Greatest League in the World 2024 [new thread available]

Ohmeha

I see vastly better fitness levels, improved pitches and smarter coaching in the Premier Division negated by poorer skill and creativity on show compared to years back, mind you I would say similar about the EPL in the modern football game in 2022

Hammer Archer

Ferizaj's inexperience cost Rovers there. Looked quite comfortable up until the red card.

damemcd

Yeah, Bradley didnt even look at him as he came off......looked as if he was too up for it and lost the head a bit, and he is very young in fairness.

chopperbyrne

The ref booked him less than 30s after he came on for a tug of a shirt.

topmanamillion

The baramoter has to be Europe. The current Shams side wouldn't lay a glove on Kenny's "16 side. Duffy, Horgan and Boyle were operating at a higher level than Byrne, Towell and Gaffney currently are. Kilduff was in a Europa League Groups team of the week with Howedes, Totti and Bailey!

They're operating in a competition which was designed for clubs like them to get to the groups and pick up points. And they've been on the end of some good pastings this year. Meanwhile, an awful side like RFS that Linfield had countless chances to put away in the playoff round can go to Italy and draw with Fiorentina.

Oat23

Stuey Byrne putting a midfielder from Shels in his TOTY instead of Aidan Keena is such an on brand Stuey Byrne move. How he manages to have a career talking about the LOI continues to amaze.

Hammer Archer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119805622#Comment_119805622

https://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/soccer/soccer-news/stuart-byrne-league-ireland-team-28349347

NIMAN

I'd agree with Gaffney as POTY. Form seems to have tailed off a little, perhaps tiredness catching up with him after a tough season, but he was immense for most of it.

Oat23

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119805834#Comment_119805834

Farrell has been impressive when I've watched him and he did an unbelievable amount of running, but I'm not going out of my way to include him at the expense of the league's top scorer.

Byrne probably getting because when he's fit he's the best player in the league. How has Forrester done over the course of the season though? He's been class the few times I've watched Pats including Europe.

kksaints

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119806072#Comment_119806072

He's been very good most of the time, he has had some bad matches last Friday in Tallaght for example but he's been one of our best players.

Must have been some trouble between the fans at halftime in the Showgrounds. Commentators sounded disgusted at what happened.

Hammer Archer

Harps take the lead only to lose it a minute later.

Looks like we'll have to win tonight as Drogheda could capitulate next week with nothing to play for (if today is anything to go by). Don't fancy needing to get something from Shamrock Rovers, even if they're season will have wrapped up by then.

Was very surprised that this will be Shels' first league win in over 3 months.

Oat23

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119806190#Comment_119806190

I'm not there tonight and I bought the Harps game instead (fantastic goal from UCD to equalise) since the Rovers/Pats one is a dead rubber from a Rovers POV, but that doesn't surprise me. The matchnight security at the Showgrounds isn't fit for purpose. There's been a section of the Jinks stand full of little scumbags this season always looking to cause problems/rushing the gate to goad the away section, so if it kicked off tonight I hope they got lumps kicked out of them and the CCTV Rovers are always going on about having installed identifies and bans them all.

A few months ago against Dundalk (I think it was them) the security let both sets of fans out at the same time and about a dozen or so fans from Rovers and Dundalk with an average age of around 16 started brawling in the middle of the road outside the ground. A young lad was knocked out cold and could have easily been killed the way he hit the ground.

Drumpot

All shels players fighting hard for a spot in the final. A procession at Tolka

Hammer Archer

Looks like Harps are heading down. Would be some achievement if we were to stay up. Before the start of the season, some were saying that we wouldn't surpass Longford's total from last season.

kksaints

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119806303#Comment_119806303

I always thought the Showground's setup with the away fans beside the Sligo hardcore was asking for trouble at some stage. Hopefully there was no one injured but that needs to be looked at for next season. Pity aswell because sligo was a great trip the few times I made it up there and the people very welcoming.

On the match we didn't create enough chances and the ones we did create we didn't take. Ref was rubbish yet again and at this stage it's ridiculous how many bad referring performances I've seen this year. But still he didn't stop us putting the ball in the Sligo net.

Oat23

Some videos from Twitter showing ref decisions tonight. Penalty in Sligo when Keena is just pushed off the ball and nobody appeals. Freekick given to Dundalk when the lad tripped over himself (Dundalk scored from the freekick).

The ref in Ballybofey was awful too. Not sure if the UCD penalty should have been given.

https://twitter.com/SRFC_DSC/status/1586099952408748033?t=B9KK1eUaF0uVz4viLigp8w&s=19

https://twitter.com/RoryKirke/status/1586072850007564291?t=yqmIDx5HJEtPP6SsJ6uUvw&s=19

CSF

Think Duff and the lads kept receipts after some of the sh*te that was talked after the game up in Drogheda in August.

That game could have been double figures and it wouldn’t have been a poor reflection of the game.

trashcan

I think “tripped over himself” is very generous to the Dundalk player. Blatant dive. Sligo penalty was maybe soft, but there was a push I think from Barrett, who should have known better.

overshoot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119806379#Comment_119806379

We certainly got what we deserved this year, ollie took punts going foreign and for the most part, they haven't worked. I wouldn't blame him for the gamble and for what he has achieved with us certainly deserved to see the season out. He turn corners before when things looked bleak. Lost the bulk of last years team, others who stayed didnt perform to last years level, then Losing Webster for the season was a killer and we have just had a leaky defence all year which is hard to build confidence on.

Ucd got 10pts of us and for that have their play off place. Its deserved and best of luck. I felt for a while we were relying on you being worse and head to head you certainly weren't.

As I hadn't said it, congrats shams at the other end. Best team over the year

Roll on kerry!

fatbhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119803731#Comment_119803731

I just finished watching a replay of the match on BT4 and I can say that both yellow cards were very harsh, especially the first which was a shirt pull with on a defender near his own penalty area, so he wasn't cynically preventing a crucial attack or anything like that, because Justin was the most-forward Rovers' player. Very harsh indeed.

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119806771#Comment_119806771

Do you think Ollie will pack it in now?

overshoot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119809305#Comment_119809305

I've honestly no idea. 6 months ago I was pretty certain it was his last year, not so sure now. Seen a comment that Joe Boyle seemed certain on loitv that he'd stay

I wouldn't say no to a change but he's rebuilt the team enough times too. As bad as performances have been, still a long way ahead of what we seen under Peter Hutton before him.

Actually on management, id say paul hegarty was also a big loss pre season. Don't think the combo with dykes was the same

artanevilla

I think it was Ollie himself that created the narrative he was working miracles at Harps.

PGE1970

Drogheda's budget is €7.5k per week. Harps' is over €10k.

Other than the UCD bursary system, these are by far the two lowest budgets in the league.

Kevin Doherty is doing a great job for us but the three clubs with the smallest budgets in the league are in the bottom three. No surprise.

For all the noise and arrogance from Duff and Shels, until last night they weren't that far ahead of Drogheda.

topmanamillion

Horgan's kept Harps in the Premier for 4 years while city based basket cases like Cork and Waterford slid down into the first. I've always been impressed with the job he's done there.

You can't overstate how difficult it is to get players to up sticks and come to Donegal. Any Dublin based player that Harps are interested in will have offers from clubs much closer to home.

It's no coincidence he rolled the dice with foreign players this year's when the NIFL and Derry are offering bumper deals to players. Very hard for him to pick up a gem in that environment.

ben.schlomo

Half time in EDP in the semi final playoff second leg. We're 1 up, probably deserved on the balance of play. A long throw badly defended and finished well by David Hurley. Entertaining game but obviously lacking in quality.

overshoot

@topmanamillion (cant reply with the post some reason) You've just reminded me the biggest killer in competition with the nifl... travel.. even if ucd come down with us, them & Longford would be our shortest trips next year and longer than anything in the nifl... which also means less issue in football and another job.

Tbh also just competing with sligo for players, o'sullivan was a huge loss to us imo, then you had the likes of Shane Blaney going to you rather than coming back to us after this cross channel stint.

Go back further and bus fare was the difference in Seamie Coleman going to ye over us...and Everton think they got a deal haha

deisedude

So it will be Waterford or Galway to face UCD in the playoff final.

For the good of the league I hope UCD go down. I know they are well run but they have no fans and a city club with a decent fanbase makes for a better league overall

ben.schlomo

Ya we were largely comfortable second half. Invited Longford on but dealt with most things easily enough. Adeyemo had one decent chance. We took our late goals well.

Limerick on Friday night to decide who meets UCD. If we defend as well as we did tonight, as a team, we have a chance.

Dunmoreroader

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119813174#Comment_119813174

Galway v Waterford is on in Limerick? Is that confirmed? I thought it would be on in Richmond Park or some other Dublin venue?

ben.schlomo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119813277#Comment_119813277

Confirmed by our PA at full time. 745pm Friday evening.

Dunmoreroader

Ah shite, handy 1 hour cruise for you lot down the motorway, 2 hours on **** boreens through south Tipp and east Limerick for us. Had Markets Field even got big enough capacity?

UnleashTheBeast

2 hour trek from Waterford, 1 hour 20 from Galway.

Ground capacity will definitely be enough. I can't see much more than 1,500 attending the game. Maybe 2,000 max.

overshoot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119813083#Comment_119813083

No a well run club makes for a better and stable league. The repeated various basket case, folding or woefully run city clubs are what drags the league and its reputation down and makes it harder to grow overall.

Ucd are for the past year in the league they earned on merit, as are Galway, limerick, cork and waterford. If all teams were run to their maximum potential, it's unlikely ucd would get into the top flight but far from it and ucd are a recurring presence

topmanamillion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119814893#Comment_119814893

Agreed, just to add its worth remembering there`s a very limited pool of decent pros in this country. Just because Cork, Galway, Waterford etc were to be Premier Division sides it wouldn`t automatically make it a great division or automatically increase the quality. You could well have 2 or 3 of those clubs dragging their arses at the foot of the table in front of crowds of around 1,000.

A likely scenario seeing as Cork have had more clubs than tiger woods, Galway were sold to the Comers primarily because the supporters trust was hemorrhaging members and were down to their last 100 members and were still dropping and Waterford have been sold three times in very quick succession.

PGE1970

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119816466#Comment_119816466

It's all about money.

The teams in the PL with the three highest budgets have finished in the top three. In that order.

The teams with the three lowest budgets finished in the bottom three with only Drogheda out of place (third last with second lowest budget).

It looks like Drogheda will be the only part time team in the league next season.

So, it's already looking like a struggle for us.

trashcan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119817197#Comment_119817197

That’s the reality of professional football everywhere I’m afraid.

NIMAN

Any Shels fan on here got any news of how ticket sales are going for the final?

artanevilla

Looks like Dalymount is now being scaled back up.

Complete rebuild and reorientation of the pitch.

7,880 capacity with 5,880 seats.

https://bohemianfc.com/?p=18646

artanevilla

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119828970#Comment_119828970

There'll always be doubters and critics.

I wonder will it be old fashioned terracing or the "safe standing" terracing which technically has seating.

Gavin "shels"

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119828124#Comment_119828124

Last I heard last week was around 6k. Say 8k will be are ceiling of sales.

WNL Final and Pats Away both this Sunday so probably stragglers yet to buy tickets yet with them two first.

joeysoap

Dalymount sounds great.

trashcan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119829494#Comment_119829494

Over 2 years to do the actual build, plus a price tag of €40m for a capacity of just under 8,000 sounds a bit mad to me.

Gavin "shels"

€40 million now, you mean! Some builders providers have had 16 price increases this year on materials.

tastyt

Ian Ryan steps down from Wexford , must have something lined up

Ohmeha

That's a hard one for Wexford just a few weeks after the relief of keeping Ryan after his Bohs saga. You would think it has to be Bray or Longford he is off too

chopperbyrne

So still not meeting UEFA requirements to be used for European group stage football.

Ohmeha

That's why I'm thinking Ryan to Bray as it wouldn't be a shock they will spend money after that disaster of a season under Devlin and now with possibly 2 of the 3 full-time teams out of the way next season. I'd be surprised just 3 days after Longford seeking applications to replace Cronin that they already interviewed/hired Ryan and reached settlement with Wexford

Darkglasses

Absolutely a sickener to lose Ian, but we'll move on. Fair play to Ian, he moved us on majorly in the space of 18 months. If he moves to Bray or Longford I can't help but feel we've done better out of it than he has.

topmanamillion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119829516#Comment_119829516

I'll be astounded if Bohs are playing in a completed new Dalymount by 2026. All they've announced is they've had a meeting with the council and they've agreed on what they'd like. It has to go through the planning process yet and secure funding. They're essentially starting at square one from today and that's assuming this is the plan that they'll go with. It must be plan number 5 or 6 since the whole thing was originally announced as a 10,000 seater with a rotated pitch, library and concourse centre!