Well folks, tis that time of year once more, (trying to write like LS with a rambling intro) The turf is drying well at the front of the shed, The grass only needs to be cut every 2 weeks or so, its hard to find time for a game of golf in the evening, and you find yourself going to, and coming home, from work in the dark.
Ah yes Late Autumn or is it early winter.
By the time we find excuses for Shamrocks and Rynaghs too (maybe) and what could have been, we will be faced with another league campaign approaching fast around the corner.
For clarifiction the Football league is what id like to talk about, as im not as familar as one should be with the small ball (wrong end of the county and all that ).
We stayed in Division 1 in 2005 but it was close enough at times.
My Question (after all that bullshit) is:
Will we stay there next season?
LS- what are the odds like ?
Division 1 in 2006 ?
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Lone Shark
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My honest opinion - we're odds on to be relegated, probably of the order of 4/6. This year's schedule was great - we had Kerry and Tyrone, long shots at best, and 5 winnable matches, of which four were at home. Next year we have to go to Mayo, Dublin, Cork, home to Kerry and Tyrone, and I would assume one home and one away out of Monaghan and Fermanagh. We are up against 5 All Ireland quarter finalists, and three semi finalists - and the two quarters lost to finalists also. Basically there is a case for saying we are in with every one of the top 6 in the country bar Armagh.
It's hard to see any of those being relegated, so ultimately we'll be in with Monaghan who'll be favourites for the drop and Fermanagh who'll be 50/50 with us. We'll need to either win both of those and pick a point or two up somewhere else, or win one of those and get two wins out of those five. If the schedule is nice, we'll get the Munster teams - traditionally slow starters - early on. Kerry lost to both Cork and Longford in early weeks in recent years, and could easily have only drawn with us if we'd got that penalty at the end in Tralee. What we don't want is to start with a game in Clones against a big expectant Monaghan crowd and follow that with a home game against Tyrone, leaving the Kerry match till the end when they're getting into gear.
The experience is there, which is a plus, but I expect next year's team to be very different to this year's, and as a result might take a lot of time to bed in. I'm mildly pessimistic to be honest.
It's hard to see any of those being relegated, so ultimately we'll be in with Monaghan who'll be favourites for the drop and Fermanagh who'll be 50/50 with us. We'll need to either win both of those and pick a point or two up somewhere else, or win one of those and get two wins out of those five. If the schedule is nice, we'll get the Munster teams - traditionally slow starters - early on. Kerry lost to both Cork and Longford in early weeks in recent years, and could easily have only drawn with us if we'd got that penalty at the end in Tralee. What we don't want is to start with a game in Clones against a big expectant Monaghan crowd and follow that with a home game against Tyrone, leaving the Kerry match till the end when they're getting into gear.
The experience is there, which is a plus, but I expect next year's team to be very different to this year's, and as a result might take a lot of time to bed in. I'm mildly pessimistic to be honest.
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the bare biffo
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Biff O'Mahon
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Would've thought the glass is more than half full. Any self-respecting county would prefer to test themselves against the best teams in the country.
My opinion would be that there is so much to learn from playing against good teams - where there's hard work to be done all over the pitch, against tight defenses and strong attacks. I would hope that the tough tests will serve the county well in next years championship. Better to play the big teams in the league than championship.
Yep, we'll most likely lose more than we'll win. We could be capable of pulling a surprise over one of the front runners, but even if lose against all the big teams but learn from it - it would be worthwhile. We might not realise how beneficial the league campaign will be until we end up facing the Carlows, Louths and Wicklows etc in next years Leinster championship. (well, hopefully more than this year anyway!)
We'd be moaning if we were in a lower division!
My opinion would be that there is so much to learn from playing against good teams - where there's hard work to be done all over the pitch, against tight defenses and strong attacks. I would hope that the tough tests will serve the county well in next years championship. Better to play the big teams in the league than championship.
Yep, we'll most likely lose more than we'll win. We could be capable of pulling a surprise over one of the front runners, but even if lose against all the big teams but learn from it - it would be worthwhile. We might not realise how beneficial the league campaign will be until we end up facing the Carlows, Louths and Wicklows etc in next years Leinster championship. (well, hopefully more than this year anyway!)
We'd be moaning if we were in a lower division!
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Lone Shark
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Don't misunderstand me - we are a lot better off in the top flight. It will ask a lot more of us, and my only concern is that we don't really get the chance to try out lads at any stage, since we'll have to be hell for leather from the off to avoid relegation. It's just that the question was put what were our chances of survival - and I'd put them at a little under 50%, but not much under. Doesn't mean we're not still a lot better off.