Destined to finish a terrible 11th or 12th of 12 in Rio, with the squad and entourage taking up ~25 units of funding that could be used for other athletes who would at least beat some of the opposition?
The hockey team gets fuck all funding from the sports council and has to rely on a lot of private funding and sponsorship as well as running regular fundraisers etc to finance trips to these qualifying tournaments and ultimately a lot of the Olympics next year. They all work and take the hit for some of their expenses themselves.
Regardless, I think your point is pretty ignorant.
seems very harsh imo. they build their goal and work their asses off to qualify, then when they do, you want to tell them there's no point in going as you'll only finish last, so we've given your funding to someone who has a chance of competing at that level?
ouch
Meh, just pushing Lloyd buttons for Sunday amusement; during London he was vocally against sending shooters/sailors who were outside Top10 in their discipline, athletes who had little chance of finalling (T8?) etc.
Go team hockey, from what I can see they just need Australia (already qualified) to win the Oceania qualifier, Argentina (ditto) to win the Americas one and no major outsider to win the European one.
Destined to finish a terrible 11th or 12th of 12 in Rio, with the squad and entourage taking up ~25 units of funding that could be used for other athletes who would at least beat some of the opposition?
Fuck the olympics full of drug riddled scammers.
Used to love it as a kid when i used do athletics.
Waching the damond league and the French 4by100metres team were getting awarded bronze medals form 2012 in london after the americans were disqualified.
The hockey team gets fuck all funding from the sports council and has to rely on a lot of private funding and sponsorship as well as running regular fundraisers etc to finance trips to these qualifying tournaments and ultimately a lot of the Olympics next year. They all work and take the hit for some of their expenses themselves.
Regardless, I think your point is pretty ignorant.
All the people who play hockey in Ireland are massive toffs who can afford it anyway
"I can’t find anyone who agrees with what I write or think these days, so I guess I must be getting closer to the truth." - Hunter S. Thompson
Meh, just pushing Lloyd buttons for Sunday amusement; during London he was vocally against sending shooters/sailors who were outside Top10 in their discipline, athletes who had little chance of finalling (T8?) etc.
Go team hockey, from what I can see they just need Australia (already qualified) to win the Oceania qualifier, Argentina (ditto) to win the Americas one and no major outsider to win the European one.
Destined to finish a terrible 11th or 12th of 12 in Rio, with the squad and entourage taking up ~25 units of funding that could be used for other athletes who would at least beat some of the opposition?
We have very few athletes who are 12th in the world or better in their competition. Very happy to see a truly elite unit get funding at the expense of chancers unable to get past a heat...if that was the case. As it is, Irish Hockey is massively self funded.
"Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally." - John Maynard Keynes
Re phones - Can't fault the One Plus, really is the best phone I have owned. Having said that I haven't tried the HTC which I've only heard good things.
One plus is available for $249 which makes it an easier decision imo.
Haven't read too much One plus Two but will prob get when its out.
Think it's getting launched on July 27th talk of integrating a fingerprint reader, going to be using USB Type C & some snazzy processor, tech blogger MKBHD talks about it HERE briefly.
You can now buy the phone direct on the .ie website for €299 which is pretty good as I think mine worked out about €370, will defo be looking into upgrading to the 2 if it's priced well & it could/should be a beast. When I upgraded to Lollipop I got that poxy touchscreen issue but they finally released an update for it the other week and it's been back to normal.
Destined to finish a terrible 11th or 12th of 12 in Rio, with the squad and entourage taking up ~25 units of funding that could be used for other athletes who would at least beat some of the opposition?
Seems a seriously daft decision for someone who is excellent at sports to decide to focus on things like hockey or track and field imo.
I think it's a terrible shame that so much potential elite level talent in some sport or another gets funnelled into the GAA / Soccer pipeline and ends up average in either, or out of all sport in early or mid twenties.
This country does a very bad job at embracing diversity in sport and getting potential great endurance / strength athletes down that path as teenagers.
"Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally." - John Maynard Keynes
@ Lloyd - disagree we should simply stop funding athletics entirely. There are some up and coming strong performers that could do well at Rio
Conor McCullough: World Junior Champion in Hammer (2010), World Junior Silver (2008)
Kate Veale (Race Walking): World Youth Champion (2011); 4th place in Youth Olympic Games (2010)
Mark English (800m): 5th place at World Junior Championships (2012)....2 of the medallists in that event went on to win Olympic medals in London, showing how brilliant Mark did to come 5th against a top class field, not just at junior level.
Ciara Mageean (1,500m): Silver at World Junior Championships (2010).
Then you also can take into account Laura Reynolds and Brendan Boyce, both 21 and both getting PB's in London, and of course Rob Heffernan.
The key is to ensure that the right athletes are getting the funding. I agree with you that the correct decision was made not to send 'B' qualfied athletes and in fact have heard that for Rio the Irish athletics federation are to tighten qualification further and only send athletes who have made the 'A' standard in the year of the games, even though the qualification begins 2 years beforehand, in an effort to ensure only those with recent form get to go.
@Kev: how's this crop getting on as we move within a year of Rio?
Two athletes that turned in promising performances in Rio were:
Annailise Murphy, finished 4th in Lasar Radial sailing; currently ranked 12th in the world and won the 2013 European Championship
Natalya Coyle, finished 9th in the modern Penthatlon; currently ranked 51st in the world
"Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally." - John Maynard Keynes
Wouldn't qualifying, but finishing 12th of 12 in Hockey still be a far superior result than we've got from most of our track & field athletes?
Notwithstanding that a certain tard element would see it as 'finishing last'. Hopefully enough people could be educated that being in the top 12 in the world is a worthy aim.
Greece is staring into the economic abyss. The Greek government is expected to default on its debt payment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), due Tuesday…
"Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally." - John Maynard Keynes
The Cork player who somehow managed to put a 45 fifteen metres short and into the hands of a Kerry player shouldn't be forgot in all the ref blaming.
Kick it high, preferably over the bar, wide is ok. But never short.
Which one? Ref had a mare. For both teams. Cork hard done by imo.
The penalty Dobby, and Donaghy shouldn't have been on the pitch to be involved in the build up after high challenge if ref was consistent . I'd say your thrilled to be getting another go . Some point to get it too.
The Cork player who somehow managed to put a 45 fifteen metres short and into the hands of a Kerry player shouldn't be forgot in all the ref blaming.
Kick it high, preferably over the bar, wide is ok. But never short.
The decision to go for a point from the sideline that lead to the 45 was terrible decision making, should have held possession and tried to work an opening. Got lucky to get a 45 and blew it , must be kicking themselves.
AJ's post got me thinking about the Olympics and the recent TV rights changes. Honestly? I've always found RTE's coverage pointless and would tend to go elsewhere so I can actually watch the Olympics. RTE focus on the Irish side of the Olympics and having analysis of same, but I like the freedom of actually watching the events. Particularly in sports like Hockey / Volleyball / Weightlifting there is a wealth of entertainment that RTE barely touch upon.
I'd be very confident that Eurosport would give you a great general coverage over two or three channels and RTE will no doubt still get enough rights to show what they already manage. Their coverage has always been a case (imo) of squandering rights to a ton of sport eschewed in favour of Irish interest.
Anyway.
"Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally." - John Maynard Keynes
I probably watch BBC coverage about 95% of the time, RTE was useful for stuff like early boxing heats with irish interest.
I'm no expert on the TV rights issues but it seems that even if Eurosport coverage is free that it doesn't count as 'free-to-air' for the purposes of the legislation - only stations with 95% reach are counted so effectively RTE, TV3, TG4 or UTVi has to be a broadcaster at a negotiated price. Same sort of rules seems to apply in the UK where BBC is signed up to 2020 anyway so not a short term problem.
AJ's post got me thinking about the Olympics and the recent TV rights changes. Honestly? I've always found RTE's coverage pointless and would tend to go elsewhere so I can actually watch the Olympics. RTE focus on the Irish side of the Olympics and having analysis of same, but I like the freedom of actually watching the events. Particularly in sports like Hockey / Volleyball / Weightlifting there is a wealth of entertainment that RTE barely touch upon.
I'd be very confident that Eurosport would give you a great general coverage over two or three channels and RTE will no doubt still get enough rights to show what they already manage. Their coverage has always been a case (imo) of squandering rights to a ton of sport eschewed in favour of Irish interest.
Anyway.
Best thing about RTE potentially losing rights would be not having to listen to Jerry Kiernan
I probably watch BBC coverage about 95% of the time, RTE was useful for stuff like early boxing heats with irish interest.
I'm no expert on the TV rights issues but it seems that even if Eurosport coverage is free that it doesn't count as 'free-to-air' for the purposes of the legislation - only stations with 95% reach are counted so effectively RTE, TV3, TG4 or UTVi has to be a broadcaster at a negotiated price. Same sort of rules seems to apply in the UK where BBC is signed up to 2020 anyway so not a short term problem.
I really hope the BBC keeps it forever.
Technically great coverage but the Team GB stuff got incredibly grating fast. Eurosport for a bit less jingoism
The penalty Dobby, and Donaghy shouldn't have been on the pitch to be involved in the build up after high challenge if ref was consistent . I'd say your thrilled to be getting another go . Some point to get it too.
.
Yeah huge sigh of relief from us when the whistle went. We were too far away from the penalty so will watch it tonight. Agree Donaghy shouldn't have been on. Johnny Buckley was lucky to stay in first half too. We couldn't cope when Cork ran at us. Either need to work harder or start putting hits in at midfield.
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