It was a highly entertaining and informative evening at the Chat Night. The discussion covered many topics including everyone’s predictions for the Junior, Intermediate and Senior Club Championship to rule changes, management, refereeing, lack of competition for young players, Australian football and more.
The four panellists each had their own insights and it was intriguing to listen to Ollie talk about his approach to refereeing and his love of that role, how he handles the abuse by ignoring it. He expressed his view that in order for clubs to encourage new referees one of the things they should look at could be providing umpires to back them.
Stevie has very interesting ideas on what he would like to see being brought to our game such as, only the captain talking to the referee about decisions made, he expressed his views on the advantages of a knock out championship from his time managing in Tyrone, players getting experience abroad, how pay for playing should never happen, an opinion which was unanimous at the table.
Shaun was lauded in the room for the fantastic work that he does with the Sideline Eye, he has an excellent knowledge of all things to do with Armagh GAA. His experience of past interviews and who he would like to interview and how he has worked so hard at getting the name known for the past 4 years and how it’s bearing fruit now and we wish him continued success with that.
Aimee’s input was particularly interesting, she gave us an insight into her playing mixed boys and girls football growing up and then having to adapt to ladies football rules around the lack of contact allowed, she expressed her opinion very articulately on how that needs to be considered. She also entertained us with her experiences of playing in Australia and adapting again to the rules of that game. If the LGFA ever set up a committee to look at rule changes Aimee should be the Jim Gavin of that!
The four panellists each had their own insights and it was intriguing to listen to Ollie talk about his approach to refereeing and his love of that role, how he handles the abuse by ignoring it. He expressed his view that in order for clubs to encourage new referees one of the things they should look at could be providing umpires to back them.
Stevie has very interesting ideas on what he would like to see being brought to our game such as, only the captain talking to the referee about decisions made, he expressed his views on the advantages of a knock out championship from his time managing in Tyrone, players getting experience abroad, how pay for playing should never happen, an opinion which was unanimous at the table.
Shaun was lauded in the room for the fantastic work that he does with the Sideline Eye, he has an excellent knowledge of all things to do with Armagh GAA. His experience of past interviews and who he would like to interview and how he has worked so hard at getting the name known for the past 4 years and how it’s bearing fruit now and we wish him continued success with that.
Aimee’s input was particularly interesting, she gave us an insight into her playing mixed boys and girls football growing up and then having to adapt to ladies football rules around the lack of contact allowed, she expressed her opinion very articulately on how that needs to be considered. She also entertained us with her experiences of playing in Australia and adapting again to the rules of that game. If the LGFA ever set up a committee to look at rule changes Aimee should be the Jim Gavin of that!
The discussion was handled superbly by our MC Liam Hannaway, he asked the questions and allowed the conversation to flow seamlessly from one topic to another and brought the audience into it and encouraged debate on certain issues that were brought up. His passion for and knowledge of the game made it seem easy to him. Nobody was watching the clock and when he brought the discussion to a close with each of the panellists predictions for the championship it seemed like everyone wanted more.
Peadar Ó Doirnín CLG would like to express our gratitude to Liam, Aimee, Shaun, Steven and Ollie for giving their time and providing a wonderful evening’s entertainment.
We wish Shaun and Stevie the best of luck in the senior championship, we wish Aimee the best of luck on her recovery from injury and with Shane’s in the championship and with Melbourne Demons. Also we wish Ollie well and hope he will continue whistling for years to come. Good luck to Liam in his role as the Chair of the Amateur Drama Council of Ireland.
