Declan Lynch and Cliona Foley joined Joe Molloy on the Sunday Paper Review to talk about the most pressing articles from Sunday’s newspapers.
One of the major talking points came from an article in the Sunday Independent by Colm O’Rourke and Robbie Kelleher – ‘The Great Divide: Should Dublin be Split in Two?’. O’Rourke and Kelleher discussed the pros and cons to a potential division in the Dublin’s county Gaelic system.
Joe Molloy says the former Skyrne player’s opinion is based on the population density in the county, and the mass pool of talent that may not be slipping through the net.
The former Meath player argued during the 2002 strategic review commitee, when Dublin were struggling to make an impact, that Dublin Gaelic football should be divided into two teams due to the mass population. He believes talented players aren’t getting the opportunities because of the mass amount of players in the Dublin county system.
OTB'S Molloy believes O'Rourke's point O'Rourke's opinion in the piece is not derived from the counties dominance in the last number of years. He says O'Rourke's stance stands firm with his original opinion from the 02' review committee.
“O’Rourke’s point is based on splitting Dublin is nothing to do with their dominance, funny enough. He would argue that the 02’ strategic review committee. Which advised strongly on splitting Dublin, was at a time when Dublin were not dominating. Far from it, they won only one Leinster title in five years between 2000 and 04. The O’Rourke argument is about population and that there should be more than one team servicing that size of population, said Molloy.
Cliona Foley believes Robbie Kelleher presents some really good facts and figures as to why Dublin should not be split in two.
Kelleher is not in favour of a potential division within the county. He says it has nothing to do with population density. The former Dublin full-back compared the rise of population in Meath and Kildare in his rebuttal to O’Rourke’s claims. He referred to the decline of population in Mayo, yet their county side has made solid progression over the last number of seasons.
“He makes the point about population explosions, and he’s pointing out that Kildare and Meath’s populations have increased by so much in the last few years. Yet, the standard, they are struggling to compete, particularly in Leinster. He aslo pointed out that Mayo’s population declined from 2011 to 2016, and yet they have been so competitive. “
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