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The strongest GAA province?

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Certainly Munster stronger than Ulster as they play hurling and football. I guess we in Leinster will just have to accept the booby prizes of Sam & Liam yet again this year. But well done Munster and Ulster in your battle to be the strongest province :) bad.monkey (USA) - Posts: 4624 - 24/07/2016 08:48:39 1888961 Link
Replying To KingdomBoy1: "Fair enough Sam , the 6 counties had serious problems in the 60s 70s 80s but what was Donegals excuse? What were we to do?" Well for starters the GAA was very late taking off in Donegal. From I can remember no one played football bar a small few who went to college in our parish as we had no football pitch. Our club was founded in the 70's same as a host of clubs in Donegal. We now have a clueb house and good pitch. Another thing was due to partition Donegal suffered more than any of the other Free State counties. Where did or when did the Dublin Goverement invest in Donegal before the 1960's We depended on a small hillside farm to make a living Families consisted of anything up to maybe 20 children ( my own case 14 of a family) where most of them had to go and at a young age too I was in a pub in Birmingham in around 1970 and there were at least around 20 of us from our home parish there all no older than 21. I grew up in the times we had no electricity,I remember the ESB arriving, no TV but we got one when I was 16 just before I headed to England. The amount of young men I met when I arrived here in the late 60's and none played football. Completely different story today as most young people join a GAA club and a gym when they arrive here. We went to the pub after our days work to down up to anything like 15 pints a night. If you don't believe me you want to read books about the people who emigrated, their lifestyles etc. I packed drink up years ago , others were not so lucky. But the bottom line is you have to live through all this and when you look back or this is my opinion living in Ireland and especially inDonegal in my early days we lived in a third world country. Look at the houses they have today, think back to the 50's/60's and no toilets or bathrooms and the conditions people had to live in. I doubt if having a good football team mattered, getting the fare out of Ireland to either Scotland or England counted more. And I do acknowledge every county suffered from emigration, living conditions were bad all over but how did Donegal become known as the FORGOTTON county. ?? SamOnErrigal (Donegal) - Posts: 1427 - 24/07/2016 10:02:03 1888986 Link
Look I'm a Kerry man not a Munster man All I'm doing is trying to give Clare and Tipp a little credit and row against the waves of begrudgery. People have slated Munster football for a long time and still are now even when it's doing really well (6 wins out of 7 vs Non Munster sides) I respect Ulster football and what it has accomplished particuarly in the 21 st century and there is no one saying Munster is stronger overall currently than Ulster but I'm not going to allow our great team of the 70's and 80's being tarnished either KYTitletown (Kerry) - Posts: 816 - 24/07/2016 12:20:17 1889062 Link
Replying To KYTitletown: "Look I'm a Kerry man not a Munster man All I'm doing is trying to give Clare and Tipp a little credit and row against the waves of begrudgery. People have slated Munster football for a long time and still are now even when it's doing really well (6 wins out of 7 vs Non Munster sides) I respect Ulster football and what it has accomplished particuarly in the 21 st century and there is no one saying Munster is stronger overall currently than Ulster but I'm not going to allow our great team of the 70's and 80's being tarnished either" I don't believe that many have slated Munster football at all. How could they with the success Kerry have had. What i'm saying that if Kerry had to have more than one hard game throughout their years of success then they might not have won as much. By the way i am an advocate of an open-draw competition or a Champions League type of competition. Cavan_Slasher (Cavan) - Posts: 10253 - 24/07/2016 13:31:41 1889103 Link
Replying To Cavan_Slasher: "I don't believe that many have slated Munster football at all. How could they with the success Kerry have had. What i'm saying that if Kerry had to have more than one hard game throughout their years of success then they might not have won as much. By the way i am an advocate of an open-draw competition or a Champions League type of competition." We had to beat Cork, a semi-finalist and then usually Dublin or Offaly Now the strength of Connacht/Ulster in the 70s/80s wasn't our problem or fault KYTitletown (Kerry) - Posts: 816 - 24/07/2016 13:51:22 1889112 Link
Replying To KYTitletown: "We had to beat Cork, a semi-finalist and then usually Dublin or Offaly Now the strength of Connacht/Ulster in the 70s/80s wasn't our problem or fault" My point was that you played less games than any other county in Ulster or Leinster. You also got more rest and time to prepare. Not your fault but still not an even competition. Cavan_Slasher (Cavan) - Posts: 10253 - 24/07/2016 13:58:23 1889117 Link
This thread is incredibly childish. What age are the people on here?? Sounds like a playground argument. This same thread comes up every year with the same old talk. Can admin lock it?? Brolly (Monaghan) - Posts: 4472 - 24/07/2016 14:00:36 1889118 Link
Replying To Brolly: "This thread is incredibly childish. What age are the people on here?? Sounds like a playground argument. This same thread comes up every year with the same old talk. Can admin lock it??" Don't read it then. Lots of other threads for you. Cavan_Slasher (Cavan) - Posts: 10253 - 24/07/2016 14:15:49 1889122 Link
Ulster by a mile. TheUsername (Dublin) - Posts: 4445 - 24/07/2016 14:46:35 1889135 Link
The Ulster championship is the strongest by a country mile, no comparison, the 4 teams that reached the semis will be in div 1 next season, that's the benchmark, it's no fluke that the top championship teams are all in div 1, the League now is more evenly matched than the championship riverboys (Mayo) - Posts: 1389 - 24/07/2016 15:32:35 1889159 Link
Replying To GaryMc82: "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." and you've ignored Hurling altogether! 73forever (Limerick) - Posts: 89 - 25/07/2016 16:28:33 1889857 Link
It's not a level playing-field though. Put Kerry in Ulster instead of say Fermanagh and they wouldn't have half as many All-Irelands. Cavan_Slasher (Cavan) - 23/07/2016 20:08:02 If we were, would Ulster have any more all Irelands than what we'd win? Superglue (Kerry) - Posts: 1283 - 25/07/2016 18:42:55 1889947 Link
Replying To Cavan_Slasher: "My point was that you played less games than any other county in Ulster or Leinster. You also got more rest and time to prepare. Not your fault but still not an even competition." Teams that get to a Ulster final aren't afforded any rest time. Also I can't understand why Derry had to play the last 3 weekends against Tipp Cavan and Meath. All tough teams to beat. They're treated as an after thought. crikey (Australia) - Posts: 355 - 26/07/2016 02:19:26 1890106 Link
Would it not be the current holders of the railway cup??? bumpernut (Antrim) - Posts: 1852 - 26/07/2016 10:45:03 1890199 Link
munster Mullerm (Cork) - Posts: 87 - 26/07/2016 11:15:42 1890231 Link
It's not a level playing-field though. Put Kerry in Ulster instead of say Fermanagh and they wouldn't have half as many All-Irelands. Cavan_Slasher (Cavan) - 23/07/2016 20:08:02 If we were, would Ulster have many more all Irelands than what we'd win? Superglue (Kerry) - Posts: 1283 - 26/07/2016 11:19:33 1890235 Link
Replying To Cavan_Slasher: "My point was that you played less games than any other county in Ulster or Leinster. You also got more rest and time to prepare. Not your fault but still not an even competition." That might be valid if the games vs the Ulster teams back then but as I've posted here before they were not apart from Monaghan who took us to a replay in 1985 both of which were competitive games. Cork also handed out a good few hidings to Ulster teams as well in this period, so I think if Kerry weren't so strong in that period Cork would have more than 7 AI's KYTitletown (Kerry) - Posts: 816 - 26/07/2016 11:38:06 1890253 Link
close* KYTitletown (Kerry) - Posts: 816 - 26/07/2016 11:44:38 1890262 Link
Replying To KYTitletown: "Look I'm a Kerry man not a Munster man All I'm doing is trying to give Clare and Tipp a little credit and row against the waves of begrudgery. People have slated Munster football for a long time and still are now even when it's doing really well (6 wins out of 7 vs Non Munster sides) I respect Ulster football and what it has accomplished particuarly in the 21 st century and there is no one saying Munster is stronger overall currently than Ulster but I'm not going to allow our great team of the 70's and 80's being tarnished either" In 2004 would I be right in saying that the toughest games Kerry had on the way to winning the All Ireland were the draw and replay V Limerick. Indeed those two teams had some very tough games up to 2010. Oldtourman (Limerick) - Posts: 4342 - 26/07/2016 11:58:34 1890278 Link
Connaught ! Here are just some of what the Old Moore's Almanac predicts for -Gaelic Football winner: Mayo -Hurling winner: Galway crikey (Australia) - Posts: 355 - 26/07/2016 11:59:36 1890279 Link