Second Captains Part II

First half of today's pod was a total disaster technically.

Technology is ruining the game. It should be the same game from lowest amateur level to the highest professional level. You can't police off-side fairly without technology. Hence it makes sense to get rid of off-side and technology at the same time. Goals should be celebrated in the moment.

Offsides were policed fairly from the creation of the game until 2016.

That's not the case and hasn't been for quite some time. Pandoras box has been opened and it can't be shut. I also disagree that the argument exists for it to be removed. If we reverted to the offside without technology for the elite level, it would return to what we had before which nobody had an issue with. There were contentious offsides but overall it was broadly agreed the rule was good (Wenger aside nowadays).

Comparing GAA which is an entirely different game to football is pointless. Big man at the edge of the square is a tactic that is sometimes used but goals are not everything in GAA and its relatively easy to defend against. Football is entirely different. If offside was scrapped, big man at the edge of the box would be the very first thing people try. It would make the game a terrible spectacle and not something many people are calling for. There really is no issue with offside. The current issue is with technology and semi-automated solves that. Going back to no technology also probably solves that.

I think there is plenty of room for improvement.

Sure but I don't think much of what your proposing is an improvement. They're changes for changes sake (imo).

Allow the player to dribble or pass from the kick-ins…Allow the player to dribble, pass or shoot from free kicks.

Sure. I don't think that changes much.

Of course, they're your opinions but this is SCs thread and this has nothing to do with SCs so I'm gonna stop.

I've been listening to Ciarán Murphy's audiobook this morning. So far so good but I find it very annoying how he refers to his father as "dad", and not "my dad" but "dad".

For eg "So dad was training the under 16s.."

Or "Dad was driving down to Galway..."

That's ok if you're talking to one of your brothers but not in a podcast or in an audiobook.

Wouldn't that point be more relevant if he was on about someone else's dad? He's only ever on about his own dad so no need for further clarification. Didn't even notice when I read it

Shíte Euros huh

I didn't realize whether the Euros is good or bad boils down to a single game…

Why are the RTE crew so misinformed, it was an accredited cameraman that slipped and accidentally tackled Morata

No one to blame for it

Agreed. I was looking forward to the hurling chat this week after such an epic weekend. Very disappointing that it was just murph and wall without anyone else.

new Ireland manager. Heimir Hallgrimsson. The Ireland thread seems to have been closed so I’ll announce it here instead.

They waited 13 months to get the ex-manager of Jamaica

7D chess by the Abbotstown mafia

Ken and the football purists will definitely enjoy the Icelandball we’ll be playing and definitely won’t be sharpening the knives already

without listening to it I’d say Ken will be negative and cynical about the appointment to cloud his own campaign of “make a decision” and just give it to Oshea. One of his worst takes, I don’t care much when he has bad takes about English football but he should try harder for the national team.

The English are going to win the Euros and then they’re going to hockey our Icelandic dentist

In a way I feel like they always go into the weeds a bit too far with all these types of stories and it becomes too granular and nit-picky: going far deeper into the story than 95% of people would even bother caring about. And it can often become a story about how media stories are played out in the media.

But, there was some food for thought in the pod yesterday. Only time will tell if it has any relevance though. If the new manager comes in and does okay on the pitch, then whether the interim director of football at the FAI was less than truthful to the press pack at a press conference won't carry much significance, if any.

Yeah the pod on the press conference was a tough listen. Everybody thinks the process was a bit of a joke. It’s done now and despite the left field appointment it’s as good as we could have hoped for really. Much better pedigree than his predecessor anyway. Also glad he wasn’t trying to sell us nonsense about how we’ll play or name dropping players saying he’s going to get Evan Ferguson scoring every game or whatever the lads wanted him to say.