Green and Red

Green and Red has moved

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 10:30:00 +0000

Willie Joe doesn't live here anymore: Green and Red has moved to a new site at http://mayogaablog.com, where a revamped look and feel to the blog is now available for your delectation. Don’t forget to update any bookmarks you may have created for this site. And, of course, Keep the Faith!

"Non-event" FBD action starts on Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:15:00 +0000

Almost six months after our 2007 championship exit, Mayo's footballers finally take the field in something resembling a competitive fixture this coming Sunday when they take on NUIG in the Connacht FBD League at Ballinrobe. The FBD, like the O'Byrne and McKenna Cups (and, to a lesser extent, the McGrath Cup) in the other provinces, serves as a kind of pre-season before the NFL gets going at the start of February. It's a nothing tournament - even we wouldn't get excited about winning it.

So Johnno is spot on when he describes it as a "non-event", though he does so due to the fact that so many players will be unavailable, given that the third level institutions have first call on county panellists. Johnno has apparently been left with around twenty waifs and strays for the opening match with NUIG on Sunday so it's anyone's guess who will line out where in Ballinrobe. Here's Mike Finnerty's tuppence worth. And Sean Rice's.

Finnerty says that both James Gill and Pat Kelly will feature in the FBD matches this month (after NUIG, we play Sligo IT and Roscommon), which, if true, is good news. While he obviously possesses bags of talent, Gill has delivered very little at senior level to date and so his departure from the inter-county scene last year was little surprise. It would be nice to see him prove all the doubters wrong in his second coming. Paddy Kelly has been in flying form at club level for Dublin's St Vincent's (as has Brian Maloney) on their way to the All-Ireland club semis and so his recall is of little surprise.

Other names - new ones this time - mentioned by Finnerty as being in the frame are Achill's Colm Cafferkey and Donal Corrigan, Knockmore's John Brogan, Charlestown's Tony Mulligan, Westport's goalie Tom Higgins and Shrule-Glencorrib's David 'Roundy' Geraghty. I expect the last lad named there is on his own special weights programme.

Sadly, I won't be able to make it to Ballinrobe for Sunday's "non-event" - the lure of Parnell Park on Saturday night for the Dubs against the Goat Suckers has proved too strong - but it's great to see action of some sort returning after almost half a year's absence. And, with plenty of action on the menu over the coming weeks and months, it should also make it a bit easier to keep the site humming.

In with the new

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:58:00 +0000

Well, 2008 is here and the holidays are over and work is rearing its ugly head once more and all those resolutions which sounded so good with all that beer in the bloodstream the other night are now already starting to look somewhat, er, challenging. Welcome back, real life, in other words.

But, it IS a new year and, in the spirit of fecking out all that old stuff and replacing it with something more in tune with the shiny new year, it's time to unveil what has hitherto been my little secret project. (Mine and Gerry's, aka Tommy Joe, that is. None of what I'm about to reveal would have been possible without his technical wizardry).

Yes, folks, Green and Red 2.0 is about to be launched, with the blog moving to a new domain (http://mayogaablog.com), with a different look and feel but also containing all that old bile you've read and loved over the course of 2007. It's still only in beta, mind, and the builders haven't stopped dumping their shite around the place but, work permitting, I'm hoping to be out of the old place and completely moved in over there in a few days.

The main advantage of the move is that I wanted to have separate pages for results, fixtures and the like and I also wanted to have readily-accessible archive pages, which (warning: New Year's Resolution about to approach) I could then backfill back to the year dot. Blogger doesn't allow me to do this and so we have to part. It's nothing to do with you, Bloggie love, it's me. No really, it is.

Out with the old

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 15:16:00 +0000

The old year is dying rapidly on us, with delusional hopes about what 2008 might bring already taking wing furiously. We might win Connacht again! Beating the living shite out of Galway in the process! We might, once again, make our improbable way to the final! We might meet Kerry again! And they might ... you know, they might, the hoors, as they'll be aiming for the three-in-a-row. Okay, that's enough delusion for now.

With the New Year comes the return of inter-county action (unless you happen to be from Cork, in which case the only action you're apparently going to see will happen on the picket line). The first shots in sort-of anger have already been fired, with Monaghan (about whom many have high hopes for the coming year) losing their opening McKenna Cup fixture by a point to Queens up at Clones yesterday. That'll teach them to jump the gun. Next weekend sees the start of the O'Byrne Cup with de Dubs tackling the Goat Suckers at Parnell Park on Saturday evening. Micko v the Dubs: that might be worth a look, I reckon.

No word yet on the FBD league but it's got to be getting underway soon, as they need to finish it before the league starts in a month's time. Oooh! I'm almost giddy with the excitement of it all.

On that note, all the best for the New Year. Here's to silverware. Here's to delusion. Here's to another year of following the Green and Red.

Happy Christmas and all that

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 22:23:00 +0000

It's nearly Christmas Eve, I'm nearly drunk and I'm nearly going to switch the laptop off and get more than nearly bladdered shortly. Some very nice red wine (thanks, Gerry!) is already coursing through my veins and not even Martin Breheny's assessment in yesterday's Indo of where he reckons we've ended the year in the pecking order (12th, down from 4th last year) can spoil the moment. Santie's on his way in a little over 24 hours and the little people asleep upstairs are more than a bit interested in what'll be in his bag.

It's Christmas, in other words, and so time to sign off for a few days. However, plans are already afoot for a revamp of the site early in the New Year (new look, new domain, that sort of thing) so keep an eye out for what's in store.

Meanwhile, have a great Christmas and New Year and I hope that the experience of reading my various rants here have been at least partly as enjoyable as has been my creation of them.

Keep the faith!

Last-minute stocking fillers

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 14:05:00 +0000

Attention, ladies! If you're stuck for ideas for the GAA-loving, book reading man in your life, there are a number of suitable titles from which to choose. All the more so if you'd planned to get him The Book but have only now discovered that he went out and bought it himself, the bollix.

There's a large crop of GAA books out this year. I must confess that I haven't read those by Sean Kelly, Jack O'Connor, Oisin McConville or the new biography of Micko though, from the reviews I've seen, any of them shouldn't get flung back in your face. I have read, and enjoyed for the most part, Roland Tormey's Summertime Blues, a nostalgic account of what it felt like to follow Dublin on their way to their last All-Ireland in 1995.

That was the last long, hot Summer in these parts and it was also the final one that I spent in London (where the Summer that year was even longer and hotter than over here) and, having missed all of that year's championship (as well as most of the previous seven), the stuff about Jayo scoring the goal in his stockinged feet and the controversy about Charlie Redmond's sending-off in the final were stories I'd only heard about vaguely in the past. The story is mainly recounted, a la Nick Hornby, from the author's perspective as a member of the blue horde on the Hill but it's also interspersed with interviews with a few of the players. Personally, I'd have preferred if he'd stuck with his own story as the bits told through the players' eyes was the kind of stuff you could have read in any newspaper article.

The other odd thing was that, for all his talk about yearning to see the Dubs win Sam again, he has very little to say about what he felt like and what he did when they finally did go and win it. Did he run down O'Connell Street buck naked? Did he go on the piss for three whole weeks? (Either could happen to WJ, dear reader, were Mayo ever to triumph again). It would have been nice to know what he thought of seeing his team reach the summit and what the view looked like from there.

The other book I'd point you towards is Michael Foley's excellent Kings of September. This was, I thought, a bit like reading The Day of the Jackal, in that you know the ending but it doesn't spoil the story. (De Gaulle doesn't get shot in Michael Foley's book either). Seeing as the denouement results in defeat for Kerry and their hopes of making history smashed to smithereens, it made, all told, for rather enjoyable reading. The film version is, I see, on TG4 on Christmas Day and I'm already looking forward to putting my feet up beside the fire (sorry, Bronwen!) with a glass or two and waiting for that magic moment - which is almost as good as that bit in Mary Poppins where she first appears in the sky holding her brolly - when Seamus Darby has his date with destiny. Ho! Ho! Ho!

Clash of loyalties moves another step closer

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:06:00 +0000

With St. Vincent's victory yesterday in the Leinster club final - their first provincial title in 23 years - the possible clash of loyalties to which I first alluded last month has moved another step closer. De Vinnies now face defending All-Ireland champions Crossmaglen Rangers (or will do, once the XMG lads have finished having their fun with Tir Chonaill Gaels in their quarter-final over in Ruislip at the end of January) while Mayo's Ballina Stephenites are up against Cork's Nemo Rangers in the other semi-final. They could both lose. They could both win. One might win and the other might not. In other words, there are a number of permutations that could arise, only one of which could leave me with a problem about who I shout for in the final on Paddy's Day.

Carbon footprint

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:06:00 +0000

I'm just back from a rapid trip to Mayo, having gone down to stock up on some proper firewood (ash, whitethorn and the like) and, yes, a few bags of turf while I was at it. Coming back with the car stuffed to the gills with fuel and, bearing in mind all the emissions I must have generated on the 282.5 miles round-trip (down last night, back this morning), I feel like I have a carbon footprint the size of a yeti. At this rate, I'll have Bronwen Maher and her tree-hugging chums on my case. In my defence, the wood was all thinnings that had to be cut anyway and, honestly Guard, I do my bit of composting, recycling and tomato growing and the like. But . . . I know, I know, the few sods are what clinches it. I hope Santie has some carbon credits in his bag for me.

I went down via Athlone last night, with the sort-of motorway now stretching all the way to Kilbeggan and, from the little I could see of the earthworks further on, it looks as if it'll be motorway all the way to the other side of Athlone soon enough. That will mean that Knockroghery will be the first town you hit on the way to Mayo coming from Dublin - no doubt Brendan Shine will want to commemorate this little nugget with a verse or two.

Coming back this morning, I decided to take the alternative N5 route, which was a bad idea as it was littered with roadworks. Nobody might have shouted stop on the John Healy Road, but they sure did around the airport, in Tulsk, in Ballinalack and in various other places too. And what is it with these medieval roads in Roscommon? (And, indeed, medieval drivers - fuck me, if you get stuck behind someone with an RN reg, you've had it). It's not just their county team that's in need of an overhaul, I can tell you.

The Off The Ball lads on NewsTalk made for good company on the way down in the dark last night (the podcast of the interview they had on last night's programme with David Feherty is worth a listen) but when that got a bit dull, I switched to the CD and the excellent Amy McDonald, whose tuneful offerings were, I found, best enjoyed with the sound turned waaaaaaaaaaaaay up. I usually do night-time cross-country treks with the wife and childers (and, sadly, no turf) on board and so don't normally have this kind of latitude in terms of volume or, come to think of it, artist. Suffice to say that my little Dublings wouldn't have slept soundly given the volume at which last night's musical selection was playing.

Now, where are those shaggin' firelighters?

What happens when Westport and Castlebar Garda stations call each other?

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:07:00 +0000

Are either of these lads on the county board, by any chance?

Another award for Ronan + Elvery's

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 20:51:00 +0000

Ronan McGarritty's rollercoaster year has reached another significant milestone: he's just been awarded (jointly, along with Cora) the Connacht GAA Writers' Personality of the Month for November. Does this mean that these lads announce a Personality of the Month every month? There's a thought - maybe I should do the same. Well done (again), Ronan. I bet you'll get a cracking present from Santie as well.

Mayo News also reports that Elvery"s have agreed to stay on board as official sponsors of the county team for another five years. I guess that's good news, providing, of course, that the county board (them's the lads that don't like anything to do with money, especially if it's going to the players) drove a hard bargain with Elvery's. After all, they're going to feature on pictures with the Sam Maguire, aren't they?

By the way - talking about the county board, I see from the same article that County Chairman James Waldron seems to have offered an olive branch of sorts to the players over the grants issue. Better late than never, I suppose, but where was he last week when that "unanimous" motion got passed?

Time to get real

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 22:34:00 +0000

The players' grants issue is continuing to generate plenty of debate: there's John Maughan reminiscing about what things were like in the good old days when he had a full head of hair, there's PJ McGrath saying that refs should be ahead of the players in the queue for payments, there's An Spailpin fulminating about the GPA's motives and drawing apocalyptic comparisons with Welsh rugby, there's Sean Rice huffing and puffing about the GAA being on "the road to ruin" and, in the other corner, there's Colm O'Rourke making the point that payments to managers - the widespread practice within the GAA that still dares not speak its name - will continue to cost far more than the grants to players will and that, in terms of getting some financial recompense, the players have come to the table very, very late.

Anyone who has read any of my previous posts on this issue will know that I'm in firmly on the Colm O'Rourke side of the debate. While PJ McGrath is technically correct when he makes the rather facetious point that there would be no games without the ref (when, in fact, the ref in Gaelic football isn't always where you expect him to be: where was he, for example, when he was needed last May in Salthill?), it's the players who produce those moments of magic that we all treasure and who keep us coming back each year in anticipation of witnessing more of the same.

All players put in significant effort but it's obvious that it's the elite performers - those who reach inter-county standard - who sacrifice most, in terms of the ongoing commitment they make and the way in which many of them effectively put their work careers on hold for the duration of the time they spend at inter-county level. This is especially the case in the modern era: one time being a county player might have saved you from the boat whereas now, where there's plenty of work but most of it comes with fairly relentless pressure to perform, county players often have to sacrifice opportunities to get ahead in their careers just to ensure that they have the requisite time to devote to wearing the county jersey.

So being an inter-county player involves making hefty sacrifices, often for many years. But by doing so, they create all the action (call it the "product" if you like) that people pay good money to see, which many of the most prominent companies in Ireland pay significant sums to get their names associated with and the TV rights to which the GAA is increasingly able to monetise. Let's be clear: it is the inter-county players who create virtually all of the value that enables the GAA to rake in this money.

Before the GPA came on the scene, inter-county players were treated, by and large, very poorly and many of the advances in player welfare can be attributed to the poking and promptings of Dessie Farrell and his compadres. Likewise, the players' grants issue - the genesis of which was a Government initiative for those involved in top-class sport in general - would never have come to fruition without the GPA. What did the GAA do in the hundred years and more before the GPA came along to improve the lot of players? That's right: they did chuff all and they'd have continued to treat the players in the same despicable manner had not the GPA forced them to change their tune.

Like Colm O'Rourke, I'd have some sympathy with the concerns people have about the drift away from the community ethos within the GAA but, like the Meathman, I'd be loathe to saddle the players' grants issue with all of the blame for what is just another example of how Ireland has changed in recent times. Homepsun tales about Missus Mac baking her rock buns for the team and Josie washing out the jerseys are all fine and dandy but they're not in any way relevant to the debate about extremely modest grants being provided to inter-county players. Rule 11 remains intact and the GPA have stated publicly that they support its retention. Even if they didn't, there are more than enough backwoodsmen in positions of power within the GAA to ensure that the status quo remains intact for many years to come. Look at how long it took to get a perfectly reasonable and sensible proposal such as opening up Croke Park to get ratified: just how long do you think it would take to get a two-thirds majority for the scrapping of Rule 11?

In any event, all this John Hinde ass and cart stuff about how great things worked in the old days is a bunch of horseshit: looking to the past to provide answers for the future is rarely a good option. It has echoes of the bone-headed attempts by successive Irish Governments up to the Sixties to promote agriculture as the engine of growth within the Irish economy. All that succeeded in doing, as Tom Garvin has so rightly pointed out, was to delay by decades the eventual arrival of prosperity in Ireland.

The amazing thing, when you think about it, is how much the community ethos within the GAA has - in this post-Celtic Tiger Ireland - remained intact, in much the same way that it's somewhat surprising that Church attendances are still as high as they are after all that's come out over the past fifteen years. Community involvement in the GAA has survived in the face of the huge changes that have place within the country over the past twenty years, including the significant drift towards a more commercial outlook in all aspects of the GAA itself, from sponsorship to the gleaming new Croke Park. These paltry grants to players are just one more facet of this. They do not represent nor can they seriously be portrayed as Armageddon for the GAA.

And they don't mean we're on the cusp of an age of professional gaelic football (or hurling) either. For fuck's sake, where is the money going to come from to sustain two professional codes on an island of just under six million people? Unlike the Premiership, the GAA will not earn megabucks from selling the rights to its games all over the world and so, with limited enough income from gate receipts and sponsorship, there's clearly not going to be a massive pot of money to sustain a professional GAA. It's simply too small in scale and with the increasingly unworkable and unfair championship structures in both hurling and football, it's not as if the GAA has got a wonderfully dependable product to pimp.

In this context, the comparisons with rugby might seem to be more apt but any perceived likeness is, IMHO, more apparent than real. The organisation of rugby, no more than soccer, is a very different kettle of fish compared to gaelic football and hurling. Like soccer, it has both a club and an international dimension and it has a major money-spinning European competition keeping it going in this part of the world. I'm not convinced that the misfortunes currently facing rugby in Wales or elsewhere can easily be transferred to the GAA, where professionalism on the level seen in rugby simply can't, given the simple arithmetic, happen. The extremely rigid rules about players transferring allegiance from one county to another also militate against such a development. As Tommy Conlon points out, this rule - which has been in place for over 120 years - effectively means that players are chained to their roots ensuring that, unlike in almost all other sports, the very best players aren't always allowed to rise to the top. That, however, is one for another day.

For now, with Saturday's Central Council vote behind us, the issue has been resolved from the point of view of the GAA. Those poor, holier-than-thou souls on county boards up and down the country can rest happily that they won't have to dirty their hands dishing out the filthy lucre to the players (they can continue to concentrate instead on paying their managers) and can convince themselves that they've fought the good fight to preserve all that is good about the GAA. Well done, lads: not for the first time, you've done the country some service.

Meanwhile, the players will continue to bust their asses in preparation for the new campaign and I doubt very much that, in doing so, they'll give all that much thought to the modest amount of dough they'll get at the back end of the year. Like every other year, it's the silverware, the medals and the chance to make history for their county of birth that'll be uppermost in their minds. And in ours too, I reckon, once this storm in a teacup finally abates.

"Oi! You voted unanimously for WHAT?"

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 20:59:00 +0000

The Mayo senior football and hurling panels have wasted no time in reacting to their county board's "unanimous" decision to oppose the awarding of grants to inter-county players (see previous post). Earlier this evening, the two panels issued a joint statement expressing their disappointment with the county board's position on the issue and stating that they "stand firm" on their support for the grants.

In their statement, the two panels even use that phrase so beloved by the Shinners during the Norn Iron Peace Process, i.e. "parity of esteem", and there's little doubt but that they're as "pussed off" as Gerry Adams famously declared himself to be during one of the many tortuous twists and turns in those now happily-concluded negotiations. The Northern Issue may be settled but it would appear that the players' grants one is far from over.

I'm still scratching my head as to why Mayo has become the eye in this particular storm, although given the county board's penchant for making the FAI look competent, perhaps it's not all that surprising. From a supporter's standpoint, I'd be worried about the impact all this will have on preparations for next year's campaign. It's not as if we don't have enough to be concerned about as it is.

Johnno's position on all this is worth watching. Having recently expressed his relief that a players' strike had been averted, he's unlikely to view this latest development favourably. Unless, of course, he decides to don his political hat on this one and calls for a vote of no confidence against Shamie Brennan.

We don't like players' grants, apparently

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 10:09:00 +0000

The Mayo GAA politburo have apparently - so says RTE so it must be true, right? - voted unanimously against the Pat's Ass solution to the players' grants issue. I'm not sure why we've emerged as the hotbed of dissent on this one, although we're far from alone on it, as there was a biggish protest gathering (what is it about Ireland and protest meetings in the depth of winter? It's like a male alternative to bingo or something) in the wee North earlier in the week. The GPA's Dessie Farrell - ever the diplomat - described the Toome session as the ravings of "a small rump of malcontents" but he then got a right old earful from the Ulster Council for his trouble.

I know others feel differently and have, as is their right, strongly-held views on this one but I just fail to see why, in the early years of the 21st century, giving a few lousy quid to guys who bust their arses to represent their county should be seen as an Armageddon situation for the GAA. An utterly fucked-up championship structure is, IMHO, a far greater danger to the ongoing well-being of the organisation, while the anti-grants movement reminds me just a little of that scene from Father Ted.

What's another year?

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 14:28:00 +0000

Echoing David Brady's recent pronouncement that the All-Ireland is not a realistic target for us next year, County Secretary Sean Feeney says, in his annual report to the county convention, that supporters will need "patience" in 2008, as the team rebuilding process continues. Nothing new there, then.

BTW, belated congrats to Ronan McGarritty for winning the Club Player of the Year award, which he was presented with at the bash in the TF last Friday night. I think it's fair to say that 2007 won't be a year he'll forget in a hurry: it's an incredible achievement for him to have battled back from serious illness early in the year to play a huge role in Ballina's successful Connacht club campaign.

Two months and counting

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 11:59:00 +0000

It's exactly two months to the date until the competitive inter-county action, in the form of the 2008 NFL, gets underway again. For the purposes of making this point, I'm ignoring the FBD League, which is only a warm-up job with many of the lads playing for whichever third-level institution they're diligently attending.

So it's only sixty-two days before the team trots out under the lights up in Derry and, what with Christmas and all that in between (Q: What will we not feel till Christmas? A: It, i.e. "we won't feel it till Christmas". Ah yes, the old ones are the best, aren't they?), we'll be back in the thick of it before you could say "ahforfuckssakerefyahfuckinbollixyah" or some other such cheery match-related ditty.

TV rights + Mayo club footballer of the year

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:36:00 +0000

I see that TV3 have landed one of the packages of live championship matches for 2008, comprising at least 10 live and exclusive matches over the next three years. This means that TV3 will broadcast two provincial finals in 2008, thus breaking RTE's age-old hegemony in this area.

This has got to be good news. Monopolies are, in general, bad for the ordinary punter while competition, by and large, delivers a superior outcome all round. The record of Irish monopolies is particularly poor, that of Irish public sector ones is, well, shite. RTE's live TV coverage of gaelic games has always been, at best, fairly complacent, pedestrian and lazy. While they've faced limited competition from the BBC in recent years in relation to the Ulster championship, this coverage has been totally focused through the prism of Norn Iron and the lads could have been talking about tiddlywinks for all the relevance that it has had to the wider GAA scene. As such, the Beeb's coverage never made any attempt to tackle Monstrose's championship offering head-on. TV3's will and so this first serious attempt to muscle in on RTE's erstwhile monopoly patch should be the root up the hole that RTE need to up their game significantly.

Elsewhere, Hogan Stand is reporting that Ronan McGarritty has been shortlisted for the award of Mayo club footballer of the year. This is a punter-driven poll, run by the Mayo News and the others on the shortlist are David Brady, Kenny Golden, John Brogan and David Tiernan. Vote early and vote often, as the old Sinn Fein mantra used to go.

Pat's ass

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:35:00 +0000

So there'll be no all-night sessions at the Labour Court, no grim-faced, downbeat assessments provided to the media by a bearded Brudder Farrell, no Ingrid Miley reports for RTE News, no placard-bearing players huddled around burning braziers outside Croke Park. What did I tell you? None of the participants in this comedy wanted to go the full distance on it and so today's announcement that the players' grants issue has been sorted (or will be once the GAA and the GPA vote on it) comes as little surprise.

Oh and, by the way, this has nothing whatsoever to do with "pay for play". No sirree - what's on offer is an Annual Team Performance Scheme (ATPS) and an Annual Support Scheme (ASS). With a little rejigging, one could easily end up with a nicely apposite two-part acronym for this particular peace deal, i.e. Pat's ass. I can imagine that one catching on. Picture the scene: a player (who shall remain nameless) pulls up for training in his new boy-racer motor. One of his teammates stops to admire it and asks him how much he gave for it. Our friend tells him and then adds "I got it on the Pat's ass".

Brady's last year, "probably"

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 10:25:00 +0000

David Brady has announced his retirement a few times over the past few years and, in the wake of Ballina's Connacht club title success on Sunday, he's sort of done it again by intimating that the victory was all the sweeter as "it's probably my last one".

That still leaves plenty of room for confusion as to when exactly he plans to pull on his cardie and slippers. Is this year (i.e. 2007) his last? Or will he call it a day once Ballina's club campaign is over (i.e. 17th March 2008 at the latest?) Or is he still going to make himself available for the county next year? Probably, I'd say. DB isn't a first fifteen man anymore but he's still someone that would be good to have in the squad and who could still have a part to play over the course of 2008, preferably not just to come on when we're two or three goals down either.

Incidentally, there's been quite a funny bout of handbags at dawn on the Mayofans.com message board over Brady's performance for Ballina on Sunday, where it has been alleged that he was a "disgrace" with all his "divin and pretendin to be injured". Quite right - we're the nice guys of Gaelic football aren't we? Pure as the driven snow, always playing the game as it should be played and bugger the consequences. Jesus wept: what would the reaction be if a team from Mayo actually engaged in a bit of rough stuff itself?

A looming case of divided loyalties?

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:32:00 +0000

Yesterday's club results brought one step closer a potential situation where I'm torn between supporting two different clubs in the All-Ireland final. One of them - Ballina (reason for supporting: representatives of county of birth) - has already taken the provincial crown in Connacht and now faces the Munster champions, most likely Nemo Rangers, in the All-Ireland semi-final in February.

The other - St Vincent's (reason for supporting: local club where I'm domiciled here in the capital, for whom my little Dubettes are already expressing vociferous support) - are in the Leinster final, where they'll face either Moorefield or Tyrellspass and will, I reckon, fancy their chances of landing a first Leinster title in aeons.

If the Vins do the business in Leinster, they'll face defending All-Ireland champions Crossmaglen Rangers in the All-Ireland semi-final. XMG (as, I was once told, was the term used by the Occupying Hordes up north for the army base they had there) would be favourites to make it back to the final but the Marino lads could well topple them. And the Stephenites will also fancy their chances of a return to Croke Park on Paddy's Day and a tilt at a second national title in four years.

There's still a few major hurdles to be surmounted before I'm faced with this particular dilemma but it's now beginning to look like a realistic scenario and so I feel it's only right to lay before the world the potential personal agonising I might have to face over which cause to support on March 17th next.

Silverware for Ballina and Cornacon

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:31:00 +0000

Both Ballina and Cornacon lifted cups today, the former the Connacht senior club title - deposing the holders St Brigid's of Roscommon - while the latter claimed the ladies All-Ireland senior club title, hammering Cork's Inch Rovers.

Ladies first, as they say - Cornacon had it all their own way in their All-Ireland final against Inch Rovers at Banagher, winning by 2-14 to 1-6. RTE's match report is here. The peerless Cora Staunton - the Ronaldinho of ladies Gaelic football - racked up 1-11 of that winning total, as Cornacon made up for last year's All-Ireland final defeat. The club is also the backbone of the Mayo ladies team so today's All-Ireland win would, no doubt, have dulled the pain from September's All-Ireland final loss to Cork.

Ballina's Connacht final clash with St Brigid's was live on TG4 and I caught most of it, though not the two early first half goal by Stepenites, which helped them into a four-point lead at the break. The second half looked fairly robust at times, with plenty of mistimed tackles, shoulders landing square in the chest and the odd few belts being thrown. From my vantage point on the couch, it appeared to be Brigid's doing most of the scelping. However, it was Ballina who went a man down early in the second half, at a stage when Brigid's were only a point behind but this seemed to provoke Ballina back to life and they raced five points clear before being reeled back in to just two at the finish. Brigid's hit the woodwork in injury time - when a goal would surely have landed them the title - but Ballina managed to hold on for, literally, a hard-fought win. A full report on the game, also from RTE, is available here.

Like the Champions League, the club championships now go into a hibernation phase, with the action resuming in February. I'm not sure who Ballina will meet in the semis but Crossmaglen are already through from Ulster, Nemo Rangers look like they'll be joining the party from Munster and my local club here in the metropolis, St Vincent's (who hammered Portlaoise 3-13 to 1-8 today in the Leinster semi-final: go on ya good things!), are starting to look the part in Leinster. That's four heavyweight clubs so the All-Ireland series early next year could be worth watching out for.

Rarer than Popes

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 21:38:00 +0000

It would be remiss not to mention this week's appointment of Monaghan's Paraic Duffy as the new Director General of the GAA. Although not as rare as Halley's Comet, such appointments don't happen just any old day - the new man will, when he takes oifig next February, be only the fourth DG the organisation has had since 1929. Mother of God: we've had more popes since then.

Paraic Duffy is obviously a good choice as DG and his recent experience, in particular his current post as Player Welfare Manager, means he is ideally placed to offer progressive leadership to the organisation on issues such as the players' grants controversy. In his post-appointment press conference yesterday, Duffy stated clearly that it was time "to move on to a totally different relationship with our players". He's not wrong there and, by the sounds of it, he could be the man to ensure that this happens.

Injury stories start to reappear

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 16:04:00 +0000

Remember our injury crisis from the early part of this year? You might recall that goalie Kenneth O'Malley was one casualty, when he dislocated his thumb in the league match against the Dubs in early April. Well, he's crocked again - so says this report in Hogan Stand - this time after coming off second-best in a collision with a trainee Guard while playing for UL against the Garda College. You'd think the Guards would wait till after their passing-out parade before dishing out the rough stuff but this lad must have been keen to get out of the Templemore classroom and put some theory into practice. It looks like he was taking notice in his beat-up-the-suspects class as O'Malley had to leave the match by ambulance after the altercation, though the report reassures us that he's making a "steady recovery".

Elsewhere, Hogan Stand is also reporting that Conor Mortimor is denying rumours about him transferring to Dublin club Oliver Plunketts. I should bloody well think so - if Mort switches to anyone up here it should be to our own St Vincent's, where Pat Kelly and Brian Maloney would no doubt make him welcome. Not too sure about Mossie, though . . .

Conflict of interest?

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 14:52:00 +0000

I see that Pat O'Shea has been re-appointed as Kerry jefe for another 12 months, like. Well done, Pat, keep up the good work and all that. The hunger for All-Ireland success must be only wogeous down there in the Kingdom at this stage, given that it's now two whole months (TWO WHOLE MONTHS!!! FUCK ME! HOW WILL WE SURVIVE THE NEXT TEN??) since a Kerryman hoisted the Sam aloft in Croke Park. There's definitely a job of work to be done down there and no better man to do it. But ...

I dunno about the rest of you but I can't help thinking that this appointment has a whiff of something, well, odd about it. O'Shea's day job is, apparently, that of Coaching and Games Manager with the Munster Council, which I suppose means that his brief is to develop playing skills and the like amongst the footballing fraternity in all six Munster counties. Meanwhile he's also moonlighting as Kerry bainisteoir and, as such, his goal is to ensure that Kerry wallop the bejaysus out of everyone else they come across in Munster. Which they have done successfully a few times under his watch, notably the 17-point trimming handed out to Waterford in this year's Munster semi-final and, indeed, the 10-point victory over Cork in the All-Ireland. Is it just me or is there the scent of a teentsy-weentsy conflict of interest involved in this particular bout of double-jobbing?

Summer dreams

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 10:01:00 +0000

It's Monday, it's wet and it's cold - a triad of misery, in other words. It reminds me of that passage in Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds about that bloke who does everything in threes. After a series of threesomes (of sorts), he ends up slashing his wrists three times and then scrawls a message on the wall with his own blood saying "Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye".

November mornings can be shite, can't they? It almost makes one wistful for Summer. Ah yes, those lazy, hazy, warm days with a long championship campaign stretching out ahead, the melodious, mellifluous voice of Michael O Muircheartaigh wafting through the air bringing news of a fierce championship encounter at a packed provincial venue somewhere, the aromatic scent of cut grass and then . . . and then this happens. Followed by this. And then you realise that it wasn't Michael O Muircheartaigh you were listening to, it was that tool Brian Carthy. Maybe November days aren't all that bad after all.

Careful with that axe, Eugene

noreply@blogger.com (Willie Joe) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:35:00 +0000

No, I'm not going launch into a treatise on obscure Pink Floyd numbers but instead direct you towards an incisive (as ever) piece in today's Indo from Eugene McGee on the GAA, GPA and P4P (that's pay for play to you lot). Eugene's analysis is pretty much on the button, IMHO. Contrast, if you will, what he has to say with this bit of provincially-minded piffle. See what I mean?