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GAA Journalism - 2 Like(s)
Replying To Viking66: "The number of lads heading over to Oz to play AFL is a drop in the ocean compared to the number of players over there playing GAA." Absolutely
Since early 80s only 76 players have signed for AFL clubs.
Only 30 of these have played an AFL game.
conordee (National) - 25/08/2026 13:16:06
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Carlow GAA thread - 2 Like(s)
Replying To Carlowrising: "Too many football games now, not enough jeopardy. With the old format (2 groups of 4) every game mattered, now it fesls like the championship is only starting at the quarter final stage." Strange take considering this is the last round of games, and the two semi final spots are still up for grabs and there are still 4 teams in contention for relegation.
Collio (National) - 25/08/2026 16:59:58
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International Rules - 2 Like(s)
Replying To Square_B: "This isn't the premiership, we (as in the GAA) are allowed to do things differently. The ethos is important, otherwise what exactly do we have? Just another nondescript sport with little morals or values. The organisation is not about the individual as you well know. If a player finds himself or herself in that position, the path of least resistance shouldn't the first path to take, by just leaving. It's very rare that there will be only one person in a club in this position, change only happens by talking to people & understanding what is happening to allow the conditions to effect change, not by walking away when the going gets tough." Exactly. Also the scenario mentioned would be very rare. A case where one player is determined to his best, but all around him are too lazy and hungover. That's a fair bit of a reach. Most players who move are for geographical reasons, i.e. living a long way from their original club, or in rarer cases, a row in the club.
Some of the best county players ever played for small clubs and never had a thought of leaving them for a more successful club. Winning a junior title with their own club would mean more to them than winning a senior with a club in which they didn't grow up.
The GAA wouldn't be half as popular as it is, if players were just moving around willy nilly. The GAA is disproportionately popular as sports go, mainly for the reason of attachment to club, community and county. You lose that and there's nowhere near the same passion for it.
To compare that to someone moving abroad to play a different sport professionally is nonsense. That's literally moving out of the country and taking up an actual job. In many cases, those players remain associated with their GAA clubs, as we saw with Mark O'Connor coming back to play for An Daingean.
WanPintWin (National) - 25/08/2026 15:45:52
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Carlow GAA thread - 2 Like(s)
Replying To Carlowtothecore1: "Absolutely destroying the ethos of the GAA club, "to facilite all codes'. It is rewarding the Gaelic - soccer dual club. .
How can you make a statement like that with the number of lob sided games multiplied the fold and supporters paying good money to look at them.
the town are the one club who's players have totally supported the dual role and they look like they're slipping with the extreme demands on their players on bad pitches. And that's with limited county players who were slogged up to June.
No balance on player welfare and carlow county board needs to be held to account urgently." There was famously no lobsided games before this and dual players never had to play multiple weeks in a row…
New system has been great, nice to see lads able to go to electric picnic as well which wasn't always the case. Fair play to the county board, not often they get credit so they deserve some here.
Collio (National) - 25/08/2026 14:25:09
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GAA Journalism - 1 Like(s)
Replying To Pikeman96: "It's not hard to guess what website of what agent you were looking at.
Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, most main presenters across all the main genres (e.g. entertainment and current affairs as well as sport) are self-employed contractors rather than employees. But that really just affects the mechanism by which they're paid and taxed. Also the consideration that an employee would have things like pension and holiday entitlements, whereas a contractor wouldn't.
Don't know what difference you might think it makes to how they actually do the job of presenting?" My question was asking at which point someone who was hired by RTE or Virgin Media etc as a PAYE employee, decides in mutual agreement with their employer to now become a Contractor represented by an agent?
They don't start out as self-employed contractors, most start out in junior PAYE employee roles and work their way up, so at some point a decision is made to become a contractor and it has to be done in mutual agreement with the employer, as otherwise if they hand in their notice as a PAYE employee and become an independent contractor without mutual agreement, they could be unemployed for a while.
My assumption is that the move from PAYE employee to Contractor would only be done if it would leave the person significantly better off financially, including things like travel costs, clothing costs, pension contributions, healthcare etc.
Commodore (National) - 25/08/2026 14:02:17
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Westmeath Hurling thread - 1 Like(s)
Well worth listening to Pat O'Brien at the beginning of last nights iarmhiabu podcast re the departure of the minor hurling management team. Reflects so so poorly on the county board. I know it's only one side of the story so it will be interesting to see if the county board come out and defend themselves.
westmeathforham (National) - 25/08/2026 14:18:01
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Wexford Club Hurling 2026 - 1 Like(s)
Replying To StoreysTash: "I 100% think the standard of club hurling in Wexford is just very very average and its a world apart from club hurling in Tipp and Kilkenny.
The final round of a 5 game group needs to be
1. Teams busting a gut to finish top two
2. Teams busting a gut to avoid relegation
3. Teams busting a gut to qualify.
Having 5 teams out of 6 going through just results in teams going through the motions once they are safe from relegation. Its just pure psychology, "we live to fight another day". I know the argument that you could be in relegation final on 4 points but so what? Its a results based game and you had 5 games to determine your fate.
A max of 4 should be coming out of the group, and would consider reducing it to 3. This is not Go-Games we're playing.
Knockout then is 1st v 2nd (Game1), 3rd v 4th (Game2), with losers of Game1's v winners of Game2 with the winners of that playing Game1 winners in county semi finals.
I just looked at the upcoming fixtures and I note Gorey, St. Martins and The Harriers playing Division 6 at U14, and Rapparees playing Division 3 at that age. You can't have a good group every year, but Division 6 is shocking for any team bar the smallest of clubs with a tiny pick. All those clubs have huge numbers, something is going wrong somewhere if that is their level?
Minor semi finalists are Rathgarogue-Cushinstown, Barntown, Monageer and Slaney Harriers. Of these 4, only Barntown were any force at underage and Bunclody on and off. There is great work going on in these clubs, but what has happened to the Martin's, Harriers, etc at this level? Oulart, Oylegate, Rapps and Gorey were the other premier competitors.
Buffers Alley have not done anything of note at underage for a very long time so its not much of a surprise to see them struggling to keep paces as other clubs have overtaken them." "Gorey, St. Martins and The Harriers playing Division 6 at U14" - That's their B teams
All are in Division 1 or Division 2 at U14 level
However Harriers are poor at U12 / U10 currently - They played their final game of the Div 1 competition and pretty much fielded their B team as quite a few of their better lads were on holidays or playing soccer. Glynn Barntown have similiar issues. I defo wouldn't see Bunclody as a force in underage at either hurling or football. Monageer have done well last few years but are starting to struggle and are siding more towards football again. There was a prominent former hurler from Rathnure involved with their underage setup for last 10/12 years and you can see the strives they made there.
MyOhMi (National) - 25/08/2026 14:21:33
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Wexford Hurling Thread - 1 Like(s)
Replying To ElGranSenor: "If I were picking a panel for next year, I'd go for something like the following (Am assuming that Rory and Lee both commit, that Jippo retires, that the rest of the lads from this year still commit, and that Joe Barrett, AJ Redmond, Paudie Foley, and Oisín Foley have no interest in joining)
Will post what age they will be turning at some point in 2027 beside their name
Mark Fanning - 36
Lee Chin - 35
Jack O'Connor - 33
Simon Donohoe - 32
Kevin Foley - 32
Shane Reck - 30
Rory O'Connor - 29
Barry O'Connor - 29
Conor Hearne - 29
Damien Reck - 29
Rory Higgins - 29
Connal Flood - 29
James Lawlor - 27
Niall Murphy - 27
Stephen Martin - 27
Eoin Ryan - 25
Cian Molloy - 25
Richie Lawlor - 25
David Codd - 25
Tomas Kinsella - 25
Derry Mahon - 24
Cian Byrne - 24
Oisín Pepper - 24
Corey Byrne-Dunbar - 24
Conor Foley - 24
Darragh Carley - 24
Jack Redmond - 24
Diarmuid O'Leary - 24
Eoin Whelan - 23
Darragh Kehoe - 23
Éamon Wickham - 23
Luke Codd - 23
Simon Roche - 22
Cillian Byrne - 22
Seán Rowley - 22
Ciarán Doyle - 21
Charlie Mooney - 21
Charlie Roark - 21
Doran Daly O'Toole - 21
Colin Carley - 20
Jack Nolan - 20
Seán O'Brien - 19" Not a bad squad if we can get everyone to commit. Would be great to have Rory and Barry involved. Also really excited to see how Sean O Brien adapts to senior inter county from what I hear he works incredibly hard on his game.
Was listening to Pat Ryan of Doon who has had Derek McGrath as their manager for 3 years now. He said he is the best man manager he has ever worked under and said he will do everything in his power to get all the best players playing for Wexford again. He also mentioned his ability to drag every ounce of ability out of the whole panel not just the best players on the team.
Despite all the doom and gloom I think we do have good young lads coming through and with the experienced lads already there Derek McGrath and his management team can really bring us on in the next few years .
God knows Wexford hurling needs a huge shot in the arm from somewhere
Afinestick96 (National) - 25/08/2026 13:49:12
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GAA Journalism - 1 Like(s)
Replying To Kew: "Which is the best website or paper for GAA? Would it be the Irish independent and examiner?? I know the Irish times and the42 are mainly rugby. Any other ideas or is it balls.ie we get of information from ? If you take out the Irish independent and examiner we don't have a lot" In fairness to the Irish examiner, it's really upped its game the last few years. Some excellent gaa coverage. Maurice Brosnan in particular - superb. You'll often see him taking in coaching courses etc. around the country, has an authentic curiosity and enthusiasm of the game and it shows in his writing.
Social media has filled the breach a bit and there's a huge amount of podcasts now also.
donegalgael-12 (National) - 25/08/2026 13:32:19
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GAA Journalism - 1 Like(s)
Replying To Kew: "Which is the best website or paper for GAA? Would it be the Irish independent and examiner?? I know the Irish times and the42 are mainly rugby. Any other ideas or is it balls.ie we get of information from ? If you take out the Irish independent and examiner we don't have a lot" irish times and 42 are not mainly rugby.
wouldnt be trying to get info from balls.ie its a toilet bowl of clickbait nonsense masquerading as journalism
KillingFields (National) - 25/08/2026 12:33:08
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Monaghan GAA thread - 1 Like(s)
Replying To unitedparishes: "What part do you disagree? You think another team or Iniskeen and Truagh arent able to compete with them?" Truagh competing against scotstown, when's the last time truagh beat scotstown in a championship game. Truagh are nowhere near it
Overtheblackspot89 (National) - 25/08/2026 17:29:01
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Donegal GAA thread - 1 Like(s)
I suppose the trick is to find the right balance.
As in, do enough to stay up, but don't put everything we have into it. And if three or four youngsters get good exposure and experience while doing it, all the better.
Lockjaw (National) - 25/08/2026 19:57:25
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Carlow GAA thread - 1 Like(s)
Replying To Carlowrising: "Too many football games now, not enough jeopardy. With the old format (2 groups of 4) every game mattered, now it fesls like the championship is only starting at the quarter final stage." Last year's senior champions in danger of being in the relegation playoff seems like a bit of jeopardy to me.
MickyMouse (National) - 26/08/2026 01:33:34
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Monaghan GAA thread - 1 Like(s)
Replying To Darragh1987: "Any thoughts or predictions on the hurling games at the weekend ?" No
monaghanmad (National) - 26/08/2026 09:49:50
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International Rules - 1 Like(s)
Replying To Seniorleague: "Its not nonsense, as I said earlier,with the exception of financial gain,the reasons given for why people applaud players for moving to the afl could just as easily be given for a player moving club,yet for some reason we react totally differently to the two scenarios.
Suppose for a moment that professionalism does come to the gaa,and certain clubs or counties are in position to offer players professional contracts for joining them,the same way St Kilda offered Kobe a professional contract. Would you be supportive of any player who takes up their offer?" Moving club and moving to a different sport in a different country entirely are very different scenarios.
Viking66 (National) - 26/08/2026 11:16:40
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