Latest news with #TheSaturdayGame
RTÉ News
28-06-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
The Saturday Game verdict on Meath v Galway and Armagh v Kerry
Conor McManus and Enda Smith were in agreement on which teams would progress to the All-Ireland SFC semi-finals when they previewed Sunday's action at Croke Park on The Saturday Game. Meath and Galway do battle in the first encounter in Sunday's double-header at headquarters. "It's hard to look past Galway," McManus opined. "They have been under the cosh in quite a few games, have been on the brink of exit. "Nobody has managed to put them out and I think that will make them stronger. "They have been in big games in the latter end of the All-Ireland series in recent years. "They are very hard to beat. The team that beats Galway will have a day's work over them. You would have to fancy Galway." Smith said "Meath have shown great signs of progression throughout the year. If they do lose, it's hard to know whether it will be a positive year for them. They beat Dublin and Kerry but they will look at the Leinster final as the one that got away. "Across the pitch you look at Ruairí Kinsella, James Conlon and Matthew Costello, they have been chipping in with huge scores all year. "They will be a test for Galway but I do see Galway pulling through." Conor McManus and Enda Smith give their verdicts on Meath v Galway and Armagh v Kerry. Follow the action from 1.15pm on Sunday on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player and listen to commentaries on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1. — The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) June 28, 2025 Armagh v Kerry is the main event for most neutrals and the Roscommon player said: "It's hard to know where Kerry are at, even coming up to a quarter-final stage. "They had a comfortable win last weekend against Cavan, but Armagh so far this year have looked every inch All-Ireland champions. "They've worn that badge of honour throughout the year. They've looked strong and they've added more players to the strength in depth that they already had. "Even losing Rian O'Neill at the start of the year, and I know he's come back in, but they have looked really strong and it is hard to look beyond them with Kerry's injuries and the way Armagh are going at the moment." McManus, while wary of the Kingdom's attacking talent, also came down on the side of the Orchard County, saying: "You can't discount a team that have the two Cliffords and Seanie O'Shea; you simply can't. So, yes, they certainly have a chance. "But it's around midfield that you'd imagine they are going to struggle. "Diarmuid O'Connor is a huge loss and just the form that Armagh have been in all year probably edges them ahead of Kerry at the minute. "Stefan Campbell not being available to Armagh is definitely a loss. His impact off the bench is nearly guaranteed at this stage. Every day he comes on, he gives you one or two scores; he's setting up scores. "For them not to have him to call on in the last 20-25 minutes is definitely a loss to Armagh, but still, you'd imagine Armagh will shade this one." Watch two All-Ireland Football Championship quarter-finals, Meath v Galway and Armagh v Kerry, from 1.15pm on Sunday on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on and the RTÉ News app. Listen to commentaries on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1. Watch highlights on The Sunday Game at 10.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player.
RTÉ News
27-06-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Davy Burke steps down as Roscommon manager
Davy Burke has opted to vacate the Roscommon hot seat after the conclusion of his three-year term as manager of the county's senior inter-county footballers. Burke, who became the youngest inter-county manager in history when he took the reigns at Wicklow as a 31-year-old in 2019, succeeded Anthony Cunningham as Rossies boss in October 2022. Confey native Burke also led his native Kildare to All-Ireland Under-20 glory in 2018. Roscommon bowed out of last year's All-Ireland at the quarter-final stage to eventual champions Armagh and, after sealing promotion from Division 2 in the league, failed to reach the All-Ireland series this year. In a statement released via Roscommon GAA, Burke said: After careful consideration, I have decided to step down as Roscommon senior football manager, bringing an end to my three-year term. "I would like to thank the Roscommon County Board, in particular county chairperson Brian Carroll for his unwavering support and loyalty through the highs and lows over the last three years. I appreciated it more than you will know." Brian Carroll said of the departing Burke: "I have witnessed first hand the effort, dedication and commitment Davy has put in since his appointment in October 2022. "I want to thank Davy most sincerely for everything he has done for Roscommon GAA. "We have had highs and lows over the three years but Davy's ambitions and goals for our players, supporters and our county was always to be the very best we could possibly be." Follow a live blog on the All-Ireland Football Championship quarter-finals on Saturday on and the RTÉ News app. Listen to commentaries on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1. Watch highlights on The Saturday Game at 9.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Watch two All-Ireland Football Championship quarter-finals, Meath v Galway and Armagh v Kerry, from 1.15pm on Sunday on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on and the RTÉ News app. Listen to commentaries on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1. Watch highlights on The Sunday Game at 10.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player.
The 42
27-06-2025
- Sport
- The 42
'He's a different player' - The late developer that has provided Dublin's midfield solution
A CROKE PARK press box conversation midway through the second half of Dublin's win over Cork last Saturday, when the Dubs were a point down and taking on water. 'Which of the golden era performers would you take back, if you could have just one? Which of Dublin's former stars would make the most difference if slotted back into this current, stuttering, side?' Jack McCaffrey's jet heels from wing-back or James McCarthy's bulldozing power and surgeon's touch around the middle would certainly help. As would Michael Fitzsimons' defensive miserliness or Paul Mannion's rapier instincts closer to goal at the opposite end. All four of them retired after last year's championship while Dean Rock walked away 12 months earlier. The options are endless, right back to talisman performers like Paul Flynn, Bernard Brogan or Michael Darragh Macauley, who operated as recently as 2019. The answer everyone settled on? Brian Fenton. On the basis that the midfielder of his generation was so good, and so impactful, in such a central position, that he could immediately transform a team's fortunes. This Sunday is the one year anniversary of Fenton's last game for Dublin, alongside McCarthy at midfield, when they lost to Galway in the 2024 All-Ireland quarter-finals. But wait! There's a strong final 15 minutes from Dublin against Cork and ultimately a three-point win which wouldn't have been possible without the interventions of Peadar Ó Cofaigh Byrne, Fenton's replacement. Paddy Small was named man-of-the-match afterwards but O Cofaigh Byrne should have been. He's not the new Fenton, as Flynn pointed out on The Saturday Game that evening. 'He's a different player,' said Flynn. Cork's Colm O'Callaghan and Peadar Ó Cofaigh Byrne of Dublin in action last Saturday. James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO But he's making a good effort all the same at plugging the gaping hole left by, perhaps, the game's greatest ever midfielder. Advertisement It's already a different game too, from when Fenton played, with a strong emphasis on ball-winning ability at midfield this year, the one area where Ó Cofaigh Byrne may even trump the Raheny great. Six-foot-seven inch Cuala powerhouse Ó Cofaigh Byrne tortured Cork with his aerial ability. And it was the 25-year-old that won the free which created the opening for Brian Howard's goal. 'We just need him to win primary possession and lay it off, and that's what he's doing, and he's doing it better than anybody else in the country,' said Flynn. One analysis piece produced on Ó Cofaigh Byrne's impact prior to Dublin's fourth game of this year's championship, against Armagh, showed he had won primary possession and come away with the ball from 50 percent of the aerial contests he'd been involved in. That lord-of-the-skies ability helped propel Cuala to an All-Ireland club SFC title win that last January that nobody saw coming. Peadar Ó Cofaigh Byrne celebrating Cuala's All-Ireland club final win. Bryan Keane / INPHO Bryan Keane / INPHO / INPHO And it is the sort of form which could very soon have people picking someone other than Fenton when considering which ex-Dublin star they'd like to pluck from retirement. Fenton came late to the Dublin party, in 2015, with no great underage career to speak of, complimenting the skills of MacAuley, the 2013 Footballer of the Year, at the time. Prior to that, Ciaran Whelan had stoked the fires in the Dublin engine room. Ó Cofaigh Byrne has had to bide his time too but now looks set to be the county's latest midfield totem. The son of TV presenter Blathnaid Ni Chofaigh made his Dublin senior debut as a sub in the 2019 Super 8s game against Tyrone. But a combination of hamstring and groin problems in 2020 and 2022, allied to the enduring excellence of Fenton and McCarthy, restricted him to just four more championship appearances, and only two starts, across the next five seasons. For three of those championship campaigns – 2020, 2022 and 2023 – O Cofaigh Byrne didn't feature at all. It wasn't until Fenton and McCarthy exited the stage that opportunity suddenly came knocking for him. 'It is an opportunity, definitely,' said Ó Cofaigh Byrne last January. 'But they are 100 percent tough boots to fill, James and Brian's.' After returning late to Dublin duty following the club success, Ó Cofaigh Byrne has started the last seven games, and all five in the championship. The standard is about to jump significantly with he and Ciaran Kilkenny set to go up against Tyrone's 2021 All-Ireland winning midfield pairing this Saturday evening; Brian Kennedy and Conn Kilpatrick. Tyrone's Brian Kennedy with Dara McVeety and Cormac O'Reilly of Cavan. Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO The expectation is that Ó Cofaigh Byrne will go head to head with Kennedy, who is also six-foot-seven. Former Tyrone midfielder Sean Cavanagh met Kennedy at a game in Moy recently and found himself looking up to the 2021 All-Star when speaking to him. 'Ó Cofaigh Byrne is a good player, don't get me wrong, but I think if you stand beside Brian Kennedy, you'll realise that he'll not be overawed by the size of anyone,' said Cavanagh. 'Unless they've Shaquille O'Neal playing for Dublin on Saturday night, I don't think it's going to annoy him!' Dublin great Barney Rock summarised the modern game, as in football under the new rules, as 'all about the break around the midfield'. He has been impressed so far by trainee solicitor Ó Cofaigh Byrne's impressive numbers around clean fetches and breaking ball. But there is a but. 'Ó Cofaigh Byrne now is going to be meeting somebody equally as tall as him from here on in,' noted Rock. Fenton always rose to that challenge and Ó Cofaigh Byrne has suggested so far that he can too.
RTÉ News
26-06-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
All-Ireland SFC semi-final draw live on The Sunday Game
The draw for this year's All-Ireland SFC semi-finals will take place on The Sunday Game Live show after the clash between Armagh and Kerry. Both of Sunday's quarter-finals, Meath and Galway (1.45pm) and Armagh v Kerry (4pm) will be live on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player with coverage starting at 1.15pm. The draw for the semi-final will follow the Armagh and Kerry encounter. On Saturday Monaghan take on Donegal and Tyrone face Dublin in the two other quarter-finals. Highlights of those games will be on The Saturday Game at 9:45pm, with live radio commentary on RTÉ Radio 1 and updates on The GAA have confirmed that semi-final draw will be structured to avoid all repeat pairings from this year's championship. Unlike the quarter-finals draw where only All-Ireland group match-ups and provincial final line-ups were avoided, the semi-final draw will be set up to prevent any repeat pairing where possible. Dublin could not play Meath, for example, with the two having previously met in the Leinster SFC semi-final, nor could Armagh be drawn against Galway after the two sides met in the round-robin phase.
RTÉ News
24-06-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Shane McGrath: Chris Crummey appeal would be a waste of time
RTÉ hurling analyst Shane McGrath has said that he feels any potential Dublin appeal over Chris Crummey's red card against Limerick has no chance of success. The player was sent off after 15 minutes of his side's famous win at Croke Park, and while it is yet to be confirmed whether Dublin will appeal or not, McGrath can't see the Lucan man appearing in the All-Ireland semi-final against Cork. While there has been no argument about Crummey's raised elbow, there's been debate over the level of contact with Gearoid Hegarty with Liam Rushe saying "I'd question how much (contact), how physical that is" on The Saturday Game. "He's not playing in the semi-final," McGrath said on the RTÉ GAA podcast. "I'd be contradicting myself if I said he should get away with it when I was saying during the league that these head high tackles (need to stop). "I suppose you're putting yourself in a situation that you don't want to. "It was just a moment thing. As soon as the elbow went up, no more so than when Darragh McCarthy's hurley went up against Cork, he was getting sent off." On the game itself, Walsh felt that the boon of such a victory is almost immeasurable when it comes to promoting hurling in the capital. "It's ten years of development in one match," he said. "You could have the next 10 years going around to schools and going around clubs in Dublin and asking people to get into hurling, and what you had there on Saturday was that rolled into one. "Imagine if Ireland went to a World Cup and knocked Brazil out in the quarter-final, everyone in the country wants to play soccer then."
