BILLY JOE PADDEN has hailed Dublin as the greatest football team he’s ever seen.
However, the former Mayo star believes his own county are primed to deny Jim Gavin’s side a third consecutive All-Ireland title in this afternoon’s decider at Croke Park.
Padden admitted that if the teams were to meet in a US-style series of seven games, Dublin would emerge victorious against their rivals from the west.
But speaking ahead of the game on The42′s Close Calls, Padden — while acknowledging his biased outlook — backed Stephen Rochford’s to end the county’s 66-year wait for Sam Maguire.
“I think they’ve learned an awful lot and I think they’re ahead of the curve in terms of how teams should play against Dublin,” said Padden, a three-time Connacht title winner.
“I think they’re ready for the sort of mental task that it is because you have to be alert and aggressive and totally focused for the full 75 minutes. You can’t let it lapse at any stage, or else Dublin will just walk all over the top of you. I think they’ve proven that they can do that. They’ll need to do it again obviously.
“I think also that they’ve added something to their gameplan in terms of their ability to retain the ball. That’s absolutely vital against Dublin.
“I accept that I’m totally biased, I’m a Mayo man, I want to see it happen. If Mayo go and win I still think that Dublin are probably the greatest team we’ve ever seen. I don’t think that’s going to change. If they were to play a series of seven [games], Dublin would win the series.
“I just feel that the way Mayo are battle-hardened, the way they’re focused on this game, the way that maybe Dublin haven’t had any challenges this summer, I think that may have an impact on them — that maybe Mayo will just be that bit sharper on the day and will have enough to get the job done.”
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Watch Royal Rumble 2003. Around the 8 minute mark Edge and Rey Mysterio give him a double dropkick but Edge goes right across his face and breaks his nose!
The worst one pat. Remember m n m? When the guy got the ladder right in the face. Complete botch. His nose spread across his face
Joey hasn’t been the same since and is effectively retired (training in nxt now). One of the worst injuries I’ve witnessed.
Oh God. Yeh, that one is foul!
I love watching NFL, but the number of former players committing suicide because of the CTE-related dementia is scary and really needs to be addressed.
It’s not just just the older guys suffering symptoms either, linebacker Jovan Belcher who was only 26 and still playing for the KC Chiefs last year, murdered the mother of his child and committed suicide.
How long before they wake up and change the rules?
Where is it claimed that this had to do with cte? The reasoning behind that particular tragedy says he had a row with his gf over whether their daughter was his or not.
I think it’s really admirable what chris is doing but other tragedies shouldn’t be cited to push an agenda…
Belcher was a 3 time All America wrestler as well as a crunching linebacker whose job it is to crash head first repeatedly into 250lb+ blockers and running backs… head trauma much?
It is also well documented by close colleagues and friends that he displayed all the early stage signs of cte, e.g. depression, memory loss, confusion, aggressive behaviour etc…
…but hey if you think shooting his girlfriend 9 times and then himself was a perfectly sane, rational response to a row over the daughter then fair enough.
Like I said I love watching nfl, but it doesn’t take a genius to realise that repeatedly leading with their helmets, as they are taught to do from a young age, causes major problems later in life.
Was the same story with the Chris Benoit murder suicide. Everyone put it down to roid rage or personal issues with his wife but Nowinski worked with Benoits father closely and when they did an autopsy on the brain of Chris Benoit they discovered that due to the number of concussions Chris Benoit suffered he had a brain the equivalent to an elderly person suffering dementia. It was then argued how many dementia sufferers kill their family but I would argue back how many are physically capable of doing so.
After this was high lighted WWE took steps to prevent this. Unprotected chair shots to the head are banned, certain moved such as piledrivers and top rope head butts (incidentally one of Benoits finishers) are banned. On the other hand American Football associations have stuck their head in the sand.
Billy Korgan.
Karl Pilkingtons twin. :)
I agree that the NFL has to do more to
protect players – the constant impact to the brain in the sport is definitely related to depression later in a players life, as seen with linebacker Junior Seau. I also think that the NFL isn’t strict enough in regards to PEDs – so many players nowadays are on HGH and other banned substances – the combination of both brain trauma and dangerous substances does even more damage to the body. No wonder ex players are suing.
Interesting piece, but the link on Twitter was called “We’re putting our kids at too much risk by letting them play certain contact sports. Here’s how we can change that:”
This doesn’t really come close to addressing that…