They Said It ....

January 2006

“For the league I would love to see three divisions of 11 teams with the strongest teams in the top tier, the weakest in the bottom and so on. The league would start in January instead of the pre-season competitions we are all playing in now and this would mean that every team would have ten matches. There would be meaningful games through March and April, right up to the championship.”
Longford manager Luke Dempsey proposes a new league format which he believes would be fairer to weaker counties

"The big change this year is that we have eight or nine of last year’s Under 21s in the squad. While winning the Tommy Murphy Cup was something tangible it mustn’t camouflage the fact that we still have a lot of work to do and need to blend in new players."
Seamus McCarthy intends to use Tipperary’s Murphy Cup win as a building stone for 2006

“The new lads have been working very hard since we began training, and they showed a lot of promise in the four challenge games we have had so they will be putting real pressure on the established lads for places on the team when it comes to the start of the league.”
New Meath manager
Eamonn Barry is happy with the form of the new faces on his panel

“I think the blame must lie with the players over the last three years. In the last three All-Irelands, Tyrone beat us by three in 2003, Fermanagh beat us by a point in 2004 and Tyrone beat us by a point last summer. We haven’t been that far away from it, but it was more to do with us than any failings of the management."
Armagh’s Kieran McGeeney believes that the players rather than the management should shoulder the blame for the Orchard County failing to add to their All-Ireland win of 2002

“Expectation outweighs potential in most counties. People - supporters and county boards - set standards in their heads that just aren't realistic. If you don't have the players you're not going to win anything."
Former Dublin and Roscommon manager Tommy Carr believes that many counties put undue pressure on themselves by setting unrealistic targets

"Setanta could become anything from Jim Stynes to Tadgh Kennelly and will surely get his chance next year. I wanted to play him in senior games last season but the rules on drafting rookie players onto the senior list meant it wasn’t possible.”
Carlton coach Denis Pagan is confident that Setanta O hAilpin can become a big star in the AFL