THE SUNDAY GAME was back on our screens and it was the first major Sunday of the 2015 GAA championship.
We were following all the action from Ballybofey, Carrick-on-Shannon and Drogheda.
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‘We’re back’ is the roar of The Sunday Game. It’s the first big Sunday of the 2015 GAA season and we’re following the action all the way.
Here’s what’s in store today:
- Connacht SFC quarter-final: Galway v Leitrim, Páirc Sean MacDiarmada, Carrick-on-Shannon, 3.30pm
- Leinster SFC first round: Louth v Westmeath, Gaelic Grounds, Drogheda, 3.30pm
- Ulster SFC preliminary round: Donegal v Tyrone, Ballybofey, 4pm
The lads are out in force on a wet and miserable day in Ballybofey. Everyone happy to see them back debating?
Here’s how they’ll line out in Carrick-on-Shannon.
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The Louth team that starts in Drogheda.
And here’s the Westmeath side they will face.
The first flicker of a row between Joe Brolly and Pat Spillane over last year’s All-Ireland final but it’s quickly quelled by Michael Lyster as he moves swiftly on.
You can take the boy out of Louth but not Louth out of the boy. Carlton’s Ciaran Byrne interested in seeing how his former teammates fare today.
Early season Connacht silverware for Mayo football. They’ve won the provincial junior final against Galway, the curtain-raiser today in Carrick-on-Shannon.
Result: Connacht JFC final – Mayo 1-12 Galway 0-13
Louth 0-2 Westmeath 0-1
Lively start in the scoring stakes. Derek Maguire and Colm Judge on target for Louth.
Leitrim 0-2 Galway 0-1
Sean McWeeney and Ronan Kennedy grab points for Leitrim after Paul Conroy had got Galway off the mark.
All over in the Ulster minor football championship opener with Donegal seeing off Tyrone by 1-11 to 0-8.
Couple of interesting late changes to the Tyrone team. Both Brennan and McShane are graduates from the recent triumphant U21 team.
Galway 0-3 Leitrim 0-2
Paul Conroy edges Galway in front.
Westmeath 0-5 Louth 0-3
Two point advantage for Tom Cribben’s side.
Westmeath 0-6 Louth 0-3
John Heslin wins a free, converts the free and Westmeath go three clear.
Interesting sign in Drogheda.
Donegal 0-1 Tyrone 0-0
Lightning start by Donegal as Frank McGlynn tears forward and pops over a neat point.
Donegal 0-2 Tyrone 0-0
Really good play from Donegal. Patient play around the middle before Michael Murphy’s delivery finds Patrick McBrearty. He skins his man and come in off the right flank to take his point.
Galway 0-6 Leitrim 0-3
Paul Conroy knocks over a free to stretch Galway’s lead to three.
Donegal 0-3 Tyrone 0-0
Tyrone are getting unlocked here at the back. Odhran MacNiallais does great approach work, plays it across to Neil Gallagher who finds Christy Toye in plenty space and he picks off his point.
Galway 1-7 Leitrim 0-4
Damien Comer was the start of Galway’s win over New York and he’s making a big impact again today as he fires in a the game’s opening goal.
Donegal 0-4 Tyrone 0-0
Martin McElhinney with another point, Donegal are absolutely flying.
Donegal 0-4 Tyrone 1-0
Where did that come from?! Tyrone have looked very tentative early on with Donegal dictating the terms but Mickey Harte’s have just rattled the back of the net. It’s a cracking finish by Darren McCurry but Donegal’s defence was surprisingly prised apart with Peter Harte finding McCurry in aces of room.
Half-Time: Westmeath 0-7 Louth 0-6
Delicately balanced in Drogheda.
Half-Time: Galway 1-7 Leitrim 0-6
Four point advantage for the Tribesmen.
Donegal 0-5 Tyrone 1-0
Colm McFadden settles Donegal after the concession of that goal as he hooks over a point off his right.
Donegal 0-6 Tyrone 1-1
Justin McMahon hits a point but Tyrone could have got a greater reward with the score coming from a rebound after Peter Harte came closing to hitting the net only for Paul Durcan to block his shot.
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Two scoring chances for Tyrone from frees but Darren McCurry off target with both. Those could be costly.
Donegal 0-6 Tyrone 1-2
Tyrone hanging in there as Sean Cavanagh knocks over a close-range free.
Goal for Westmeath’s Callum McCormack!
Donegal 0-7 Tyrone 1-2
Christy Toye relieves the pressure on Donegal with a point.
Donegal 0-7 Tyrone 1-3
Sean Cavanagh points a free for Tyrone after Peter Harte is fouled by Neil Gallagher. Tyrone have to be happy with this state of affairs given Donegal’s powerful start to the game.
Donegal 0-7 Tyrone 1-4
Great individual score by Matthew Donnelly, he shrugs off the challenge of Ryan McHugh and clips over a foot off his left.
Goal for Westmeath from Shane Dempsey.
Tyrone 1-5 Donegal 0-7
And now Tyrone go in front! Fine point from Sean Cavanagh after a mistake from Karl Lacey.
Tyrone 1-6 Donegal 0-7
Tyrone playing really good stuff now. Ronan McNamee adds a point to stretch their lead. Cavanagh, Harte and Donnelly really driving them on.
Goal for Donegal by Martin McElhinney!
Donegal 1-8 Tyrone 1-6
MacNiallais with the initial chance for Donegal but Michael O’Neill produces a brilliant block to deny him. The rebound falls to McElhinney and he strikes first time superbly to the net. McFadden has just knocked over a fine point to put Donegal two ahead.
Half-Time: Donegal 1-8 Tyrone 1-6
Some shenanigans at half-time as both sides come off the pitch in Ballybofey. A schemozzle being the correct term.
A third goal for Westmeath from Ray Connellan.
Westmeath 3-11 Louth 0-14
Thirteen minutes left and the advantage is with Westemath.
Can’t argue with this.
Galway 1-10 Leitrim 0-6
Kevin Walsh’s side are seven points clear with ten minutes left in Carrick-on-Shannon.
Schemozzle alert.
Galway 1-12 Leitrim 0-8
Time running out and Galway in control at Carrick-on-Shannon.
Donegal 1-8 Tyrone 1-7
Sean Cavanagh knocks over a free after his brother Colm is fouled.
Full-Time: Westmeath 3-14 Louth 0-16
Donegal 1-8 Tyrone 1-8
Now we’re all square thanks to a lovely point by Conor McAliskey.
Full-Time: Galway 1-13 Leitrim 0-8
Donegal 1-10 Tyrone 1-8
Karl Lacey stretches Donegal’s lead further with a neat score.
Donegal 1-10 Tyrone 1-9
Couple of good bits of news for Tyrone. Conor McAliskey points at one end and then at the other, Michael O’Neill produces a fabulous save to deny Patrick McBrearty.
Tyrone 1-11 Donegal 1-10
Good kick by Michael Murphy from a free and that puts Donegal back in front.
Another top-drawer save by Michael O’Neill in the Tyrone goal to deny Colm McFadden this time.
Donegal 1-12 Tyrone 1-10
But Michael Murphy taps over a free as McFadden had been fouled moments before.
Yellow card for Tyrone’s Justin McMahon. Donegal fans very happy to hear that.
Sub: Mark Bradley, another U21 graduate in for Tyrone, for McCurry.
Red card for Donegal’s Neil Gallagher.
Second yellow for Gallagher and that’s 14 men Donegal have to play with for the closing stages.
Sean Cavanagh is sent-off!
High challenge from Cavanagh and he receives a black card, which is followed by a red as he was already on yellow.
We should mention that Paul Durcan produced a brilliant late save to deny Peter Harte a few moments ago, clawing the ball away as Tyrone nearly grabbed a second goal.
Donegal 1-13 Tyrone 1-10
Is that the insurance score? Michael Murphy brilliantly strikes over a ’45.
Colm Cavanagh nearly rescues Tyrone with a goal but he palms the ball against the crossbar.
And Tyrone nearly hit the net again! Mattie Donnelly fires in a rocket of a shot but the balls flies wide.
Full-Time: Donegal 1-13 Tyrone 1-10
Three-point win for Donegal, they macrh on in the Ulster championship to face Armagh in the quarter-final. The qualifiers beckons for Tyrone but they gave it everything today and really pushed Donegal hard. Really interesting, good game to kickstart the 2015 football championship.
Hope they took dental impressions from his shoulder in hospital. Drag in all the Dublin players to look at their choppers.
Guilty player should receive a lengthy ban and criminal prosecution.
From a dub.
There can be an awful Whif of sheep of them Donegal heads,poor lad was probably just a bit peckish!
Disgraceful incident if that’s what happened and has absolutely no place on the football pitch or anywhere in civilised society! However, it is not the first time I’ve heard of this type of assault in inter county football.
Sounds like sour grapes to me. Donegal are just a bunch of whingers.
Sure why would they have sour grapes. Isn’t relegation all part of McGuinness’s master plan. What a load of bullshit.
Agreed – sure he said all along that staying up isn’t a priority.
McGuinness’s master plan? Now you’re talking bullshit!
It seems one if the two replying is confused. I was saying that mcguinness is the bullshitter.
Apologies Luca
Theyve been beaten before and never came out with something like this so why would they do it now?
I seriously doubt a team would go public with something like that unless they were certain there was intent there.
Dont try and deflect away from the incident lads.
IF it has happened, and i say IF, would you condone the action of biting on the football field?
Why would they pick a fight with a team that has a huge media backing especially when it will be difficult to prove. There was time to contemplate this too so I doubt it is an impulse reaction to the result.
Huge media support??? The Donegal Democrat never gives the Dubs a fair crack of the whip…
Well pardon the lad then so for bringing it to the attention of the medical staff that this happened, this did happen and for someone to say its a case of winging is bull! As I said in another post if it was the other way around it would not take two days to get into the national media the culprit should get a lengthy ban nasty thing to do.
http://www.thescore.ie/dublin-jason-whelan-ban-1277911-Jan2014/
Ah sure the Dublin players will be grand the gaa will prob blame paul galvin for it ,
Galvin would have given a love bite
dubs are only rotten mungralls for bitten on the field.
If not just souur shpuds, hopefully the player in question gets some more shots on target next time and just hypodermic ones in the arse!! Jimmys winning PR battles!
Your that much of a clown. You can’t even spell the word Mongrel correctly.
dereck il spell it my way and u spell it ur way ya u filthy lookin clown
I sincerely hope the Dublin player in question got a tetanus jab afterwards…
I would like to take this moment to point out that Tyrone had nothing to do with this particular bite.
The dog bit him when he went home blame the dubs for everything
Typical anti-dub rhetoric here. Guilty before anyone knows what went on.
No sense of humour here at all
Got bit on the shoulder heard it all now, what a bunch of whingers
If I bit your shoulder I bet you’d be whinging too.
Bitten
Depends who was doing the biting.
Would that be a shoulder to cry on?
The Walking Dub
Biters will be bitin’?
That’s just nasty, biting someone.
I never knew Luis Suarez had signed for the Dubs….
He could ate an apple through a tennis racket.
Lol class
At least they only spit in Rugby!
Pretty sure they bite as well. Regardless of what sport it is, its not acceptable
You can’t please everyone, I often hear people complain because there is no bite in the game, then when there is….
What about a bit of needle?
Those jackeens were always hungry lads
It’s happening for years at least the gum shield law will ease the pain
Look at him. He’s a ride!!! I bite him any day!
More than likely the bite was from some dirty oul Donegal bird from the night before
How would it be sour grapes, sure they drew the match. Dublin didn’t relegate Donegal sure they didn’t even beat them!
No place for it. Seems that both Dublin and Donegal aware of it. How are they going to prove it?
Bloody savaged
did you mean..
A) Bloodily savaged
B) Bloody savage
C) Bloody savaged he was
” The Armagh whistler was forced to leave the game during the second-half after injuring his ankle with Sligo’s Marty Duffy taking his place instead ” ………… WHAT ARE YOU ON ABOUT FINTAN ?
The referee going off injured and being replaced.