Latest news with #DiarmuidConnolly
Irish Daily Mirror
10 hours ago
- Politics
- Irish Daily Mirror
Diarmuid Connolly slams Parnells debacle after RTÉ Prime Time revelations
Diarmuid Connolly has blasted the Parnells controversy as going against everything that the GAA stands for and said he hopes 'justice is served'. Dublin great Connolly is disgusted that the club went into liquidation earlier this year, despite Parnells making €22m for the sale of land in 2008. "It's very sad, I live very close to the Coolock area," said the two-time All-Ireland winner. "They are the second longest serving GAA club in the capital. "Parnells always had a huge catchment area. Coolock is a massive, massive area, and it is underprivileged, so they need the outlet in the area and to do what they did is criminal." RTÉ's Prime Time this week looked into the club's fall and revealed that one players received almost €20,000 over a year and four month period for coaching, travel and subsistence, while a coach was paid almost €17,000 for travel and subsistence payments over a nine-month period. "I saw the interviews from some of those past chairmen and some of the guys on the executive, I'd like to see the 50-odd more that went through that executive and I'd like to see the minutes of the meetings," Connolly said. "To lose €22 million over the space of a decade is criminal. Somebody has to be held accountable for it. There's a lot of people have to be held accountable." Stephen Cluxton, the nine-time All-Ireland winning Dublin captain, wrote a letter to the club detailing his 'frustration at the direction in which the club was being led' and he stepped down to the second team. "They sort of ate each other from the inside out," said Connolly. "They were getting players down the country, they were giving them cars, they were giving them jobs, they were giving them accommodation, but they weren't looking after their own. "They weren't looking after their own - they were looking to win a championship with money. That is completely the wrong way to look at it, it goes against everything the GAA stands for. "I just hope justice is served. I hope Parnells can come back. They have no club, no pitch. It is a really sad state of affairs." Diarmuid Connolly was speaking exclusively to BoyleSports as a Gaelic Games ambassador ahead of the All-Ireland SFC quarter-finals.
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Conor McManus: Dublin in Croke Park used to be a death sentence. Times have changed
Dublin in Croke Park . Eleven years ago, we played them in the All-Ireland quarter-finals. They were champions and although they would lose to Donegal in the next match, they were well on the way under Jim Gavin to the team that would win six-in-a-row and become the best of all time. Malachy O'Rourke had managed us to various landmarks, an Ulster title the year before, promotion to Division One and we were going to give this our best shot. There would be no charge of the light brigade stuff and going man-to-man. The plan was to keep everything tight early on and frustrate them. Kieran Duffy was dropped back to bolster the defence. I remember nearly 25 minutes had gone by and it was 0-3 all. Dublin hadn't scored from play. We were all breathing a little bit easier, staying with them, competing. The first part of the job was done, keeping it all under control in the first quarter and for as long after as we could. Ticking along nicely. Then, the roof fell in, a six-minute blitz. Diarmuid Connolly got through for a goal. Just before that, Colin Walshe, who was our All Star corner back, did his cruciate but played on for the rest of the match and although he managed to play miraculously well despite the injury, which ruled him out for the following 12 months, it certainly didn't help us. READ MORE Within six minutes, the score had gone to 2-6 to 0-3 – 2-3 on the spin. Game over! If Dublin get a goal, the whole place just changes and they play on a gust of wind for five minutes. They're just free-flowing and the noise is there, the Hill's in full flight and they're playing off the cuff and it's very, very hard to deal with. That experience, though, was more to do with that team than the venue. It was that group of players that they had. You can't man-mark everybody. James McCarthy's giving you problems at half back; Michael Darragh Macauley midfield; Connolly and Paul Flynn in the half forwards and Bernard Brogan inside. There were too many fires to put out everywhere. If they got a run on you, you could be badly burned in a very, very short space of time. Tyrone manager Malachy O'Rourke. Photograph: INPHO/John McVitty We played other teams during my career and I always loved coming to Croke Park at the beginning of August for quarter-finals. It meant the championship was kicking off and if you weren't playing Dublin, your opponents wouldn't be any more familiar with the venue than you were. Everything is earlier these days but for next weekend's teams, it's a great opportunity. This championship is so open and the rule changes have helped create unpredictability in every match. Every one of next weekend's winners will have genuine thoughts of the All-Ireland. Malachy O'Rourke is back to play Dublin, 12 years later. He is now managing Tyrone and has one great advantage over 2013 – it's not Gavin's team he's facing. Contemporary Dublin are different. They don't have the same strength in depth and are very reliant on Con O'Callaghan , who has been battling injury. You can see why he's so important. Number one, he takes the opposition's best defender. But no matter who that is, he's also going to guarantee four or five points. And he'll link play; others will play off him and he can win ball in there. Without him, the attack's teeth just aren't as sharp. They navigated Derry with him playing, although obviously he wasn't right after the hamstring damage in Galway. If he hadn't played, would we even be talking about Dublin at this stage? Trying to overcome an injury coming into a big game can actually be an advantage. On one hand, it constantly preoccupies you with rehab work and visits to the physio. You're just thinking, 'am I going to be fit here?' But on the other hand, it takes your mind off the game. You aren't overthinking or overanalysing. It 'de-loads' you. Then all going well, once you're on the field, moving and getting involved in the play, you soon realise that you're okay. I've been impressed with how Dublin have kept going and doing enough to win. Their defence is solid enough: Brian Howard, John Small and Davey Byrne each have All Stars. So does Eoin Murchan, who's getting back into action. Cork's Paul Walsh and Peadar Ó Cofaigh Byrne of Dublin. Photograph: INPHO/James Crombie Midfield couldn't get its hands on the ball against Meath in the Leinster semi-final but there has been real improvement there. Peadar Ó Cofaigh-Byrne's performances against Galway, Derry and Cork – all well-regarded opponents – have seen him develop into one of the better players of the year in the position. Up front, though, there are questions. If O'Callaghan is ready, Pádraig Hampsey will probably pick him up. If not, the Tyrone defence will simply readjust and Hampsey will move on to Paddy Small or Cormac Costello or whoever, and the next best markers will pick up other forwards. Tyrone will be hoping that Brian Kennedy is fit because he's a good match-up in that area. If they manage to get close to their best form, they will beat Dublin but it's been an up-and-down championship so far, nearly beating Armagh when not playing that well and then going to Ballybofey and defeating Donegal. The next match, they lose to Mayo. They have the big advantage of two weeks' rest and I believe the switch to Croke Park will suit them. Darren McCurry has been very consistent but we have yet to see the best of Darragh Canavan. He's been playing well and scored five points the last day but he just hasn't just caught fire the way you would expect. Sometimes you can forget that he was part of the All-Ireland winning panel four years ago when you had to do a double take at the sight of him wearing number 18. Good weather and the surface in Croke Park can bring out the best in him but if you were Dessie Farrell, you couldn't look at Tyrone and say, 'if we stop this player or that player' we are going to win. They have been getting scores from all over the field with eight, nine, 10 scorers in different games and I think that maybe is their strength. To be fair to Dublin, they showed a decent bit of resolve against Cork last weekend and they didn't panic. They know their season is on the line here. Tyrone, though, have players, who are going well but not yet at their best. This is the place to start. This weekend, they can catapult themselves into contention for the year.
Irish Daily Mirror
20-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Daily Mirror
Dublin legend Connolly says 'massive question marks' remain despite Galway win
Diarmuid Connolly has said there are still 'massive question marks' around Dublin as he challenged them to back up their Galway win. After a shock defeat to Meath last month, their first in the Leinster Championship for 15 years, the Dubs got their season back on track with a stirring one-point victory in Salthill against Padraic Joyce's fancied side. It makes Group 4 all the more interesting as champions Armagh open their All-Ireland series at home to Derry on Saturday before tackling Dublin at Croke Park eight days later. "For their own campaign this year, if they have ambitions to go on and win Sam Maguire, this needs to be a statement game for them,' said Connolly of the Armagh visit. 'They need to put back-to-back results together. Even if they don't get the win, they need to put a performance together and then they'll know exactly where they're at going forward. 'Derry are a little bit of an unknown. We haven't seen them in a good few weeks. But what I've been hearing on the ground is that they're playing a lot of friendlies, they're putting it up to big teams in these friendlies and we know the personnel they have. 'Dublin didn't want to have two losses in the first two games and then go up to Derry looking for a result to get a preliminary quarter-final. It's a great start but there has to be more to come." What the Galway game has proved is that Dublin clearly still have what it takes to mix it with the best sides on their day but to win an All-Ireland they'll need to produce a series of performances of that standard and higher. And, Connolly says, they still have to prove that they can do that. 'Yeah, it's an unknown, it's an absolute unknown for Dublin. We don't know whether they can put back-to-back performances together. We haven't seen it over the last three or four years. 'Yeah, good performance on Saturday against Galway, but if they don't back it up in two weeks' time, then there'll be still huge question marks about them. 'I think that win will get them a quarter-final, but again, three games from there can make or break your season. 'There would be massive question marks for me whether Dublin can put three back-to-back performances together, but that's the challenge they have, I suppose, and hopefully we can see one or two of these guys that are on the fringe make themselves household names over the summer.' A number of the established stars, and Ciaran Kilkenny in particular, were central to last weekend's result, with some even labelling it as the 31-year-old's best ever performance for Dublin, though BoyleSports ambassador Connolly stopped just short of that. "Certainly leadership-wise, yeah. I suppose a lot of the ball goes through Ciarán when he does play. But it's not the balls that he had in his hands, it was the stuff he did off the ball for me that was huge. 'I remember with 50-odd minutes on the clock, Shane Walsh gets a ball up on the wing and he's the first man to make contact with him. He pushed him out over the line and won the ball back for Dublin. And in that subsequent play, he went up and kicked a score. 'That's huge. The energy a turnover gives your team is massive but then to get up the field and kick the ball over the bar in the same play was unbelievable. 'It probably wasn't his best game for Dublin as in skill-wise or even possession-wise, but his overall leadership was absolutely second to none really and it gave Dublin the impetus to go after Galway. 'He was probably the second tackle in on all their big plays. Cillian McDaid gets the ball, he gets stopped up, Ciarán's coming in with the second-man tackle in nearly every play in that game. He was everywhere. So from a leadership point of view, he was immense.' Kilkenny's form had been questionable, particularly against Meath, though Connolly said that 'certainly based on the performance on Saturday, there's no decline'. He added: 'It's very hard to get up for a game down in Wicklow too. Going down to Aughrim in the Leinster Championship, it's a different kettle of fish. 'When you know your back is up against the wall, going to Salthill for the first round of the All-Ireland Championship, it's nearly a different mindset. Everybody had bashed Dublin over the last couple of weeks and the big players will always answer those calls. 'I thought Ciarán on Saturday, it was a man-of-the match performance for Dublin, he kicked three points, led the team from start to finish. I think he'll have a lot of football to play this year.'
