The dust may not have fully settled yet on our 2014 season but tonight the provisional list of our NFL Division One fixtures for next year have been published. Full details are here.
Those responsible for putting together these fixtures have shown they’ve a sense of humour, albeit a bit of a warped one, as we’ve been handed a trip to Kerry in our opening League match on the 1st of February next year. I’m sure HQ would consider it great gas altogether to hand this one to Cormac Reilly to ref. No, I can’t really see that happening either.
Our new manager can look forward to a League campaign featuring four home ties – against Monaghan on 8th February, Tyrone on 1st March, Dublin under the lights on Saturday 14th March and Donegal on 5th April – while, in addition to the first round trip to Yerra Central, the away matches are against Derry on 8th March and Cork on 29th March.
I suppose it will help to start planning for 2015 and try to forget about………………..
Dublin at home on a saturday night over Paddy’s weekend and a weekend away in Kerry to kick it all off. For the supporter thats a great fixture list (aside from 2 long drives to cork/kerry)
Roll on 2015
So to rub our noses totally in it the GAA have chosen Mayo to give Kerry the guard of honour onto the pitch if they win Sunday ie. the 1st competitive game since All Ireland if they win.
league fixtures couldnt have come at a better time with the wend thats in it looming…never wanted donegal to win a match so much..
There’s a part of me that really wants Reilly to get a game in Castlebar!! Do u think he’d have the guts to do it???
Looking forward to seeing him again.
It’s all about the FBD next year, no interest in the league at all
That’s a very tasty flrst game…against the perhaps the AI champs? Would be a laugh alright if they were to appt Reilly to it, lmao at that WJ!
Btw lads, where the heck is the bould pebblesmeller? Haven’t seen him in tense parts for ages…
Lastly. heading home to the ould sod tonigh meself ..can’t wait!
LOL-I see the “Ban Cormac Reilly” page has been removed from Facebook. It had 5,000 + likes before it was decommissioned
Horse sweeney and mister mayor… don’t you worry about it, the yerras will NOT be AI champs come the league, you have my word!
lorrie,
since 2000 kerry have been in 9 finals, lost 4 won 5, sundays game will mean they have been in 10 finals is 15 years.a very sobering statistic.
this year they have dropped a few notches in terms of elegance and the ref helped them beat Mayo but youve got to admire their resilience and will to win. rather than hope they lose, maybe we should take note of how they do it, are we utilising our players to the max?
David, maybe I should have pinned my colours to the mast again! I love Mayo dearly, lived there for a big part of my life, but they are my “second” team…I’m a donegal lass through and through. It was just the mention of kerry being champs next year that got me all tribal! I’m quietly confident for Sunday but as you say, you can’t but admire what kerry have achieved over the years and I wouldn’t be overly surprised if they pull a big performance out of the bag at the weekend.
If Kerry do win on Sunday, that will mean that the team that has beaten us the last three years will have won the All-Ireland title. If you add to this the fact that from 2011 to 2013 we beat the then All-Ireland champions. It probably sums up how close we have been to winning the holy grail. Can we go one step further? If the pattern of the last four years continues then it could be a Kerry v Mayo final next year or a Dublin v Donegal one. Its amazing that Kerry have such a great record of winning All-Ireland titles yet they still manage to come in almost under the radar for these big games, as they did against us in the semi-final. It really shows their cuteness and craftiness both on and off the field. All the talk is about the Donegal system but Kerry have had the best mid-fielder and forward on display this year in David Moran and James O’Donoghue. Kerry lost their last final appearance in 2011, so I’m sure that they won’t want to lose another one this year.
“If Kerry do win on Sunday, that will mean that the team that has beaten us the last three years will have won the All-Ireland title”
That’s the real killer, each of those games were eminently winnable. It wasn’t a case that those other teams were far superior like in the 2004 & 2006 final where Kerry were at a different level entirely.
It’s hard to know if such a level can be continually sustained where success is never a bed fellow
Another real killer has been the fact that we still have not managed to put in our best performances on the biggest day. We have played some great football over the last few years and put in some super displays but not on All-Ireland final day. In the 2012 final none of our forwards got up to the same level that Murphy and McFadden did on that day for Donegal. The McGee brothers were also more solid at the back than our defenders. Bernard Brogran was the main difference in the 2013 final, none of our forwards played as well as he did. Dublin were also a bit more solid at the back when we were on top of them than we were in the second-half when the Dubs had the upper hand. Then this year against Kerry, none of our midfielders reached the heights that David Moran did. We needed Aidan O’Shea to be at his best to go toe to toe with him. Over the two games James O’Donoghue was the best forward on show even if Keith Higgins did really well on him. Kieran Donaghy was also more of a handful for us than Andy Moran was for them. For us to move forward you really feel that we need a couple of more natural scorers up front to join Cillian O’Connor and a couple of more really solid defenders at the back. Finding these players will be the hard part.
One thing for sure is that its going to be a very tough league. No easy pickings amongst our seven opponents.