irishblue

Novak Djokovic has beaten Rafael Nadal!

Leicester City - Away

Drew 1-1 with cfcmeleady's The Officials. I was unlucky in one sense and lucky in another, they scored against me in the 90th minute to get the draw, but they did have 6 chances to my 1 with more possession I guess. Since there's only one game left, and I'm in 5th at the moment, no matter what I'll be staying up.

Have to admit, that England away is a pretty good. Funnily enough, Ireland are getting another home shirt, which hasn't been fully unveiled yet. Fulham - Home

Hibernian - Away Motherwell - Home

Happy Birthday!

The results from this weekend's games and I'll try and give a bit of analysis on the two games I was at today Gaelic Football Qualifiers London 0-15 Fermanagh 0-9 Antrim 0-16 Westmeath 1-7 Down 1-13 Clare 1-12 Longford 2-16 Cavan 0-11 Wicklow 1-18 Sligo 0-16 Laois 2-16 Tipperary 0-11 Meath 5-8 Louth 2-8 Offaly 1-18 Monaghan 1-10 Connacht Mayo 1-12 Galway 1-6 Leinster Wexford 4-12 Carlow 0-10 Dublin 1-12 Kildare 1-11 Ulster Donegal 2-6 Tyrone 0-9 Hurling Qualifiers Antrim 0-23 Carlow 1-12 Cork 2-17 Offaly 2-16 Unlike last weekend, this weekend was more or less solely focused on the football side of things, and the first round qualifiers occupied a large proportion of that. London in particular are making a name for themselves, and to top that off their next qualifier game against Waterford is also in Ruislip. Any of the members on here from near there? The Down-Clare result was pretty surprising considering they were All Ireland finalists last year. Louth were no where near getting revenge on Meath for last years Leinster final, and Cian Ward seemed to have been on fire for Meath scoring 4 goals and 3 points. Not too many overly surprising results otherwise. Moving on to the provincials, Mayo and Donegal sealed their places in the Connacht and Ulster finals respectively. After drawing against London, I wasn't expecting as much of a fight back from Mayo but then again, Galway haven't been they same as they used to be either. Roscommon have a very good chance to hold their reign in Connacht for a few years to come if they win this one. Donegal v Derry should also be an interesting one. I don't follow them all that well so I wasn't expecting Donegal to win that, but both teams have a good fighting spirit about them. As for the Leinster semi-finals which I was at today, well there's not too much say about the first one in my opinion. I arrived about midway into the first half, and was surprised to see Carlow so close to Wexford and I'm almost sure they levelled at one point too. However, Carlow seemed to lose all faith in the second half and they lost any of the fight they have. As the score suggests, Wexford ran rampant over them and won by 14 points. Dublin v Kildare was to be much different though. Dublin opened the scoring and pretty much controlled the first half from there on, and at the half were winning by 6 points. Kildare came out and played much better in the second half. They did stay behind score-wise though for most of it, but caught up a lot more. By the last two minutes, Eamonn Callaghan scored a goal and a point to follow in the final minute to level it. In the second and final minute of injury time, this is where the problem arose for Kildare, when the referee gave a free against Aindriú MacLochlainn for what was no reason in reality. Of course, Bernard Brogan goes on to score. The Dubs will now play Wexford in Leinster final. I'm not as bothered by the loss as I could be, but with the amount of work this team have put in over the last few years, as I said earlier in the thread, and to lose in that way was terrible. I just hope it doesn't have a detrimental effect on them, and they build on it instead like they usually have done before. Sorry for the extremely drawn out post, I went into way too much detail about the provinical matches.

I study Irish and German in school, but I wouldn't say I'm personally at any great level in either. I've always had an interest in Germany and the language so it was always the language I was going to choose in school. As for Irish, it's one we learn from the beginning in primary school yet very few end up having a level of total fluency at it by the end of secondary school, mainly because most don't like the way it's taught. It's pretty sad really, but with with an increase in Gaelscoileanna (special Irish language schools) around the country and people sending their children to these, it should increase quite a bit over the next few years. Currently, if you do all your secondary school exams through Irish, you get so many more points than those who do it through English. Dutch is another language I wouldn't mind learning at some point. I've virtually no interest in learning any of the Romance languages though, even though they would be useful, Spanish in particular. I'm not sure why but they don't appeal to me in the same way West Germanic ones do. Celtic languages also interest me to some extent, but mainly only Irish because I have some knowledge though small and Scottish Gaelic because its so similar to Irish. Hopefully I'll try and further my knowledge of Irish after I finish school.

Wasn't in the best of form earlier on but wasn't the worst either I guess, as the Gaelic football team I support lost by a point in last minute of injury time due to a free, stopping them from getting to a final. It was sort of a questionable free with a few even doubting it. We did leave it late to fight back though so I suppose there's not much that can be said. At least we're not out of the whole competition fully yet though, so that's a bit of a consolation. Pretty long, tiring day other than that.

Portsmouth - Away Rangers - Away Aston Villa - Away

A few results to put up from last weekend if anyone wants to know: Gaelic Football Ulster Derry 3-14 Armagh 1-11 Hurling Qualifiers Antrim 2-25 Westmeath 1-19 Cork 10-20 Laois 1-13 Leinster Dublin 0-19 Galway 2-7 Munster Tipperary 4-19 Clare 1-19 So, Derry are through to the Ulster football final, and will either play Donegal or Tyrone who play on Sunday. You'd have to feel sorry for the Laois hurlers though, being defeated by 34 points! Quite a lot of action on in the football this weekend, with the first round of qualifiers taking place on Saturday evening and the provincial semi-final games on Sunday. Galway face Mayo for a place in the Connacht final against Roscommon, I've already mentioned the match in Ulster so that leaves Leinster. Carlow play Wexford in the first semi-final, and it's Dublin against Kildare straight afterwards. Wexford look most likely to win their match in my opinion, but as for Kildare-Dublin, it's really anyone's guess as to how that will go.

Ajax - Home

West Ham United - Home and Away

According to German tabloid Bild, Ballack has declined to play that farewell game.

Tottenham Hotspur - Home (Leaked)

Like this? This is exactly the Liverpool one, just with the obvious changes.

This is slightly off-topic, but since that Liverpool third shirt template seems to be popular on here, I thought I'd try and adjust it a bit for a Chelsea version.

Well, to be fair, you could say something similar about Kieran McGeeney and how he's brought Kildare along. We went from being beaten by 4 points by Wicklow in 2008 in the first round of the Leinster Championship to the All-Ireland Quarter final being narrowly beaten by Cork. A Leinster final, an All-Ireland quarter final and then a semi-final over the following two year is a fairly good improvement. This year is our big chance to prove ourselves and if we can get past Dublin, there's a very good chance we can win Leinster. The amount of effort this team has put in over the past few years is unbelievable and it would be great to see them get something at the end of it.

Fairly hard to say to be honest. I'm a bit pessimistic about it, but that always happens. This will be Kildare's first real test, since Wicklow and Meath didn't prove any major problems. If Johnny Doyle is injured for this, we could be in a bit of trouble, but then again it's been said that that's not as bad as first thought too. McGeeney has been saying that he's not worried about the wide tally, but no matter what we can't afford as many against Dublin. If our backs, which will probably be more or less the same as the Meath match, manage to restrict their forwards at all, then we should have a very good chance, but that's easier said than done especially with Dublin's full forward line. So basically, I'm not saying anything.

Shamrock Rovers - 110th Anniversary

I didn't see the full thing, but I saw the highlights of it on the Sunday Game and even then Kilbride looked very impressive... but I wouldn't go that far yet. Reckon you can win Connacht again this year?

Nottingham Forest - Away

I doubt it, considering UPC Ireland took Chelsea TV off the line-up last year.

Happy Birthday!

It's been on the Sky Sports' website since around 11pm and posted on this forum three times alone! No mention of the loan on HSV's website either mind you. As for Bruma himself, this should be a good move. If he can go on establish himself well in the Hamburg team, then it'll be all the better for his return. It's also interesting to hear that they've been tracking him for a while now.