posted 28 August 2003 05:42 PM         

quote:

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Originally posted by Colombia:

Must say I’m surprised at your description of John Carroll and Paul Ormonde as “average enough hurlers”. They’re both fine players with no little skill, especially Carroll, even if his fitness problems are completely compromising his current performances.

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Carroll, of course, has the potential to be far more. But I'd have to say is aggregrate performance has been average enough. As you know, I was probably the first to query how much more top-class hurling he has in him.

Ormond is okay, I guess. To me, he lacks subtlety. Throwing the hurl was emblematic.

You would be very welcome in Ballyhale any time. Like myself, Dianaimh's mother is very sociable! Managed to bring to my Donegal friend to Mowler Gorman's and Hoyne's of Newtown. They didn't disappoint. So we would put up a right social roster for ye!

posted 28 August 2003 05:44 PM         

quote:

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Originally posted by Hattons Grace:
Arrigle,

Well done , class post.

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Thanks, HG (and for everyone else's kind words).

posted 28 August 2003 05:55 PM         

Absolutely surreal.

quote:

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Originally posted by Arrigle:
1. Ten days ago, as pleasantly hungover as I’ve ever been, I was wandering around the garden at home, entertaining my 20-month-old niece, Dianaimh. She is obsessed with insects and we had a very pleasant time watching the bees -- many of them in black-and-amber livery -- gorging themselves on the petunias. Red Admirals nearly drive her cracked.

2. There are -- if not many -- things more important than hurling. After myself, Dianaimh’s mother would probably be the most fanatical of the eight of us: about, in general, Kilkenny hurling; about, in particular, the rivalry with Tipp. A good camogie player in her day, and still a great woman to shout on a sideline, she pointblank refused to live within Co. Tipperary when her husband gave some time in a GP practice in Carrick on Suir. Although much less convenient in several ways, she insisted on decamping for the six months to outer Carrickbeg. Her husband, a Sligoman (who played for them in the Connaught C’ship), was just a bit bewildered.

Always very fond of her, this insistence endeared her to me even more -- bizarre as some will find that insistence. I hope the day will come when I’ll see their five-year-old son out in the black and amber of Lismore (and the white and blue of Waterford, maybe). He has good pedigree (and I get him, of course, tipping around out the back, to stop gripping LHOT since he’s right-handed and right-footed...). Even if their county doesn’t improve at camogie, there is high-level gaelic football for the two girls. As remarked before, I’ve come to a great liking for West Waterford.

Anyway: Sunday evening, elated at our victory, Dianaimh’s mother was driving home to Lismore, having left her three up for a few days. THEN: a drunken eejit drives straight out of a pub carpark in front of her, somewhere between Leamybrien and Cappoquin. The airbag and good decision-making saved her -- non-inevitably -- from serious harm. My blood went to proverbial cold when our mother told me on Monday afternoon, out of earshot of the older two, what had happened Sunday evening. Louder, much louder, the noise of bees.

Life is very fragile, especially in a car. August 17, 2003: could mean something far different in our family. Next time I’m there, I shall offer a prayer in Mullinakill that it doesn’t.

3. That decision to live out in Carrickbeg was, in its small way, emblematic of the relationship that has obtained between the hurling cultures of Kilkenny and Tipperary: far more ‘pride and prejudice’, there, than ‘sense and sensibility’, as Mulcair so brilliantly put it. Longer ago than I now care to remember, I promised Exile and HOH that I’d put up my own take on Tipp hurling on AFR. I haven’t done so (and my sincere thanks to those who didn’t give me a hard time about that non-show). That’s not because I lacked material. Au contraire: ferocious amount of stuff hanging in the hard-drive, bent to that topic. The admirable irrationalism of local attachments is a fascinating question, all the way from Isaiah Berlin to Babs Keating. Please accept what follows as a sort of belated delivery on that hasty promise.

4. What’s stalled me is the fact that my own attitude towards Tipp hurling has enormously changed over the twelve months or so that I’ve been contributing to GAA boards. Basically, I’ve had to invigilate my own prides and prejudices. Obviously enough, as ye’ll obviously have discerned, that reassessment has been prompted in large part by a great admiration for the knowledge and the intelligence half a dozen or so Premier contributors bring to hurling matters. Privately, several of them have been most gracious in the teeth of a terrible defeat. It’s also fair to say that Mulcair (who is Tipp to the absolute hilt, in all sorts of ways) will go down -- or so I fervently hope -- as one of the game’s great historians. I’m vain about my ability to spot excellence, whatever colours it wears. And Christy Ring was right: hurling without them is poorly clothed. If you love hurling, win or lose (and I wept bitter tears after ’91), days such as last Sunday week, as a very shrewd Tipp man said to me before the semi-final, are the days you want. A version of the sublime, I suppose. Wordsworth sums it up: “Fostered alike by beauty and by fear”.

5. The emphatic nature of our victory was important as well as pleasing -- important for future balanced debate about hurling’s future, as well. Had it been closer, there would have been talk of ‘Leinster hurling’s in-built advantage’, ‘three weeks off’, ‘Philip Maher’s injury’. All they could do, that not being the case, was drive for the exits.

While it is very difficult to envisage a goal such as Tommy Walsh’s one being scored on Maher’s watch, it is nigh impossible to imagine that Tipperary would have been good enough to do it even with Maher at no. 3. Sure enough, Paul Curran made a bad mistake for Walsh’s goal. But it is important to remember Mulcair’s argument about Galway-Tipperary in 1989: Sean Treacy was the Westerners’ best man. Likewise, Curran has been one of Tipp’s most solid performers since May. It was also good to see Eamonn Corcoran hurl -- and hurl so well -- after the extremely raw deal he received earlier in the year.

If we’d won by two points, say, then there might have been some rationale for certain patter -- ‘Leinster hurling’ and all that jezzetry (such nonsense, anyway, was scutched by the stats put up on ch.com by Lory 1 and others) -- but a 12-point defeat (that could easily have been a 20-point defeat) truncates. Sneer about Wexford, however much you like. But they could genuinely feel that 11 points flattered the Kilkenny performance

6. To their discredit (certainly as regards their credibility as hurling analysts), certain individuals came on here after the Leinster Final and spoke of Wexford as on a par with Tranmere United, Exeter City and such like. Though some of those individuals were from Co. Waterford, soccer analogies, in the wake of Wexford’s victory in Nowlan Park, were noticeably thin on that Monday’s ground. To our credit, no-one from Kilkenny came on here last week comparing Tipperary to Yeovil Town. We’ve seen the good days and the bad days. We remember what it felt like in 2001. Things can go for you on the day, as they did for us on August 17th -- and as they didn’t for our opponents. Though we are better at the moment, we are not twelve points better a team than Tipperary (I forecast a seven-point margin, egging a bit due to player-manager friction). We should know that to be the case. Hopefully, that recognition will be an important resource over the next few years: we are better than no-one unless we beat them well, such is the ever-circling scorn of ‘Leinster hurling’.

7. Had Tipp beaten us, I would have hoped they’d go all the way. That sort of shocked me about myself -- and has nothing to do with Cork’s tilt of 28 titles. That’s to do with grappling with Mulcair’s fundamental point: there are no two counties more alike than Kilkenny and Tipperary. Also, Cork’s preening this summer has really got on my wits.

8. Why do people so dislike Tipperary and Tipperary hurling? That’s the core point and the one that gets backs up. I mean: in comparison to Cork hurling and Kilkenny hurling. I mean: in comparison to Kilkenny hurling, in particular. I’ve thought about this issue a lot, especially after I was a bit too quick to promise (and to repromise) that AFR post. Until I went to England, I thought intense dislike of Tipperary was a Kilkenny thing (most of my friends in UCD weren’t GAA people -- though dislike of Tipp was certainly evident in UCG). Then, going into Setanta pubs and so on, I found that Tipp hurling was intensely disliked by lads from Donegal as well as by lads from Galway. You will find no stronger admirers of Kilkenny hurling, by the way, than the Connemara men.

9. It has to be the followers, since Tipperary is a great republican county and should naturally, on that foot alone, be a delight in GAA circles (much of Kerry’s pan-appeal, I suspect, derives from the ‘Munster Republic’ ticket): “Bad losers and worse winners”, as the father says (though that has changed a good bit post-’87, I’d say: certainly, young Cork fans seem to covet the mantle of overbearing conceit). Colombia rather than David Trimble is probably representative now (though Trimble hasn’t gone away, you know).

10. Still, I remember the League quarter-final in ’94, when Pat O’Neill first evinced what was to become of his ‘career’. Michael Cleary was standing over a 65, the game well won. Arsa a Tipp lad in his fifties, beside me: “Puck it wide Cleary! Puck it wide, and don’t be humiliating them altogether!” I’ve never come across that vein in so embedded a fashion in any other county. It is very unattractive. When I lived in Galway for a spell, a couple of years before that match, I once, blitzed one night, downstairs in The Castle, hooked up with a very fetching wan from Golden or thereabouts: she just came over and presented me with a purple lollipop. Back in Corrib Village, I noticed she had a Tipp jersey on the wardrobe door: a first cousin had played U21. I made her put it on when she’d taken everything else off. She didn’t demur. And so I will always associate the number 12 with Galway’s particular pleasures.

11. It was remarkable to read the comments after the semi-final of Gunther -- an admirable admirer of Coreahln -- in this regard. “Why are people grudgeful?”: so Mark E. Smith has it. Equally: why do people so hate Tipp? It can’t be the clamour of success, really, this long time. My own place has been much the most successful hurling county in the lifetime of the vast majority of people who use this board. Kinvara’s Passion started a thread just after last Christmas about the popularity of individual counties. It was remarkable how well Kilkenny fared by comparison with Tipperary and Cork. Why so?

12. I’m not bringing up these thematics so as to snig. One time, I admit, that would have been a strong impulse. It must be the followers -- and the ghosts given voice through them. One recent contributor on PVDF -- with whom I have no personal beef whatsoever: better out than in, as I’ve long said, about controversial posts -- laments the fact that Tommy Walsh and Eddie Brennan weren’t at least “timbered” on August 17th. Better to go down with two men sent off, festooned with the pleasure of watching impotent bullying (who in the current Tipp backs would risk timber -- or would desire to essay timber to anyone, in fairness? -- with Henry, Dougal or Gorta? answers on a postcard to Holycross...). That would be more echt Tipp -- or so it goes from one of their own.

13. I made some loose remarks during the summer and was, correctly, pulled up on them. So it seems to me that when Tipperary folk wonder about their hurling’s lack of popularity, they have to ponder the acceptability in their culture of remarks -- no Tipp man had objected to it, last time I looked -- such as the one noted above. Did anyone come on a GAA board after Galway beat us fair and square in 2001 and regret that Kevin Broderick didn’t receive a few right flakes, once the game was definitely lost? In fact, a Williamstown friend of mine says his admiration for Kilkenny hurling went up tenfold when Eamonn Kennedy didn’t crease Broderick -- as he so easily could have done -- and Broderick doing his showboating ‘flick over the head’-type stuff. That’s not to say the current Kilkenny team, as Mulcair notes in his end-of-term report, is shy of using the the physical side of things. Not at all: which is obviously occasioning highly complicated feelings in Tipperary circles.

14. Sean O’Faolain wrote in THE IRISH (1947) of the near singular culture to be found in Co. Kilkenny, especially in the Nore and Barrow Valleys. Here, beneficially, the Norman influence most sweetly flowered: “In such counties as Kilkenny, where this influence lasted long and was least disturbed, even by the disastrous upheaval of the Reformation, the very nature of the people is patently different to that of the contiguous county of Tipperary.” Tony O’Malley, one of Kilkenny hurling’s great followers, used speak of the county’s fundamental attraction as a legacy of its amalgam of Norman and Gael. Kilkenny people, it seems to me, and especially South Kilkenny people, are fierce easy-going. Possibly, that’s the convergence of cultures. You have the obvious Norman cast of an environs like Kells. Then there is the Gaelicist overlay of parishes such as Tullogher-Rosbercon and Mullinavat, places amongst the last in which Gaelic was spoken in Leinster. Often enough, I have coveted the sort of ruthlessness that ushered Tipperary hurling to its greatest days, doubting, at least so far as hurling is concerned, the Norman finesse. The 1964 A-I Final was closer than people now think. It was simply that, once Ollie made a key mistake, spooning a ball into the net, Tipp, in the specific shape of Donie Nealon, put them to the sword. There will, I suspect, be no greater admirers to be found than in Mid Tipp, however hunched and silent their demeanour, of Kilkenny’s ruthlessness on August 17, 2003.

15. It is -- needless to say, I hope -- very much to Tipperary’s credit that they didn’t ‘lower the blade’ when the game had gone away from them last Sunday week. We’ve seen other counties go that road in the not-so-distant past. Their refusal, of course, is in large part a legacy of Babs Keating’s reign: ‘the five Ss’. Fair play, in all senses. And no serious Premier follower, while they obviously should be concerned at the near ubiquitous implosion of team-spirit, should lament the passing of any such imperative or any such individual impulse. Ye had to drop Sharkey to win an A-I.

16. Always the stock dig at Tipp, of course: systematic dirt. I was reared on that shovel. A few months ago, I had the great pleasue of spending some hours in Tony Wall’s company. He is an enormously impressive individual and it was very easy to see how he became Paddy Leahy’s righthand man. Now, you would have to take seriously someone like Ned Power, especially at the remove of four decades on, still wishing to deem John Doyle et al. “amateur terrorists”. It’s an extraordinary phrase. Nor can Power’s assessment be deemed sour grapes, the bitterness of someone who never saw his team defeat Tipperary in the C’ship.

I’ve no doubt that Tipperary teams in their classic era, especially in the fullback line, were fearsome in the physical stakes. Wall named a Sarsfields and Premier colleague of his as the dirtiest man, in his opinion, he ever saw play. Yet the same man was never even booked once in his career and was a gentleman off the field.

Wall made a very coherent point to me about Tipp’s supposedly unsavoury tactics (he raised the topic, since it obviously still irked him): if Tipperary were so dirty, why did they concede so few frees?. The Munster Final of 1963 aside, this observation, so far as I am aware, is a fair one. In fact, he told me that their gameplan for the ’64 A-I Final was very straightforward: deny Eddie Keher the sort of opportunities from placed balls Waterford had gifted him the year before. That gameplan certainly succeeded. Furthermore, Mick Burns -- who was, as Wall pointed out, conceding over a stone in weight to his immediate opponent -- hardly gave Keher a puck.

Tipperary weren’t angels, by any manner of means. Yet they weren’t the only ones. As a young fella of eleven or so, I remember the father telling me of a time he gave working in Dunmore East. Babs Keating arrived in to them one day in the lorry. Talk, of course, turned to hurling. After a bit, Babs lifted up his shirt to show them how, in a recent League match, Pa Dillon had absolutely scurged him with the handle of the hurl. I’ve always found that a haunting moment.

Probably, in fairness, a lot of animus against Tipperary on the basis of their supposed unsavoury tactics issues from a simple fact: success. If Kilkenny had won 5 titles in 8 years (and it could easily have been a greater haul still), what would be said of them? Certainly, the ’63 fullback line of Fan Larkin, Cha Whelan and Martin Treacy wasn’t there for the elan and panache of their strokeplay. Equally, people love to sneer about Tipp going out of it when ‘hurling with helmets’ came into it. But how do we account for Wexford’s slump? From what I’ve heard, Keher preferred to play Premier backs than to encounter some of the Model boys. Also, who could forget the cowardly blow Pat Delaney received in the 1969 A-I Final?

It must be the followers, so.

We have so much for which to thank Fr Tommy Maher. A statue should go up in Gowran at the appropriate time. One of the main occasions of gratitude must be that, scenting the way hurling was going, Fr Tommy reorganized Kilkenny’s style of defence post-1965.

Of that period’s teams, only Waterford could claim that they tried to hurl at every point in the field.

17. What are ‘traditional’ counties for? It seems important to ask. We can’t ever claim that we are ‘due’ an All-Ireland, obviously enough. Therefore it seems to me that the so-called ‘Big Three’ should particularly look to pressing the envelope of achievement: putting things back to back, winning things in a row. To an extent, though I wouldn’t have said so at the time, it’s kind of unfortunate that Tipperary didn’t win the three-in-a-row that was within their capabilities between 1989 and 1991. The same, mutatis mutandis, could be said of Clare between 1995 and 1998 -- and to the nth degree, since such a fiat would have immediately catapulted them into a very select category (I’m mindful here, too, of Mulcair’s point about the significance of Offaly’s missed opportunity for a two-in-a-row in ’95). As a result of having to go back for a three-in-a-row to 1978 -- neolithic times, for most, it seems -- this current Kilkenny outfit’s ambitions seem stalled at a two-in-a-row. Excellence breeds excellence, even at a remove. However funny it will seem to give this opinion, Tipperary’s failure to achieve a three-in-a-row in ’91 -- along with, of course, the failure by Kilkenny to do so in ’94 -- probably hinders the ambition of current teams. Had Tipp won in 1990, it would, in a funny way, if we manage to beat Cork on September 14th, make it more rather than less likely than we’d do a three-in-a-row in 2004.

I get this way of looking at things from two factors, I think: (a) being a county boy from Ballyhale: intimate ambitions; and (b) being a devotee of Walter Benjamin’s writings: the flower that is rising in the sky of history by dint of "secret heliotropism".

18. It’s always important, especially when you win well, to look at the counter-arguments. So, at any rate, I tried to do last September in ‘The Year of the Cat’. Journalism has correctly instanced John Carroll’s poor striking when an obvious goal chance beckoned at the start of the second half. Tipp wouldn’t have won, any more than Wexford did. But he should have slotted it. It’s also fair to say that Peter Barry could have got a red card for the wild pull he drew at Conor Gleeson in the first half (drawing “smoke” out of his ankle, in Mulcair’s memorable phrase). If not malicious, it was reckless. And anything, if you’re reckless, can happen.: you must own it, in all senses. It would have been harsh for Barry to get the line -- especially after some of the uncensured swipes Darren Stamp has essayed this summer -- but it was a hinge that went our way. Equally, Eamonn Corcoran’s brilliant pass to Eoin Kelly probably deserved to end in a goal. Referees need to be consistent about these quck puck-outs.

19. August 17, 2003 must give more glory to Nicky English. It is increasingly clear, as I said a long time ago, that he extracted the maximum out of a very uneven group of players, a group in which there was a big gulf between an excellent half a dozen or so and the following ten or so. I grew up with the merit of 1963’s win being queried. Tipperary’s victory in 2001 now looks rather different for not having met us in the course of that year. However he did it, English made purses out of sows’ ears (Tom Costello, David Kennedy, Lar Corbett) and got average enough hurlers (Paul Ormond, Mark O’Leary, John Carroll, Brian O’Meara) to hurl very well. Damien Fitzhenry did them a big favour, you have to think.

20. I said privately to a Tipp acquaintance that I was sort of delighted when Michael Doyle got the manager’s job, since I reckoned it made a Premier A-I less rather than more likely. That conviction came from a number of factors. It weighed with me that Exile didn’t fancy him, having had him close at hand in Nenagh. It also seemed, from everything you heard, that his style would be very different to that of Babs and Nicky, both of whom were very much players’ men. That spelled trouble, in my book. And so it proved. It might be right or it might be wrong to take this or to to take approach with players. Pride in the jersey should be enough, as Mulcair pressed, whoever’s in charge.

End of day, though, the ne plus ultra is to get the maximum out of your players. English -- ever more clearly -- did that. Doyle hasn’t. I queried before the Clare match and before the semi-final whether the players would ‘die’ for Doyle on the pitch. They didn’t, either day. Have a look at Tommy Walsh’s goal on video. Keep your eye on the top of the screen. Look at Tommy Dunne ambling back. Look at Tommy Dunne come to a halt, whilst Eamonn Corcoran is frantically trying to intervene. Look at Dunne stand still, even though he could easily have got back to hook -- one of his great skills, after all -- Walsh’s scoring stroke.

It doesn’t seem to me that a man described in Keating’s autobiography as a reluctant trainer -- as well being fond of a drink and a heavy smoker -- is very well placed to urge anyone, least of all twenty-something hurlers, to greater efforts and sacrifices. Tellingly, Keating said that Doyle could have done a job at centreback. Informed opinion in Tipp will have read that as a subtle twist of the knife. Lack of a coherent centreback was probably the single greatest factor in that Tipperary outfit not winning more titles.

And so I say: give Mr Doyle -- who was, enjoyably, far from gracious in defeat -- three more years. Doyle, as a Bruree friend of mine would have it, very seems a one-club golfer.

21. Thomas Kuhn wrote a study called THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS (1962). The gist of this hugely influential work -- which popularized, amongst other effects, the phrase ‘paradigm-shift’ -- was that developments in science don’t follow a smooth evolutionary path. Often, they are disjunct and unanticipated. Changes, when it comes, oftten comes very quickly, if at all.

I feel that such a shift -- unanticipatable just over 12 months ago -- has now taken place between my county and its greatest rival. And I feel that the reach of that alteration was facilitated by a son of Holycross being in charge. Had we lost, it would have been all the more searing for the implicit ‘back to the future’-type aspects which would have attended the defeat -- aspects to which certain Tipp fans would not, understandably, have been slow to give explicit articulation.

22. The same, of course, is true in reverse. There were men of a certain vintage around me hoarse with shouting about 1964, 20 minutes of the second half gone. One of the brothers, sitting above me in the Upper Hogan, overheard an instructive cameo from a Kilkenny supporter of the same vintage, Tipp support driving in droves for the exits: “Close the gates! Don’t let the fcukers out! Make ’em watch it!” It was notable -- and very surprising, given the blandness with which any opinion is typically ventured in his journalism -- that John Knox revealed Paddy Prendergast’s pre-match opinion last Wednesday: Kilkenny would win easy. Another player who played in the forwards on the ’82-’83 outfit -- someone not in the slightest known for bullishness or swagger -- gave exactly the same opinion as he made his way around the county on foot of his work in the week before the game.

23. Such conviction on the part of two ex-players is very striking. It will filter down. It seems the traditional dread of Tipperary has gone, evaporate before the heat of last year’s C’ship win and this year’s League Final. The latter match was particularly important, I believe. Perception is as important as fact, having like agency. Traditionally, that was a match -- or so traditional perception, however skewed, went -- Tipp would have won: not entirely deserved, not clearly the better hurlers, but nevertheless garnering the prize through a mighty finishing kick in which mental resolve, physical power and deft skills were plaited into a noose for brittle ambition. As John Doyle said to Tom Walsh after a big turnaround in a non-C’ship encounter, unimportant save for its broadening of the pattern: “Fcuk it Walsh, ye’ll never beat us!”

24. Tipp didn’t, last Sunday week, really seem to believe that they could win. Rather like 1991 in reverse, in fact. Of the many wonderful elements which conjoined on August 17th, this is the one that pleases me most. A paradigm has shifted. That ex-player I mentioned is of the opinion that history is going to be rewritten over the next decade: we will meet Tipperary a lot (especially given the presence of the ‘backdoor’); we will, all in all, be stronger in that period; and we will, ball and ball, beat them a lot.

25. Wouldn’t go that far myself. But the fact that such an opinion occurs to a sober and knowledgeable individual speaks for itself as to the magnitude of change in Noreside mindset. I have no fear of meeting Tipperary now. Respect and worry? Yes, assuredly -- and ongoingly. But the fear -- that was worth a goal start to Tipp, I reckon -- is gone.

26. I got a certain amount of flack for holding that Offaly could beat Tipperary. Fair enough. But I think the reasons I came to that view are now rather less eccentric. Rewatching the match at home before the semi-final, I was struck by how bullish Ger Loughnane was about the Faithful’s chances. They had the personnel -- if they’d performed -- to beat Blue and Gold. Big pity, since Offaly seem to stuck in a sort of mindset about Tipperary as obtained about Kilkenny in 1979. That is one of the notable points of the summer’s hurling.

27. More specifically, regarding the players and the match:

(a) First off: James McGarry hasn’t got anything like the credit he deserves for an immaculate display. The run-up to John Hoyne’s point showed how difficult it is to control this new sliothar. Once again, McGarry was exemplary, in his unfussy way, as to control and handling. The rustiness that flecked his Leinster Final performance appears to have been flensed.

(b) Much to Michael Kavanagh’s credit, he recovered from an uneasy start, during which O’Meara troubled him in the air. His composure must be worth an awful lot to the men who hurl beside him. Earlier in the year, I broached the notion that Kilkenny’s chances of winning the A-I might be intimately linked to Kavanagh’s chances of HOTY. He wouldn’t, at the minute, be one of the real frontrunners (although: who they? 2003 is a bit like 1991: MOTM in A-I Final is likely to be HOTY). It would never be easy for a cornerback to be HOTY. With Kavanagh, however, it is still possible.

(c) Noel Hickey was indifferent to poor. That’s the truth. He was very culpable for Carroll’s goal chance, for instance, spilling a delivery he had every chance to control. I would be more worried save for the way Hickey appears to play to a contrapuntal rhythm: ropey game followed by an assured display. Also -- or at least according to Enda McEvoy’s report on the League game with Cork -- Joe Deane finds the going hard enough on the Dunnamaggin man, needing the deliveries into him “bespoke-tailored”.

(d) James Ryall wasn’t as bad in the first half as people seem to feel. Against a forward of Eoin Kelly’s brilliance, plied with high-order deliveries from his halfbacks and midfield, anyone would struggle -- particularly in their second big match. It is up to Ryall’s colleagues out the field to shield him from having to defend against quality ball. He seems a good enough stickman (and gives, if only on grounds of stature, a long-awaited second option at fullback). And it is to his credit that he improved throughout the match. That said, he did bullock one awful wide from distance in the first half when a cute low delivery was definitely the percentage ball. Not brilliant. But not a liability.

(e) Sean Dowling, in a way, is a remarkable hurler, as evidenced by the amount of two-touch hurling -- trap it on the stick and move the sliothar on without taking it to hand -- he played in the semi-final. Even Tommy Dunne, flawless of technique, would be chuffed with so frequent a recourse to that tactic. Even Gerald McCarthy would. It is an awful pity no coach took Dowling in hand as a young fella. His changing of hands on the hurl -- in no. 5 fashion (same as Paddy Mullally) -- inevitably makes you wonder what he could do if someone had insisted on the orthodoxy of technique insisted on by one of Babs Keating’s coaches. Inevitably, the attrition is on ground strokes and striking on the run. Also, watch the way he clears sliothar: very poor, as The Blues says. He’s getting away with it for the moment because of sheer physical power on the part of Hoyne and Shefflin. But watch the way the hurl seems to vibrate in his hand after the stroke: brute effort is the motor, not ease of technique. That can’t work forever.

Still, while all Dowling needs to do is fetch, make ground and clear, he’ll be reasonably okay, being a strong fetching man. Anything else, and he’s in bother. Nothing about Timmy McCarthy’s game over the last few years says he has the equipment to haunt that lax coach.

(f) Peter Barry doesn’t have much hurling. We all know that, now. He can’t even take a free. But we will never doubt his leadership and positional sense. Gleeson’s stand-up style (and fair play to Gleeson for his efforts) ultimately suits Barry, for all the hurly-burly. Gleeson will never deliver a killer goal-scoring pass, a la Joe Cooney. Niall McCarthy will be a different challenge with his running. Probably, McCarthy will do well in the first half and be substituted with 12 minutes to go. Barry will not allow McCarthy to run through him. And so a key goal is unlikely to accrue.

(g) J. J. Delaney is a class act. A blinding performance in the Final would see him a very credible contender for HOTY.

(h) Paddy Mullally did well -- very well for a man who’d been out of the intercounty frame for so long. Tasty and slick, especially with the height of his deliveries. How good would he be if he wasn’t handicapped by barked technique?

(i) Derek Lyng hit some really poor wides in the first half. But you couldn’t say he did bad. Unless the first effort goes over, however, he should pick a man in the fullforward line unless the next one is an absolute gimme. If ever there was a forward sextet that bore out the proverbial ‘Take your points and the goals will come’, it’s the current Kilkenny crowd. People queried whether he’d be that important a mover in the game due to this new sliothar making midfield still more redundant. He was, picking up broken ball around the halfback line. As I recall, the second -- and decisive -- goal came form a Lyng play. Worries about him are pretty much gone. He just needs to up his decision-making on the ball.

(j) Absolutely correct call to put Henry on Paul Kelly: stickin out. Bad wides, of course, which is sort of baffling. Again, however, was involved in lots of decisive things. Seems to be building up to something. Hurling very much within himself, which is sort of terrifying. Must buck up, even though he has scored a goal a game this season.

(k) “BIG JOHN HOYNE!”: so roared Barrie Henriques, as replayed on Radio Kilkenny the next day. That says it all, really. He had a job to do. He did it. He is limited in a most liberating way for his colleagues (as Henry always stresses). No reason why he can’t stride on, so long as he is given clearly defined tasks.

(l) Halfway through the first half, Shefflin had to offer Tommy Walsh a few stern words, pointing to where he should be (and where he wasn’t and where he hadn’t been: in his given position). I mentioned in the run-up to the match that Walsh is ill-suited to hurling, generally, at wingforward and, particularly, on Eamonn Corcoran. Tommy just doesn’t hold his ground. He was right over the other side of the field when Corcoran picked his brilliant delivery to Eoin Kelly for the goal that was disallowed. Tommy is an absolute dinger. But he is not a top-class intercounty wingforward -- although he meets that adjectival challenge (and more) in three other lines of the field. As it is, he might end up scrapping for a place in the Final with Mullally. Dougal, on the face of it, is made for Ronan Curran’s catch-and-clear style. Shefflin would be a right ask for Tom Kenny. And, so arranged, would not Jimmy Coogan or Conor Phelan be the man to ask questions of Sean Og? An interesting one.
Also, had we lost, it should be noted, the scenario of Tommy being put in at no. 13 for about 15 minutes before halftime would have sharpened many knives.

(m) D. J. is hurling like a man preoccupied. He just doesn’t seem fully to be engaged with the flow of the game. Still, it is a mark of his enduring class to slot so blithely those crucial 65s.

(n) Gorta was an unsung hero. Again. It is wonderful to have the option of bringing him out to wingforward (as was taken before halftime). There is not a team in the country that wouldn’t love to have him. He gives us -- and will continue to give us -- great flexibility. Gorta won’t let us down.

(o) As we sat down in our seats, I said to the Donegal friend that was with me: “I’d say today is going to be a good day for Eddie Brennan.” Just couldn’t see Costello being able for him (especially since he’d wouldn’t be as psyched up as he’d be if marking Carey). 2002’s Munster Final laid bare a coarseness in Costello’s game that is not going to go away at this stage. Brennan suits him even less than Carey, since Brennan is more direct. For whatever reason, the G-BC man removed his infuriating habit of coming from behind the cornerback. That being the case, the necessary ability, as we’ve all long acknowledged, is there. Eddie has, if he goes well next month, a right chance of grooving his name deep in Kilkenny hurling history. I liked the point about him putting his fist up as he was substituted by Carter last year. Get out in front. Scare them. Score then. You will. You will.

(p) ’Tis quite something to win by twelve points, pulling up, and to still be going into an All-Ireland Final in which Noel Hickey, Derek Lyng, Henry Shefflin, Tommy Walsh and D. J. Carey all have serious points to prove.

(q) I have had some harsh words to say about Brian Cody’s decisions over the course of this summer (and beforehand). Be that as it may, I said to Hattons Grace before the semi-final that no knife was being sharpened on my part: win, lose or draw. Cody is the best man for the job: I have always said that. Although I wasn’t entirely happy -- shall we say... -- with his method of conveying said implicit conviction, it presumably was our manager’s belief that we didn’t need Charlie Carter to beat whoever. Was far from sure about that fugitive credo: and was mistaken, in fairness. Will also admit that I am one of those people who really like to be right: a fault of mine. But never was I so happy to be wrong, in whatever fashion. The manner in which Cody seems able to form a TEAM is remarkable. It could not be said yet to be a team of great hurlers (though J. J.’s progress and Tommy’s arrival has bulked up that quotient). As a unit, however, they are now dwellers on the threshold of greatness.

28. One of W. B. Yeats’ most memorable phrases came when he acknowledged “the eternal virginity of the soul”. Every Kilkenny match I attend on a do-or-die occasion reminds me of how right he was. Ormonde blood, of course.

29. The team-talk couldn’t be more straightforward. Grown men don’t quickly forget coming off a train in tears in front of a crowd of thousands.

30. We are going to do it.

---

posted 28 August 2003 05:57 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arrigle:
Whatever about the other stuff, I don't know how you deduced that about Waterford. How so?

---

whatever about the man with the taxi I would have read your reference to lowering the blade to Waterford given your spiel on this last year. That said it is to your credit that you did highlight Barrys pull on Gleeson which was probably the worst pull of an albeit clean championship, possibly out doing Eoin McGraths clumsy but unheralded effort in the Munster Final. As I watched that and indeed Hickeys swing back under the Hogan Stand I thought to myself what would they say if John Mullane had done that. But there you are - give a dog a bad name and all that.

As regards Wexford and soccer teams I am not sure if I was one of the Waterfords to use a soccer analogy. But what I did say at the time ( and I still believe ) that the Leinster Championship affords Kilkenny a competitive advantage. Based on the relative intensity of the games in each province. What is now apparent is that they don't actually need that advantage, which is annoying for those of us that could do with a competitive advantage. I don't actually see that as a very controversial proposition.
It's a bit like givng Tiger Woods a 10 stroke advantage.

That Waterford (for whatever reason) lay down like dogs against Wexford doesn't change that view. I had based my view on Wexford lying down against Kilkenny in the Leinster Final. The suspicion I had after that game which hasn't changed since either is that Wexford were more focussed on the qualifiers. That focus served them well against Waterford and to a point against Cork.

If you had had to endure that night in Nowlan Park you might appreciate the need for silence in its wake.

Anyway i am glad that you have come around o my view on Cody. He is an inestimably decent man and a model man manager from what i hear. He still has to land the All Ireland
to be fully vindicated. Objectively you'd have to see that happening.

posted 28 August 2003 06:13 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by sid wallace:

It's a bit like givng Tiger Woods a 10 stroke advantage.

---

That is total rubbish, as this summer has proved (and as myself and others have long said). Please try to wean yourself off it.

After what Waterford men -- including you: do you work on some sort of seven-day amnesia cycle? -- had to say after the Leinster Final, ye well deserved what ye had to hear.

I didn't come round to your view of Brian Cody. I said a long time ago that his core strength was man-management. You must really be stuck for consolation if that's the tack, now.

I am bitterly disappointed about Waterford's summer. They have played the most beautiful hurling over the last 3 or 4 years.

I never spoke on PVDF or elsewhere of Waterford 'lowering the blade'. I said that was the (unfair) perception. I have already dealt at length with issues arising out of tonal ventriloquism: #Bash Street Kids' and so. Despite my best attempts, you were most disdainful of any frankness. So you'll forgive me now if I really just don't give a damn.

posted 28 August 2003 06:36 PM         

Nobody disputes that Kilkenny are roaring hot favourites for the All-Ireland and deserve to be. I can conceive that in certain situations that that lack of competitiveness/intensity could be a burden too. But on balance for a team as chiselled as kilkenny it isn't.

And it is not to dispute either that there were long periods in Munster where that lack of competitiveness existed. I have no doubt that it is a cyclical thing but equally I have no doubt that this year saw the top of the cycle in leinster. As I say I find it baffling that this would be such a controversial proposition.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arrigle:

That is total rubbish, as this summer has proved (and as myself and others have long said). Please try to wean yourself off it.

After what Waterford men -- including you: do you work on some sort of seven-day amnesia cycle? -- had to say after the Leinster Final, ye well deserved what ye had to hear.

[This message has been edited by Arrigle (edited 28 August 2003).]

---

posted 28 August 2003 06:44 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arrigle:

I didn't come round to your view of Brian Cody. I said a long time ago that his core strength was man-management. You must really be stuck for consolation if that's the tack, now.

I am bitterly disappointed about Waterford's summer. They have played the most beautiful hurling over the last 3 or 4 years.

I never spoke on PVDF or elsewhere of Waterford 'lowering the blade'. I said that was the (unfair) perception. I have already dealt at length with issues arising out of tonal ventriloquism: #Bash Street Kids' and so. Despite my best attempts, you were most disdainful of any frankness. So you'll forgive me now if I really just don't give a damn.

[This message has been edited by Arrigle (edited 28 August 2003).]

---

Now who has the amnesia cycle. You fumed at Cody after the Carter/McEvoy, you ridiculed my remarks at his abilities to get the most out of his squad by rotating them ( hence the relative success of Ryall, Dowling, Tennyson and indeed Brennan). I suggested you calm down that he would be proven right and in time he probably will be.

posted 28 August 2003 06:53 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arrigle:

That is total rubbish, as this summer has proved (and as myself and others have long said). Please try to wean yourself off it.

After what Waterford men -- including you: do you work on some sort of seven-day amnesia cycle? -- had to say after the Leinster Final, ye well deserved what ye had to hear.

I didn't come round to your view of Brian Cody. I said a long time ago that his core strength was man-management. You must really be stuck for consolation if that's the tack, now.

I am bitterly disappointed about Waterford's summer. They have played the most beautiful hurling over the last 3 or 4 years.

I never spoke on PVDF or elsewhere of Waterford 'lowering the blade'. I said that was the (unfair) perception. I have already dealt at length with issues arising out of tonal ventriloquism: #Bash Street Kids' and so. Despite my best attempts, you were most disdainful of any frankness. So you'll forgive me now if I really just don't give a damn.

[This message has been edited by Arrigle (edited 28 August 2003).]

---

posted 28 August 2003 07:00 PM         

I'm nominating you for the Nobel Prize in Literature!

posted 28 August 2003 10:07 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arrigle:

After what Waterford men -- including you: do you work on some sort of seven-day amnesia cycle? -- had to say after the Leinster Final, ye well deserved what ye had to hear.

[This message has been edited by Arrigle (edited 28 August 2003).]

---

posted 28 August 2003 10:36 PM         

And Arrigle what troubles me is this. Why the need in this post to all but out yourself. Why all the nned all of a sudden for the intimate personal details etc. Why are we suddenly being invited to identify you. Are you sick of being mistaken for Enda McEvoy

So many questions.

posted 28 August 2003 11:12 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Premier Emperor:
The fact that the myth of the arrogant Tipp fan exists has kept it fed it being maintained in reality.

---

PE,

Maybe its not a myth.

Having met many fine Tipp men while in college , and as I'm currently living and working in Tipp , I would be very soft in my leanings towards the traditional 'anti tipp' view.

However one thing that drives me nuts are those semi offical 'Home of Hurling' signs that hang from the standard 'Welcome to Tipperary' on the main roads into the county.

I always have to ask , who says so ?

It would be a good start in trying to improve ye're image , to take those things down.I'd be fairly sure they are a major factor in pissing off both the hurling and even the non hurling population of the island.

posted 29 August 2003 08:49 AM         

You still haven't addressed your snide dig about Cork which is hidden amidst an irrelevant nostalgia trip around Waterford and Kilkenny.

Your remarks about Tipperary people still stand clear to me, you might like to think they're softened by some selected counterbalance but the deep rooted antipathy is to me the stronger feeling in your words.

It seems to be written to be loved, you especially. You accuse me of begrudgery for somehow questioning your opus but all I did was make some points on what you wrote and concluded 'much, much to admire if not quite to believe' which is a valid criticism.

Get over the thin skin. All opinions are to be questioned, even those at variance with your own. Its what makes this site so interesting.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arrigle:

I wouldn't be applying for any Chairs in Hemeneutics, any time soon, if I were you. Did you not read the post? Or did what I had to say about Tony Wall, for instance, pass you by?

---

posted 29 August 2003 08:55 AM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ghoulbag:
Tipp are hated becaus they consider themselves a superpower when they have only won 3 all irelands in almost 30 years - I mean pre-1950 hurling was muck - the 1st all ireland tipp won was against a galway team who went to the pub as the tipp lads were late turning up and when the match was finally played they were half cut! Superpower my ass!

---

posted 29 August 2003 09:06 AM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arrigle:

Fair enough. See how much better things are when you rise to more than a two- or three-sentence snig?

Now let's stay on the right foot.

---

posted 29 August 2003 09:09 AM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hattons Grace:

However one thing that drives me nuts are those semi offical 'Home of Hurling' signs that hang from the standard 'Welcome to Tipperary' on the main roads into the county.

I always have to ask , who says so ?

---

posted 29 August 2003 09:50 AM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arrigle:
Don't really get you, T...

---

posted 29 August 2003 05:06 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by sid wallace:
anyway - you can take things like this too seriously. You must have enjoyed the compliment (and I must say I concur) that your initial post was good enough to be printed in the Nenagh Guardian.

---

Ha. Ha. Ha. You're really feeling the pain, aren't you, if it's back to that sort of stuff?

My instincts, 12 months' ago, were correct, as they usually are. Was prepared to have a right discussion about QuinnGate (and issues arising) but it quickly dawned on me that you have all sorts of 'issues' with Kilkenny. No point. You have no ultimate goal save for the placebo of the obtuse snig. 'Nuff said.

Part of me feels genuinely sorry for you: if Waterford don't win an A-I with the talent there, it will be awful. If I elaborated, of course, I'd only be patronizing you. Again.

So I won't.

posted 29 August 2003 05:09 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by spuds taxi:

You left the mask slip a bit there Arrigle. It had all been perfectly reasonable up to that point. Now you just look like a KK supremacist. " You got what you deserved Boy ".Unworthy - in my opinion.

---

Rubbish, ST. The sneering from Mr Wallace and others after the Leinster Final was unreal, provoking even a very even-tempered man as Hattons Grace to despair.

Karma, I think they call it. They get what they deserved for those comments.

posted 29 August 2003 05:11 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by spuds taxi:
As Columbo might sat "there's something troubling me mam".

And Arrigle what troubles me is this. Why the need in this post to all but out yourself. Why all the nned all of a sudden for the intimate personal details etc. Why are we suddenly being invited to identify you. Are you sick of being mistaken for Enda McEvoy

So many questions.

[This message has been edited by spuds taxi (edited 28 August 2003).]

---

It was a personal piece. Nobody's being invited to do anything (except go to kennedy's on September 14th).

posted 29 August 2003 05:15 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by clare fan:
You accuse me of begrudgery for somehow questioning your opus but all I did was make some points on what you wrote and concluded 'much, much to admire if not quite to believe' which is a valid criticism.

---

You really are a very poor reader, aren't you? What I ACTUALLY queried was your sly little insinuation that "time" was the only factor involved in the writing of it, with all that implies. Can you compute that, now that I've spoon-fed you?

posted 29 August 2003 05:17 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tipperary:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Arrigle:
[b] Don't really get you, T...

---

Just curious. Do you possess a similar depth of interest and knowledge for things beyond the borders of Kilkenny and its environs, or are you more of a local historian in your interests?[/B][/QUOTE]

Bit of both, I guess -- but mostly an obsession with South Kilkenny. As Patrick Kavanagh said: you could give your whole life trying to get to know the corner of a field.

posted 29 August 2003 05:21 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by clare fan:

You still haven't addressed your snide dig about Cork which is hidden amidst an irrelevant nostalgia trip around Waterford and Kilkenny.

---

There's no snideness -- if by that adjective you meant a deliberate attempt to occlude my sentiment -- in my comments about Cork comments on this board. MGG's ones stand out, obviously enough. But she hasn't been alone.

posted 29 August 2003 05:24 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by sid wallace:
Now who has the amnesia cycle. You fumed at Cody after the Carter/McEvoy

---

I had very good reason to fume at Brian Cody. So did many others. I put a large four-figure post with detail.

However, I got behind back behind him well before the semi-final.

Why don't you take on the Waterford job if you're as good as Brian Cody?

posted 29 August 2003 05:40 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by clare fan:

Your remarks about Tipperary people still stand clear to me, you might like to think they're softened by some selected counterbalance but the deep rooted antipathy is to me the stronger feeling in your words.

---

Yes, I have a "deep[-]rooted antipathy" to Tipperary hurling. But I've always been honest about that trait. Which is probably why I get on with them a helluva lot better than you do.

Isn't it at least a tiny bit to my credit that I'm trying not just to sit on the cushion of this antipathy, plumping it up from time to time?

Bigger point here, of course. You like to fancy yourself as ch.com's inhouse liberal. Well, you certainly have all the negative tendencies (including the stock vapid line about 'variety (however incoherent and self-pleased) being the spice of life'). Well, let me point a couple of things out to you. The benevolent effects of a certain irrationalism -- especially as regards local attachments -- is a crux in post Romantic philosophy. If you've a serious interest in the issue -- rather than just a smug worldview -- I'd recommend Isaiah Berlin on Alexander Herzen. I don't -- as another lad had it -- think Kilkenny are the 'Master Race' (and it is the mark of an intellectual scoundrel to resort to the lexicon of fascism when a topic far from that import -- county feeling in a GAA context -- is the one that's moot). However, there's absolutely nowhere else in the world I'd prefer to be from. Got it?

Second: there's a real intellectual poverty in your 'whatever you're having yourself' line. Basically, you're saying non-evaluation (call that what you will: 'all books are as good as each other', 'all counties are as good as each other' etc.) is better than evaluation. However, that belief -- 'non-evaluation is better than evaluation' -- is itself an evaluation of 'evaluation'. With me? So what the statement/credo/belief ENACTS is entirely at oods with what it ASSERTS.

Therein lies the fundamental problem for liberal thought (and, in a much reduced way, for your particular contributions to ch.com).

My antipathy to your self-regarding nonsense goes far deeper than my feeling about Co. Tipperary.

posted 29 August 2003 05:50 PM         

Having searched my head for negative thoughts about Kilkenny to see if I was being honest with myself I uncovered the following;
1 I got one of the worst hangovers of my life when I drank a bottle of brandy after striking out in the Clubhouse Hotel when I lived and worked in the City.
2 Itchycoo Park
3. A couple of triumphalist farmers sons who crossed the river to come to school in MS. This was very bad around 82-83 for obvious reasons.
4. The thought that Chuck O'Connor can score 4 points from play against Dunamaggin at 37 when we have lumbered ourself Andy Moloney.
5.The reaction that any of my posts about KK gets from you.

I will admit that one or two of my posts would have been better off not made. Two spring to mind. One was that KK had stolen a march by giving up football (if they have they were right) and the other was the one about DJ and education. Because it was a point about nothing but provocative all the same and as I explained later I didn't believe it anyway. Equally though I have made comments about Kilkenny which I did believe were correct but didn't believe were provocative which I thought drew a disproportionate response. My Cody comments spring to mind here.

I actually don't harbour any ill feeling to you either. I don't know you. All I see are opinions some of which I agree with and others that I don't and some of which I enjoy and others that I don't. If I don't agree with something I say it, thats the whole point of this board. I may be wrong, I may be stubbornly wrong, but I am entitled to my opinion. And if my being wrong makes someone else feel better for being right then great.

I am sorry that every time either of us posts something on the same topic it generates into this kind of fiasco. The reference to "yer wan" wasn't intended to be boorish (and I hadn't remembered that it was your sister, it was difficult to memorise every portion of the post) it was intended to be flippant as was the remark about the Nenagh Guardian. I assumed you would see the humour in it. My fault for not making it more obvious.

Now where does that leave us. I am sorry that anything posted here would leave anyone happy to see another county beaten. Enough people have enough dubious reasons to like to see Waterford beaten without that ( not thatit makes a difference of course ).I don't think that this is what this board is for. If things are that bad you and I can either;
1 Not post in reply to each other or 2. wipe the slate clean. If you think my past arguments are bogus fine, and vice versa. And leave it at that. It's actually tiring to rehash old ground.
I'd prefer 2 myself but I will go with whatever you suggest.

By the way, references to the Fall are entirely lost on me. I never liked them and wouldn't know any of their work.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arrigle:
Ha. Ha. Ha. You're really feeling the pain, aren't you, if it's back to that sort of stuff?

My instincts, 12 months' ago, were correct, as they usually are. Was prepared to have a right discussion about QuinnGate (and issues arising) but it quickly dawned on me that you have all sorts of 'issues' with Kilkenny. No point. You have no ultimate goal save for the placebo of the obtuse snig. 'Nuff said.

Part of me feels genuinely sorry for you: if Waterford don't win an A-I with the talent there, it will be awful. If I elaborated, of course, I'd only be patronizing you. Again.

So I won't.

However, the pronounced streak of boorishness -- as remarked by the gent who briefly stepped in on behalf of my conscience -- evident in your reference to my sister ("your wan") staunches any such impulse. As it is, you're the only reason -- save for a possible Kilkenny victory -- that I 'm glad Waterford fell on their arse.

---

posted 29 August 2003 05:53 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arrigle:
You really aren't even remotely as clever as you appear to think you are.

---

The truth seems to out when you go on the defensive. Your hail fellow well met mask slips.
Your posts strike me as being a huge ego trip. Writing six thousand words where six hundred would adequtely get the point across.
Bend in as many book quotes and references as you can while you're at it.

Your scoffing at contributors who post short and to the point replies backs up this point.

posted 29 August 2003 05:58 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arrigle:
Bigger point here, of course. You like to fancy yourself as ch.com's inhouse liberal. Well, you certainly have all the negative tendencies (including the stock vapid line about 'variety (however incoherent and self-pleased) being the spice of life'). Well, let me point a couple of things out to you. The benevolent effects of a certain irrationalism -- especially as regards local attachments -- is a crux in post Romantic philosophy. If you've a serious interest in the issue -- rather than just a smug worldview -- I'd recommend Isaiah Berlin on Alexander Herzen.

---

posted 29 August 2003 06:05 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tipp Topp:
Yawn...Look at me, I read books.

---

posted 30 August 2003 11:46 AM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by sid wallace:
I have said it before and I will say it again. But I have no issue with Kilkenny. I admire their hurling, I love the city. I have even cheered Kilkenny in All Irelands. Moreover I have gone on record here as stating that I believe the KK team of 92/93 is the best of the last decade. I do not begrudge their success. Teams are successful because they do the right things. I wish we could do them. But that is not the same as begrudgery.

Having searched my head for negative thoughts about Kilkenny to see if I was being honest with myself I uncovered the following;
1 I got one of the worst hangovers of my life when I drank a bottle of brandy after striking out in the Clubhouse Hotel when I lived and worked in the City.
2 Itchycoo Park
3. A couple of triumphalist farmers sons who crossed the river to come to school in MS. This was very bad around 82-83 for obvious reasons.
4. The thought that Chuck O'Connor can score 4 points from play against Dunamaggin at 37 when we have lumbered ourself Andy Moloney.
5.The reaction that any of my posts about KK gets from you.

I will admit that one or two of my posts would have been better off not made. Two spring to mind. One was that KK had stolen a march by giving up football (if they have they were right) and the other was the one about DJ and education. Because it was a point about nothing but provocative all the same and as I explained later I didn't believe it anyway. Equally though I have made comments about Kilkenny which I did believe were correct but didn't believe were provocative which I thought drew a disproportionate response. My Cody comments spring to mind here.

I actually don't harbour any ill feeling to you either. I don't know you. All I see are opinions some of which I agree with and others that I don't and some of which I enjoy and others that I don't. If I don't agree with something I say it, thats the whole point of this board. I may be wrong, I may be stubbornly wrong, but I am entitled to my opinion. And if my being wrong makes someone else feel better for being right then great.

I am sorry that every time either of us posts something on the same topic it generates into this kind of fiasco. The reference to "yer wan" wasn't intended to be boorish (and I hadn't remembered that it was your sister, it was difficult to memorise every portion of the post) it was intended to be flippant as was the remark about the Nenagh Guardian. I assumed you would see the humour in it. My fault for not making it more obvious.

Now where does that leave us. I am sorry that anything posted here would leave anyone happy to see another county beaten. Enough people have enough dubious reasons to like to see Waterford beaten without that ( not thatit makes a difference of course ).I don't think that this is what this board is for. If things are that bad you and I can either;
1 Not post in reply to each other or 2. wipe the slate clean. If you think my past arguments are bogus fine, and vice versa. And leave it at that. It's actually tiring to rehash old ground.
I'd prefer 2 myself but I will go with whatever you suggest.

By the way, references to the Fall are entirely lost on me. I never liked them and wouldn't know any of their work.

[This message has been edited by sid wallace (edited 29 August 2003).]

---

No. 2 is absolutely fine by me.

It's long been obvious, however irritated some of your remarks made me (and I will freely admit the nark factor is high with me in C'ship), that you are a very admirable person in 'real life', however mawkish and patronizing that sounds. I was very moved that you brought your kids down to be photographed with the cup after Ballygunner won Munster, for fear they'd never otherwise see a Munster-winning Déise side. It brought home to me how lucky I am to have been born in Kilkenny.

And the majority of your posts are among the best about. It just frustrates me to see you -- at least imho -- operating below your level. But that's as much to do with me, i guess, as you. You're netitled to do as you want. But it just reminds me of Waterford's underperformance 1998-03...

posted 30 August 2003 12:12 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tipp Topp:
The truth seems to out when you go on the defensive. Your hail fellow well met mask slips.
Your posts strike me as being a huge ego trip. Writing six thousand words where six hundred would adequtely get the point across.
Bend in as many book quotes and references as you can while you're at it.

Your scoffing at contributors who post short and to the point replies backs up this point.

Judging by the replies, some of the non-intellectual contributors here seen through your own Kilkenny master race theory pretty sharpish.
"Norman influence most sweetly flowered" my fcuking hole.

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Think a bit more subtly.

1. I have no problem with short posts. Shannonsider is a genius at them, as I've often noted. I do have a problem with people whose only mode appears to be a negative one.

2. Why I post on the board is my own business. If it's an ego trip, well then it's one which seems to give a modicum of pleasure to some of the more balanced contributors here. If asked for a reason, I would probably say it's a good discipline to practice writing in different styles, as well as a great way to 'meet' people who share your obsessions.

3. I have no problem with people criticizing whatsoever. Gunther is always giving out to me for my "ramblings". No problem there. But I do reserve the right to parse what lads such as Clare Fan have to say about what I write. Am I any different in that regard than anyone else here? Clare Fan can think whatever he likes about what I write: he's not one of the twenty or so people here whose opinions do really count with me. But I'm not going to stint showing him his incoherence. He was the one who, ridiculously, waded in about me constantly changing my mind.

4. Seán O'Faoláin's THE IRISH is probably the founding text of Irish 'revisionism' (as Luke Gibbons mentions in THE FIELD DAY ANTHOLOGY -- okay to mention that, or will I just rip off my leg and offer to take you on in a 100m dash?): that is, anti-nationalist on the basis that the 'grocer's republic' of the Free State sort of annulled the reasons why the War of Independece was warranted. As is obvious to everyone from my political opinions, such revisionism doesn't sit well with me -- and therefore O'Faoláin's praise of Kilkenny is an ambivalence for me. I said it was a divided piece. If you say to me that's a bit too 'deep', I can only say: why, so, did you bother to comment in this thread at all?

5. Having previously strictured "false modesty" (which "flows like the Nore", according to you) on the part of Kilkenny people, you can now hardly turn around and chastise me for anything. I am very amused at such vapourings from an explicit supremacist such as yourself, as evinced in your chosen 'handle' and many of your posts. Would TopCat be a second cousin or anything?

6. The macro-point of my dust-up with CF seems to have gone totally gone over your head. He said I wanted to be loved. I was showing that I'm quite prepared not to be loved. Clear?

posted 30 August 2003 12:25 PM         

quote:

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Originally posted by The Cat's Whiskers:
[B]

- a "Magnificat of Kilkenny Hurling"

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posted 30 August 2003 01:27 PM         

quote:

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Originally posted by Truth:
the retards from Tipp

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I'm not shy of clashing rhetorical ash. But I would never say something like that. One instance: Zanussi. If you think it's appropriate to call him, an engaging and highly intelligent lad imho, then you're a total boll.ox -- and a cowardly one, into the bargain, hiding behind a newly minted handle. But I'd say I know exactly who you are.

posted 30 August 2003 01:38 PM         

quote:

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Originally posted by Truth:

Kilkenny is a fairly non-descript inland Irish county

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Go down by boat along the Nore, as Seán O'Faoláin did (a Corkman), and see how nondescript it is. He describes it as the finest inland scenery in Ireland. Read Ted Hughes or Thomas Kinsella on Inistioge. Go to Mullinakill and have a look around you. Take a deep breath. Drink some water from St Moling's Well, as I will on September 13th.

More prosiacally: I was quoting O'Faoláin, not giving my own opinion. I realize, of course, that you're a far more important and distinguished Corkman than him. Of course...

Also: we all inhabit an imaginative as well as an actual geography. And the more so, as we get older.

A begrudger, boy.

Six generations on, I haven't a drop of non-South Kilkenny blood in me. Because I hadn't the hurling, it gives me enormous pleasure to be upsetting latchikos like you off the field.

posted 30 August 2003 07:53 PM         

You are lucky to come from Kilkenny, but I never felt less than lucky to come from Waterford. The buzzes I get from our very rare successes may be less frequent than yours but I'd say they are all the more intense. A puff of nicotine to a shot of heroin I'd say. I've had ample opportunity over the years to hitch my colours to other masts. But you could never do that. And in a way our culture of defeat means we can sometimes enjoy a bad performance as much as you'd enjoy a good one. You mentioned a long time ago that Barry Lyndon was one of your favourites (I retain a lot of useless info as well). The bulk of the Irish portion of that film was shot in Waterford and the duel scene with Leonard Rossiter was shot on the plot of ground I grew up on. Sheer beauty. Good enough for Kubricks picture book film. Why wouldn't I feel lucky to claim the Waterford connection.

It struck me today that although these things are called chat boards or discussion boards they are anything but. This is a very imperfect medium. All the nuances the body language of ordinary discourse are absent so you have to give a really wide latitude to what's being posted. That's my excuse anyway. I do occasionally post just out of pure miscievousness. To get a rise out of people. It can break the boredom and stresses of the day. In a pub once the rise was got you'd slap the man on the back and burst out laughing. And that'd be the end of it. Here though that facility isn't available and offence once taken can linger.

I don't very often have the time to post as carefully as I could. An excuse that is not available to Waterford 98-03, so I couldn't accept the analogy.

quote:

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Originally posted by Arrigle:

No. 2 is absolutely fine by me.

It's long been obvious, however irritated some of your remarks made me (and I will freely admit the nark factor is high with me in C'ship), that you are a very admirable person in 'real life', however mawkish and patronizing that sounds. I was very moved that you brought your kids down to be photographed with the cup after Ballygunner won Munster, for fear they'd never otherwise see a Munster-winning Déise side. It brought home to me how lucky I am to have been born in Kilkenny.

And the majority of your posts are among the best about. It just frustrates me to see you -- at least imho -- operating below your level. But that's as much to do with me, i guess, as you. You're netitled to do as you want. But it just reminds me of Waterford's underperformance 1998-03...

Sound.

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posted 30 August 2003 10:50 PM         

quote:

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Originally posted by Arrigle:
Don't really get you, T...

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posted 31 August 2003 12:17 AM         

Said Article is quite impressive as to content and length but as a wise man once said " the characteristics of the classical style in cricket or in anything else,are precision of technique, conservation of energy, and power liberated proportionately so that the outlines of execution are clear and balanced".

So my semi-literate take on the Article was that it was a big too long, a bit too wordy, had some pearls of wisdom in it and some quirkiness as we come to expect, well done.Also some points and sentiments partially hidden or less clear than they might have been articulated maybe intentional, maybe not, whatever.

It is clear that you love where you come from, great, we all do. I wouldn't swop where I come from for anything (also an old Norman bastion) but I wouldn't push it ahead of other places on this fair isle. Nor ram it's wonders down others peoples throats.

I honestly do think you have a thing about Waterford.Sid really should know his place!

I do not understand the dig about Cork preening. If it relates to contributors on this site then that's irrelevant. I don't see any evidence of preening from the Cork hurlers. (I also reckon they have a better chance against ye than many people think on 14 September).

It is very easy to wax lyrical about the wonder that is Kilkenny and South Kilkenny in particular on the back of 27 All Irelands. When Tipp men do it on the back of 25, they are called arrogant.

You wrote once that you still choke up about losing the AI in 1991. My heart bleeds for you! Try 1980, 81, 84, 85, 94, 96 or most years for Limerick, going home after one bloody match. Or Clare pre 95 always travelling in fear. Or Waterford most years.

posted 31 August 2003 02:57 PM         

quote:

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Originally posted by Balbec:
I don't have axes to grind with anyone on this board so I might as well offer my two cents worth on Mr A's article.

Said Article is quite impressive as to content and length but as a wise man once said " the characteristics of the classical style in cricket or in anything else,are precision of technique, conservation of energy, and power liberated proportionately so that the outlines of execution are clear and balanced".

So my semi-literate take on the Article was that it was a big too long, a bit too wordy, had some pearls of wisdom in it and some quirkiness as we come to expect, well done.Also some points and sentiments partially hidden or less clear than they might have been articulated maybe intentional, maybe not, whatever.

It is clear that you love where you come from, great, we all do. I wouldn't swop where I come from for anything (also an old Norman bastion) but I wouldn't push it ahead of other places on this fair isle. Nor ram it's wonders down others peoples throats.

I honestly do think you have a thing about Waterford.Sid really should know his place!

I do not understand the dig about Cork preening. If it relates to contributors on this site then that's irrelevant. I don't see any evidence of preening from the Cork hurlers. (I also reckon they have a better chance against ye than many people think on 14 September).

It is very easy to wax lyrical about the wonder that is Kilkenny and South Kilkenny in particular on the back of 27 All Irelands. When Tipp men do it on the back of 25, they are called arrogant.

You wrote once that you still choke up about losing the AI in 1991. My heart bleeds for you! Try 1980, 81, 84, 85, 94, 96 or most years for Limerick, going home after one bloody match. Or Clare pre 95 always travelling in fear. Or Waterford most years.

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Very fair. With these long posts, I genuinely don't know where I'm going to end up.

'91 was so tough because it was Tipp and, again, we bottled it. As journalism revealed before last year's semi-final, many of the players were reliefed just not to have been beaten by more...

I mentioned Limerick in the post as a county I'd really like to see win an A-I. And I also tried to ask what are so'called 'traditional' counties for.

Just don't know what I have to do to prove that I'm very fond of Waterford!