https://www.independent.ie/sport/ga...-is-no-defence-for-this-scandal-36530924.html Not many people like this lad and I can understand why,he's a bit of a bellend.But I remember reading this at the time and thinking if what he claims as facts in this piece are facts,then surely he has a point? To contextualise my knowledge of GAA,I didn't even know that was a final yesterday until afterwards. And I may just have missed it,but very little of the reaction he gets seems to challenge what he refers to as facts,just attack his motives and him personally. But theres actual quotes there from a senior GAA official admitting Dublin recieve disproportionate funding. I dont know enough to judge if the reaction he gets from Dublin supporters is because he's talking bollocks,but it's very similar to the reaction he gets from City fans when he writes about them and I know he's talking complete sense on that issue. For clarity I'm not comparing what's happening at City to what's happening with Dublin,just pointing out that sports fans get defensive about their teams whether the criticism is fair or not.
I am not a GAA football fan, even though I would watch the Cork matches (maybe I'm just a masochist). But I always got the impression that this thread was just an echo chamber for Dublin fans making out how everyone is out to get them, even though any criticisms on here were few and far between. So I left them at it. From a dispassionate view where football takes its place in my queue after soccer, rugby, hurling and probably golf and american football for that matter there seems to be a lot of problems within the game. Sticking to an outdated system because of sentiment and tradition seems to be a big factor, along with the usual tribalism that is tied in with people's sense of home and origin. There are other problems to do with the machismo that still seems to remain in football which has been outdated in other sports. e.g. "the schmozzle" and the rule which states "it is compulsory when a sub enters the pitch to get into a shoving match with the opponent for twenty seconds"...
haven't got time to read that whole article but i'd imagine it's a re-hash of what he has said in the past, does he mention the dublin senior hurling team in it at all? i'd doubt if he does to be honest because that doesn't suit his agenda, since 2011 the dublin hurlers have won exactly zero all irelands.
At the end of the day in GAA you can't buy players. The extra money does help in coaching and you can have an vast back room team however it still comes down to 15 v 15 on the pitch and clever management. Lads need to train all winter, the hours still need to be put in by the management. If Dublin were able to poach David Clifford, Lee Keegan and Shane Walsh from other counties using money, id have a major problem with that, however the fact is that Dublin has almost half the population of the country. It's going to take more money to run those clubs and in theory they should have half of the best players in the country based on population. Somewhere along the line some group of people got together and saw the potential for GAA to explode in Dublin especially with Sky like deals being on the horizon. I lived beside Kilmacud for years when Dublin were not the force they are now. Every Saturday morning there were hundreds of kids heading to different age groups for games. Remember thinking at the time Dublin will be unstoppable if all clubs got their act together. The thing I don't get is why no one was Complaining while Kilkenny were winning all before them in Hurling. It was so boring for a long time. Everything goes in cycles and it will be interesting to see how Dublin get on when it's time to change manager and maybe a revised championship structure. They haven't had it their own way in the league every year when playing every week home and away. At the moment in the Championship they don't play Competitive game until Super 8s. This year they have avoided Donegal and Kerry so it looks like a stroll to semis. Cork get a massive amount of funding however their footballers have been diabolical, the likes of Monaghan and Roscomon have showed by good organisation and management you can achieve things if the commitment is there. The problem though for smaller counties is that it's probably not sustainable for more than a few years.
As an amateur sports organisation the sole purpose of it should be to grow the game at a grassroots level. In Dublin at the moment the game is absolutely thriving, everyone wants to be involved in it. I live in Dublin 15 and every Saturday morning on the greens in front of our estate there's got to be over 100 kids out there playing at every age level, it's fantastic to see kids getting involved like that and there's equal numbers at the hurling too. This is only one club and I know the same story is repeated right the way around the county and probably in greater numbers in other areas. The problem that the GAA has is that Dublin have the perfect storm, they have a population base (even playing population) that there's no other county in the country can ever match. They've also got the finances in place to structure the whole thing in a very professional format which creates a platform for long term success which means that this is not so much a flash in the pan occurence what we're seeing right now but a sign of things to come. Players are coming and going in the panel but the quality is staying in the same place or possibly even increasing. I don't know enough about how the finances work in the GAA and I wasn't sufficiently able to follow exactly what the author of that piece was saying in a lot of it, probably as I have no idea how the counties/clubs are funded, but it does seem to be the case that football is now suffering because of this sustained success at Dublin. How have a once great rival of Dublin been reduced to scoring 4 points in an entire match against them. It's not good for the game to have that kind of dominance and they need to find a way to help the rest of the country catch up but it has to be that way, there's little sense in weakening one county to help the others, find a way to help the other counties reach that level and the entire sport will benefit.
To be fair he explains why any other teams who have dominated is not same as they weren't doing anything that cant be replicated by any other county. I'm not sure how other counties manage their finances is relevant to the main point either. The question is are Dublin being given financial advantages by the GAA. I dont think theres any question that they haven't had to use the finances available to them in very intelligent ways to become as good as they are but if they're being given disproportionate funding(which the GAA have admitted they are) then how can it not be a factor in how good they've become? Man City is probably the the most intelligent football set up in world football,you only have to look at how far behind ManU are despite spending similar amounts. But even doing everything right(from a football perspective)they couldn't be so much better than everyone else without the financial advantages. Yes,you cant buy players in GAA but sports science is a big factor in modern sport and it's expensive and theres a lot of costs involved for all manner of other things that lead to marginal gains. Marginal gains add up.
That could mean a lot of different things,none of which necessarily contradict the argument that Dublin football is given an unfair advantage over every other county.
All makes sense. They were talking about it in work the other day and one lad said Dublin have always had a financial advantage but when they weren't dominating it didn't seem to be an issue for anybody. I dont know how true that is but days like yesterday is only going to make the focus on finances more intense. Just the nature of things.
It's as if an asterix has to go beside Dublin's achievements over the last decade. And for what? To say they were financially doped (absolute bollox) or because the GAA failed to recognise the importance of proper funding across all counties at every level. Let McKenna cry all he wants. He didn't bother with Kerry's dominance or Kilkenny's with the small ball which clearly proves his bias agenda driven views. The sad thing is this team wont be appreciated until the well dry's up. Which it will, and they'll finally recognise this team for what they are, one of the greatest of all time. Why? Because of a long term plan/goal, dedication, sacrifice, desire, and a work ethic to be the best of themselves. The begrudgery will ramp up as the summer goes on as if Dublin should apologise for being that good. Thankfully the coach and players never have. And never should.
The commuter towns surrounding Dublin must have nearly doubled the population of Meath, Wicklow, Kildare and Louth in the past 20 years. It's now they should be reaping the rewards of the extra bodies but instead they have gotten worse. I've been out to the academy Meath have and it's top notch, the stadium is getting redeveloped too so it's not money holding them back. Giving Mayo or Sligo extra money is not going to suddenly create the type of jobs that will stop their players from having to relocate to work. Equally cutting Dublins funding won't hinder them too much, they will find the solutions to get what ever is required just like they always have.
As also said above Dublin have always had population on their side thatll never change but that doesnt mean theres 1 million senior footballers in the capital either, population was there when we won nothing between 83 and 95 and 95 and 2011, perhaps if other counties focused on trying to beat Dublin than moaning it would be more beneficial when you look at the finals Dublin have won there hasnt been massive wins and teams have put it up to them, money doesn't buy work ethic or persistent hunger.
Maybe the ship has sailed Bob already Bob and the agenda set out by the GAA in 2002 to make Dublin better has already made it impossible to turn the tide? When you tip the scales too far in one direction neither cutting Dublins funding nor increasing others will realistically close that gap. I saw that in the next 20 or 30 years the population of Ireland will increase by 750k and 75% of those people will be in the greater Dublin area. Kids in those areas will mainly want to play for Dublin or they'll play another sport because teams going to Croke Park and losing by 15 points don't capture kids imaginations. Whatever the reasons for Dublins domination,its in everybody's interests that the gap closes one way or another,even Dublins.
Why will the well dry up? If anything the plan,dedication,sacrifice and desire will keep producing the talent that we're seeing now. The rewards available to Dublin players now is even more incentive.
Meath only have themselves to blame for only 4 points. They had at least 6 or 7 chances for points that any decent club player would put over the bar. In the last 4 All Ireland finals Dublin won by 3 points Draw and 1 point in reply 1 point 6 points Kerry four in a row teams Won by 17 points 8 points 3 points 7 points From 69 to 86, they were in 13 finals out of 17 winning 10. Dubs still have a bit to go before they get up to that level of dominance. Only a guess but I’d say 95% of articles back then were talking about the great managers and players they had, rather than the fact they only had to beat Cork and one other team to get to the final I follow McKenna on twitter and I’d say 90% of his articles are about problems in sport, usually when it’s a big sporting event around the corner or someone has won something. Very rarely see him saying anything positive on any sport.
I'm petty sure there was plenty of Leinster titles in this periods mate and investment and success turns larger numbers of the population into footballers. Was that not the stated aim of the programme set out in 2002? And is it really realistic that Dublin footballers on average have a better work ethic or more hunger than footballers from any other county?
Perhaps I should have coined it better as I wasn't referring to the production of talent coming through. I meant more in terms of success. People go on about this lasting forever when it wont imo. Is it a co-incidence that this particular panel has won 5 All Ireland's under the same manager and captain because he/they are actually THAT talented at what they do or because of funding? The same funding that came through while Pillar couldn't buy a Sam Maguire (parden the pun) and Gilroy won just one in his 4 years. We'll know in due course if the sam's dry up and competing teams become successful will the McKenna's hold their hands up and be embarrassed by their bitterness. Or if it is indeed a conveyor belt of success and trophies under new faces will people like myself rethink things.
Who the article was authored by obviously didn't help,but I don't reckon today has done anything to change your view And stil nobody has challenged the figures in the article and if those figures are true then I don't see how its even debatable the GAA are giving Dublin an advantage. There's a fair bit of whataboutery that ignores that but finances play a far bigger part in elite sport performance than it ever did,and that's without the money invested to increase the talent pool. Again I'll say I'm taking the figures he's stating at face value and there might be more context to it than he wants me to know and I understand there's far more to the success of this team than money. But any argument that doesn't address those figures is not addressing my point.
What if they're that talented and the funding has helped them realise that talent both as individuals and as a squad? If money didn't help a team be succesful then why spend it?