The GT member interview

You favourite grounds:
Croke Park, Celtic Park

Favourite players:
Paddy Bradley

Best memory as a GAA fan:
The semi final against Dublin in croke park a few years ago, Great craic

Most dissapointing memory as a GAA fan:
Loosing to Donegal last year by a point

Teams you want to avoid in provincials:
Monaghan, Fed up playing them now

Players from you county with a promising future:
James Kielt, C.OBoyle, Gerard O Kane

Dislikes and improvements about the GAA:
Loosing

If you could have one player from another county on your team who would it be:
Brian dooher but hes retiring soon so Colm Cooper

On a scale of 1 to 10 [1 being low and 10 being high], how would you rate your counties chances in 2010:
7

Up the oaks tree

For best memory, i presume you mean the quarter final against Dublin a few years ago? Dont you know Dublin have not won a semi final in 15 years

You favourite grounds: Pearse Stadium

Favourite players: Sean Cavanagh, Bernard Morris, Michael Meehan, Karl Lacey.

Best memory as a GAA fan: Club Derby in West Cavan, We were 2 points down, final attack of the game, Old head half forward nearly burst the net from 20 yards out. Both teams destined for a mid-table finished so the game didn't matter. We celebrated for 3 days. Sums up the GAA for me.

Most dissapointing memory as a GAA fan: Game v Kerry in 1997, or should I say game v Maurice..

Teams you want to avoid in provincials: Down.

Players from you county with a promising future: Declan McKiernan, Ray Cullivan, Cian Mackey.

Dislikes and improvements about the GAA: Disliking the defensive play by teams.

If you could have one player from another county on your team who would it be: Conor Gormley or Karl Lacey.

On a scale of 1 to 10 [1 being low and 10 being high], how would you rate your counties chances in 2010: 4 in Ulster. 1 for Sam.

Your favourite grounds: Oxfield Park (club ground); Breffni Park (county ground)

Favourite players: James Reilly, Johnny Davey (but only with the county team), Ciaran McDonald

Best memory as a GAA fan: Sligo v Tyrone, Croke Park 2002 (as a fan); captaining Sligo U-16 to victory v Mayo, in Charlestown, with all of mother's family (from Mayo) in attendance.

Most dissapointing memory as a GAA fan: AI Quarter Final 2007 v Cork. Was worried that the players would see the victory over Galway as mission accomplished. They did.

Teams you want to avoid in provincials: Leitrim. If we make the final we'll already have dealt with Mayo and Galway. We should beat both Leitrim and the Rossies, but for some reason we always seem to play poorly against Leitrim.

Players from you county with a promising future: Stephen Gilmartin. As an U16 he was the best minor midfielder in the county, and one of the best U21s. The national league final this year showed that he's continued developing nicely. David Kelly looks good, but he's looked good for 3/4 years now, time to start producing.

Dislikes and improvements about the GAA:
The game is played predominantly by people under the age of 40. All decisions are made by people predominantly over the age of 60. In many instances, the administrators forget that players are the core of the association. It's true that the association would struggle without the thousands of non-playing volunteers, but at the end of the day, football/hurling would still be played. Without players, there'd be no association.

One other issue I have with the association is the insular attitude so many seem to take.
The primary purpose of the association should be to facilitate the playing of football, hurling, camogie, handball, rounders, and other sports under its remit, and to promote Irish culture and in general (Scór, etc.). Too often, "promote" is taken to mean to attack everything outside of the association. We saw with Croke Park that a little co-operation will not hurt the GAA, and I believe that our energy should be put into promoting the positives of our games, instead of trying to attack others.
Our games are strong enough to stand on their own merits. Running down others doesn't make football or hurling any better, it just makes us look insecure.

If you could have one player from another county on your team who would it be:
Michael Murphy. We're a small team in general, and he'd bring some much needed physicality to the forwards.

On a scale of 1 to 10 [1 being low and 10 being high], how would you rate your counties chances in 2010:

6. Despite a strong league campaign, we've been handed a fothermucker of a draw, and just reaching a Connacht final would IMO be more of an achievement that 2002 or 2007.
I'd say we could do well in the qualifiers, and an AI Quarter-final is not beyond the realm of possibilities.

Aw yeah sorry, I got mixed up haha must of been dreaming that