Log thread for journalists, pundits and other commentators who follow where I lead

[mossbags]

Following on from Liam Hayes calling a spade a spade with regards to how muck Leinster football is I thought it might be a good idea to keep a log of all the times these lads take their cue from what Im saying. Heres a fine example from Enda McCevoy in last Sundays Tribune who covered something I've been saying for quite some time now, namely that this Tipp hurling side are the perennial emperor with no clothes and have been way overrated.

Different strokes...

Why Tipperary lost

Outthought
and outfought, but a lot more than that too, says Enda McEvoy

Eyes
down please, Tipperary readers, this pleasant Sunday morning and let's
play a little game. The game is called The Most Painful Tipp Defeat of
Modern Times and the ultimate choice will be yours. To start off, a look
at the runners and riders. Note: we are not attempting to be facetious.
This is an entirely serious and relevant exercise but it's for Tipp
folk only. Ghouls, gloaters and Galway people need not apply.

Croke
Park last September? Not top of the list or anywhere near it. A
gutwrencher and a heartbreaker, yes, but a day of pride too. Killarney
in 2004 or the All Ireland quarter-final defeats of '05 or '06 or '07?
No; unpleasant also, but in the end those particular Tipperary teams got
about as far as they deserved to get. The collapse against Kilkenny in
the 2003 semi-final? Awful, plainly, and made worse by the concomitant
shattering of the generations-old sight-of-the-jersey certainty. The
drawn 1996 Munster final, when a 10-point interval lead was coughed up?
Another nightmare. The day of the donkeys at Semple Stadium in 1990? The
daddy of them all.

To this list, and in with a bullet, may be
added a new entry. Páirc Uí Chaoimh 2010. The day hurling's coming team
went to Cork and died with their Jimmy Choos on. It is early in the
year, never mind early in the decade, to be talking about era-defining
matches. Yet last Sunday was seismic not for what happened but for what
didn't happen, for the dog in the night that failed to bark. Tipp the
next All Ireland champions? Tipp to win two of the next few All
Irelands? Tipp to build a little empire and become the team of the
decade? Seven days ago all these castles came tumbling down out of the
sky.

"Never impute a state of mind," a famous English defamation
lawyer once cautioned. Heeding his advice, we therefore cannot say for
definite that Tipperary believed they were as good as their last
championship display but somehow forgot that that display ended in a
five-point defeat. We cannot be sure that they spent the winter hearing
what a great bunch of fellas they were and how they'd been robbed last
September instead of lending half an ear to those voices that reckoned
they'd hurled above themselves against Kilkenny and would never perform
nearly as well as a collective again. We cannot assume that a small
touch of cockiness – nothing overt – crept in.

But when the
panel gathered on the Saturday night the players were noticeably
subdued, like a group who'd suddenly realised that the scale of the
challenge next day was greater than they'd imagined and that now they
weren't in Kansas anymore, and on Sunday they played like a team unaware
that past performances are no guarantee of future earnings and that to
win the battle against Cork they'd first have to fight the battle
against Cork.

Defeat would have been forgivable, however
scalding, had they lost by a point or two in an eight-goal classic.
Defeat would have been at least understandable had they gone in as All
Ireland champions who'd wintered well. But Tipp, not Cork, were the team
last Sunday with the obligation to send out the message that 2009 was
prehistory and this was where the rest of their lives began. It is the
first serious black mark of Liam Sheedy's reign and one that will not
easily be erased. Scrub as they will over the coming weeks and months,
indeed, its outline may never fully be effaced.

Is it snide to
describe Cork's mentality as made of reinforced concrete and Tipp's as
made of reinforced candyfloss? Given the disparity in terms of
collective experience, yes. That said, had the roles been reversed and
Cork been the unlucky All Ireland runners-up of eight months earlier
travelling to Semple Stadium to meet hosts jumping out of the short
grass, they might not have won but you just know they'd have left every
fibre of their being behind.

Two points down at half-time but
not even the ghost of a spurt on the restart; their centre-back, their
midfield dynamo and their Young Hurler of the Year all substituted; a
point from play in the second half. No fire, no anger, no stuff of
champions in waiting. Tipp looked like a team who'd peaked two weeks
earlier. Certainly they'd got progressively worse over the course of
their challenge-match programme, flying against Dublin but barely
adequate against Laois and downright poor against a scratch Clare XV.

The
breadth of small crimes would fill a bulky file for the DPP. Leaving
Pádraic Maher on Aisake for so long. Forgetting the evidence of the 2006
All Ireland final, which loud-hailered to the nation that the Cork
corner-backs, not the wing-backs, were the men to leave unmarked when
Donal Óg was pucking out. The crudeness of the supply to Eoin Kelly at
full-forward. And Tipp's habit of conceding uninterrupted sequences of
scores, which began in the 2008 National League and Munster finals,
continued in the All Ireland semi-final, reappeared against Cork and
Clare last season and culminated in ruin against Kilkenny, has calcified
into a pathology.

It was the county's lowest score in the
championship since the first-round defeat by Clare in 2003, their first
double-digit defeat to Cork since the 1942 Munster final and only the
fourth time in 80 championship meetings they'd failed to score a goal
against them. The most damning criticism of Sheedy and his management
team, however, is the simplest and most obvious one. They sent out a
side who were outthought, outfought and outhungered by opponents who
didn't include a single championship debutant. Not that Tipp could have
been expected to grind it out had they been required to; in all but one
of their championship wins on the Portroe man's watch they've been in
the driving seat early in the second half if not sooner and have either
strolled or squeaked to victory thereafter.

No grounds for
consolation. None at all. Beyond painful.

[JimWexford]

Must be great to be loved!!!

[mullins]

Following on from Liam Hayes calling a spade a spade with regards to how muck Leinster football is I thought it might be a good idea to keep a log of all the times these lads take their cue from what Im saying. Heres a fine example from Enda McCevoy in last Sundays Tribune who covered something I've been saying for quite some time now, namely that this Tipp hurling side are the perennial emperor with no clothes and have been way overrated.

Different strokes...

Why Tipperary lost

Outthought
and outfought, but a lot more than that too, says Enda McEvoy

Eyes
down please, Tipperary readers, this pleasant Sunday morning and let's
play a little game. The game is called The Most Painful Tipp Defeat of
Modern Times and the ultimate choice will be yours. To start off, a look
at the runners and riders. Note: we are not attempting to be facetious.
This is an entirely serious and relevant exercise but it's for Tipp
folk only. Ghouls, gloaters and Galway people need not apply.

Croke
Park last September? Not top of the list or anywhere near it. A
gutwrencher and a heartbreaker, yes, but a day of pride too. Killarney
in 2004 or the All Ireland quarter-final defeats of '05 or '06 or '07?
No; unpleasant also, but in the end those particular Tipperary teams got
about as far as they deserved to get. The collapse against Kilkenny in
the 2003 semi-final? Awful, plainly, and made worse by the concomitant
shattering of the generations-old sight-of-the-jersey certainty. The
drawn 1996 Munster final, when a 10-point interval lead was coughed up?
Another nightmare. The day of the donkeys at Semple Stadium in 1990? The
daddy of them all.

To this list, and in with a bullet, may be
added a new entry. Páirc Uí Chaoimh 2010. The day hurling's coming team
went to Cork and died with their Jimmy Choos on. It is early in the
year, never mind early in the decade, to be talking about era-defining
matches. Yet last Sunday was seismic not for what happened but for what
didn't happen, for the dog in the night that failed to bark. Tipp the
next All Ireland champions? Tipp to win two of the next few All
Irelands? Tipp to build a little empire and become the team of the
decade? Seven days ago all these castles came tumbling down out of the
sky.

"Never impute a state of mind," a famous English defamation
lawyer once cautioned. Heeding his advice, we therefore cannot say for
definite that Tipperary believed they were as good as their last
championship display but somehow forgot that that display ended in a
five-point defeat. We cannot be sure that they spent the winter hearing
what a great bunch of fellas they were and how they'd been robbed last
September instead of lending half an ear to those voices that reckoned
they'd hurled above themselves against Kilkenny and would never perform
nearly as well as a collective again. We cannot assume that a small
touch of cockiness – nothing overt – crept in.

But when the
panel gathered on the Saturday night the players were noticeably
subdued, like a group who'd suddenly realised that the scale of the
challenge next day was greater than they'd imagined and that now they
weren't in Kansas anymore, and on Sunday they played like a team unaware
that past performances are no guarantee of future earnings and that to
win the battle against Cork they'd first have to fight the battle
against Cork.

Defeat would have been forgivable, however
scalding, had they lost by a point or two in an eight-goal classic.
Defeat would have been at least understandable had they gone in as All
Ireland champions who'd wintered well. But Tipp, not Cork, were the team
last Sunday with the obligation to send out the message that 2009 was
prehistory and this was where the rest of their lives began. It is the
first serious black mark of Liam Sheedy's reign and one that will not
easily be erased. Scrub as they will over the coming weeks and months,
indeed, its outline may never fully be effaced.

Is it snide to
describe Cork's mentality as made of reinforced concrete and Tipp's as
made of reinforced candyfloss? Given the disparity in terms of
collective experience, yes. That said, had the roles been reversed and
Cork been the unlucky All Ireland runners-up of eight months earlier
travelling to Semple Stadium to meet hosts jumping out of the short
grass, they might not have won but you just know they'd have left every
fibre of their being behind.

Two points down at half-time but
not even the ghost of a spurt on the restart; their centre-back, their
midfield dynamo and their Young Hurler of the Year all substituted; a
point from play in the second half. No fire, no anger, no stuff of
champions in waiting. Tipp looked like a team who'd peaked two weeks
earlier. Certainly they'd got progressively worse over the course of
their challenge-match programme, flying against Dublin but barely
adequate against Laois and downright poor against a scratch Clare XV.

The
breadth of small crimes would fill a bulky file for the DPP. Leaving
Pádraic Maher on Aisake for so long. Forgetting the evidence of the 2006
All Ireland final, which loud-hailered to the nation that the Cork
corner-backs, not the wing-backs, were the men to leave unmarked when
Donal Óg was pucking out. The crudeness of the supply to Eoin Kelly at
full-forward. And Tipp's habit of conceding uninterrupted sequences of
scores, which began in the 2008 National League and Munster finals,
continued in the All Ireland semi-final, reappeared against Cork and
Clare last season and culminated in ruin against Kilkenny, has calcified
into a pathology.

It was the county's lowest score in the
championship since the first-round defeat by Clare in 2003, their first
double-digit defeat to Cork since the 1942 Munster final and only the
fourth time in 80 championship meetings they'd failed to score a goal
against them. The most damning criticism of Sheedy and his management
team, however, is the simplest and most obvious one. They sent out a
side who were outthought, outfought and outhungered by opponents who
didn't include a single championship debutant. Not that Tipp could have
been expected to grind it out had they been required to; in all but one
of their championship wins on the Portroe man's watch they've been in
the driving seat early in the second half if not sooner and have either
strolled or squeaked to victory thereafter.

No grounds for
consolation. None at all. Beyond painful.

Mossy i believe you..

[Boxtyeater]

Oul' Bags is on the verge of one I'm thinking....

[mossbags]

O'Mahony under pressure with soulless Mayo going nowhere fast by Dermot Crowe with thanks to mossbags whose been saying this for quite some time now




By DERMOT CROWE
Sunday June 13 2010

MAYO footballers remain the masters of the parallel universe.
They are a fascinating study with an unrivalled ability to confound
logic that leaves all other pretenders in the shade. Or, maybe, they're
no good. Could it just be that?
No, they can't be that bad but
there has always been a question about their heads. Their performance
against Sligo eight days ago made us realise we have totally
underestimated them. They can play a lot worse than we have given them
credit for. John O'Mahony
arrived bearing first-notch qualifications in management and seemed
ideally suited, but the experience has turned him into a shadow of his
former self. It is said that Mayo want for nothing in terms of coaching
and modern innovations. But they have no spirit and no soul.

If
he weren't Johnno he would have been out the door a long time ago. Even
his most loyal devotees have to realise by now that his management is
not working. How did it come to this? A week after his Mayo side lost to
Galway in the Connacht
championship in 2007, O'Mahony was elected to the Dail. This new career
requires three days in Dublin,
countless hours of constituency work and less time to devote to
management, and particularly man-management. He says it is not adversely
affecting running Mayo, but it's obvious that it has to. Few, if any,
footballers have noticeably improved in his time in charge, and some
have gone backwards.

Look at Sligo's shining demeanour and
contrast it to Mayo's grey pallor last weekend. The visitors were shorn
of leaders, whereas Sligo had them in abundance -- witness the
last-ditch interventions of Charlie
Harrison, a heroic player and a joy to watch, making each intercept
and block down with unflinching bravery. Or Eamonn O'Hara
again putting himself about and probably as surprised as anyone else
that they really weren't up for it. There is no complacency
clause. Sligo have earned
the respect of the country as a football outfit and they looked well
groomed. In Markievicz Park,
they are a handful for any side. It is heartening to see that the
advances they made in the qualifiers in the early part of the last
decade, and the later provincial final win, have not been squandered.
They are building and making progress.

So Mayo could not, and did
not, expect anything handed to them. They went in off the back of a
dreadful league final performance, so inept that Cork had difficulty
maintaining concentration. The league final had been earmarked as the
match in which Mayo would respond to a feeble fade-out to Meath
in the championship last year in Croke Park. But
at least that day they played some football. And Aidan O'Shea
looked a serious footballer. This year, despite the good run of form in
the regulation league matches, they have regressed. O'Shea is not the
player he was. And there are questions marks all over the field, in
vital areas, and a cry for leadership you know will not be heard.
But
it was more than guts that won it for Sligo; they were better
technically than Mayo. As the match neared the close, Conor
Mortimer had enough chances to rescue the situation but his
finishing, always too indeterminate, proved gravely insufficient. Those
shortcomings reminded us of an old curse, the fear and loathing of the
opposition's goalposts. But their problems run much deeper than that.
They are going nowhere fast.
- DERMOT CROWE

Sunday Independent

[mossbags]

Jayo Cluxton


on the Dubs go defensive thread 14/06/2010

'' I do not like the way GAA has developed in recent years and would love
to see a team like Galway (98 & 01) winning the title - it would be
good for the game. I also liked the Tyrone 08 style and most of the
Kerry wins but not in recent years.''

[Jayo Cluxton]

Is that Cliffie Clavin aka Mr Potato Head!

[patrique]

McEvoy copied most of that article from my rantings.

Ask Hag and Cheese.

[mossbags]

Wenger on why the World Cup has been boring
Written by Mark Brus on Wednesday, June 16, 2010


'I agree with mossbags'

Arsène Wenger believes an overly
cautious approach from teams has led to a somewhat boring start to the
World Cup.
The tournament has been short of goals in its first week, but Wenger
believes that is normal.
The manager has stressed the importance of avoiding defeat in the
first game, and believes many teams are happy to play it safe and take a
point.
He told Arsenal.com: "In the first round teams play more not to lose
than to win. The games are quite locked tactically with very few
chances and very few have had a go.
"The pressure of the World Cup is so intense nobody wants to lose
that first game. It harms the style a little bit."

[mossbags]

Offaly chief admits Leinster expansion has raised the bar



'Mossbags ''knows the score''

By Colm Keys
Tuesday June 22 2010
The three-year trial that involves Galway and Antrim
participating in the Leinster
championship concludes next season but already it looks a formality that
the invitation from the eastern province will extend west and north on a
more permanent basis.Galway's draw
with Offaly in Croke
Park on Sunday, preceded by Antrim forcing Offaly to extra-time in a
quarter-final three weeks earlier and Wexford's
intense pressurising of Galway until the final quarter on the same
weekend, has justified the move to expand a provincial championship that
was on its death bed just two years ago.Kilkenny's rout of Dublin
on Sunday apart, the Leinster championship has clawed back some of the
ground it has lost on Munster
over the last decade.Galway have now been involved in two of the
best games Leinster hurling has had in recent times, the Offaly game and
last year's classic semi-final encounter in Tullamore when Kilkenny had to
dig deep to win by five points.Even the most die-hard opponents
to the arrival of Galway in particular have had to concede that the
rising tide has lifted all boats."If we win Saturday night's
replay we'll be able to say that with more conviction," admitted Offaly
chairman Pat Teehan."There would still be some objections that
have tradition and geography as their origin. Personally, I'd have no
great objection to it. It does appear to have been of benefit all
round," he conceded.Offaly's performance to draw with the league
champions is undoubtedly their best result in the province for
quite some time .- Colm Keys

Irish Independent

[Thomas Clarke]

There's another one for you Mossbags.

Near the end of the article, a fair one at that, Colm Keys calling for the end of Stephen Cluxton, 24 hours after you called for it yourself!


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[mossbags]

Well spotted there TC, thats not the first time this lad Keys has taking hie cue from what I've been saying either. I might have to have a word in his editors ear.
As for Cluxton, he always looked better than he actually was but was found out easily enough by the top forwards and I suppose in that sense he epitomizes this Dublin side. Was it against Kerry in the semi Final where he gifted Kerry a point at a crucial moment in the game? Whatever claims he had to being a top keeper before that he's been fairly poor since.

[mossbags]

What was the key factor in you decision to step down John?




Well Marty I suppose I was reading Mossbags thread about Mayo tarnishing my legacy there the other night and I knew it was time to go then

[Loyal2TheRoyal]

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[mullins]

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POINT

[mossbags]

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Whoever wrote this must be a Wum or something.

Typical of ex-player types to steal sh*t off the INTERNET

Then again, it's probably his ghost writer doing all the messing, Humphries is robbing me blind!

Just ask Do'S

[mossbags]

Quantum Physics Quantum Theory / Wave Mechanics The Wave Structure of Matter (WSM) and Spherical Standing Wave Interactions explains discrete Energy States of Quantum Physics (Quantum Theory / Quantum Wave Mechanics). A Simple Solution to the Particle / Wave Duality of Light and Matter, EPR, Non Locality & Quantum Entanglement.
Max Planck Quantum Physics Discrete Light Quanta	Albert Einstein 'Photon' Quantum Theory Photoelectric Effect	Niels Bohr Quantum Physics Copenhagen Interpretation	Louis de Broglie Physics Matter Waves Particle Wave Duality	Erwin Schrodinger Quantum Physics Wave Equations	Max Born Quantum Physics Probability Waves
Werner Heisenberg Quantum Mechanics Uncertainty Principle	Paul Dirac Quantum Physics Dirac Equation	Richard Feynman Quantum Physics Electrodynamics QED	John Bell's Inequality Quantum Mechanics EPR Paradox	David Bohm Quantum Physics Bohmian Mechanics	Milo Wolff Quantum Mechanics Wave Structure Matter

[Jayo Cluxton]

Quantum Physics Quantum Theory / Wave Mechanics The Wave Structure of Matter (WSM) and Spherical Standing Wave Interactions explains discrete Energy States of Quantum Physics (Quantum Theory / Quantum Wave Mechanics). A Simple Solution to the Particle / Wave Duality of Light and Matter, EPR, Non Locality & Quantum Entanglement.
Max Planck Quantum Physics Discrete Light Quanta	Albert Einstein 'Photon' Quantum Theory Photoelectric Effect	Niels Bohr Quantum Physics Copenhagen Interpretation	Louis de Broglie Physics Matter Waves Particle Wave Duality	Erwin Schrodinger Quantum Physics Wave Equations	Max Born Quantum Physics Probability Waves
Werner Heisenberg Quantum Mechanics Uncertainty Principle	Paul Dirac Quantum Physics Dirac Equation	Richard Feynman Quantum Physics Electrodynamics QED	John Bell's Inequality Quantum Mechanics EPR Paradox	David Bohm Quantum Physics Bohmian Mechanics	Milo Wolff Quantum Mechanics Wave Structure Matter

Drugs .......... I just hate what they do to people ....

[Loyal2TheRoyal]

Interesting read Mossbags. Although nothing I didn't know already. Still its good to refresh the memory.

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