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The strongest GAA province?

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Replying To KYTitletown: "Kerry clubs have won 5 Intermediate Club All Irelands and 7 Junior All Irelands since those competitions were established or do only elite clubs tallies count? Munster has the most Senior Football Club titles by the way with 17, Ulster next with 12 even with this dry patch at Senior Club level and are 1 behind at Senior Hurling Club one of the few categories Munster hasn't the most titles" More statistics titletown? How do you set the parameters, ie, participation was not as complete in times gone by, especially club games. All Ireland's were often won in a very diverse manner! Expertinexile (UK) - Posts: 6 - 23/07/2016 22:05:47 1888849 Link
IM not taking a dig at munster (especially since a meath man started this) but there is no way to say which is the strongest gaa province. There are far to many variables. you would have to look at very comp, every age and every code and then agree how far back in time to go (id say something like 5 years maybe) 4 ulster teams made the qf last year but I wouldn't dream to say we are the strongest province due to that. Only one made it to the semi and none in the final. The most teams in a QF means very little. Here is another pointless stat. (using this to show how easy it is to talk nonsense) 8 ulster teams in the top 16 of the league......that must mean we are the best footballing province.......... DoireCityFC (Derry) - Posts: 1580 - 23/07/2016 22:08:09 1888852 Link
Replying To KYTitletown: "Don't make me quote the Munster vs Ulster results of the 70's and 80's again, DON'T" We can all agree that Ulster football was in a dire state in the 70's and80's. But what other way would or could it have been'. We had a war situation in the six counties with thousands of young men in prison, more on the run with the result they were unable to lead a normal life. Other young men shot dead or died in some way due to the unrest that prevailed at the time As already stated a lagrge percentage of the population do not engage in Gaelic games or culture. The propped up goverments of the six county state never at anytime in its history offered any support to the GAA people of the six counties. In fact they took a hostile stand and a lot of GAA people suffered and indeed club houses were burned down. Others were assinated. When Antrim won the All Ireland u21 around 1968/69 in football I read shortly after that that one member of the winning team had been shot dead plus a few more were in jail. In reality what was probably the makings of a very good senior team never got a chance due to the unrest. So whether we like it or not to me Ulster has done very well as regards being a strong provience. We are the only provience to make the breakthrough with different counties over the last 25 years/- Derry Donegal Tyrone and Armagh Plus we are well able to eat Kerry , unlike me Clare Tipp Limerick and indeed Cork. SamOnErrigal (Donegal) - Posts: 1427 - 23/07/2016 22:16:00 1888854 Link
Replying To DoireCityFC: "IM not taking a dig at munster (especially since a meath man started this) but there is no way to say which is the strongest gaa province. There are far to many variables. you would have to look at very comp, every age and every code and then agree how far back in time to go (id say something like 5 years maybe) 4 ulster teams made the qf last year but I wouldn't dream to say we are the strongest province due to that. Only one made it to the semi and none in the final. The most teams in a QF means very little. Here is another pointless stat. (using this to show how easy it is to talk nonsense) 8 ulster teams in the top 16 of the league......that must mean we are the best footballing province.........." agree with you cityman73 (Limerick) - Posts: 779 - 23/07/2016 22:18:41 1888856 Link
Hahaha Fastest losers scrambling around fighting for our scraps jimbodub (Dublin) - Posts: 20601 - 23/07/2016 22:31:50 1888862 Link
Sure there's a Dub teaching the Clare lads how to kick a ball.. No wonder they are doing well. jimbodub (Dublin) - Posts: 20601 - 23/07/2016 22:36:57 1888865 Link
Replying To kiloughter: "Good point Castle. Unreal the self praise. I am a county person not a province person." We boast very little actually for a province that has almost fifty All Ireland Football titles and sixty nine All Ireland titles in hurling, 118 in total out of 254 decided to date. I think you should cut us a little flak if we sound a bit smug at times. Oldtourman (Limerick) - Posts: 4342 - 23/07/2016 22:46:39 1888874 Link
Replying To CastleBravo: "Early days yet, but I think Munster are well on their way to take Ulster's place as the best province at self praise." Hahaha jimbodub (Dublin) - Posts: 20601 - 23/07/2016 22:48:58 1888877 Link
Replying To Oldtourman: "We boast very little actually for a province that has almost fifty All Ireland Football titles and sixty nine All Ireland titles in hurling, 118 in total out of 254 decided to date. I think you should cut us a little flak if we sound a bit smug at times." How many did Linerick win? jimbodub (Dublin) - Posts: 20601 - 23/07/2016 22:51:26 1888880 Link
Replying To KYTitletown: "Don't make me quote the Munster vs Ulster results of the 70's and 80's again, DON'T" Indeed after the Munster teams played one hard game to get through to the semis yet some of the Ulster teams had played four. As i said .... not a level playing field. Cavan_Slasher (Cavan) - Posts: 10253 - 23/07/2016 22:54:32 1888883 Link
Replying To jimbodub: "How many did Linerick win?" Apologies, Limerick. jimbodub (Dublin) - Posts: 20601 - 23/07/2016 22:58:11 1888886 Link
Replying To jimbodub: "Sure there's a Dub teaching the Clare lads how to kick a ball.. No wonder they are doing well." Apart from founding the GAA what did Clare ever do? Killarney.87 (Tipperary) - Posts: 2513 - 23/07/2016 23:06:17 1888889 Link
Replying To jimbodub: "How many did Linerick win?" Limerick won the first All Ireland football championship. Killarney.87 (Tipperary) - Posts: 2513 - 23/07/2016 23:07:53 1888892 Link
This debate about who can claim the right as the strongest province is such a pointless argument. As much as I love to win Ulster I couldn't careless about the other counties involved in it. .hence the reason it is so competitive - we all want to beat each other! If all you want is your 'province' to win the holy grail, it really means that your own county is not good enough to do it themselves. As some other posters have pointed out, 1st (as in county) is all that matters! . .better than everyone else!! Red_horizon (Tyrone) - Posts: 179 - 23/07/2016 23:36:47 1888900 Link
Replying To Red_horizon: "This debate about who can claim the right as the strongest province is such a pointless argument. As much as I love to win Ulster I couldn't careless about the other counties involved in it. .hence the reason it is so competitive - we all want to beat each other! If all you want is your 'province' to win the holy grail, it really means that your own county is not good enough to do it themselves. As some other posters have pointed out, 1st (as in county) is all that matters! . .better than everyone else!!" Yeah agree 100%, it's a pointless argument. Us Munster boys are fixed up tonight cos the breakthroughs made by two of our footbal teams are being belittled. Usually you don't see Munster posters here getting too worked up about stuff like 'my province is better than yours, nah, nah...' Killarney.87 (Tipperary) - Posts: 2513 - 23/07/2016 23:50:20 1888907 Link
Replying To jimbodub: "Hahaha Fastest losers scrambling around fighting for our scraps" You've been immortslising teams that live for the crumbs form out table for a century. So I'd bite my tonuge... TheHermit (Kerry) - Posts: 6354 - 24/07/2016 00:14:02 1888914 Link
Replying To SamOnErrigal: "We can all agree that Ulster football was in a dire state in the 70's and80's. But what other way would or could it have been'. We had a war situation in the six counties with thousands of young men in prison, more on the run with the result they were unable to lead a normal life. Other young men shot dead or died in some way due to the unrest that prevailed at the time As already stated a lagrge percentage of the population do not engage in Gaelic games or culture. The propped up goverments of the six county state never at anytime in its history offered any support to the GAA people of the six counties. In fact they took a hostile stand and a lot of GAA people suffered and indeed club houses were burned down. Others were assinated. When Antrim won the All Ireland u21 around 1968/69 in football I read shortly after that that one member of the winning team had been shot dead plus a few more were in jail. In reality what was probably the makings of a very good senior team never got a chance due to the unrest. So whether we like it or not to me Ulster has done very well as regards being a strong provience. We are the only provience to make the breakthrough with different counties over the last 25 years/- Derry Donegal Tyrone and Armagh Plus we are well able to eat Kerry , unlike me Clare Tipp Limerick and indeed Cork." Fair enough Sam , the 6 counties had serious problems in the 60s 70s 80s but what was Donegals excuse? What were we to do? KingdomBoy1 (Kerry) - Posts: 14092 - 24/07/2016 01:25:13 1888930 Link
There are so many variables to consider when trying to determine which Province is the strongest, and the strength of certain provinces tend to fluctuate every 3 or 4 years, making it extremely difficult to give an definitive answer. I'd say in terms of average strength of teams participating, determined by the number of All Ireland winners provided from each Province during that time period, as well as the number of Provincial title winners during that time, Ulster definitely is the strongest. Example of last 25 years. 5 Ulster Counties have won All Ireland's 7 Ulster Counties have won Ulster titles. It is very difficult to use the Qualifier system to gauge Provincial strength, as there is a number of variables to consider such as. - How many days preparation did a team have? A team facing a 6 day turnaround will often struggle, while a team with a 2 week break will perform better. The number of days a team has to prepare can have a significant impact on their performance ) - At which stage did they exit their Provincial Championship? ( Coming out the wrong side of an epic encounter can sometimes leave teams deflated, and vunerable to getting caught on the hop) - Did the team mentally expect to be in the Qualifiers this year? (Some teams know they won't win their Provincial, and fully expect a Qualfier run, these teams are more mentally pumped up for the Qualifiers than sides who think they can win their Provincial). When all of these are considered, it can put a very different slant on results we see in the Qualifiers. Ulster is also more heavily represented in the top two divisions of the National League, however not all of them treat this as a competition and thus where teams finish is not necessarily a reflection of how good or strong they are. So I would probably ignore it as strength indicator. GaryMc82 (Derry) - Posts: 3017 - 24/07/2016 05:52:20 1888945 Link
IMO, the only stat that matters is that in the last five years, there has been one team from each province in the semis, therefore every province is strong. Now it's usually been the same team in that Mayo and Dublin had 5 semi final appearances, Kerry four, and donegal three. The fact that Munster have four of the last ten, depends on things the draw and rest between games. I've no doubt roscommon and derry would have won with a 13 day break as opposed to six days, and donegal would lose to cork with a 6 day break, but will probably win with a 13 day break. The b side of the draw is usually loaded with higher division teams so that effects how many of your province qualifies. galwaydublin (Galway) - Posts: 226 - 24/07/2016 07:32:14 1888954 Link
Replying To Oldtourman: "We boast very little actually for a province that has almost fifty All Ireland Football titles and sixty nine All Ireland titles in hurling, 118 in total out of 254 decided to date. I think you should cut us a little flak if we sound a bit smug at times." I would not be very smug if my neighbouring county were winning all around me. Sure hurling was a closed shop for years because of the domiance of the hurling trilogy who I am sure were happy the sport did not develop north of the M6. Its cringe territory when posters starting claiming the virtues of their province. wtf. kiloughter (Galway) - Posts: 1947 - 24/07/2016 08:39:57 1888960 Link