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Mayo V Tyrone All-Ireland Football Final - 6 Like(s)
Replying To endgame: "The goalkeeper Morgan is a liability for Tyrone.I wouldn't want him taking a free kick to save my life. Tyrone need to change their keeper for the Final. Mayo are favourites but it's really 50/50. Great chance for both counties to win an All Ireland." In fairness to Morgan he did score a 70m free and kept a clean sheet, did very well to out jump Clifford to punch clear ..poor David picked up an injury in that incident. Missed a 45m at the end which he would normally convert but at least it went dead as did his effort from close to the sideline. He was assured in possession and always available for an out pass whenever a turn over occurred. His worst error was an over ambitious fly kick over the sideline leading to a goal chance ,eventually leading to a point conceded from a 45m kick. The Kerry press up on his restarts was so effective that a short or medium kick was a risky gamble (think of Paul Duncan 2014) so he launched it long to and past midfield. This did favour Kerry but they often had to work it back to their own 65m before starting a slow build up. Not sure if Tyrone contested any of Kerry's kick out. Morgan is Tyrones best keeper and contemplating a change for the final would unhinge their defensive balance.
Curlew66 (National) - 28/08/2021 22:58:21
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Donegal V Cavan Ulster Semi Final - 5 Like(s)
Enjoyed the game , a 50:50 contest for well over an hour. Cavan were more direct and backed themselves shooting points once they got inside the 45m line. They needed to be 4 or 5 points ahead at half time after playing so well. Donegal fans would be relieved to be level at half time and a little frustrated with the laidback pedestrian build up , lack of variety in their play depending on the same 2-3 players to inject pace and another 2-3 players repeatedly giving up possession by running into traffic, over carrying or over/under hitting a pass
Shaun Patton kicked some terrific medium and long restarts putting his team on the attack. His brave smothering of McKiernans effort and getting a touch to Smith's piledriver were huge moments in a close contest.
The first goal was the big turning point putting Donegal four ahead resulting in Cavan having to force it and kicking some bad wides afterwards. Conor O Donnell deserves credit for readjusting so quickly and slotting it so accurately, many other players would have been tempted to pick it up . He is a talented young player and a great sub to bring on when Thompson was visibly tiring after a good shift.
Donegal are not in a bad position atall going into an Ulster final. They have 3 weeks recovery time now (style of play is so energy sapping), healing time for niggling injuries and Oisin Gallen may come into the picture. All the pundits are making the winners of Derry/Monaghan favourites which suits Donegal just fine. Who knows what injuries/ suspensions will follow next Sunday's contest.
For what it's worth I think Dun na nGall should go all out to win Ulster. The winners will end up in the opposite half of the draw to most likely Kerry/Dublin . Ulster is so competitive that winning it still has currency especially with Kerry such hot favourites for Sam. Michael Murphy has captained Donegal to exactly half of their 10 Ulster titles. Many fans of the great man would love to see him lift the Anglo Celt another time.
Curlew66 (National) - 10/05/2022 16:52:16
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Why are the qualifier games not on TV? - 4 Like(s)
Not sure how true/accurate that is, BBC will be showing World Cup but aren't obliged to show Confederations Cup.
Curlew66 (National) - 17/06/2017 18:35:48
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Donegal GAA thread - 4 Like(s)
Replying To eunans4ever: "Yea as I said previously they have the biggest catchment area in the county - should really be 2 clubs in that." You probably forgot posting this.
Curlew66 (National) - 11/07/2023 13:53:46
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Donegal GAA thread - 4 Like(s)
Replying To rorysboys: "What's the odds on n Conal doing the clean sweep of championships. Seeing they have 4 teams entered. Any you're trying to say they're a small club. Lol." My understanding from a distance here is that Naomh Conaill is based in the parish of INISKEEL which constitutes of the GLENTIES district (1,500) with over half of that in the Tidy Town (800 population) , the sub parish of FINTOWN (400 souls) and the sparsely populated church district of EDEN ? (need help on this name) adding a couple of hundred more. For some historic reason players residing in the West of the parish (Narin-Portnoo) play for Ardara .
Yes , it's a large land mass but dominated by the barren Bluestack mountain range. It's similar in a way to suggest that the expansive 40,000 ac Glenveagh National Park and the vastness of the Derryveagh Mountains gives Gaoth Dobhair or Termon CLG an advantage.
It's laughable to have posters here from a town of 20,000+ suggesting that NC with a pick of about 1,500 max be split in two. Naomh Conaill have been a consistent top four club in the past two decades in a county with Letterkenny (20,000), Buncrana(6,800), Twin Towns(5,000) and Donegal Town (2,700). It would be interesting to see what clubs like NC and Kilcar are doing well in coaching, underage, schools etc to punch well above their weight.
Hope the neutral views of an outsider sheds some light on this continuous debate. I have visited and travelled through all parts of your beautiful county many times, did some OS work there .. fascinating place names. Had a very interesting chat with a Donegal PP in The Hyde about your club set up bout 5 years ago during a one sided Super 8 match, Michael Murphy was kicking points for fun.
Curlew66 (National) - 10/07/2023 13:47:31
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Galway vs Roscommon - 4 Like(s)
Replying To Damothedub: "Delighted for McStay a coach I've a lot of time for , he's taken some serious stick , well done some seriously poor decisions taken by lads in poor conditions" Kevin was always a fair panelist, never resorted to personal abuse of players/coaches or have the luxury to explain in Sunday newspaper articles.
He also had the courage to 'walk the walk' and go and manage a senior county team unlike most armchair/studio pundits.
Congratulations and well done Kevin McStay !
Curlew66 (National) - 09/07/2017 17:44:56
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Donegal V Meath - 3 Like(s)
Lovely gesture by Meath County secretary in memory of young lives lost in Donegal road accident. Puts everything in perspective, well done Mairead Delaney. Best of luck to both teams in 2019.
Curlew66 (National) - 05/02/2019 11:09:45
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Kerry Vs Tyrone - 3 Like(s)
Replying To HokeyPokey: ""I thought David Coldrick had a poor game, the sort of display a fella puts in when he's trying to get noticed for the final.
The Tyrone physios were on and off so many times I thought they'd be in danger of cramping up themselves. Coldrick didn't seem to be able to keep tabs on them. But they fairly took the sting out of the black cards all the same."
Darragh Ó Sé wrote the above. As far as I remember, Clifford's injury took up most of the time lost. When McCann and Harte were down, they had both had good whacks. McCann getting a head collision which he was taken off for to be checked. Ó Sé also failed to mention that there were two black cards that should have been given to Kerry which were clearer than those given to Tyrone. I think it's fairly poor writing." Thought David Goldrick did pretty well considering intensity levels didn't drop at all for 100 minutes . Can't recall him missing two black cards for Kerry . Was there a sneaky hand trip by Jack Barry on Pádraig Hampsey after he dispossessed him seconds before David Clifford spilled the ball leading to the first goal ? would have been a harsh black as it didn't look intentional. The late hit on an open Kieran McGeary after he parted to Peter Harte for the first goal was a yellow card, ironically if Gavin Whyte hadn't been so intent on lining him up he could easily have got a hand in to deflect or even block and prevented a goal being conceeded… good use of the advantage rule by the referee. David Clifford did escape a yellow for lunging with an elbow at Conor Myler resulting in Niall Morgan's point from 71m . Thank goodness Myler was moving away from him and escaped a nasty injury. Was hoping TV replay would have shown a head on view (or hear from someone present ) of Peter Harte appearing to be tripped darting between Paul Geaney and Mike Breen around the 9th minute , got treatment for over a minute while play continued. Against all that there was an obvious off the ball obstruction (and a tap over free ) by Conor McKenna on Stephen O Brien around the 10th minute. Overall I think David Goldrick got most of the big calls right in a pulsating, action packed encounter. Great credit to both teams.
Kieran McGeary deservedly got MOTM award from both RTÉ & Sky Sports after a huge shift, numerous interceptions, drove the team on and was unlucky not get on the score sheet himself. Conor Myler must have been a close second , amazing fitness levels tracking back and driving forward. Taking a hand pass from Niall Morgan, going on an 80m run accelerating past Dara Moynihan before setting up Ronan McNamee's point summed up his day.. a very under rated player.
Curlew66 (National) - 02/09/2021 12:59:39
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Mayo V Tyrone All-Ireland Football Final - 3 Like(s)
Replying To Galway9801: "Tyrone are very good but much but I'd say they'll be carrying the ulster torch all on their own for some time to come. No other northern team will win it anytime soon imo.
Alot is being said about how mayo fans need to demand more from their team but perhaps if ulster fans concentrated more on their own counties lack of success instead of cheering on tyrone (and maybe occasionally Donegal) against those horrible southerners they'd see some improvement too?" Nothing wrong with any of us putting local rivalries aside and getting behind our provincial winners in the All Ireland series. Galway gave the rest of us hope in '98 and '01 and remain the only team to bring Sam to Connacht in the past 55 years. Tyrone will be boosted by this impressive victory and may well become more formidable in Ulster. Looking at the four semi finalists Tyrone will have the toughest pathway to replicate their provincial win. Odds are that Dublin and Kerry will come through and probably Mayo again unless Galway can maintain their first half performance in the Connacht final for 70 mins . In this century one team from Connacht and Leinster , two from Munster but three from Ulster have won an All Ireland title so our Ulster friends aren't doing too bad at all.
Curlew66 (National) - 14/09/2021 12:09:22
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The Sunday Game - Awful Coverage - 3 Like(s)
Replying To Tirchonaill1: "RTE need to get rid of Brolly and bring in Martin McHugh, that man knows his football" Has hardly been seen on TSG Championship coverage since he bizarrely described the great Colm 'Gooch' Cooper as a two trick pony while praising James O'Donoghue in 2014. Was ridiculed and felt some heat in the following days .. his next article in the Star newspaper was entirely devoted to reproducing positive comments he claimed to have written about Gooch. Think he may have learned since not to engage in loose talk and use lazy labels in studio. In fairness to him it was at a time when pundits competed with each other for the funniest put down of amateur players. Thankfully this habit has almost ceased since Sky began their coverage and the new presenter Joanne would challenge it.
Curlew66 (National) - 04/09/2019 00:33:18
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Kerry V Donegal - 3 Like(s)
Replying To Sindar: "Fair play to both teams. Best game in years. Two top quality teams coming face to face - a rare thing these days. McHugh was superb but Murphy is the man. Without those two and McBrearty, Donegal would be nowhere. That was never a penalty to Donegal btw. (Yes, I know the ref is a fellow countyman)" Daragh O Baoill was stopped by a high facial tackle bordering on a head butt, thought O Brien was lucky to escape sanction.
Curlew66 (National) - 22/07/2019 00:21:15
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Galway Vs Killkenny - 3 Like(s)
Jonathan Glynn's inclusion made a big difference and unsettled the Kilkenny full back line, especially in the first half... he can wear 4 gloves next day if he can give Galway a similar boost. Think poor Babs harking back to his own manly exploits when he played the 2nd half of the 1971 final in his bare feet. The timing of Bab's judgement a little unfortunate, recall his "sheep in a heap" comment regarding Offaly hurlers 2 months before the won the Liam McCarthy in 1998. ( not the only Tipp man to refer to a panel as sheep .. V Hogan on Donegal months before the brought Sam to the hills in 2012)
Curlew66 (National) - 08/07/2018 19:50:42
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Kimmage rant at Jim Gavin - 3 Like(s)
Another case of a professional journalist heaping personal abuse at an amateur sportsman,
We can only speculate as to why .. headline grabbing? making themselves relevant? etc ...
In PK's defence he spent time in Mayo before the final and acquired a lot of sympathy, empathy and support for them.
Jim Gavin is a gentleman on and off the pitch and is very successful in coaching and career wise,
Thought it was comical to hear someone shouting aggressively in studio for JG to 'lighten up' and labeling him as 'classless',
As for tweeting Dublin fans as being the 'Hill 16 mob' and demanding that listeners text messages are not read out when he is on air ... whats that about?
I would seldom quote Joe Brolly but his pre match article 'Jim is winning matches but you wont hear him singing about it' gave a more balanced opinion. PK choose to ignore this and an article by Eamon Sweeney on 'Dubegrudgery' and retweeted instead an old article by Tommy Conlon 'Lighten up Jim, you are not Guardiola' . ......... (now how many All Irelands has the highly paid Pep won?)
Curlew66 (National) - 30/09/2017 14:35:45
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Kerry V Donegal - 3 Like(s)
Replying To Tirchonaill1: "Next thing they will be bringing in VAR to Croker,I think it's near impossible to referee Gaelic football, you regularly see the 4 midfielders fouling the hell out if each other before the ball is even thrown in, I thought it was a very sporting game between Donegal and Kerry, you'll always get a few flash points in a game such as ours but it adds to the excitement too, one thing I can't abide is late cowardly hits when a fella is kicking for a score as I seen in the Meath v Mayo game, it looked bad in real time and on tv you could see the ball was long gone over the bar when Boyle came flying into the lads standing foot, should have seen red for that and a ban, that's the about as low as you can go and then to dive himself and feign some kind of injury to avoid the ref who done nothing about it anyway, you talk about umpires not contributing? how anyone that has even half a clue about Gaelic football didn't see this is beyond me, there are none so blind as those who will not see it seems." Amusing to see Adrian Spillane giving a very provocative handshake to both Donegal midfielders before the throw in. He pulled them towards him so they received a handful, a body check and an earful all at the same time. The Donegal lads ignored him as a reaction could have sparked off a pre match dust up. Adrian was also offering more handshakes and 'words of advice' as he was being subbed but no Donegal players were interested. Wondering if he has form for such behaviour ? Doubt if he will be called out in next Sunday's Sunday World column. Killian Spillane kicked a couple of smart points.
Curlew66 (National) - 23/07/2019 14:02:28
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Derry vs Tyrone - 3 Like(s)
Its very early days yet and the strength of Derry's challenge must be kept in mind but I was very impressed by Tyrone's pace, skill levels, fluidity and overall discipline.
Amusing to hear Michael Lyster's end of match verdict of 'that was BRUTAL lads' ... no such summary after an equally one sided hurling match in Thurles with almost identical scoring and winning margin .. have never heard that term being used after Dublin regularly handing out a 20 points + thrashing to Leinster opponents in Croker in recent years.
Seems like Ulster teams cant get an even break on RTE these days.
Curlew66 (National) - 23/05/2016 18:40:56
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The Documentary- "Players Of The Faithful County" - 3 Like(s)
A very good and enjoyable programme, ex players spoke very well and you could sense some strong characters in their line up. It was some achievement for a small county to win 4 hurling and 3 football All Ireland titles in a 27 year period. That Offaly team had great self belief going one step further every year for four years in an era dominated by Kerry and Dublin. They won a Leinster semi final in '79, a Leinster final in'80, an All Ireland semi final in '81 before winning the All Ireland final in '82.
Sad to think we have lost at least four players involved in that famous final. Paudie O Shea, Tim Kinnelly, John Egan and Liam O Connor who delivered that floating diagonal cross for Seamus Darby.
Curlew66 (National) - 04/01/2019 11:33:47
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County Final 2017 - Kilcar v Glenties - 3 Like(s)
Finished off an enjoyable week end in your beautiful county by attending the county final on Sunday,
About 7,000 in attendance on a calm, dry day and I haven't heard a minutes silence so well respected in a long time,
Very enjoyable reserve final with a great come back by Naomh Conaill from being 7 points down into the 2nd half, seems like a good competition for keeping fringe players in action and bringing some players through to future senior teams.
A fine tribute to the victorious Killybegs panel of 1992 , many of whom look fit enough to be still playing.
Thoughts on the senior final from a neutral:
Terrific to see Michael Hegarty , McHughs, McBrearty and others win a well deserved county final medal,
Kilcar's ability to land superb long range points gave them a cushion which they were determined not to lose,
Both teams set up defensively and did not overwork the scoreboard despite running up big scores (especially Kilcar) with impressive wins leading up to the final, the corresponding fixture gave an aggregate score of 6-21 in last year's semi final. With so much at stake a final can do strange things to teams and the opportunity can easily pass them by.
In NC's defence they did well to hold the overwhelming favourites to just 0-7 having conceeded 5-10 in last years fixture. In a game of fine margins they missed 4-5 chances with one off the upright in a ten minute spell when the score was 0-6 - 0-4 as well as losing a key forward in the closing minutes and another in injury time. A slight tweaking of tactics by pushing an extra player forward at times may have rewarded their approach but its not easy to get the balance right. Many felt that NC were not going to outscore Kilcar in a high scoring contest.
I have seldom seen such doom and gloom from press, posters , ex players and an ex manager on the prospects of a county team based solely on the quality of one game. A lack of intensity and a sieve like defence contributed to Donegal's undoing this year v Tyrone and especially against Galway. Declan Bonner will have his own way of setting up and getting his team to play. Very few county teams copy the playing style of a club(s) and the reverse is usually the case especially if successful. He will have been impressed by the fielding, running and kick passing of both Ciarans at midfield and may be tempted to try out a McGinley/Thompson centre field pairing for a few league games.
So overall keep the heads up, get behind your team and prepare for the visit of the Breffni Blues.
Curlew66 (Donegal) - 20/10/2017 14:45:24
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Tyrone Boycott Of RTE - 3 Like(s)
Again Tearsin85 your facts are accurate and your views are fair.
Comparisons between the' RTE comedy sketch' and the 'McElduff/Kingsmill tweet' are interesting
In both incidents innocence was pleaded and apologies issued for crass insensitivity for thoughtless actions towards the memories of murdered loved ones. The politician was rightly pilloried by RTE and other media until he resigned but Micky Harte is expected to 'get over it and move on' . I wonder would the media reaction be any different if the offence was against a coach from a higher profile hurling/football coach or a highly paid coach of our rugby/soocer team.
What do people think about this?
Curlew66 (National) - 21/08/2018 11:44:11
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Mayo V Donegal. Winner Takes All - 3 Like(s)
Replying To gloryof1982: "Hate to say I told you so but...
Some performance from Mayo. Looked hungry and determined.
Donegal believed their own hype and plenty of players went hiding on the day, except Murphy. That said, Murphy is a pup. Refs in awe of him." Yes indeed, I recall you forecasting a Mayo ambush
You're being very harsh on Murphy .. accusing him of acting the scut, calling him a pup and getting involved in a lot of shit housing in a different thread .. care to elaborate?
I thought Murphy was one of the few Donegal players to offer any resistance to Mayo's ferocious tackling. He single handedly dragged Donegal back into the game but was out of luck with his shooting at a crucial stage. He is strong and competitive and endures a lot of special attention in some matches. His after match interview was gracious, offering no excuses and wishing Mayo well. He also sounds very humble after winning.
Colleagues of mine from Mayo keep saying that had he opted to play for his father's county that they might well have got over the line once or twice in the past decade.
Curlew66 (National) - 05/08/2019 01:28:17
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Nobody Likes Us But We Don't Care. - 3 Like(s)
Replying To Viking66: "You said it was ignorant so I thought you were offended. What is this thread all about then? Some young fellas brought a non offensive banner to a game and now there is a long thread about it?" Yes, I did wonder about the merits of starting a special thread concerning 0.001% of Tyrone supporters unless there is an underlying motive. Must admit to never seeing this flag , doesn't feature on TV coverage as far as I know.
Curlew66 (National) - 29/07/2021 19:34:04
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