrone have cleared that bar this decade,you'll find they had the best players most noteably in the forwards,laois,kildare,mayo,cork didnt have forwards like maurice fitz,the gooch,stevie mc donald,clark,osin,joyce,fallon,canavan,mcguigan,dooher etc.
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Post by leixman on Nov 7, 2007 9:36:08 GMT
Yea it was never really our backs that let us down, more so our forwards Ah I'm not claiming we should have a few All Irelands or anything, just lamenting the fact that we never got a nice one like Derry, but then thats the luck of the draw.
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Post by MrRasherstoyou on Nov 7, 2007 15:20:12 GMT
I wasnt aware that Derry had got a handy All-I, when was that?
There's certainly been saturation coverage about the man that many whom's fans have said has been hard done by
Micko did very well with Kildare, mind you, it took 8 years of graft. They never looked like winning Sam though.
KG, I see begrudgery is alive and well ;D Dublin deserved to beat the short grass in 2002, "no question of doubt about it" as Micko would have said, and it should have been by more than 2 points.
With Laois, I feel Micko under-achieved, though as others have said, the forwards didnt cut it at senior level. However, I do think thay should have won more than one Delaney, in what has clearly been the weakest era for Leinster since the 1960s Having said that Leixman, if they really want it, they are plenty young enough, with competition from the underage still very strong, and I dont see many great contenders in Leinster. I agree that they played well against Armagh, but the thing is, they never built on it
I dont think Micko for Dublin was ever really a runner, no matter that he was asked by Bailey. My impression here is that Micko is too diplomatic to say that he didnt really want it, it's clear from his career that he has always taken over when expectation has been low with teams, in Dublin it's always high because the media brooks no hiding place
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Post by leixman on Nov 7, 2007 15:39:56 GMT
I meant Westmeath got a handy AI 1/4 against Derry, not Derry's handy AI, although to be fair, that was a poor Cork team in 92.
Laois could have won a 3 in a row, and didnt, and that will forever be a blackspot on Micko's record in the long run. It was a poor time in Leinster football and while an AI might have been ot of reach a 3 in a row in Leinster would have been a great haul and well within reach.
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Post by MrRasherstoyou on Nov 7, 2007 16:08:27 GMT
I meant Westmeath got a handy AI 1/4 against Derry, not Derry's handy AI, although to be fair, that was a poor Cork team in 92. Laois could have won a 3 in a row, and didnt, and that will forever be a blackspot on Micko's record in the long run. It was a poor time in Leinster football and while an AI might have been ot of reach a 3 in a row in Leinster would have been a great haul and well within reach. Very honest assessment. Why do you think they havent stepped up? It wasnt a "great" Kildare team (by national standards) that eventually (after years of failure & graft) won 2 Leinsters, in a stronger Leinster Champo
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Post by leixman on Nov 7, 2007 19:24:24 GMT
Difficult to say, we should have won 3 Leinsters so I wouldnt rate the Kildare team better than us as a result of that.
What I will say is that the football landscape or the noughties was very different than the late 90's.
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Post by kerrygold on Nov 8, 2007 0:42:47 GMT
Difficult to say, we should have won 3 Leinsters so I wouldnt rate the Kildare team better than us as a result of that. What I will say is that the football landscape or the noughties was very different than the late 90's. kildare contested 5 leinster finals,a national league final,2 all-ireland semi finals and an all-ireland final. laois contested 3 leinster finals and a national league final,those stats dont back up the suggestion that laois were better than kildare and that laois underachieved under micko.Laois didnt have the stomach for battle to win the leinster final that was there for the taking in 2004,thats not a reflection on micko long term record. i fully agree with you that laois have a better pedigree than kildare especially at underage were laois contested numerious all-ireland minor finals and won 3 or 4 of them whereas kildare's pool came from just three leinster minor final victories,'83,'87,'91. but can you point out to me leixman top end players in the present laois side of the calibar of glen ryan,16 seasons on the kildare team,anthony rainbow,15 seasons,martin lynch,14 seasons,dermot early,12 seasons,niall buckley 10 seasons on the kildare team whom all lead from the front over a very long period of time and dragged kildare from the basement to the very top table of the intercounty game. in my opinion all five would have made any all-ireland winning team of the last 15 or so years. tom kelly springs to mind,i'm not fully sure about clancy,beano and mulleny offer potential up front that kildare simply didnt have,tierny and donie brennan also have potential. i suppose the proof of the pudding will be judged on what liam kierns can extract from them.
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Post by MrRasherstoyou on Nov 8, 2007 1:11:59 GMT
It was Micko who had "the cream of the crop" of matured Laois talent, yet they didnt push on from 2003, maybe that's just down to a combination of lack of leadership on the field, plus weakness of forward talent/physicality. Yet look at Tyrone, for years they underachieved with the product of great underage teams, and the reason given was the same, "too small", "too much nice football" and it was only when Harte took over that they really stepped up - was it the coach, or that the right players of leadership/ability matured at that time?
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Post by kerrygold on Nov 8, 2007 8:35:47 GMT
i think tyrone came about after the bedding in of superb winning underage talent with one of the great forwards in the history of the game,peter canavan under the guidence of harte whom had nurtured the underage talent.
its possible tyrone wouldnt have made the break through without canavan but the other side of the coins reads that canavan had been around for nearly a dozen seasons and couldnt achieve it without that recent underage pool in tyrone,although he came damn close in '95.
i dont see a canavan type figure in laois,2008 will be an important season for laois and keirns.
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Post by Mickmack on Nov 8, 2007 16:59:27 GMT
Neither Laois or Kildare had two or three "top drawer" forwards such as Gooch, Declan , Donaghy, Canavan, ONeill, McGuigan, Mulligan, Clarke, McDonnell, McConville, Maurice, Savage, Fallon, Joyce, Donnellan, Linden etc.
I keep saying it .......... forwards win all irelands.
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