Indo GAA

Finally, the inter-county GAA gets set to resume with the resumption of the final two rounds of the Allianz Football Leagues which means the Throw-In is also back and for this week’s show Will Slattery and Michael Verney look ahead to what GAA fans can expect.

Known unknowns is probably the best way to sum it all up in this Covid-affected season and being able to adapt to changing circumstances will be the new norm believes Michael Verney.
“You have to be so versatile,” he says. “You have to be willing to just flick a switch almost when a decision is made but hopefully things will go smoothly enough over the next couple of months because we all need it really.”

“We all need something every Saturday and Sunday, something to be following, something to be watching, something to be digesting over the weekend and then reviewing on the Monday and you need that conversation starter.”

There’ll be plenty of conversation starters come next Monday that’s for sure and none more so than west of the Shannon with Galway looking to demote Mayo to Division 2 and with the involvement of Jim McGuiness to the Galway training giving it a bit more spice.

“We're not getting like a slow burner like we might normally get in the League,” says Verney. “This is going in and it's high stakes stuff. We don't know what teams have been doing for the last God knows how long but everything will be on the line. There's so many interesting things and I suppose the unpredictability of it all you just don't know what level teams are at, you don't know how much they're going to have done, you don't know how cohesive they're going to be. But most teams will be in the same boat because they'll have the similar levels of preparation done but it's very, very interesting.”

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The Throw-In is in association with Allianz.ie.

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On the latest episode of The Throw-In podcast, Will Slattery and Michael Verney are joined by Martin Breheny and Vincent Hogan to discuss Martin's 20-20-50 rankings.

This week Martin has ranked the top 20 footballers and hurlers from every county in the Irish Independent and on Independent.ie - with provincial and national top 20 lists still to come - and he joins the lads to debate some of the selections.

From picking Brian Corcoran over Jimmy Barry-Murphy in Cork to the ultra-competitive rankings in Dublin and Kerry, there was plenty to discuss.

Michael even took Martin to task over one omission from the Offaly football list!

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On this episode of The Throw-In, Will Slattery and Michael Verney are joined by Vincent Hogan and Martin Breheny to discuss the Irish Independent's 20-20-50 series.

Starting on Monday May 25th, Martin is ranking the 20 best footballers and hurlers from each county from the last 50 years. After going through each county, he will then rank the best footballers and hurlers by province before a final All-Ireland breakdown.

It is sure to cause plenty of debates - and it sparked a few among our panel too.

Martin discusses the criteria he used to make his rankings, while Vincent and Michael weigh in on some of the challengers of putting together a list like this as well as some of the talking points that are sure to come up.

You can find Martin's rankings in the Irish Independent and Independent.ie starting on Monday May 25 and finishing on May 30.

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There was just hurling action in the Allianz Leagues over the weekend and on this week’s Throw-In, Vincent Hogan, Donnchadh Boyle and John Mullane joined Will Slattery to look back on all the games.

Galway’s resurgence under Shane O’Neill and their 3-12 scored in the second half to seal victory over Tipperary caught the eye the most and John Mullane reckons their potent forward line could be one to watch in the summer.

Waterford have also been rejuvenated under a new manager and Liam Cahill’s philosophy and ethos were highlighted by Vincent Hogan and the panel when discussing the Deise’s new energy and attitude.

May 10th sees Tipperary visit Waterford in their Munster Championship fixture and Liam Sheedy knows Tipp have an awful lot of work to do between now and then to come away with a win.

For more from the Throw-In podcast go to:
www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-throw-in/

The Throw-In podcast is in association with Allianz.ie.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tyrone v Dublin being played in horrendous conditions with plenty of history between these teams, what could possibly go wrong?

This week on the Throw-In, Ciaran Whelan joins Will Slattery, Michael Verney and Colm Keys to discuss the fall-out from the game.

Plus the panel discuss Mayo’s failings and difficulties ahead for James Horan as they seek to re-build for the future.

In hurling, John Mullane joins Will, Michael and Colm to discuss how the League format has taken the sting out of so many games and highlights the fact that managers are looking to bed down squad players at this time of year.

Finally with the GAA Congress voting in its first ever overseas President as well as a host of rule changes, including the ditching of the black card in hurling, the Throw-In panel give their verdict on the effect of Congress’ decisions.

For more from the Throw-In podcast go to:
www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-throw-in/

The Throw-In podcast is in association with Allianz.ie.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Does Dublin have a weakness, the Padraig Joyce effect, cynicism in football, the state of hurling referees, Brian Lohan's direct route and the positive effect of the new camogie rules are all up for discussion on this week's Throw-In.

Tomás Ó'Se, Brendan Cummins and Ursula Jacob join Michael Verney, John Brennan and Roy Curtis with all the latest opinion and analysis from the weekend GAA action.

While Joe Brolly says Jim Gavin's baseball cap could manage this team, Brolly could be the waterboy reckons Ó'Sé and he believes it is scary for the other teams in the country looking to beat the Dubs.

In hurling, Brendan Cummins applauds Clare's more direct approach but says the old failings of possession without being dominant still needs to be addressed.  

And leave the game alone the panel all agree on.  The resurgence of Waterford, the strength of Wexford, and Clare's rising under Lohan, along with the traditional heavyweights, shows there's not much wrong with hurling.

For more from the Throw-In podcast go to:
www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-throw-in/

The Throw-In podcast is in association with Allianz.ie.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week's episode of The Throw-In, Will Slattery and Michael Verney are joined by John Mullane and Frank Roche to review the latest weekend of Allianz League action.

What was meant to be a hurling-only weekend also ended up featuring three football matches as inclement weather continues to cause havoc with the schedule. Limerick vs Waterford and Galway vs Tipperary were both called off last weekend, which will cause a delay in the hurling league later in the campaign.

On the pitch, Wexford pipped Kilkenny in another dramatic clash between the sides, and Mullane thinks that Davy Fitzgerald's men now have a psychological edge in the rivalry.

Mullane also thinks that Wexford's attacking defenders are transforming the sport, and thinks the Yellow Bellies are still firmly All-Ireland contenders.

In football, the lads assess the state of play in the lower divisions, with the promotion and relegation battles extremely difficult to call in Division Two, Three and Four.

For more from the Throw-In podcast go to:
www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-throw-in/

The Throw-In podcast is in association with Allianz.ie.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Referees, umpires, cards and time-keeping all came under the microscope after this weekend’s Allianz Football League games and on this week’s Throw-In, Ciaran Whelan joined Will Slattery and Donnchadh Boyle to go through all the big talking points.

Whelan slammed the Clifford sending off believing it was an easy cop-out to dish out two yellows.

"Let's look at the context of the incident and see would it be the defender instigating this and if it is the defender, let's start punishing the defender and instead of the cop-out of just saying it's handy here to give two yellow cards,” he told Will and Donnchadh.

“It was one of those classic GAA solutions to a classic GAA problem,” said Donnchadh Boyle.  “I suppose at club level you kind of expect to see that sort of stuff and it's probably accepted really at that level but you do expect the county game, for everyone involved, referees, umpires, linesmen to be more sophisticated, to have seen all these tricks before and to call it for what it was.”

The recurring failings of the Kerry defence also came to the fore, while in the Dublin-Monaghan game, timekeeping was a sore point for many from the Ulster side.

For Dessie Farrell, it was a chance to blood young talent and Sean Bugler caught the eye of Whelan whom he likens to a Diarmuid Connolly.

Meanwhile, Galway’s win over Donegal has people asking if Joyce’s Tribesmen are the sleeping giant of 2020? While looking to Division Two, with just two points separating top from bottom it could go right down to the wire in a dogfight in the final weekend.

For more from the Throw-In podcast go to:
www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-throw-in/

The Throw-In podcast is in association with Allianz.ie.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Playing with fourteen men, the clash in Castlebar between Mayo and Dublin became a foregone conclusion, but for David Brady, who joined Will Slattery, Michael Verney and John Brennan on this week’s Throw-In, the failings on the scoreboard over long periods of time is still a major cause of concern for his county.

Also looking back on the football action, the panel discussed Kerry’s victory over Galway in Tralee with Padraig Joyce’s Galway a team re-invigorated and Kerry’s backline still looking porous. Plus there was a big win for Monaghan over Tyrone in the all-Ulster derby.

In hurling, John Mullane was on the show with the sin-bin top of the agenda and all agreeing that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.

Plus there was also a discussion of the League revamp which has meant the edge and pressure has been taken away from many of the games.

For more from the Throw-In podcast go to:
www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-throw-in/

The Throw-In podcast is in association with Allianz.ie.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Allianz Leagues began with a bang over the weekend and while it’s a new era for Dublin under Dessie Farrell, the rivalry with Kerry is still the one to watch in 2020.

Tomás Ó’Sé joined Will Slattery, Michael Verney and Conor McKeon to look back on the drawn game in Croker as well as all the other football action, including Padraic Joyce’s opening win as Galway manager and Mayo’s draw with Donegal.

However, it was the advanced mark that was generating most of the talking points with Ó’Sé calling for it to be scrapped.

“Why is it being brought in now? Defensive football is not the blight it was,” he tells the panel.

In hurling, John Mullane joined Will, Michael and Conor, and he believes Tipp’s surrender of a ten point lead against Limerick will prove to be a big psychological boost for John Kiely’s men if they meet again in the Championship.

Plus, he sees good things happening for Waterford under Liam Cahill,
“You’re going to see Waterford back challenging and will be able to put it up to anyone on their day,” he says.

For more from the Throw-In podcast go to:
www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-throw-in/

The Throw-In podcast is in association with Allianz.ie.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.