irishblue

Today's results: Gaelic Football Leinster Kildare 0-16 Meath 0-10 Dublin 1-16 Laois 0-11 Munster Cork 5-17 Waterford 2-8 Ulster Tyrone 1-13 Monaghan 1-11 Well, Kildare have defeated Meath three times within a year and two have been in the Championship. :champions: It wasn't the best first half, pretty dull and ended 0-7 to 0-5 in the Royal's favour. The second half saw more action from Kildare, with Eamonn Callaghan scoring 4 points and James Kavanagh even coming close to scoring a goal. Graham Geraghty now at 38, came on as a sub about mid-way through the half to the crowd booing. Only on a few minutes, Geraghty scores a goal which was disallowed by the umpires, apparently wrongfully. Kildare came away with a 6 point win in the end, and go on to face Dublin in the Leinster semi-final.

A few of todays results: Hurling Lory Meagher final Donegal 2-12 Tyrone 0-17 Christy Ring final Kerry 2-21 Wicklow 2-8 Nicky Rackard final London 2-20 Louth 0-11 Leinster Galway 4-17 Westmeath 2-14 Gaelic Football Munster Kerry 1-26 Limerick 3-9 Most of the action in football takes place tomorrow, with games in Leinster, Munster and Ulster. Kildare, my county, play Meath tomorrow and since they're also local rivals it's a pretty big occasion. When it comes to GAA coverage in the papers this week, it seems these two teams are dominating the news. Both teams have their share of difficulties, with Kildare's being on-field (with two key midfielders being out due to injury) and Meath's off-field (selectors leaving the management team). I don't think either of these are overly affecting either the teams all that much but we'll have to until tomorrow to find out. C'mon the Lilies!

The Republic of Ireland have gone top of Group B after a 2-0 win away to Macedonia. Robbie Keane scored both of the goals, which brings his international total to 51.

Even if I did that I'd probably still end up losing. It's a bit early to say it but I reckon I'll be back in the TC Championship come the next season.

About time Kildare Blues have won, beating Mighty Mojos 5-0. I've got Terminator X's X-Rated up next and with how I've been going so far, I doubt I have any chance whatsoever.

Derby County - Home Derby County - Goalkeeper

Dundee United - Home

:lol:

Well to be fair, I did say not to expect much from me on LOI football. But that was more based on success if anything, they used to be one of the better teams in the country and then everything went belly-up. I would've put Derry up there as well but they've had their own troubles too.

Well, I suppose I'm not the best one to describe what are the 'big clubs' in Ireland, but I'll give it a shot. 1. Success on the field 2. A large domestic fan base. 3. A world wide fan base. 4. Consistently large attendance figures. 5. Top class facilities and Academy 6. The ability to attract the World's best players. 7. The ability to attract sponsors. Based on this criteria, for a lot of those options, it's not easy to tell. Without doubt, and as zolayes said, Shamrock Rovers are the biggest club in Ireland. They've won the league the most times, have a relatively big support in the country and I would imagine would be the most well known outside of the country too. As for the fourth option, Tallaght has only got a capacity of 6,000 and before that they didn't have a ground since the 80s. I'm not entirely sure on how the youth system is here so I can't comment on the fifth point. As for sixth and seventh, as it stands the county GAA teams usually get better sponsors than League of Ireland teams and the clubs don't have the funds to attract better players. A lot of clubs have went into financial trouble because of overspending, with two in my list alone. Largely based on success mainly, these would be the best teams in the country: 1. Shamrock Rovers 2. Bohemians 3. Shelbourne It's not showing very well for teams outside of Dublin, with Cork City historically only coming close to those three for a non-Dublin team. I'll try and give Germany a go as well. I'm pretty sure that Bayern Munich would be top of that list, they've generally gotten the best out of players, but once again, I'm not sure if they produce many youth players of their own, rather than buying from other clubs. Maybe someone can correct me on this. Borussia Mönchengladbach, in terms of overall success are just behind them. With that being said though, they have some very good players of their own down through the years. Now however, they've pretty much went into decline so it's hard to say. Borussia Dortmund are another German club I'd rank in the top three. Very popular worldwide, and as we've seen this year they've won the league with some products of their academy AFAIK. On this basis I'd go with the these as the top three. 1. Bayern Munich 2. Borussia Dortmund 3. Borussia Mönchengladbach I'm probably way off with some of them, and sorry for such a long, drawn out post but that is how I'd see it at the moment.

Hearts - Home

Welcome luke. Quite a few Northern Irish members joining lately, which is good to see.

Ireland have beaten Scotland 1-0, and are Carling Nations Cup Champions. :champions: Probably wasn't the best of tournaments and certainly wasn't marketed very well, but still, the team managed to go without conceding a single goal in any game, so hopefully this will help encourage them with the upcoming European qualifiers. Well done lads!

The final game of the Carling Nations Cup is tonight, with the Republic of Ireland against Scotland. Ireland top the table but only on a goal difference with an advantage of three. Whoever wins this, wins the competition. The teams: Republic of Ireland: Shay Given, Paul McShane, Stephen Ward, Stephen Kelly, Darren O'Dea, Keith Fahey, Liam Lawrence, Keith Andrews, Simon Cox, Robbie Keane, Stephen Hunt. Scotland: Allan McGregor, Steven Whittaker, Phil Bardsley, Christophe Berra, Grant Hanley, Barry Robson, James Forrest, Scott Brown, Kenny Miller, Charlie Adam, Steven Naismith It's just over 40 minutes in and is on Sky Sports 1 if anyone's interested. Ireland are winning 1-0 after a goal from Keane in the 23rd minute.

London drew with Mayo!!! RESULTS Gaelic Football Connacht London 2-10 Mayo 0-19 Hurling Leinster Dublin 2-21 Offaly 1-19 Wexford 3-16 Antrim 1-11 Munster Tipperary 3-22 Cork 0-23 Ulster Down 3-19 Derry 1-9 Armagh 2-18 Monaghan 2-6

Two matches on today in the football, in both Leinster and Ulster. Offaly were beaten by Wexford in Tullamore on scoreline of 2-16 to 0-8. Wexford absolutely destroyed them by the looks of it. The other match, Armagh against Down, which was actually on the BBC, was a five point win in the Orchard County's favour. Saw a bit of the beginning of it myself and it looked like Armagh had the majority of the control in it from the beginning. Armagh go on to play Derry and Wexford will play Westmeath.

Source - MirrorFootball

As I expected, Wales beat Northern Ireland 2-0 with the goals coming from Ramsey and Earnshaw. I've also just seen on Twitter that the attendance was 529.

Since mine is private, I don't think that would make a difference, but with that being said I've seen other people mentioning the site on there. It would be amazing to see TC trending.

Only found a link for the match now. Wales are winning 1-0, Aaron Ramsey scored in the 36th minute. The Aviva looks almost empty! Half-time: Northern Ireland 0-1 Wales

Ballack - He was always one of my favourite national team players. Deco - I couldn't believe it when I saw that Chelsea signed him, mainly because I hadn't heard much about it beforehand so it was unexpected. Torres - I really didn't think we'd sign him, but it finally happened.

Northern Ireland play Wales tonight, and since both teams have no points so far, a win is pretty important for both sides. The teams for the game: Wales (faw.org.uk) Wayne Hennessey, Chris Gunter, Neil Taylor, Jack Collison, Danny Collins, Danny Gabbidon, David Cotterill, Craig Bellamy, Steve Morison, Aaron Ramsey, David Vaughan. Northern Ireland (irishfa.com) Jonny Tuffey, Craig Cathcart, Gareth McAuley, Colin Coates, Lee Hodson, Josh Carson, Oliver Norwood, Robert Garrett, Jonny Gorman, Niall McGinn, Warren Feeney. I'd rather see Northern Ireland win it, but I reckon Wales have the better side and will win.

That Sunderland away kit is the exact same template as Ireland's change kit, only in light blue and white instead of black and green.

I've been following that account for a while now. I'll try and promote TalkChelsea on Twitter too, but I don't know if it'll get to many people. :unsure:

It's funny, because twice before Celtic have had a kit that they called 'the Bumblebee', even though the colour was similar to our away kit in '07.