General GAA Topics and Trivia

So now that's settled!

Hurl or Hurley

Kelly calls for return of qualifiers

I must say I agree with Kelly on this one. There always seems to be a lopsided balance between Munster and Leinster in hurling. In the Round Robin series, it's practically certain that the three qualified counties will be a combination of Kilkenny, Galway, Wexford and Dublin. Kilkenny and Galway are certainly guaranteed to be in that position. Looking at Munster, on the other hand, two of Tipperary, Limerick, Clare Waterford or Cork will fail to qualify for the All-Ireland series, no matter how good they may be.

One thing I think the GAA needs to address is the hand pass in hurling. Most of it now is simply throwing, something Limerick have brought to new heights. One of the infuriating things is that a referee can allow it to happen - even in some cases right under his nose – throughout a match and then suddenly penalize a player for it. Nothing is more annoying to spectators.

So what’s to be done?

!. Change the rules to let them throw the fecking thing.
2. Allow hand passes only where the referee thinks there is a “clear striking action”.
3. Change the rules to allow passing only with the hurley or the foot.

But, for God’s sake do something.

The AI finals will be held in July 2021 with the club game running from July to October.
Championship will start in middle of April. No round Robin in hurling or Super 8 in football but there will be backdoor.

Cork footballers will be in one regional section of Division 2 with Kildare, Clare and Laois. The leagues will start in end of February.
U21, minor and colleges to take place. Preseason competitions scrapped.

Full calendar to come out on Monday

I said id put this in here

https://www.echolive.ie/corksport/arid-40197936.html

Tipp Ex wrote:I said id put this in here

https://www.echolive.ie/corksport/arid-40197936.html

Yes, the groups produced some good games, even if things didn't work out to my personal satisfaction.

Eamon Ryan passed away this morning. A great GAA man

Tipp Ex wrote:Eamon Ryan passed away this morning. A great GAA man

RIP.
Cork Ladies Footballers have reason to be thankful for him.

Summary from Congress
1. Sin Bin in hurling
2. Split Season from 2022 on. Intercounty AI Finals end of July followed by the club championships or earlier if your county is knocked out.
3. A cap of 16 teams in each clu championship. Are we ok with that here now? Theres some talk on Proc that Premier Senior and Senior A might contain too many here. Thoughts
4. And the most important one - no more joint captains lifting trophies!!!!!!!

https://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2021/0227/1199755-hurling-to-trial-sin-bin-as-part-of-cynicism-crackdown/

Tipp Ex wrote:Summary from Congress
1. Sin Bin in hurling
2. Split Season from 2022 on. Intercounty AI Finals end of July followed by the club championships or earlier if your county is knocked out.
3. A cap of 16 teams in each clu championship. Are we ok with that here now? Theres some talk on Proc that Premier Senior and Senior A might contain too many here. Thoughts
4. And the most important one - no more joint captains lifting trophies!!!!!!!

https://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2021/0227/1199755-hurling-to-trial-sin-bin-as-part-of-cynicism-crackdown/

I haven't time to read that report now, Tipp Ex, so I'll take your report on it.

Is that 16 teams in every grade of a club championship?

In my opinion an arbitrary cap of 16 teams in each grade of the club championship – one size fits all - is extremely shortsighted and will damage the GAA. In a county like Cork which has far more clubs than any other county, where will all the players from the surplus clubs go? What meaningful games can they have? Will those clubs break up and the players drift off to other clubs, where they might never get game time, or will they go to other sports?

In reading a bit more (and thinking a bit more!) I note the word "championship". So there will still be league games for all the clubs, which are a number of regularly guaranteed game, which is something which could not be said for the championship.

I'm inclined to the view that they would have been better employed doing something about the Kilkenny-Cody inspired "spare hand" further out the field, which is what is really destroying hurling. and preventing it from being as free-flowing as it should be. They would also have been better employed improving the refereeing standards in major games.

Another screw-up by this dithering government on Covid-19.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-40251605.html


"On December 31, legislation was introduced removing senior inter-county games from the list of level 5 exempted sports, a decision which was made without consulting the NPHED."

I'm not saying that it was a wrong decision, but it was the nature of how it was made which is annoying. On December 24, the GAA were told that senior inter-county games would be regarded as "Elite Sports" under Level 5; six day later they were told - after they had begun planning for 20211 - that they wouldn't be allowed to play. The GAA themselves never said a word about this; it was brought to light during what was, probably, a routine Freedom of Information request by the Examiner.

GAA set to release new fixtures plan next week

"Among the number of options to be considered as the GAA reshapes its inter-county calendar are midweek league games, reducing the preparation period from four weeks so as to give more league games to counties, and running the Championship directly after the league."

I wouldn't be in favour of mid-week games. the strain on players could be enormous.

"Earlier this year, the GAA’s Central Competitions Control Committee (CCCC) was set to geographically split the hurling leagues as they had planned with football. That appears to be the plan now, but it remains to be seen how many counties they would assign to each group — each football division is split into groups of four."

I suppose the idea must be to cut down on travel as much as possible, so the idea of the league as it used to be in the long ago (four groups of eight) is not practical at the moment. Since there will be no supporters allowed, I hope TG4 and RTE to provide most of the coverage. I haven't found the Examiner streams very good in quality and they were also sounding out the ground last year on charging for them in the future.

Something I've been wondering about for a while: since Glanmire and Riverstown are now officially part of the expanded city, will that see Sarsfields and Glanmire play in the city championships? Are they now part of Seandun rather than Imokilly? They were always rather close to the city in any case, and Teddy Mac in his book talks about Sars playing friendlies with the city clubs rather than the East Cork ones.

I've been looking through the club finder in the county board's website and it does not seem very accurate. Aghinagh, Coachford, for example, is listed as one of the clubs in the Imokilly division. Does anyone ever check these things. I clicked on Ballinacurra and discovered that I have been colour-blind all those years without realising it. Their "site" has their club colours as red and white. And all those years I thought their colours were green and white stripes, like the Celtic Football club! It makes me wonder how many more mistakes are on the county board site. And does anyone ever check on their own club information?

I would imagine that's the Pros job. Or do the clubs send in the info

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An article from the Examiner of a few days ago. Contributions from UCC's GAA officer, Blarney's chairman and Mark Coleman, himself.

There’s nothing wrong with the game of hurling, it’s constantly evolving

Happy to see Derry win earlier, I think they may have turned a corner, Gallagher getting a nice tune out of them, well improved team

Can't stop fiddling, can they? Proposals to drop the Under 20 grade down to under 19 and call it minor, while leaving the under 17 grade as a development grade.

[url=https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-40751091.html]https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-40751091.html[/url]

So in that report theres mention of U17, U18, U19, U20. What a mess

Ballygunner with a goal with the very last poc of the match to win the hurling club all ireland, first ever club AI for a Waterford club, fair play to them

Indeed. Best club in Waterford for years. Great to see them finally get their All-Ireland. And it stopped those Kilkenny hoors!