The 2024 All Ireland Senior Football Championship (Sam Maguire Cup)

Imagine if we got a mayo ref……….

GAA PR is woeful. Hardly any excitement around the finals in either code. If you weren't clued into GAA, you probably wouldn't even know they were coming up. Where are the interviews with players? Where is the advertising? Inaccessibility of players is a big part of it. Teams will barely do press or they'll only do the very bare minimum, and if they do anything beyond that, they're hammered for it. The organisation as a whole, and many of the prominent figures within it, have a terrible relationship all round with media, which in turn has a negative affect on promotion of the games.

On the jerseys...

There is obviously a marketing thing going on (black shirts would look better up the town with a pair of jeans than an orange one for instance) but the colour blindness thing is interesting.

I heard a guy on the radio before a recent ireland Wales rugby game. He quoted numbers, more men than women suffer it, and variations of red and green are the most common colours to cause problems. He was saying even if one team wore dark shorts and the other white it would help. He was talking about spectators mind, and tv in PARTICULAR - I have no idea what impact it has on players. It wasn't something I would have been aware of TBH.

Agree on the PR for the GAA though, is it still yer man Milton that's in charge of it? It is woefully bad alright, compare it to other sports, especially rugby, and it's shocking-every week every sport bulletin has team news of squads for forthcoming (whatever it's called nowadays Celtic?) League games at the weekend, squads of like 40 players named. You have to really actively search for details of times and tv coverage of GAA championship games, let alone results and score updates. Shockingly bad.

As Michael Duignan would say, that was one of the best points you're likely to ever see.

Out of the country ATM. What's the atmosphere in the competing counties like? Flags everywhere I'd say.

That Milton lad is stealing a living. A witness protection scheme would have more PR going on. Not to mention his inability to navigate bad PR. He has to be related to someone as he's certainly not being kept for his acumen.

Plenty of colour around S. Armagh anyway.

Id wonder what Mayo fans would make of Galway winning this All-ireland? Would they support them or would it be a kick in the teeth? Since Galway regressed in the mid-00's, Mayo have been competitive at the top table for all that time and couldn't win one. And despite all those years Galway were down, they now improve and may possibly still win another before Mayo do.

Mayo probably feel robbed too, in the sense, that any time they made a final, you could always argue the opposition going in would of always been favourites. And now that Galway are in the final, with all due respect to Armagh, they must be thinking we never even got one final this "soft".

Galway winning must be a hard pill for Mayo fans to swallow I'd say. And Galway (along with Meath before everyone started beating them) are really the only team with a good record against the northern teams

Mayo man here. I'll be shouting for Galway on Sunday. I like Armagh too, but I'd find it hard to shout against our Connaught neighbours.

Hopefully I'll get to do that shouting in Croke Park !!!

I would have put Tyrone favourites to win that day

I was convinced Mayo were going to win that year v Tyrone. Better all round squad at the time, more experienced sideline.

I think that final was the year the neutrals went off Mayo, they made a complete and utter sh!te of it. Worse than even the lose they had v Donegal in the 2012 IMO.

—

Bit of a novel final this year, I have not looked at the past finals, but I assume Galway and Armagh have never met in a final?

Didn't realise tbh, I expected Tyrone to win personally and would have assumed bookies had them as favourites

It was generally seen as a 50:50 game, but the hype about Mayo winning was on account of Dublin being knocked out, and Mayo hadn't been able to break the Dublin strength in prior years.

I was lucky enough to be at all the Dub matches that year, and even the Donegal v Mayo final 2012 (Because Dublin were in the minors).

All I remember from that Donegal v Mayo game is the real tension/nervousness from both sets of fans Donegal/Mayo. Then Murphy killed the game with a goal after 3 minutes, simple ball - bang.

This AI final will have the similar level of tension/nervousness as that one.

I hope it does not end up in an extremely cagey job between Galway/Armagh for the neutrals sake. Hopefully Galway will mix it up a bit, because if Galway stay cagey there is not much hope Armagh are going to change.

Plus I can already hear the hurling crowd laughing at the thought of a very cagey football final!

I think Galway will win by a few points.

Galway were a match for Kerry in '22 and Kerry were better than Armagh by 3 or 4 points but still managed to lose.

Is there a difference between Hill16 and Nally stand?
Can you go between both in there?
My young fella and his mate have one ticket for each on Sunday, just wondering if they’ll be able to be together inside?

I think if you're in early enough, it'd be easier to cross over than later on when it gets busy

I think Armagh reached their peak the last day, Galway are stronger if fully fit and win by 3+…IMO

The if fully for though is a big IF. For whatever reason (bad luck? poor training and medical methods?) Galway have struggled to get a fully for squad for the last 3 years. A strong squad, but it's been a constant complaint from them in recent years.

I feel there won't be much in this, gut is inclined to say Galway by a point or two, but Armagh have developed a stubborn streak in recent years - hard to beat but they won't win easily themselves. A big moment will probably decide it, like a goalkeeping error (I'm looking at you Gleeson) or some stupid bit of individual skill from the likes of Walsh might decide it.

Hopefully a good game, maybe an early goal to open things up - Gealic needs a good final after all the small ball lads slapping themselves on the back all week.

Perhaps they have, but it is not the case that Armagh played flat out last week. Some of their players were quiet enough e.g Murnin who was an Allstar nominee last year, and their shooting was better in the Ulster final.

I'm not sure why the Galway bench is better than Armagh, the likes of Oisin O'Neill is a good as any player on either team.

yea , two best goalies in the country are Galway men.