Hurling definitely more skillful. Played both codes up to minor then dropped the football. The one thing that is (was) more skillful in football is the point scoring especially from long range. Unfortunately this is becoming a dying art with only a handful of the top players able to take scores from the 45 and beyond. Derry have a few players capable of doing this but I saw none of this in this year's championship (Bradley, Muldoon, Diver). It seems that managers discourage players from taking shots from distance as they don't want to lose possession.

cosmo (Derry) - Posts: 85 - 25/07/2008 22:09:13    57226

BALLBOY again ur way off the mark. "not a bit of filth in aussie rules, they know the rules and get on with them, imagine spitting, stamping on toes, gum shields, horrific personal family abuse- they dont bother as they are real sportsmen" have u ever been to see an aussie rules game? i severely doubt it as it seems to me that u probably never even left ur house. all the above stuff u mentioned happens in aussie rules too. the only difference with the ozzies is that they dont moan and dwell on it. they move on quickly and dont even mention it. they love it when the game gets physical. again u spout crap thinking u know everything but in fact know very little.

TylerDurden (Mayo) - Posts: 155 - 26/07/2008 01:12:05    57287

HAG_AND_CHEESE
County: Tipperary
Posts: 194

56821 another reason....

You can use a hurl to hunt cows, cut bushes and beat bould children...

can't do any of the above with a football!


haha thats so true. we have about 5 or 6 hurls lying around the house and not one person in my family ever played

TylerDurden (Mayo) - Posts: 155 - 26/07/2008 01:18:53    57289

boys please dont start listing the virtues of aussie rules on this site.its putrid.one of the most stop start messy games on the planet.its like watching a donkey take a s@@t!!sure a really good game of it is watchable but generally it resembles a bad junior b match with fellas falling over each other and no ebb or flow whatsoever....ive has the misfortune of sitting through a couple of them,not pretty!!!!yes the fitness levels and athleticism have to be applaude but dont compare it to gaelic football.

ozexile (Limerick) - Posts: 13 - 26/07/2008 01:35:00    57290

ball boy

no puke in hurling thats the simple reason- well that yet imagine when armagh and tyrone take it up god help us

i would like to inform you that although armagh and tyrone may not have world beating hurling teams or a great amount of numbers, we do have a small but very dedicated bunch of people doing their very best for our national game, similar story in mayo i do believe.

god help us when mayo get a football team actully able to win something...... jesus if you's are hard to listen to now!!!

wise_guy (Tyrone) - Posts: 1584 - 26/07/2008 09:19:05    57308

only 10???? you could probably come up with a 1,000

hurler in the ditch (Louth) - Posts: 439 - 26/07/2008 10:43:04    57347

HAG_AND_CHEESE
County: Tipperary
Posts: 194

56821 another reason....

You can use a hurl to hunt cows, cut bushes and beat bould children...

can't do any of the above with a football!


Other use's for those old hurly's lying around the house
1 Hold up banks
2 Play rounders
3 Bate the british out of Ireland
4 throw at the TV when Joe Brolly is talking
5 practise your golf-swing

mossbags (Galway) - Posts: 1089 - 26/07/2008 14:14:26    57386

this post is a load of c~@p. if u dont appreciate football good luck to ya, both sports are different and have different qualities. of course hurling is quicker and less defensive u use a stick to play a light ball and it can move 70 yards wit one strike. some of th skills are amazing but the striking technique when mastered is easy to perform consistantly and accurately and u dont need to break stride and adjust balance. as for this puke football rubbish, wats more skillfull kicking a ball in2 space for a race between 2 players or working th ball at full speed through a crowd of players? handpassing is unbelieveably underrated.. and the attitude that crowding a player out is wrong is idealist wat do u expect players to say-'u tackle him if i help it'l look bad'?? ppl likw spilane have brainwashed the nation in2 thinkin that football was brilliant yrs ago when it was really long 50/50balls to fat full forwards!

speedy12 (Fermanagh) - Posts: 592 - 26/07/2008 15:44:02    57400

"To St.K- Michael Duignan is the only analyst on Sunday Game that truly calls it as he sees it; no over-emphasis on diplomacy, no hiding behined the presenter's cues, no generic clichés, no mistataement of facts, just good solid hard-hitting analysis. Can the same be said of the football pundits who every1 on here spends half their time slating. I have never heard/seen any1 slate Michael Duignan as a pundit! Have you? "

Haven't been on this site long enough to know if people have or not, but I think Duignan is terrible. You admire him for calling things as he sees them. Did this not lead to him accusing a referee of sending off Donal Og Cusack as punishment for leading the Cork strike? Complete and utter rubbish! And if your argument to favour hurling over football is that hurling has one good analyst, that doesn't say much for hurling. It's not like he's the only hurling analyst there is, which still leaves an awful lot of rubbish hurling analysts, which hardly bodes well for hurling if it's greatness is defined by the quality of it's analysts. As for the football analysis, I think Tohill and McStay are great analysts. Not perfect, by any means, but there aren't many analysts that are.

St.K (Cork) - Posts: 210 - 27/07/2008 01:29:35    57579

banner boy, don't mind what these bog ball merchants are saying, hurling is a sport of artists and those who don't appreciate that or can't appreciate it are only bogball morans. they are confused and scared by hurling's fast, free flowing skill and excitement. they long for a football match that they can cheer and rejoice in which would come even remotely close to a hurling championship match. enjoy thurles today and best of luck to you and you county and may the better team win. i will be there to cheer on my native cork and i will be obviously hopeing we get a little more luck than yourselves but i don't think you would blame me for that.

come on the banner, but up the rebels!

happytobehere (Cork) - Posts: 360 - 27/07/2008 07:37:21    57603

nice one happytobehere.

I was (and still am) absolutely distraught with the result. Once again, we were the better, more skilllful team but cork were more economical in front of goal.....gut-wrenching.

Anyways best of luck against kilkenny...

banner_boy (Clare) - Posts: 1285 - 27/07/2008 22:36:56    57893

I think one word will do to settle this argument 'Yesterday'!!!!

bumpernut (Antrim) - Posts: 1852 - 28/07/2008 10:15:53    58067

Banner_boy I'm interested to know what you mean when you say "wonce again" ye were the better team do you think ye were the better team against tipp. A draw would have been fair Cork have been impressive in the heart they've showed in the last few games I wouldn't like to be facing them in the semi's their on a bit of a crest of a wave now and will test Kilkenny.

Fair play to Clare this year maybe another few years work to do will need replacements for lynch and lohan (when they decide to hang up the boots) but the rest of the is fairly young so things aint looking too bad for ye.

Hag_and_Cheese (Tipperary) - Posts: 6103 - 28/07/2008 10:31:13    58104

Indeed bumpernut!! Indeed!!

Fermanagh & Armagh treated us to a unforgettable display of speed, skill & excitement yesterday not to mention great sportmanship!!

Sure why would we watch that hurling lark at all???!!!

banner_boy (Clare) - Posts: 1285 - 28/07/2008 10:45:13    58130

hag & cheese,

No I wasn't referring to the Tipp game, ye were far better than us that day, no arguments. However we could have been a LOT closer if we converted at least 5 of those 16 wides we had plus even 1 of the 3 clear goal chances we had. We'd normally take them but it wasn't to be.

What I meant was there have too many games in recent years where we have dominated posession, lorded it at midfield, and go a few points BUT NOT KILL OFF TEAMS!! We seem to be able to dominate for most matches but NOT KILL OFF TEAMS ON THE SCOREBOARD!!

Yesterday was just a replay of the 2004 all-ireland semi-final. We totally outclassed Cork in the first half in the half-back line and midfield but hit 10 wides, 5 of which were absolutely terrible (you wouldn't believe the vitriol nuggy(nugent) received from the clare fans when he hit that wide from 15 yards just to the right of the goal wide!).

These wides that kill us are not a matter of class. Everybody knows the likes of griffin (who admittedly had a poor game yesterday but is nowhere near 100% fit or sharp), carmody, mcmahon & gilligan are as good as most forwards in the country, but it just comes down to COMPOSURE I suppose.

I understand from cork's perspective they'll feel they were "asleep" in the 1st half. But they weren't- they were just outhurled. In the 2nd half for some bizarre reason, Lynch & Quinn decided not to hold their position in the centre and allowed Cork to get their running game going (something which we did not allow them to do in the first half). Virtually all Cork's scores came from the same source, running at the defence from the centre creating scores by overlaps. Of course Cork will be delighted from their perspective that they "woke up" in the 2nd half but really it was down to poor tactics by Clare in not holding the centre and of course some excellent substitutes/switches by Cork in adddressing the situation. A howler by Philly Brennan for Timmy McCarthy's (who played very well)'s goal didn't help of course.

The point is when you're 8 points up at half time, you should do what Tipp did to us in the munster final and drive the advantage home. We shouldn't have been 8 points up at half time yesterday -it should have been 12, maybe 13 and the cork fans should have been going home at that stage. But we're just no up to kilkenny's/tipp's level in terms of having that killer instinct in killing off inferior teams. Until we do attain this qualitym we'll continue to get the patronsing "ah ye had agood year lads", "ye've got yer pride back at least", "there's no disgrace in losing by 2 points to cork lads" blah blah blah........ Gut-Wrenching.

banner_boy (Clare) - Posts: 1285 - 28/07/2008 11:03:37    58164

I am a footballer and i love it dearly but i will happily admit that hurling is a superior game(between 2 evnly matched teams).
Every footballer knows this in their heart. I don't hurl because i can't. I can whack the sliotar off the back wll all day for fun but I have virtually zero match experience of hurling apart from a few school games we got stuffed in.

Banner boy, there is no need to post 10 reasons when the answer is already so obvious. I still agree with the other posters on the reasons why the football championship is more popular.

To conclude this debate- more men and women play football so it is more popular but hurling/camogaiocht is a better sport in terms of skill, speed, and courage. Those that play it at all levels make me feel proud to be Irish

Suas Sios (None) - Posts: 1558 - 28/07/2008 11:39:38    58228

banner boy....u must feel very strongly about this point but i completely dissagree with you on the point that some could pick up the skills of gaelic football in 5-6 weeks. there was a discussion on this board a while back about getting 15 big lads(obvioulsy 15 big foreign national lads) that have never played the game before and try and make a team out of them. the general opinion was that it wud not happen. to even solo the ball, let alone at speed wud be hard for these lads to pick up. kicking the ball over the bar, might look easy but its amazing how many county players cant even do it these days. then try doing the same at speed. i'd love to see the end result of a lad from poland trying to copy tomas o'se and solo up the field at full tilt and try and kick it over the bar.then tackling properly, a hand pass over 20-30 yards. kick passing into a lads chest over 30-40 yards. trust me, i defy any one to pick up these skills over a 6 weeks period.

howshecuttin (Longford) - Posts: 376 - 28/07/2008 12:18:37    58339

hands down lads we all think hurling is better but the facts still remain that most people still dont care one iota about hurling thats what has the hurling fraternity up in a heap - the majority couldnt care less about it, its sad but its very true, munster final is alright to watch besides that joe canning and nothing really else that wets the appetite for the small ball

ball-boy (Mayo) - Posts: 4211 - 28/07/2008 12:22:34    58347

ball-boy, did the 2 games yesterday not do anything for you no?? Or were you too busy watching paint dry in Clones yesterday?

banner_boy (Clare) - Posts: 1285 - 28/07/2008 12:26:39    58357