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Ireland’s greatest current export and former Scor Stars. Aren’t You So Proud.

X Factor contestants John and Edward Grimes have been revealed as former stars in Scor na nOg according to evidence uncovered by the Talking Balls insight team.

According to sources in Lucan, Dublan where the annoying duo hail from, they were part of a series of Scor teams entered in the Dublin and Leinster championships by Dublin junior club St Sebastians.

According to our sources the two Grimes boys told friends of their appearance in Scor, if we can make it here we can make it anywhere. They viewd the cutthroat nature of the judging on Scor even worse than the sledging they receive from thon bollix Simon Cowell and the delectable Cheryl Cole.

Last week the ‘Slimy Grimesy’s’, as they were know at school, performed a dance routine around what looked like the luggage trolleys used by bell hops in big fancy hotels. It transpired that as young boys they used to work as dishwashers in a prominent Dublin establishment and they practised a routine for their co-workers which involved cavorting around on luggage racks. Former colleagues were shocked and pleasantly surprised to see the two lads reprise the routine on last week’ X Factor, much to the annoyance of Cowell and Co.

One former yoke that worked with them said: “The were two nice enough lads but they could be hideously annoying when they wanted to. They couldn’t sing for shit and were a bit too ‘nice’ for my liking. It takes all sorts. I won’t be voting for them.”

It is thought the two lads are being lined up to perform at the Camogie All Stars bash in Dublin in the City West on Saturday week. The City West confirmed that they had been asked to reserve two luggage trolleys for the boys.

It is though former Camogie ubersturmfuhrer Liz Howard will join the lads onstage for a racy routine prior to the gongs being handed out.

How well they will cope with shot drinking, man and woman eating camogs remains to be seen.

TG4 to broadcast 2009 Senior Shinty/Hurling International
Saturday 31 October
GAA Beo  Albain v Éire

TG4 has confirmed that the station will broadcast the Senior Shinty/Hurling International between Ireland and Scotland from Bught Park, Inverness on Saturday afternoon 31 October. The match will be shown in full on a deferred basis with broadcast coverage starting on TG4 at 5pm.

The Shinty-Hurling International is a hybrid game which was developed to facilitate international representative matches between shinty players from Scotland and hurlers from Ireland. Ireland will be hoping to avenge last year s defeat in Nowlan Park, Kilkenny when they lost narrowly on a scoreline of 1-10 to 1-09. Gearóid Mac Donncha will provide the commentary of this match.

Notes:
- Duration of game  70 minutes (2 x 35 mins per half will be played).
- The Camanachd Association, the governing body of shinty, recently announced a new agreement with Colmcille (the organisation charged with raising awareness and developing cultural links between the Gaelic traditions between Scotland and Ireland) in support of this year s Senior Shinty/Hurling International 2009. Colmcille, will sponsor the Senior Shinty/Hurling International and the Gaelic-speaking Scottish shinty squad.

- The Senior Shinty/Hurling International is part of a series of Internationals taking place on October 31st. An under 21s match takes place at 11.00am and a ladies Shinty/Camogie encounter throws-in at 12.30pm, the Senior s tie will follow at 2.10pm.

Latest Senior Results
YEAR RESULTS LOCATION
25 October 2003 Scotland 1-13 vs Ireland 5-9 Inverness
16 October 2004 Ireland 3-10 vs Scotland 4-7 Ratoath
8 October 2005 Scotland 4-8 vs Ireland 2-11 Bught Park Inverness
9 November 2006 Ireland 2-5 vs Scotland 2-13 Croke Park Dublin
13 October 2007 Scotland 4-10 vs Ireland 0-11 An Aird Fort William
18 October 2008 Ireland 1-9 vs Scotland 1-10 Nowlan Park, Kilkenny

- For further information, please contact the Camanachd Association on 0044 1463 715931.

Set to take Ireland by storm - the hairdo known as a ‘Ricky Nixon’.

AROUND THIS TIME last year Talking Balls carried an interview with controversial and colourful Aussie Rules agent Ricky Nixon, he of the magnificently permed hair and uncanny ability to get right up the nose of GAA officialdom.

It’s funny how things turn out. At the time Ricky confidently predicted to Talking Balls that Tommy Walsh would be joining St Kilda saying: “Unbeknown to people in Ireland the best young player there is about to leave tomorrow for Australia and a one week trial with St Kilda”. He also predicted that Niall McKeever and Conor Meredith were being offered contracts. Touche.

This week he says he will be getting back in contact with Derry’s James Kielt: “James Kielt is in the top three players I would love to get to Australia. I am going to speak to him, just give him a call. James is the most knowledgeable kid in Ireland in AFL football.
He’s also after Mayo’s Aidan O’Shea.

“He could absolutely walk in and play tomorrow. He is a star in Gaelic footy and I am the most disappointed person in the world that he hasn’t come out and had a go.”

For a period of time it looked like the pendulum was swinging back in this direction with the return of Martin (Marty) Clarke, Kevin Dyas and the ubiquitous Tadgh Kennelly. However Tricky Ricky has demonstrated by events that he talks the talk and walks the walk. Maybe we should listen when he says something.

And Ricky still hasn’t lost that penchant for nose burgling the GAA officialdom saying this week after the Powers That Be snubbed ‘Clear the Air Talks’:

“They can tell me to go away but that’s not going to change my life.
They are like ‘if we talk to you, you are the enemy, we can’t be seen to talk to you.’ I am sick of that.”

“Grow up and get over it. All the other sports in the world progressed because they drew a line in the sand, because they said we need to progress. Okay, you don’t have to do what people tell you to do but you can at least listen.”

Bend over and cop that Tadgh. You deserve to get your arse well kicked for telling tales out of school!

SO TADGH KENNELLY deliberately set out to injure Nicholas Murphy? Or maybe he didn’t. And Paul Galvin knew all about it following their pillow talk the night before? Or maybe Paul didn’t.

Maybe Paul was innocently tucked up in bed in his jammies trying to get to sleep in the hotel bedroom, dreaming of an All Ireland after the nightmare of the year before. But that hoor Kennelly wouldn’t let him sleep because he was rabbitting on about what he was going to do tomorrow, how he was gonna hit this boy. . . who did he think he was, Roy Keane? Galvin had been there many times before. At this stage he probably knew more than most what to do and what not to do.

When Paul Galvin brings a book out, we’ll buy it. Kennelly? Dunno. The craving for media attention. The dancing jigs on the All Ireland podium. The newspaper extracts about what he was or wasn’t going to do in the match. His grovelling apology blaming the ghostwriter. The fawning of Kerry Chairman Jerome Conway with his silly claim that one line would have clarified the whole matter and that this isn’t the Kerry way. What a load of balls. Methinks they doth protest too much.

So whatever Kennelly said or didn’t say, or whether the ghostwriter f***ed up or not doesn’t matter. Or whether he proofed his book or not. That’s not the point. The facts are this, Kennelly hit Nicholas Murphy in the opening moments of the game with an illegal charge, the penalty for which is normally a straight red card. The issue of premeditation doesn’t come into the Official Rulebook. There is no trial process whereby the referee must decide on the balance of arguments put for and against the defendant whether the action was deliberate or not. He has to make a split second decision based on the evidence and on this occasion, Marty Duffy got it wrong.

Tadgh Kennelly should have walked and his ‘All Ireland dream’ should have been over then and there. Instead, there is a pointless debate over whether he meant it or not. If he discussed getting stuck into a Corkman the night before, that’s no great surprise, especially for a player unused to gaelic football, but one more used maybe to the rough and tumble of Aussie Rules where players are not sent from the field of play for dangerous tackles. Many’s a team have fellas who set out to target an opponent, to hit him early, to aggravate the guy with a short fuse and get him sent off. Tadgh Kennelly should have said nothing and nobody would have been any the wiser. But then, that wouldn’t sell as many books.

Here’s the quote that did the damage: “Nicholas Murphy had just turned slightly towards me which opened the way for my shoulder to catch him perfectly on the chin. Cop that. It’s different this time, boys. While I hadn’t wanted to come in and seriously injure anyone, I was determined to make a statement and I think I achieved just that.”

He certainly made a statement, in fact he’s made plenty of them. Let’s move on.

Now ladies, do these underpants look like they clean themselves. . . or do you care?

IT TAKES A LOT to shock Talking Balls, not a lot to make us laugh, and something special to make us cry. It’s really something that makes us cry laughing. . .

The other day a load of young players of our acquaintance in a club somewhere in Ireland were making final arrangements to head off around the world. These guys have done the business for their club and are now heading off hoping to do the business in various locations around the globe before returning to duty in March-ish.

All we will say is that some lucky young ladies have an interesting experience ahead of them. The reason? It emerged in the final seconds between packing the bags and shopping for those last moment briefs that one of the lads had solved the boxer short conundrum. Our man wasn’t worrying about how many pairs to bring, taking into account the perils of lack of washing facilities, coupled with the inevitable bouts of explosive bowel activity brought on by rich spicy food and new bacteria. No, our intrepid traveller and ambassador for his club had taken himself off to the local specialist outdoor goods shop and got himself a shiny pair of ‘self cleaning underpants’. These innovative trunks can apparently go a good ten days or so before they needed to see the inside of a washing machine.

Talking Balls feels it important that the wider GAA public knows that this is the sort of louche behaviour that is practised by the young player of today. Back in the days when the likes of Ger Manas prowled the square, young fellas were sent out in clean underpants usually Y Fronts, with their name stitched carefully on by an attentive mother along with the legend ‘If in an accident, my son is a Catholic. Please call a priest.”

This man, as we speak is making his way though South East Asia, clad in these briefs. He will no doubt be left untouched and unbothered by hookers, lady boys, muggers, Aussie Rules agents, drug peddlars, Russian Roulette players a la deer hunter. No, not a bit because he is protected by the power and possibly the strange smell within – the self cleaning underpants. Of course unfortunately for him he may also remain untouched and unbothered by any young ladies similarly trekking round the world having done the business for club and county. For them, the man with the self cleaning underpants may be a match too far.

Time to hurl. . .

LIKE HIS FIRST steps and his first words, the first time your young fella hurls in a match, it’s something you’ll never forget. Of all the places to be in our club, Under 8 hurling is where it’s at – it beats them all for the innocence, and the beauty of the fledgling game.

As one oul lad says, leaning over the wire, pipe in gob, hurl in hand: ‘you can see their DNA from the way they hurl when they’re wee.’ By the way he hurls the ball, by the way he carries himself; from a shrug of the shoulder, to a side step, to the young ciotóg who’s strong side is the wrong side. The genealogy’s plain to see.

It’ll start indoors maybe, hurling with a plastic bas that can do no damage worth talking about, although the odd skelp can sting a knee and concentrate the mind. The loose whaling as a cub hurler pulls with gay abandon – the shiny new helmet he got for his birthday makes him lose all fears. Like the superheroes on the television, he, himself, alone, sees a field around his body that fends off any invader. Invincible he is, invisible to foe, rock solid to his friends. He sees the ball. And nothing else. He’ll be neat and tidy when he grows a bit and he’ll hurl, no fear of that.

Times go by. . . when they learn to lift and strike, it’s as if a new world has opened and unfolds before them. Henry Shefflin in the back yard burying the ball time and again. . . bottom corner, top corner. Round the dog, past the trampoline, over the bar. Shanahan to Canning, bang. The neighbour’s window gets a rattle but thanks be to God for the new double glazing. The sliotar throws back in, a flying ground stroke scalds the backside of the cat as she runs for cover. The dog ambles off the field in the manner of the inneffectual junior corner forward who’s just been given the shepherd’s crook and called ashore. Happy he’s no longer in the line of fire.

Come Spring, come the big day. The biggest stage of all. The Blitz. First time hurling against another team. The new club shirt, clean in parts but the hint of the pre-match pasta stains the front.

It takes our lad a minute or two when the ball’s thrown in, the ferocious pull, the big tubby lad a few inches taller who bestrides the pitch like a seven year old collossus. His weight throws the others about like rag dolls. Our man gets a fierce belt on the knee, the tears well up as he goes down. Next ball a shove in the back and after that another clip as he tries to lift. The cat moved a lot easier than these boys and the garden was a safer place. He feels the burning in his eyes. ‘Come on our fella’ says the coach, ‘you gotta stand up for yourself, or do you wanna come off for a while?’

The eyes flamed a look, through the bars of the helmet. Defiant, determined, twas as if he’d been set free. Next ball. Next ball. Like his grandfather slicing in the bog, hurley down, he nicks the sliotar, neat as can be. One second the hand is there, the next the ball disappears and he’s away to the side. With a flick off the wrists he drives it down the field. The cheers of his mother unheard. Next ball. Tidy as you like. Another hops at his knee, he gathers and clears. You see it takes any man a minute to get into his game. And so it begins.

To everything its place and everything has its place. But when you’re Under 8 hurling, it’s the only place to be.

All Ireland Camogie champions Offaly have secured six awards in the inaugural year of the Soaring Star Camogie Awards, an awards scheme introduced to recognise players from the All Ireland junior camogie championship grades.

The awards will be presented at the All Star award ceremony in association with O’Neills in the CityWest Hotel on November 7th.

In the New Ireland Cup, Faithful County top scorer Elaine Darmody from Drumcullen leads the way with club mate Fiona Stephens being selected at corner back. Joining them is goalkeeper Audrey Kennedy and Karen Brady both of whom were part of a very solid Offaly defensive unit, which also includes Michaela Morkan at centre back. The sixth Offaly award goes to ace attacker Arlene Watkins.

Beaten finalists Waterford have forward duo Karen Kelly and Áine Lyng among the winners. Kelly was also prominent at the weekend leading St Anne’s to the Munster junior camogie club championship final.

Laois and Down also have two representatives, while Meath have one.

Niamh Coyle helped Roscommon achieve a historic victory in the Nancy Murray Cup coming from five points down to defeat Armagh in the final by three. She is Roscommon’s representative at number nine. Kildare’s Susie O’Carroll has been rewarded in the half forward line following a prolific season with the Lilywhites.

Speaking at the announcement today, President Joan O’Flynn said, “The inaugural Soaring Stars Camogie Awards recognises the various strands of the All Ireland championship. It rewards individual player excellence in the second tier national Camogie All Ireland championships.

“I am particularly delighted that the achievements of Offaly and Roscommon, both of whom won their first All Irelands in 2009 are recognised along with Waterford who reached their first All Ireland final this year. Congratulations to all 15 players who are wonderful exponents of our game and demonstrated leadership, skill and commitment this season”.

The 2009 Soaring Star Camogie Awards:

GOALKEEPER:
Audrey Kennedy (Offaly)

BACKS:
Fiona Stephens (Offaly)
Eimear Moynan (Laois)
Karen Brady (Offaly)
Karen Tinelly (Down)
Michaela Morkan (Offaly)
Louise Donoghue (Meath)

MIDFIELD:
Louise Mahony (Laois)
Niamh Coyle (Roscommon)

Forwards:
Arlene Watkins (Offaly)
Catherine McGourty (Down)
Áine Lyng (Waterford)
Susie O’Carroll (Kildare)
Karen Kelly (Waterford)
Elaine Darmody (Offaly)

AS CASHEL cruised into the Munster senior camogie club championship final on Saturday defeating Limerick champions Killeedy by 0-26 to 0-2, Sinead Millea was forced to watch from the sideline. It was exactly five weeks since she broke her ankle while helping the Tipperary side to their first Kilmacud All Ireland 7’s title last month. The former Kilkenny inter-county star plays her club camogie in Tipperary, and is hopeful should Cashel get to the final at the end of November, she might be ready to play some role.

“If we progress I would love to be able to make an impact, maybe for 10 minutes,” she said. “I know the leg will need a lot of work, but I have been lucky that I broke the ankle as a result of a direct blow and not by going over on it. I was told that the rehab will be more straightforward as there is not as much ligament damage.

“Of course, I am not being too presumptuous either. Cashel are not looking too far ahead, they are taking one match at a time. The Munster final is in Mallow on Sunday week against the Cork/Clare champions. Even if we do move on to the All Ireland series, it is going to be difficult to win back my place. Looking at them today, there was no weak link, all 15 played so well.”

Cashel won their only All Ireland club title in 2007 but failed to emerge from the Tipperary championship last year. It was Drom & Inch who reached the All Ireland decider only to be denied by Belfast’s O’Donovan Rossa.

John Grogan is manager of Cashel and his daughters Claire and Linda are on the team. Claire who was nominated for an All Star last week notched seven points. Fellow county players Emily Hayden and Cora Hennessy rowed in with 11 points between them.

Millea, a teacher in Tipperary, says Cashel would love to regain the trophy they claimed two years ago. It will be a long road, as they found out in the Tipperary championship. They had to survive an epic battle with Burgess/Duharra in the county final, that wasn’t decided until extra time.

Celebrate, the party’s not over til the camogie keeper sings!

CROKE PARK did it with fireworks, the GAA mothership did it with a new logo. Clubs up and down the country did it with the La na gClub, the Primary School day and other events, pig racing, greasy Pole dancing, you name it! The Camogie people did in style with dogs at Shelbourne. We’re doing it with a free t-shirt for all orders over €25. You would expect nothing less.

Yes, it’s just over two weeks now until the actual anniversary of the founding of the GAA in Lizzie Hayes Hotel 125 years ago. At three o’clock. In the afternoon. In the billiard room. 1 November 1884. We’ve had to live with the consequences ever since.

Well let’s just put it this way, imagine life in ireland today if there was no GAA? Imagine how all those fellas that could have been referees would feel without that extra wee bit of flak they get. Imagine the saving on brown paper bads for bungin’ club managers. Imagine the swathes of land that could be used for herding cows or sheep or playing foreign games. Imagine no Sunday Game. Imagine no Pat Spillane (God just imagine it. . .). Imagine no Joe Brolly. No Underdogs. No trips to Croker every summer. Imagine no Croker at all. No Clones, no Thurles. No Hill 16. No Puke football. No DJ Carey. No Donal Óg Cusack (we hear the Late Late Show in the next week or two will be worth the watching. . .). No Sean Óg, no Frank Murphy. No GPA, no One True Belief, no pay for play, no DRA.

Just imagine. . . what would you do on a summer’s evening. What would the children do. Imagine not pacing up and down the sideline, imagine no shite talking in the pub. Imagine no All Stars, no Camogie, no ladies football, no shirt tugging. No replica jerseys, not hats, flags and headbands and definitely no last few choc ices. No tay and sandwiches, no dodgy burgers and warm coke.

No Paddy Heaney, no Tom Humphries, no Kieran Shannon, no Enday McEvoy. No Des Cahill, no Evanne Ní Chuilinn, no Joanne Cantwell, no Marty Morrissey (every cloud has a silver lining!!). No Ger Loughnane for chrissakes. Do you think Cusack and the lads had any idea what they started?

“At a well attended meeting which was held in Miss Hayes’s Commercial Hotel in Thurles last Saturday, a Gaelic Association for the preservation and cultivation of National pastimes was formed”.

“The proceedings in Hayes Hotel were brief. Davin took the chair, and in a brief speech called for a body to draft rules to help revise Irish games and to open athletics to the man in the street. Cusack’s long speech criticised the national press for boycotting Irish sports, put forward the idea of a national athletic festival on the lines of the old Tailteann Games, and referred to over sixty letters of support he had received.”

So wherever you are, mark the day with a free t-shirt, courtesy of Squareball,on all orders over €25. Cusack would have expected no less.