National Football League 2023

Div 4 and 1 was the two best finals this weekend or be it far from classics either. Div 3,2 finals was low in quality and error ridden. Will we have finals next year? I doubt it.

J. Hurley be ideal. Nice presenting style and not in your face like Cantwell.

I honestly think Kerry aren't playing well this year to win All Ireland. It's not like the team in the 00s and early 10s where they might play poor for a brief time and come good when it mattered. There are too many average players on this Kerry team at present. Take the two Clifford's away and Seanie o shea and Kerry are a very average and beatable team imho. They won't be far away we know but I think Dublin will beat them if they meet again.

Re your idea of provincial runner-ups not getting a spot in the groups. I see the logic behind your idea but I think it could cause a bad situation whereby some lowly county goes on a decent run and runs Kerry or Dublin to a point or two in the provincial final. It would be tough to explain to the casual fan of the sport that this notable performance doesn't get them a slot because of results from February in the league.

I do think however that one tweak should be that provincial runners-ups aren't all auto-seeded 2. Instead they should be seeded as 2, 3 or 4 based on league position. So the 16 teams would be the same but the seedings different, making the groups more level.

I agree but I thought Kerry were lucky to beat Dublin last year imho. Kerry aren't playing as well this year they are well off par at present. I have watched all there games. The games they won they barely got over the line with the exception of Monaghan where they beat them rather convincingly. They were terrible against Mayo, Galway, Roscommon, Tyrone Donegal and even Armagh who they narrowly beat. They can come good but I feel it will be the Cliffords and Seanie that will drag them over the line. If anything happens any of them, they could struggle.

I'm not surprised with Derry falling today. Galway did the same to them last year. Derry have a defensive structure and if anything happens to it i.e injured players, the system seems to fall apart and becomes porius. I don't expect them to get to the top level of Football in championship anytime soon. They are a good bit off that I feel.

Kerry had mountain of work done coming into the McGrath cup last year and set out to win every competition they played in. This year they had the least amount of work done of any Div 1 team and players that played in the club All Ireland championship in Jan was given extended break. Jack O'Connor made no secret that the league target was staying up instead of winning it this year. They are off to Portugal next week whereby they should catch up on training/fitness with the rest and proper judgement of them or comparison to last year should be held back until after the All Ireland group stage. Key for Kerry winning the All Ireland last year IMO was defensively (major improvement from the previous years under Peter Keane) and if they get that right again and they'll be there or thereabout again.

Joyce is always sour when he loses, always blames the ref. he was hilarious yesterday, I wouldn't critize the ref and proceeds to go to town on him. His point about a penalty was ridiculous.

"Theres no sour grapes" - I don't think that means what you think it means PJ

Part of the problem is that when a player takes and gets a mark opposition players do not release him or do not retreat. Because of this the player can not be expected to take the resulting kick.

5 seconds is probably too short anyway. However if they was any changes it probably should be that the player getting a mark should retreat to take any resultant kick like in Australian rules and any interference with him would result in a 14m free in front of the posts

If the provinces were equal you have a point but they are not. We have the ludicrous situation in Connacht that one of Sligo/Leitrim/NY/London will make the final and so will be second seeds in the group stages. There is no hope of teams on their level in other provinces getting that chance without getting lucky in a totally lopsided provincial draw

Winner mentality, Management 1 on 1, protect your players, deflect from what went wrong on your side and add another chip to the shoulder. Mcstay will be worse when the wheels fall off.

In all province's the previous years finalists are seeded either side of the draw.....except in Connaught which has an open draw.

If provinces are unwilling to seed it's an issue.

Ulster doesn't seed previous finalists to different sides. e.g., Tyrone & Monaghan were finalists in 2021 and were in the same half last year. Afair it's a completely open draw except for teams only being in the prelim round a max of once in every 3 year rolling cycle.

Leinster doesn't seed previous finalists to different sides e.g, Kildare and Dublin in same half this year. They do bypass the prelim round though.

Galway and Antrim are in the Leinster hurling championship. If Longford were open to joining the Connacht championship and Connacht allow it, all Connacht teams would have to win 2 games to make a Connacht final. Similarly if two Leinster counties bordering Munster join the Munster championship, teams would have to win 2 games to make a Munster final. If counties are against moving which is fair enough, there should be more acceptance that counties are accepting the status quo.

Joyce has always been an awful whinger. When he was playing club football in Galway he use to go around with the ball under his arm going around telling the refs what to do. He did some moaning after the All Ireland final last year too and against Mayo in the Connacht final in 2021.

Oh i've no problem with prov winners being top seeds, its runner sup being second seeds was my issues and i totally agree with your other suggestions.