Mayo haven't been on dis ting since 1951: ILF welcomes all comers to Cluiche Cheannais na hÉireann 2013

Dublin can't get their game going at all but theres still only 1 pt in it. That last Dublin free was odd alright. Def yellow card moments before it too

Vaughan ffs that's outrageous

Great goal but Dublin bench will be worth a lot at 14 Vs 14

No arguments. Vaughan owes the county nothing but he'll carry the blame for that.

otm

Mayo should have got a penalty tho

Impossible to call those. I mean there's no foul but what a ref calls and I don't feel he favoured either team

disagree about the phantom frees - on at least two occasions first half a mayo player practically sat on a dublin forward and nothing happened. the injury time can fuck off too, utterly ludicrous shit playing about 3/4 minutes desperate for an equaliser.

one of the more satisfying dublin wins but again we played poorly in a final - it was extremely impressive we they won the ball in midfield when it mattered, having not done so all day. i can only imagine how horrible it is and i feel sorry for mayo as a team and for the supporters but i honestly can't stick the hatred and resentment that comes dublin's way. kilkenny destroyed everyone for years in hurling and all we got was mythology about cody as ferguson and worship of a great side - only a few specialist journalists or the sunday game pundits will actually give dublin respect or even bother to talk tactics instead of shiting on with sexual fantasies about a team causing "panic in the dublin ranks" or "chaos from the kickout" etc, wetting themselves over the prospect of a loss.

even in the preamble the entire week was all mayo-centric coverage and not a word mentioned about the fact that dublin are on the edge of becoming one of the great sides. i know it's hard and not irish to actually praise a victor, but still - it's not like dublin fans were sitting back thinking "here we go another meaningless win" - i have little experience of supporting a successful team but today was no lesser a day for us even with two previous years' victories.

in fact, weirdly, today felt the biggest deal since we broke our duck in 2011.

I've not seen the Dublin hate tbh. All acknowledge this as the best squad in football history and damn near if not the best team.

If you don't see it said enough I'd reckon it's because it's so apparent as to be as boring as analysing idk mansell or Schumacher when their dominance was killing F1. That attention will at some stage start to move to how and when and by whom the incumbent will be beaten is, I think, inevitable.

Kilkenny and hurling is different. Hurling is prettier for a start, and Kilkenny never won it with anything so mundane as tactics or dark arts, and that's not a criticism of the talent the dubs have (and have needed) for both, they are requirements for a modern football team in a way that they're not for hurling.

No multi champion team will go long staying popular in football, that's as plain a fact as there is.

I still think the dubs are borne very fondly by the rest of the country and fully acknowledged as the best by a shot across every department, so idk if they feel hard done by in coverage it's not how it seems from outside.

Injury time was nonsense. Don't think, again, that the ref played a big impact in the game. Bench and knowhow won it, and that was as good as I think I hoped for.

I feel it a serious shortcoming of ilx proper btw that I won't be treated as the victim of appalling tragedy for the next month, my rawness and shorttemperedness won't be written off with the understanding deserved and if they even notice that I'm only half human every mid-September thru October it will be dismissed as gnomic deems or some shit.

Grief. Twas all in grief and twas ever grief. Think of me when the leaves turn and I cupless and drunk with the want of the bit of glory. And wonder that I can smile at all, not that it seems to come with an edge

yeah agree the ref was generally fine but that injury time was to the point of outrageous. my perspective may be skewed from being in britain, but eg, both second captains and off the ball have had ex-mayo players as pundits this week and generally all year, they have had no ex-dublin players. i wouldn't even mind if it didn't come down to "who do you think will win"/"well i suppose i'll be kilt if i don't say mayo" - like seriously, and these are the good sport shows, and that passes for punditry.

there's a tone to articles i read all week and it really is these ludicrous fantasies of dublin imploding, it's all just so gleeful and before the fact. on the hurling thing, i accept it's different but it's still a wild double standard. jim gavin in particular is basically ignored. the beauty of dublin is the tactics, the movement etc. there wasn't loads of that today but there was enough, they've kept the flame alive, along with mayo and kerry, and prob kept football in some kind of decent state.

i mean i dunno if watching a game is different in ireland but in london, for years, everywhere you watch you just have people from any/every county rabidly supporting whoever dublin play against, complaining about refereeing decisions, saying "it's hard to beat 16 men", "they're cheating" etc etc, i get it, people hate capital cities - but i do think it seeps beyond just pub behaviour and generally into the talk of the game, apart from like, live on tv or pat spillane/joe brolly/oisin mcconville who all love the current team.

it's worse in the preamble though - it's like the desperation for dublin to lose becomes this wild hype and fantasy, as i already alluded to. anyway i shouldn't be moaning, it was an unbelievably entertaining game, nothing beats gaa at that level. the tension was insane, i genuinely felt faint after the game and had to go get some air.

i hope mayo win one but for whatever reason i really, really hope it isn't against us.

xpost haha - i ended up watching the match in a really bad irish pub in central london as i was buying suits for my brother's wedding with my two brothers - was great to have us all together for it but the pub was full mayo - i was polite initially but after a few beers and the utterly demented tension of it all i was roaring at the telly as much as everyone else. afterwards the mayo supporters looked utterly fucking distraught - sometimes people do that thing, even when watching on telly, of shaking hands or commiserating - i couldn't bring myself to do so, it would have implied i understood or thought i wasn't being patronising or something, there was nothing to say.

Maybe watching with a mix of supporters is the difference, and yeah capital city and the dominance means you'll not get a fair hearing in a pub full of neutrals.

I don't be watching the build ups to all Ireland finals tbh. There's nothing good ever comes of it.

Enjoy the win. It was in all fairness an absolute cracking game for a final with so much at stake for both teams.

it was incredible. genuinely i felt like i was on drugs until about 90 mins after.

Got the final lined up to watch tomorrow (obv knew the score already), but the dialogue of the both of you only made me love it way way more on forehand. Just wanted to say that.

I have no direct comparison but my father in law tolerated me throughout which you must take my word for it has not been achieved under any other circumstances

xp strap yrself in its a belter

Surely will. Yer bantz tho, it's already half the game, what it's about. It truly is.

Jesus I hope we're not bantsing. GAA bants is very fuckin bad as far as I can see. I think that straight up sincere disagreement is the much more common tone, but like fuckin dead serious now, men banging their open hands about the left foot of a corner back like he was arguing with you about a land deal or something like it

Not aligning yer bantz with RTE GAA "bantz", like. The two of you actually bring something to the table here that goes way beyond the discussion of corner back left feet (though left feet are not to be underestimated). Value, investment.

But then I know you Deems for dismissing a compliment whenever it comes yer way, so that's on my watch.

Is there scope for an article on mayo

I dunno what else there is like it in sport at this stage.

Hate to bring it up but I'll be damned if I let lg say it first....

Aidan O'Shea has still never scored a point in an all ireland final.

Staggering.

just watched the last 20 mins again. wish i was in dublin today.

xpost i do agree about mayo and the madness of it. my da says limerick hurling is similar but it's not. if they peaked like this 10-15 years ago they'd have been grand tho.

xxpost o'shea is the most overrated player in the game. he's afraid to shoot. not saying he's not effective but he's wildly overemphasised. gaa still has a big man fantasy - the o'shea/donaghy shit was embarrassing, the game has moved way beyond that crap.

reckon the biggest cheer of the entire championship was o'shea winning one ball in the air over donaghy in the first semi-final - that's some english football type shit.

also - lee keegan throws his gps tracker at dean rock as he takes the final free. good thing he's not from dublin he'd prob be publicly hung.

I said I'd raise it before you did!

There's a lot to be said about O'Shea that would be interesting and worthwile, imo, but there's already too much written about him and it's fluff.

I think he's a serious sportsman, and a leader beyond his years, but I can see alright how beyond the county it's all so much guff while he doesn't carry us over the line or hasn't yet made an impact in a final.

Can only say that his discipline in reining in his natural game- which has turned him from imo the best player in the country a few years back, and a gamechanging showman talent for football into the sacrificial dynamo of a mayo outfit functioning well above the sum of their parts- earns him a huge amount of credit from my POV

But it can't be denied, when you see Connolly walk off that bench today and drag four men around before scoring probably the most important point of the day, there's an element to O'Shea's big game performance that's sorely missing if he's to eliminate the doubters.

XP I've only seen that. Poor show. Though I must say I find it hilarious how football heads clutch their skirts at anything like that but condone and encourage constant physical assaults throughout the actual game.

THE CURSE IS REAL

What does everyone think about the notion of splitting Dublin into a South and North Dublin team? Colm O'Rourke advocated it iirc. I'm not gone on the idea myself. I know GAA is trendy amongst kids in Dublin now and has probably superseded rugby as sport of choice in parts of South Dublin (correct me if I'm wrong). Anyway, it seems a tad alarmist tbh.

Joe Brolly said Aiden O'Shea was picked on the team of the year for "sentimental reasons"

They won today by a point, and while they didn't do themselves justice mayo will feel there's a lot that could've been improved too.

Last year there was a point between us over two games.

Talk of splitting the county based on that seems a bit premature.

That's not to mention that fucking Kerry minor team. If croker was winner stays on today them lads would've two medals each imo.

That David Clifford kid is a phenomenon

https://soundcloud.com/daniel-kelly-143/mid-wests-commentary-of-the-final-moments-of-dublin-v-mayo

fucking hell that is a rich combo of funny and hilarious. "it's like an injection you don't want and it keeps going"

gotta say the co-commentator there drifts into the sort of stuff that annoys me, like acting as if it's wrong or an injustice or something. there is no "deserve".

i meant to say "a rich combo of hilarious and sad" honest, oops.

the whole split dublin thing is just bollocks - you can't have an all-ireland in which one county is forced to field regional teams. the only amusing element is it might end up dublin v dublin some years.

what i wish would happen, and i dunno how we get there, is for there to be a few more teams at the level of mayo, kerry and dublin. the mayo kerry first game and dublin mayo yday were some of the best gaa i've ever seen. we need more of that all season.

Everything about that radio clip sounds like from the 1970s for some reason, which is wonderful.

If people only understood where I come from they'd have a lot more appreciation about the efforts I'm making tbh

second captains was good today, mike quirke made some of the points i made upthread in a more calm manner.

No craic in that

lolz.

It was good. Tbh it needed another hour tho, I mean the game itself got little or nothing and as an actual match it deserves a full analysis.

Little disappointed that this didn't break gaa in wider ilx, there might never be a better advert ito buildup, context and actual delivered match

Did you advertise it outside this thread? Bcz the thread title is not the most inviting for newcomers.

Learning to appreciate a completely new sport is hard. I got into hurling because of ilx, your thread, and - I think I said this before - for the first hundred posts or so I thought you were all taking the mick, Truman Show like. I couldn't believe it actually existed. That was enough for me to get intrigued. Read about the rules, watch matches etc. But it takes an effort and I will for ever be way, way behind the two of you, because it's not in my cultural dna.

Hurling sucked me in GAA football, too, and I've embraced both, though at a molecular level it's still hard; I notice I miss things other people notice. Not a score, but the tiny things, things from around the game. And feels.

Having said that, someone like LJ should be all over this. Die-hard rooting for Tyrone, or whoever is the equivalent of Jute Gyte in GAA football.

I can't stop listening to that midwest radio thing upthread. Martin Carney fucking loses it at 3 mins 12, like embarrassingly so in my opinion. His voice betrays an entitled rage that has no justification to it - I'd go as far as to see that kind of voice is part of the problem. Also there's a palpable vibe of the two guys secretly relishing the return of their old friend Mr Pain at the end. The game isn't even over and they're not open to the possibility of an equaliser. As a Dublin fan I still was nervous in the final minutes, they sound certain, but there's also a sense of the tension being relieved, of everything being easier when the thing you feared happens once again.

It's some fucking dark shit.

but i'm sorry, it's also hilarious. the main commentator actually has the tone of voice and words of a whining child. carney is like as if he genuinely believes this is the greatest injustice of all time - to lose a game, fairly played, between a couple of great teams. and his bitterness at "dublin will do whatever now, they'll do anything" - like as if we're supposed to try a fucking banana shot from the halfway line rather than (in truth, masterfully) passing the ball around to end the game despite a ludicrous addition of two spare minutes.

almost every dublin fan i've spoken to has a p negative view of mayo, which feels harsh, but the likes of carne are responsible for this. i spoke to a pal before the game last week who's v active in gaa in dublin and he said "i thought i'd never hate a team as much as meath, i was wrong" - feels tough enough on a side that gives it such a lash but i am fairly sure it all comes from the weird sense of hype around mayo, even in defeat they get the column inches. there is an element of addiction to the cycle of hurt and heroism - someone could write a thesis let alone an article.

i mean if carney drifted into the vein of a man howling at the cosmos for its indifference, seeking reasons for the random hurt and injustice of existence, then i could be down with it. but i don't get that from his tone.

Far be it from me to say anything about this being your focus two days after three in a row

It's a nice luxury for ya imo

haha it's not really my focus, just itt. i've spent a lot of time discussing the dubs in the last 36 hours, with family and friends. i don't know anyone from mayo so you're the sounding board here.

I think there was one added minute to injury time. It was warranted imo and didnt a dublin player get a black card

Another fucking cross to bear o it's too much god help us, mayo

there was a lot more than one, i'd need to see it again but from memory there were 6 minutes added and he blew up at least 78:30, maybe 79:00. it was a joke. there were stoppages within the six but not three minutes' worth.

blew up at 78:50. I felt it was excessive at the time

Agreed on the stoppage time

it was deflationary for us imo, to be one down and maybe two minutes to play I think we could have used the urgency to push one last time

With six to go, it was a real sense of dubs in ten ascendancy and even if we snatched one - and let's be real they never looked like letting that happen- there was no trouble to the dubs to hit us again and then another few mins of holding us off.

The three minute the ref added, it was over at that stage tbh

Not sidestepping the duty, but as far as being a sounding board goes for the MWR listening, Dublin hating, sorrow loving, conspiracy theorist mayo fan, and again I'm not for a second saying these ppl don't exist in great numbers, I'm probably not your guy.