Galway GAA Discussion Thread #2

threeball · 29-09-2019 8:01am

Happyilylost wrote: »

threeball wrote:

If Alan Flynn ends up managing Galway I'm going to look for a nomination next time myself. Sad when Kearns is the best of the bunch. PJ is not experienced enough to run the show. He'd need a serious backroom team.

Maybe I'm being too optimistic but would Kearns not be a good addition? I would rate his achievements with Limerick underage/senior and Tipp seniors as being mostly successful. In saying all that I think if PJ accepts his nomination and goes forward he will get it.

Kearns is a decent manager, I just don't know if he's good enough to bring us to the next level. He seems to get the new manager bounce in year one and two but his teams fall back in to the pack after which kind of implies that not all the improvement was down to changes he made but more down to lads being more enthusiastic to impress the new Sheriff. To give him his due, his teams are normally well organised and do attack.

I think you're right on PJ but without the strong backroom team I think he'll struggle. He would need to convince Dave Morris or someone of that calibre to join that team.

Utopia Parkway · 29-09-2019 7:34pm

Galway SHC Quarter-final draw

Turloughmore v Craughwell
St Thomas' v Tommy Larkins
Loughrea v Cappataggle
Sarsfields v Liam Mellows

threeball · 29-09-2019 7:54pm

Utopia Parkway wrote: »

Galway SHC Quarter-final draw

Turloughmore v Craughwell
St Thomas' v Tommy Larkins
Loughrea v Cappataggle
Sarsfields v Liam Mellows

Is the semi final a pairing of the winners of game one and two above or is it open draw again.

Happyilylost · 29-09-2019 8:46pm

threeball wrote:

Is the semi final a pairing of the winners of game one and two above or is it open draw again.

Open draw. While some of those quarters are tasty the regarded top teams are kept apart. Turlough, St. Thomas, Liam Mellows (although I give Sarsfields a good chance) and the winners of Cappy vs. Loughrea will make two good semi finals.

threeball · 29-09-2019 9:39pm

Happyilylost wrote: »

threeball wrote:

Is the semi final a pairing of the winners of game one and two above or is it open draw again.

Open draw. While some of those quarters are tasty the regarded top teams are kept apart. Turlough, St. Thomas, Liam Mellows (although I give Sarsfields a good chance) and the winners of Cappy vs. Loughrea will make two good semi finals.

Will make for interesting semis

jr86 · 30-09-2019 10:04am

Uneventful enough preliminaries at the weekend with the favourites winning comfortably enough, with the exception of cappy and the Bridge which went down to the wire as expected. Interesting looking quarters with Cappy and Lrea the pick of the bunch

Robert2014 · 30-09-2019 10:40am

Not a great selection for senior football manager. You would expect that proposed backroom teams would be a factor in choosing a candidate, however I imagine cost and lack thereof will be the most important factor for our County Board.

Remember the days when we went for John O'Mahony because he was the best candidate for the job!

cosatron · 30-09-2019 2:42pm

having being knocked out of the senior championship on the 15th of June the q,f of the club will be played in the sh*t and gutter on the weekend of the 12th of October. this is absolute shambles of the highest order. Our board is a complete shambles.

jr86 · 30-09-2019 2:46pm

cosatron wrote: »

having being knocked out of the senior championship on the 15th of June the q,f of the club will be played in the sh*t and gutter on the weekend of the 12th of October. this is absolute shambles of the highest order. Our board is a complete shambles.

Its due to the structure of the championship unfortunately, with every team having 5 group games then some daft preliminary cross-play rounds and so on.

But not a hope teams will go against this format anytime soon, as it ensures 24 senior teams, and 14 of them will make the knockouts.

TCDStudent1 · 30-09-2019 3:01pm

jr86 wrote: »

Its due to the structure of the championship unfortunately, with every team having 5 group games then some daft preliminary cross-play rounds and so on.

But not a hope teams will go against this format anytime soon, as it ensures 24 senior teams, and 14 of them will make the knockouts.

Also the county board set out a master fixture list at the start of the year. They need to stick to this regardless of what happens with the county team. Club players plan around this calendar. I dont know how hurling worked out this year but the football club fixtures were very closely adhered to and thats the way it should be.

Happyilylost · 30-09-2019 3:09pm

cosatron wrote: »

having being knocked out of the senior championship on the 15th of June the q,f of the club will be played in the sh*t and gutter on the weekend of the 12th of October. this is absolute shambles of the highest order. Our board is a complete shambles.

TCDStudent1 wrote: »

Also the county board set out a master fixture list at the start of the year. They need to stick to this regardless of what happens with the county team. Club players plan around this calendar. I dont know how hurling worked out this year but the football club fixtures were very closely adhered to and thats the way it should be.

I could understand your frustration Cosatron but TCD has it right. The main issue from clubs was not usually the way fixtures were set but more the county board would change them depending on the success/failure of the county team. Some years they did well no games other years they do poorly games back on straight away. Meant lads couldn't plan a holiday as they were under the thumb of the county team. After a million years of trying this seems to have been rectified and a master plan is being followed. Season is still running too far into the year but that is a different problem altogether.

jr86 · 30-09-2019 3:48pm

TCDStudent1 wrote: »

Also the county board set out a master fixture list at the start of the year. They need to stick to this regardless of what happens with the county team. Club players plan around this calendar. I dont know how hurling worked out this year but the football club fixtures were very closely adhered to and thats the way it should be.

has been very well adhered to overall this year, leagues and championship.

Definitely the best year i remember

RMAOK · 30-09-2019 7:06pm

Happyilylost wrote: »

I could understand your frustration Cosatron but TCD has it right. The main issue from clubs was not usually the way fixtures were set but more the county board would change them depending on the success/failure of the county team. Some years they did well no games other years they do poorly games back on straight away. Meant lads couldn't plan a holiday as they were under the thumb of the county team. After a million years of trying this seems to have been rectified and a master plan is being followed. Season is still running too far into the year but that is a different problem altogether.

With the way the all-ireland club championship is going (i.e. in the one calendar year), it may not be a bad thing for the shc to run on as late as it usually does.

Given Galway don't play provincial club championship, our county final would equate to a Munster or Leinster final. In fact there's be more pressure on the Munster and Leinster teams to finish their local championship than us.

I still think we have too many senior clubs though. 16 would be more than adequate imo - it would also strengthen the intermediate championship. If you wanted to go cut throat altogether, have the 12 teams in senior A just be senior while the senior B teams would be intermediate and the intermediate would be junior A. Not going to happen, but in reality that's the way it is, at Least in my opinion.

jr86 · 01-10-2019 11:59am

Sat, Oct 12
Turloughmore v Craughwell 2.45pm Kenny Park
St Thomas' v Tommy Larkins 4.30pm Kenny Park

Sun, Oct 13
Sarsfields v Liam Mellows 12pm Kenny Park
Loughrea v Cappataggle 4.30pm Duggan Park

Pity the two sunday matches aren't a double header with each other, but putting both on with intermediate games means they can still charge the 10/15 quid in to both, and they've left such a wide gap between both games to ensure people can travel to both venues and of course pay for both. Ah well

jr86 · 01-10-2019 12:02pm

RMAOK wrote: »

I still think we have too many senior clubs though. 16 would be more than adequate imo - it would also strengthen the intermediate championship.

Not sure I fully agree with that, certainly at least 20 teams of a high enough standard in galway to be playing senior imo. Its a huge county

The senior A and B actually works quite well, the problem is there's just too much cross-play nonsense and pointless playoffs.

This is definitely the best format Galway has had though, it just needs a few small tweaks.

DVDM93 · 01-10-2019 12:22pm

With club nominations closed for the Galway Senior Hurling Managerial position, there are 3 nominees for the job.

- Noel Larkin
- Francis Forde
- Tony Ward

Outgoing hurling selectors Noel Larkin & Francis Forde and former Galway U20 manager Tony Ward are in the running to succeed Micheal Donoghue.

threeball · 01-10-2019 1:10pm

DVDM93 wrote: »

With club nominations closed for the Galway Senior Hurling Managerial position, there are 3 nominees for the job.

- Noel Larkin
- Francis Forde
- Tony Ward

Outgoing hurling selectors Noel Larkin & Francis Forde and former Galway U20 manager Tony Ward are in the running to succeed Micheal Donoghue.

Surely the two lads in the backroom team could see what Donoghue was missing in terms of financial backing and are hardly going to go in to do the job without the very thing Donoghue walked over?

Utopia Parkway · 01-10-2019 1:42pm

Whoever can do it for the cheapest will probably get it.

cosatron · 01-10-2019 2:29pm

jr86 wrote: »

RMAOK wrote: »

I still think we have too many senior clubs though. 16 would be more than adequate imo - it would also strengthen the intermediate championship.

Not sure I fully agree with that, certainly at least 20 teams of a high enough standard in galway to be playing senior imo. Its a huge county

The senior A and B actually works quite well, the problem is there's just too much cross-play nonsense and pointless playoffs.

This is definitely the best format Galway has had though, it just needs a few small tweaks.

Ah come on jr. The format is terrible as senior b games are a bad standard of hurling. Since its introduction no senior b team has made it past the quarter final and I dont see it changing this year.

TCDStudent1 · 01-10-2019 2:32pm

threeball wrote: »

Surely the two lads in the backroom team could see what Donoghue was missing in terms of financial backing and are hardly going to go in to do the job without the very thing Donoghue walked over?

They might also look at it from a different angle. The opportunity to mange your county doesn't come around all that often. If they are in a position in their life to do it now, they might never be in the same position again.

jr86 · 01-10-2019 2:54pm

cosatron wrote: »

Ah come on jr. The format is terrible as senior b games are a bad standard of hurling. Since its introduction no senior b team has made it past the quarter final and I dont see it changing this year.

4 teams make it past the quarter finals. Given there's 12 teams in senior A and a sample size of about 4 years, its hardly astounding that no senior B team has yet to do so - even if Clarinbridge were a puck of the ball from doing so the last 2 seasons, each time against the ultimate champions.

However that's not why senior B was brought in. It is obviously intentionally designed that the senior A teams have the handy route to the latter stages. Because otherwise why would teams even bother trying to go up to A?

What it has brought is - for the most part - competitive games right across the board. Gone now are the days of St Thomas's thumping Ahascragh, teams will now generally play others around their level. Sure there'll still be one-sided games, but no single team in senior lost every match they played this year, and there are far more interesting matches every round of matches as a result.

jr86 · 01-10-2019 2:58pm

TCDStudent1 wrote: »

They might also look at it from a different angle. The opportunity to mange your county doesn't come around all that often. If they are in a position in their life to do it now, they might never be in the same position again.

Its a non-vintage era for hurling too, so a great chance to win an All Ireland also

Seeing an ordinary enough KK make the final this year will have every team chomping at the bit next year. Tipp have been very up and down the last few seasons too

threeball · 01-10-2019 3:06pm

TCDStudent1 wrote: »

They might also look at it from a different angle. The opportunity to mange your county doesn't come around all that often. If they are in a position in their life to do it now, they might never be in the same position again.

Possibly, depends on their mindset. If they're happy enough to say they managed Galway they might do it rather than a person whose main focus is getting to win an All Ireland with his county, like Liam Sheedy for instance. He knew what was required and he put the financial structures in place this time last year to make it happen.

Frozen Veg · 01-10-2019 7:24pm

jr86 wrote: »

Sat, Oct 12
Turloughmore v Craughwell 2.45pm Kenny Park
St Thomas' v Tommy Larkins 4.30pm Kenny Park

Sun, Oct 13
Sarsfields v Liam Mellows 12pm Kenny Park
Loughrea v Cappataggle 4.30pm Duggan Park

Pity the two sunday matches aren't a double header with each other, but putting both on with intermediate games means they can still charge the 10/15 quid in to both, and they've left such a wide gap between both games to ensure people can travel to both venues and of course pay for both. Ah well

Ten euro into the games the last two weeks.

Can't complain with that, great value for two games.

Happyilylost · 01-10-2019 7:39pm

https://www.supermacs.ie/supermacs-statement-re-galway-gaa-finances/

Couldn't land anyone he wanted now he wants answers!

cosatron · 01-10-2019 7:41pm

jr86 wrote: »

4 teams make it past the quarter finals. Given there's 12 teams in senior A and a sample size of about 4 years, its hardly astounding that no senior B team has yet to do so - even if Clarinbridge were a puck of the ball from doing so the last 2 seasons, each time against the ultimate champions.

However that's not why senior B was brought in. It is obviously intentionally designed that the senior A teams have the handy route to the latter stages. Because otherwise why would teams even bother trying to go up to A?

What it has brought is - for the most part - competitive games right across the board. Gone now are the days of St Thomas's thumping Ahascragh, teams will now generally play others around their level. Sure there'll still be one-sided games, but no single team in senior lost every match they played this year, and there are far more interesting matches every round of matches as a result.

Did Portumna not get spanked in all there group games this year. Only avoided relegation due to gort being in disarray. The whole focus of competitive hurling is that at the start of the year, you have a group of players who believe they can achieve something positive from the year, and do you not think if we had 16 senior teams playing competive hurling and 16 intermediate teams playing competive hurling not serve up better standard of hurling in both levels