I thought His Holiness had retired from the forum? Not like you to be playing down the Navy and Blue's chances either?

Excellent post though.

Loyal2TheRoyal (Meath) - Posts: 4522 - 27/07/2009 11:32:27    363704

Well Loyal, there isn't much to talk about football wise in my opinion until the quarter finals. Thats when the real cream rises to the top.

As for writing us off, I've been hurt too many times by Dublin to get my hopes up.

Its like going out with a really hot girl that treats you like ****. You should walk away but she's just so dam fine you can't resist to keep going back

holymoly (Dublin) - Posts: 757 - 27/07/2009 11:50:31    363741

Wow, didn't see that one coming. Did you? I'm sorry loyal readers but I just have to get some things off my chest. I'm in pain at the moment and my psychiatrist tells me its good to talk ;-)

Last week, I felt that Kerry would win this game but not in such spectacular fashion. Everything that has been bad about their performances so far this season were all corrected yesterday. Their defence was on top from the start, their midfield looked far more assured and their forwards were always miles away from their markers and scoring freely.

To say that I felt embarrassed by that performance is an understatement. I'm actually far more hurt and angry by the sheer lack of respect the Dublin players have shown for their fans (not the sunshine boys but their real fans), for their manager and for themselves. Now I know that this is going to sound a bit much but I'm quite close to being fed up with this current bunch of players.

Last year against Tyrone, I could accept the defeat. As horrible as it was to watch my team just get mauled and completely obliterated by the opposition, I felt that it was a freak of nature that Tyrone were able to perform like they did on the back of a pretty poor run in to the quarter finals. This would be the same scenario for Kerry coming in to yesterdays match. But surely it wouldn't be possible for these players to self destruct and to lack any sort of intensity, or leadership, or any signs that they took their position as Dublin footballers seriously, to happen 2 years in a row!!

Up until about 10 years ago, you always knew what to expect from a Dublin team. Granted, we didn't always possess great or better footballers than some teams but we had efficient and honest footballers. This would start from the back line. You could argue that we were blessed with the defenders that we had back then and the players that replaced them were just as good. In 92, we had a full back line of Deegan, Hargan and Carr. The following year this was changed to Walsh, Deasy and Moran. You could argue which defence was better but best thing about that is they were 2 fine full back lines, with an even better half back line in front of it.

You compare this to the Dublin defence of the past 3 or 4 years. Makeshift is the first word that springs into my mind. We have a wing back playing in one corner, a midfielder playing full back and a versatile forward playing in the other corner. Last year we had another midfielder play full back. Some things just don't change!! Although I thought Bastick had a better overall season than McConnell has had when playing full back, he is no nearer the solution to our full back problem as Ross McConnell was. At the start of the match, Declan O'Sullivan moved in to the full forward line, you could smell the panic and confusion all over Dublin. No ability to adapt and a complete lack of leadership between the defenders as to who should be picking up who. When Tom O'Sullivan scored his excellent point, he ran unchallenged for nearly 100 yards. Its plain to see that any change to the game plan seems to confuse and upset Dublin - it really doesn't take much does it!!

holymoly (Dublin) - Posts: 757 - 04/08/2009 10:39:46    376493

The only thing I would criticise Gilroy for would be his fairly weak attempt in finding a proper full back line. By the end of the league, we had teams score large scoring tallys against us and the signs were there that we were ripe for the taking by any team with a good forward line. I think back to the Derry game, where similar to Kerry yesterday, they just simply ran through us. Galway knocked up 3 goals against us and Tyrone did a number on us too. Granted I have a fairly ignorant knowledge of the club scene but surely in Dublin there are natural corner backs and a full back out there. They don't necessarily need to be great footballers, just good defenders. Other than that I really can't fault Gilroy. Up until that game, Dublin were playing good and exciting football. But another reshuffle of our defenders won't solve our poor marking and poor tackling. I know some of our forwards and a particular midfielder that I would like to see dropped but we have to get our defence in order before we do anything else.

But just one final moan in regards to what I was saying earlier. I hate the fact that this always seems to happen to us. Why is it that teams like Kerry and Tyrone can bully us and play through us with such ease while we just lay down and take it. 2 different managers but more or less the same players. What does that tell you, other than the majority of our players are mentally weak. They're like kids really. If the other team doesn't play the way they like to, they just sulk in the corner. You can talk about tactics, you can talk about ability but the honest answer is that a number of Dublin players don't deserve to wear that jersey because they're not willing to do what it takes to win matches. Do they ever think of the people who travel around the country following them? Do they ever think how well they are looked after compared to other teams? Do they realise the expense that some people have gone to over the years to follow them only to lie down and take another beating? You call yourselves Dublin footballers!! Don't make me laugh.

I'm jumping ship and joining the hurling band wagon next year. At least these lads give a dam.

Ps Well done Kerry and their great fans who were great craic in Grand Central last night. Great football always triumphs.

holymoly (Dublin) - Posts: 757 - 04/08/2009 10:39:56    376494

Well hard luck to you Your Holiness!

Maybe the likes of Stephen Cluxton, Barry Cahill and Alan Brogan deserve a small bit of credit? When others around them had thrown in the white flag as soon as the ref had thrown the ball in, they never stopped trying - or at least, thats the way it seemed to me?

I wouldn't take any great pleasure in seeing players of that calibre losing like they did yesterday! But I would take pleasure in seeing the Dub fans leave twenty minutes before the end of the game. After all the rubbish they came out with during the week! When I raised the point that a repeat of Tyrone could be on the cards, my opinion was immediately dismissed. I was told I was anti-Dublin and that I was from Meath, what would I know? But, yesterday, I was proven 100% right and I am absolutely delighted for all the Dublin fans who thought they only had to turn up yesterday (And don't say they weren't any because there clearly were and they posted as much on here). I don't expect them to be issuing an apology to me either because that is the type of most Dublin fans.

Sorry for posting that on your thread, Holymoly! But that is the way it is. Hopefully 2009 will have thought the Dublin fans a thing or two, as well as the Dublin players.

Loyal2TheRoyal (Meath) - Posts: 4522 - 04/08/2009 11:19:55    376551

Holy good post man... I feel the same.

They dont deserve to wear that jersey... not with that frame of mind.

jimbodub (Dublin) - Posts: 20763 - 04/08/2009 11:20:46    376554

You make some good points there Loyal. Its not as if we don't have any top class players. I think what I'm still racking my brains on though is why we don't have leaders on the field or guys that are willing to do what is needed to win games. Taking yesterday as an example, had another team like say Tyrone or Cork conceded that early goal and the first few points they would have got a time out somehow to get their house back in order - have a friendly mill up with a few shoulders or take the next kick out slowly or whatever to get a bit of a timeout. During which, look around and see what is happening. We weren't at Kerry's pace at all, we needed to slow the game down to realise what was going on. Yet it was just headless chicken time all over again. Granted Gilroy did bring on Whelan early and he did make a difference but when the players around him weren't doing their job there wasn't much else he could do.

Now I don't want to go down the road of picking out certain players and crucifying them, but any manager/fan can see who are the bottlers on the Dublin team right now.

holymoly (Dublin) - Posts: 757 - 04/08/2009 19:14:16    377572

Far be it from me to stake a claim as being a journalist in any shape or form, but I found that the coverage and analysis devoted to the Dublin loss to Kerry by some of the national newspapers as somewhat lazy and repetitive. There was hardly a need for some of the indepth psychological rabble about the Dublin players subconscious or creating theories as to how Mikey Sheehey's goal in 1978 has psychologicaly scarred 2 generations of Dublin players and most probably the next generation too!! Would it have been too hard to give a few columns on the Tuesday describing the match, describe in detail Kerry's class, their managers fantastic tactical changes, mention that it was a poor day at the office for Dublin and a sublte hints or remarks about their usual lack of bottle in big games? Instead we got a week long detailed psychological analysis that would make Frasier Crane blush as well as the usual repetoire of Dublins great failures at HQ.

The one particular journalist that made me cringe most was Eamon Sweeney in yesterdays Sunday Independent. First of all he tried to equate the Dublin Kerry rivalry to that of Sligo and Mayo. From my point of view there just isn't a rivalry there. Who says there is a rivalry - the media. Yet its the media that were throwing out the same lines about the battles in the 70s and 80s, a week before and a week after the game. 9-0 now to Kerry with 1 draw as well. This was a point made numerous times by I don't know how many journalists, so why the need to reiterate only other than to rub salt in the wound.

Kerry vs Dublin is still a draw to football fans regardless of whether there is a rivalry or not. For Dublin fans, the mere chance of getting a win over Kerry is always worth waiting for and there was always a chance that Dublin could have done it against Kerry last week. Its all very well and good for the usual suspects to come out and say I told you so after the result, but going into the game it was again the media who were telling us all how good or bad Kerry were. Dare I suggest that a lot of Kerry fans were apprehensive about their chances coming into that game on the back of their matches against Sligo, Longford and Antrim. I would seriously doubt that any Kerry fan was expecting the result they got last Monday.

Mr Sweeney then alluded to the fact that no Leinster team has won an all ireland or let alone the fact that only 1 Leinster team has competed in an all-ireland final this decade and even suggested that Connacht is a stronger footballing province. Now I have to disagree on this and supporting my belief today is the fact that a Leinster team has successfully knocked out the last of the competing Connacht teams. I don't want to get into this whole which province is better because I don't think it makes any difference. Provincial competition, bar Ulster, is now insignificant as far as I'm concerned. Mr Sweeney pointed to the fact that Although Mayo were beaten by 8 and 14 points by Kerry in an all-ireland final, this makes them a better footballing team because they reached 2 all-ireland finals this decade, Dublin lost by 17 points to Kerry and Mayo beat Dublin along the way in the 06 championship. Thats a fair enough point but it doesn't mean that Connacht football is stronger than Leinster. It just simply means that Mayo have had a better record of reaching the latter stages of the championship than Dublin have had in recent years. I noticed that Mr Sweeney didn't mention anything about the fact that no Connacht team has gotten further than the quarter final stages than Mayo did in 06. Nor did he mention that 3 different Leinster teams have reached the semi finals in the last 3 seasons or for that matter 2 Leinster teams were competing in the semi finals in 07.

holymoly (Dublin) - Posts: 757 - 10/08/2009 11:43:08    385792

Either way, I don't see how making these comparisons about Connacht and Leinster helps either argument. The fact of the matter is only 2 teams have won the all-ireland in the last 7 seasons and neither have been from Connacht or Leinster.

Maybe its just that I've read the same criticsm about Dublin so many times in recent years that I find it so boring and repetitive. But for a journalist to have nearly a full week to come up with some detailed analysis or to provide us with some sort of fresh take on the Kerry vs Dublin encounter to only give us the usual repetioire of Dublin foibbles and to throw in the old my province is better than your province argument is just sheer lazy. His beloved Connacht had a team playing yesterday in a pretty big game and didn't even once mention it. Surely some in depth analysis by Mr Sweeney may have led him to the telling us all why Mayo would or wouldn't be making it any further than Dublin this year instead of feeling the need to kick Dublin while they're down.

Anyway, by Wedenesday we were old news. Football moves on and there is the rest of the championship to play for. There are some great games still in store and perhaps some surprises too as Meath showed yesterday and in any case who wants to hear anymore about Dublin anyway. Thats the last I'll be talking about us until next season.

holymoly (Dublin) - Posts: 757 - 10/08/2009 11:43:20    385794

Has there ever been a team to provoke so much public reaction as Tyrone?

Its quite sad to see some god awful pettiness coming out of yesterdays game, which for about 25 minutes was proving to be a very good game of football. Be it an anonymous internet poster or a well known pundit, there are a lot of people out there dying to get the boot into Tyrone when they're down. Yours truly was by no means a Tyrone fan after 03 but my view of them changed dramatically after 05 and maybe its just that I'm growing up and becoming more mature but I tend to appreciate Tyrone a lot more in my old age. There are still aspects of their play that I don't like but I'm not ignorrant of their ability nor the fact that they, more than anyone this decade, upped the levels of determination and willingness to win.

There's a lot of talk about Spillane's rant and rightly so. Pat has never convinced me that he was ever a fan of Tyrone nor ever had much respect for them. Even after his 'formula 1 football' speech after the 05 victory, it came across hollow. The fact that he needed to tell Joe Brolly that Tyrone, in his opinion on live national television, were nowhere near being the team of the decade only highlights how Tyrones victories over Kerry and the celebrations of these results in the media have gotten under his skin in the past few years. I'm sure that most Tyrone fans couldn't care less what he thinks of them and for some Kerry fans I know that they are slightly embarrassed by some of Spillanes remarks.

At the same time, from a neutrals point of view, there are 2 sides to every story. One can't ignore the absolute love in that the Northern Ireland BBC has with Tyrone. Some of the comments by Martin McHugh yesterday were downright laughable. They should have had Jarlath Burns and Joe Kernan on who were far more objective in their assessments of the performance. I've noticed a growing trend with the likes of McHugh and Brolly who seem to live vicariously through Tyrone. A number of times we've seen them speak about Ulster football in the same breath as Tyrone. I can understand from the BBC's point of view that the All-Ireland champions are from the north and it is only right that they hype up home grown talent. But their favoritism, like Spillanes, tends to get irritable for some. There is a perceived anti-Tyrone / anti-Ulster mentality within very small areas of the southern media but this is only exacerbated by some of the columns which Brolly and McHugh have given us while riding the Tyrone coat-tails. It seemed to be a struggle at times for Martin to even give Cork the nod for their great endeavour yesterday.

As for the match itself yesterday, I felt John Bannon had a desperate game and only contributed to one sides criticsm over the other. We had Spillane telling us all about what a gent Alan O'Connor is and how there isn't a bad bone in his body. While on BBC McHugh was over the top about Corks cynical approach - had that been Tyrone or Armagh winning he would have been giving it socks about how it was their will to win that got the result. Bannons' inconsistency was shocking though. For the large bag of bad calls made by Bannon, overall, it did seem to balance out. O'Connor shouldn't have gone but Miskella definitely should and you could easily argue that Canty deserved the same. This stuff only fuelling the fire of either set of panelists mindset overhow which one cheated more than the other.

In this posters old age, I'm happy to just sit back and watch the fireworks and watch the kids throw their toys out of the pram. We all know who the good pundits are, the ones we have to take a pinch of salt with everything they say and the ones who talk absolute tripe.

In any case, well done Cork. But I still don't think we've seen the last of Tyrone just yet.

holymoly (Dublin) - Posts: 757 - 24/08/2009 11:59:15    401845

Sorry, typo at the end
We haven't seen the last of Tyrone just yet

holymoly (Dublin) - Posts: 757 - 24/08/2009 13:52:24    402063

The greatest thread in the history of HS written by a true legend
Now, unfortunately, no longer with us :(
I hope this thread finds you well HM

Missed and never forgotten.

Liamwalkinstown (Dublin) - Posts: 8170 - 25/01/2013 14:25:24    1323562

Whats with the walk down memory lane Liam?

brendtheredhand (Tyrone) - Posts: 10897 - 25/01/2013 15:21:57    1323608

a peek into the past Brend
before certain posters arrived here and changed it all
look at the names on this thread
Quality thru and thru

Liamwalkinstown (Dublin) - Posts: 8170 - 25/01/2013 15:35:17    1323616

I'm sorry we're not up to their standards, forgive us!

lilypad (Kildare) - Posts: 1363 - 25/01/2013 16:00:28    1323640

lilypad
County: Kildare
Posts: 304

1323640 I'm sorry we're not up to their standards, forgive us!

who is this fella lads?

Liamwalkinstown (Dublin) - Posts: 8170 - 25/01/2013 16:02:58    1323645

Ouch Liam!

brendtheredhand (Tyrone) - Posts: 10897 - 25/01/2013 16:16:16    1323658

genuinely dont mean you in that Brend

Liamwalkinstown (Dublin) - Posts: 8170 - 25/01/2013 16:20:19    1323664

High quality stuff & a mile better than most of the stuff served up in newspapers.
I wouldn't fancy trying to type that lot out on a mobile phone though!!

MuckrossHead (Donegal) - Posts: 5030 - 25/01/2013 16:32:26    1323678

Speaking on behalf of the Kildare lad Liam!

brendtheredhand (Tyrone) - Posts: 10897 - 25/01/2013 16:40:51    1323683