Con Guiney's Its Playtime wins Novice 2 525 heat in some style at Tralee greyhound track
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Irish Daily Mirror
22 minutes ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Player dropped by Jim McGuinness questions his All-Ireland final tactics
Jim McGuinness's approach to last weekend's All-Ireland final has been questioned by former Donegal player Kevin Cassidy. Kerry cruised to a 1-26 to 0-19 victory against Donegal at Croke Park and a post-mortem into what went wrong for McGuinness' side has been ongoing over the past few days. Pat Spillane has claimed McGuinness' record in big matches "is not good", with Cassidy questioning the tactics deployed by the Donegal manager. The Gaoth Dobhair man had suggested prior to the game that Donegal should double mark David Clifford or focus on Paudie Clifford or Sean O'Shea rather than zonally defend. "Only Jim knows why he didn't take that approach," Cassidy, who was removed from the Donegal panel by McGuinness in 2011 following a dispute over an interview, said in Gaelic Life. "Paudie [Clifford] had 76 possessions, scored three points and I think he had his hand in at least eight more. Seán O'Shea also contributed heavily on the scoreboard, kicking some very important points. "Obviously we are not privy to what goes on behind closed doors, but to not double-team David Clifford or go after the two lads mentioned seemed very strange. "It would have been hard to do both but at the very least we should have gone after either David or the two boys, but we just stuck to our zonal marking."
Irish Daily Mirror
22 minutes ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Munster GAA's football championship seeding decision 'indefensible' and 'unjust'
Clare chairman Kieran Keating has hit out at the decision to seed next year's Munster Football Championship - and hinted that they may appeal the surprise move. The new format will see the two highest placed Munster sides in the 2025 National Football League - Kerry and Cork - on opposite sides of the draw for the 2026 provincial championship. But bizarrely, with the provincial draws taking place this Autumn, it's the final 2025 league placings that will determine the seedings for the 2026 Munster Championship - even though the 2026 league will have taken place in the meantime. This one could have a distance to run yet with likely grounds for a county to go to the Central Appeals Committee (CAC) and even to the Disputes Resolution Authority (DRA). The move, which was agreed for a three year term, is being viewed in some quarters as an attempt to make sure that Cork are in the Munster Final for financial and competitive reasons. Kerry have beaten Clare in the last three Munster Finals by an average of almost 11 points, with little doubt that they had more gears to run up through in the last two deciders. Cork and Kerry also draw a bigger crowd, whether the game is in Killarney or at Pairc Ui Chaoimh, swelling Munster GAA coffers further. The move is significant as it makes it much more difficult for Clare, Tipperary, Limerick and Waterford to make a Munster Final. A Munster Final place guarantees not only one of the 16 All-Ireland spots on offer, but also a first or second seeding in the group. By avoiding Cork and Kerry in Munster in 2024 and 2025 - having beaten Cork in the 2023 quarter-final - Clare benefitted from an unfair and imbalanced system, as they made the All-Ireland group stages for three years in a row. In two of these seasons they were a Division 3 side. This year they got to the Munster Final by defeating just Tipperary, before shipping an 11 point loss to Kerry. For Donegal or Derry to secure one of the top two seedings in Ulster, as it emerged, they would have had to beat each other, Monaghan, Down and Armagh. Clare GAA claim that Limerick voted for the move last night, after having a counter proposal to delay the vote shot down. Waterford, Tipperary and Clare voted against it, while the Munster GAA Management Committee voted for it on block. Limerick won this year's Division 4 title, earning promotion to Division 3, and were beaten in the Tailteann Cup Final. It's surprising that they would vote against the proposal, as while it doesn't close the door for them to make the All-Ireland through the provincials, it makes it a lot more difficult, as they'll have to beat Kerry or Cork. Clare Chairman Keating described Munster GAA's move as 'a bit unjust and indefensible' and said that the Banner were the big losers and Cork 'the big winners.' The sequencing of the events is the strangest part of the move though, with the Munster seedings not based on the most recent league placings available. 'It's disappointing that it's been introduced now in this sort of short order based on positions in a league that's already finished before the decision was arrived at,' Keating told Clare FM. 'That's rather unjust and indefensible, really. You know that there's certainly an injustice in that as we would see it anyway and I think as any right-minded person would see it. 'We'd argue that Cork's record against Kerry is comparable to ours over the last decade or so. 'We're obviously disappointed now that when Cork are in a slightly better position than us that they've started taking advantage.' Keating continued: 'The Limerick situation was disappointing as well because our understanding was that the management of the Limerick senior football team and the players were against the motion yet their delegate last night voted in favour of it. 'That's probably their business at this stage to figure that one out but at the end of the day we were defeated because we didn't have the Limerick support.' 'Other than Kerry, I think Limerick are the most improved team in Munster this year and it's surprising to see that they went down that road.' An appeal could well be on the cards and this is one that might even end up at the Disputes Resolution Authority (DRA). 'There's no point in appealing something unless you have grounds that you can win on,' said Keating. 'It's foolish to go taking on something like that without having clear rules to win an appeal, so that's obviously what we'd consider now.'
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
Donegal were staggeringly flat – they never laid a hand on Kerry
Kerry get to spend the winter celebrating with Sam Maguire while Donegal get to spend the winter harbouring All-Ireland final regrets. A first for neither. Kerry were hugely impressive last Sunday – from the very start they seized control of the game. Few could have foreseen a sense of inevitability falling over this final after as little as 12 minutes, when Kerry led 0-10 to 0-3, but that is exactly what transpired. Donegal were so flat, they never laid a hand on Kerry. It was quite staggering to watch in terms of just how passive they were by allowing the opposition to play with oceans of space and time on the ball. Donegal stringently stuck to their game plan but it was quite clear from early on it wasn't working and something needed to change. But it never did. That's what will be most disappointing from a Donegal management's perspective: they didn't really act. READ MORE Nothing is left to chance on All-Ireland final day so you can be sure both Jack O'Connor and Jim McGuinness had mapped out a detailed plan for their teams. There has been a lot of debate over Donegal's decision to leave the prematch parade early, but I don't think it had an impact either way on the outcome of the game. If you want to manipulate those events to be mind games, you can use them in that context. The outcome determines the narrative – if Donegal broke form the parade early, started the game well and proceeded to win the All-Ireland, then the spin would perhaps have been that they'd gained a psychological edge on Kerry by doing so. Personally, I wouldn't labour much on what teams do before or after games. All that matters is what they do once the whistle is blown. Ultimately, nobody kicked a point during the parade. But Kerry kicked one after 12 seconds of the start – that's how you influence a game, that's how you lay down a marker, that's how you go about winning All-Ireland finals. At the start of both the first and second half Kerry got scores from training-ground moves, with Gavin White central. Ciarán Thompson was caught at the start of the game as White put on the burners and accelerated from the centre back position just as the ball was thrown in. The Kerry captain was brilliantly positioned to take the knock-down and immediately Donegal were on the back foot. Kerry's Paudie Clifford's 76 possessions with zero turnovers is a remarkable achievement for a player. Photograph: Bryan Keane/Inpho Seconds later Dylan Geaney, in his first final, kicked the game's opening score, a huge confidence boost for him personally and also an ideal start for Kerry. For Donegal to get caught with that play once was disappointing, but it happened again at the start of the second half. Only on that occasion White sped away from Ciarán Moore to take the knock-down from the throw-in. It all reminded me of Eoin Murchan's goal at the start of the second half in the 2019 All-Ireland final replay against Kerry. When a set-play like that comes off, it gives a team such energy and confidence. It reinforces everything; 'We set out with the intention of doing this and we carried it out straight away'. It lends itself to a group gaining momentum and delivering a performance. Kerry just implemented their game plan to perfection, whereas Donegal huffed and puffed but mostly let the match be played on Kerry's terms. Donegal's game plan needed to have more flexibility. It seems strange there wasn't a willingness to change. There was instead almost a stubborn insistence that 'we're going to stick to this plan no matter what'. Paudie Clifford's 76 possessions with zero turnovers is a remarkable achievement for a player, but it also raises questions of the opposition and how they allowed him so much time and space on the ball. You must have a Plan A and a Plan B. Several times over the years, particularly against Mayo, we had to change to Plan B when something wasn't working. There would have been matchups we'd have looked to switch mid-game or an alteration to our kick-out strategy, all possible eventualities you would have prepared for in advance. Donegal, for some reason, refused to change. Now, you do need to have conviction in your game plan and confidence it will eventually come right. But at the same time there has to come a point when you accept it isn't really working. At half-time Donegal would have had all the stats at their disposal. They were seven points down and the stats would have confirmed what the naked eye could see in terms of who was doing the most damage. But it seems they chose not to use that information to change what they were doing, which was most surprising. Kerry's Mark O'Shea celebrates at the final whistle. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho They did bring on Hugh McFadden at the break but the zonal defensive system remained in place. Nothing really changed. Late in the second half it appeared Donegal finally decided to push up man-to-man, but by that stage the game was long up, they didn't have enough time to wrestle it back. If you build an early lead with these new rules then it is possible to almost control the game from there and Kerry were helped in that regard by Donegal's approach of sitting in and not putting pressure on the ball. Crucially, Kerry were hungrier on breaking ball too, their positioning was exceptional on kick-outs and their work rate all over the pitch was superb. Their defensive system probably went a little bit unnoticed throughout the year but they defended really well last weekend, and all over the pitch their big players performed when they were needed most. The age profile of this Kerry team is quite good and you'd imagine players such as David Clifford and Seán O'Shea are only approaching the peak of their powers. It should be remembered, too, that Kerry also won the All-Ireland essentially without Diarmuid O'Connor and Tom O'Sullivan. People had questioned Kerry's midfield but they must be given huge credit for their part in nullifying three of the best goalkeepers in the game from the quarter-final onwards – Ethan Rafferty, Niall Morgan and Shaun Patton. The injuries had the unintended consequence of allowing unheralded players such as Seán O'Brien and Mark O'Shea to get a run of games in the middle of the field, and they really grew in confidence over the summer. It was noticeable to hear several of the Kerry players last Sunday evening talking about how they had felt disrespected this season. A lot of the criticism was coming from their own, which does hurt. It stings a lot more when it's your own people writing you off and it certainly does put fire in the belly. They won't be able to harness that as a motivating factor next year, though, because once again Kerry will be the hunted. For Donegal, there are still lots of positives for them to take from the season, but just like in 2014, their All-Ireland final display won't be one of them. From the moment White collected the ball from the throw-in last Sunday, a window was shoved open to show us how the season was going to end. It was going to be Kerry's day. And Kerry's year.
