spongeman

What a joke of referee and judges.

Congratulations, Kaeo.

He still would have lost on points even without the warning deduction. I think his behavior after the loss reflects badly on Thailand.

They had the final round 7-6 to the chinese cheat - forget the 2 points off for each the Thai beat the tar out of him in that last round.

I cannot add much to the above, except to reinforce the proof of relationship factor and the money aspect, I would know Thai people who have been sucessful but then again they had either one or both of those circumstances behind them and in a strong way as well.

Rangers will play in the 3rd division.......when they get back to the Prem who will be left, and can anybody who wins the SPL in the meantime call themselves real champions ?

I d'ont think they can.

What a ridiculous comment.

The winners of the SPL will have done so without cooking the books....if anything Rangers should be stripped of titles won while they were living in financial fairyland...

Smokie I think you have been smoking something and whatever it is Id like some of it.......Money makes the world go round not sentiment..........It used to be clubs that went bust next it will be whole leagues......starting with the SPL.

If it does happen...which it won't by th way...then it would be well deserved.

The days of the Glasgow mafia strangling the game are over.

I for one could care less about either of those clubs.

I d'ont support either team either, what are the chances of this SPL2 forming ? I still d'ont think the Scottish clubs have thought this through on a financial level.

Rangers will play in the 3rd division.......when they get back to the Prem who will be left, and can anybody who wins the SPL in the meantime call themselves real champions ?

I d'ont think they can.

What a ridiculous comment.

The winners of the SPL will have done so without cooking the books....if anything Rangers should be stripped of titles won while they were living in financial fairyland...

Smokie I think you have been smoking something and whatever it is Id like some of it.......Money makes the world go round not sentiment..........It used to be clubs that went bust next it will be whole leagues......starting with the SPL.

Salty do the 3rd division clubs even have the facilities to accomadate Rangers supporters ?

Either way its a bonanza for them !!!!!!!!

Yes how the mighty have fallen. The team with the most points obtained by fair means in the next three seasons will be real champions unlike several previous titles won by Rangers who have a case to answer about using illegal means.

Salty will the current TV deal stay in place ? Love doesnt put food on the table............

Rangers will play in the 3rd division.......when they get back to the Prem who will be left, and can anybody who wins the SPL in the meantime call themselves real champions ?

I d'ont think they can.

Rangers will play in the 3rd division.......when they get back to the Prem who will be left, and can anybody who wins the SPL in the meantime call themselves real champions ?

I d'ont think they can.

Lets see how well the SPL get on with :

a) Reduced Sky revenue

No Rangers Income (ticket sales/revenue from visiting supporters)

I can see some clubs in big financial trouble. And this " punish Rangers attitude " will not help them then.

PS I support neither of the old firm.

And what will Sky think of this..........

What way are Celtic going to vote on this Rangers fiasco ? Why are so many teams voting against them ? Who will fill their stadiums when Rangers are gone, Celtic apart ? Who will challenge Celtic ?

It will be interesting to see which of the Old Guard will depart the scene. No official homecomings this time I fear.

Wicklow v Waterford. Mind the blood pressure spongeman.

I actually think a few of them might stay on. Id say Dunne will keep going anyway. With Germany in the next group it looks like we will be battling it out with Sweden for second place. Euro 2016 in France has 24 teams so we have a better chance of getting there.

Cannot see the system being changed in the near future, although looking at the other teams attacking football we may well need to modify our style.

Anyway Wicklow got a home draw in the qualifiers so that lessens the pain somewhat.......

Yea the chaps ran NZ very close. I do not feel depressed in any way after our 2 games. Well aware that we were very limited in quality of personnel compared to 1988/90.

Very likely we will finish with 3 defeats. Would hope for a fighting performance against Italy and no concession of soft goals. Even spongeman thinks we have no hope.

"no concession of soft goals" that sums it up. Am I expecting us to play like Germany ? Of course not. However we can do a bit better than this, giving the ball away, absolutely no build up of play from back to front, etc etc.

WE ARE NOT PLAYING SOCCER.

My commiserations......it was always going to be a tough ask in your group. Hopefully you can pull it together and take Italy out with you.....

We have absolutely no chance against Italy.

No guts, no guile, no hunger.

Ireland put to the sword. Did'nt expect them to win but that was a shocking performance.

McGeady was a disgrace, Cox was a donkey.

What a shambles.

Roy Keane is no Irishman for leaving us in the lurch after we had got out of a qualifying group with Holland and Portugal, under the stewardship of McCarthy.

A little mixed here Spongy, 2002 was the group with Germany, Cameroon and Saudi.

McCarthy/ Keane split Ireland awfully and I remember it well, I was disgusted with keane's attitude, but to be fair, professionally he was right in a lot of cases, but his rant was mindless and altogether pointless.

I still believe that with him, we would have beaten Spain who were down to 10 men in extra time due to injury and McCarthy didn't notice, we would then have met RoK, we would have won and then Germany in the semi final, we had played them off the park in the group game.

Brazil in the final, anything can happen in a final.......................ahhh Sweet dreams

Cant disagree with any of the above Mossy, and it does show the difference between the World Cup and the Euros......the Euros has many more strong teams.

Although has anyone been surprised by the lack of quality of Greece/Sweden/Czech ? Very poor.

<deleted> Guys,

Lets get back on track here. Red Tops are suggesting Walters will start against Spain in place of Kevin Doyle but McClean will not start. I think he could be a good impact sub for McGeady who by and large promises but rarely delivers.

Hear Hear there is a lot of stupidity on this thread about Ireland/England and lets stick to the football, We all read English papers and follow English teams so lets all cop on. I thought Hodgson did well last night, blooded a few players and we should have done the same............

I think we will need to make a lightning tour to Knock, Lourdes and Fatima.

I would just head straight to Bethlehem ?

When I watched the quality that was on show in the Italy-Spain game I started to panic a bit, what a game that was. Great goalkeeping, fantastic defending, great chances.

I was disappointed with our performance overall. Yes there was some poor decisions by the officials but when you let the likes of Modric have a free run in midfield the you have no chance. I know we are not the greatest exponents of the game but I was really taken aback by our midfield - there was'nt one. Croatia are a team that are very comfortable on the ball and fully deserved their win.

For example for the third goal we did not touch the ball for three minutes before they scored. For the second goal we gave the ball away leading up tp it. For the first goal it was a free header. There may have been dodgy decisions but the team who attacks more is likely to get more decisions.

For Thursday I would like to see Keane and Walters up from, McClean in midfield, and Doyle rested.

Rosary Beads at the ready.

No Egg shaped ball talk in here, chaps

You tell em Mr. Bojangles.

In fact I will be starting out on a major session in due course, and will be in a bojangles myself !

I feel that Croatia will have us on the back foot for a large portion of the game on Sunday. They will see it as a must win game, where the general feeling here is any result will do. I remember when they played us in Dublin a while back and should have had a few penalties.

I am beginning to get a really bad feeling that we might not score in any of the three games.......I hope I am wrong. Its not like the world cup where you can get one or two average teams in your group.

In the Euros nobody can hear you scream............

spongeman,

You were always a glass half full kind of guy on previous posts on Ireland and I tended to be more pessimistic. I would not die with the shock if that is how things turned out but we live in hope.

Problem is there seems to be a fair amount of quality around in this tournament, eg Denmark, Germany, Russia. Only time will tell.

The glass half full spongeman will return tomorrow, when I get absolutely toasted before the match......................

Greece being rodgered by the ref, the level of corruption is shameless.