The word jeopardy has become trendy of late, one of those words that is now commonly used in sport to add emphasis to the repercussions of the result of a football match for instance.

It’s a relatively new term this side of the Atlantic as far as my limited knowledge of such matters goes although Google tells me that the world has long been a regular one in the States thanks to the hit TV show of the same name.

It’s certainly a word that can be associated with Drogeda United on the second anniversary of their stunning FAI Cup final win against Derry City when the Aviva Stadium was painted claret and blue by the celebrating Drogs.

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Through rain or shine…

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Jamie McGrath was one of the men to put the Sunshine on Leith at Hampden Park on Sunday, a man from Athboy who has put his hometown on the map at a time when football in his village needs a boost like never before.

As one of those who can actually say he played football against Athboy Celtic back in the 1980s - badly as it happened - let me explain further why you should know about this story.

We will start with Jamie. He’s as Athboy as Athboy comes. His mother Brenda and his dad Kevin are stalwarts of sport and soccer in the town where hurling enjoyed a stranglehold long before the formation of the Mid-Meath League and the football boom in the 80s.

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Ground for regeneration

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The giddy season is all but upon us in the League of Ireland and already the rumours are flying up and down the wonderful world of social media depending on what platform your own information train arrives at.

Some keyboard warriors are predicting that not one but two Dublin managers could end up working together at Derry City after the FAI Cup final is sorted on Sunday week.

There’s speculation that Tommy Lonergan will be back in England as soon as the curtain draws on that Cup decider against Derry at the Aviva.

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Young guns going for it

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So what do Michael Carrick, Frank Lampard, Regis le Bris, Oliver Glasner, Alvaro Arbeola and Pierre Sage have in common? What’s the one thing that they should all do that has probably never even crossed their minds? Call Seamus Coleman, that’s what they should do.

Usually when an inspirational Ireland captain and a footballer of the pedigree of Seamus announces his retirement, the news is met with a fanfare.

Tabloid newspaper pullouts, front page photographs, adoring columns from the journalists who watched him play 81 times for his country, 374 times for Everton, 56 times for Sligo Rovers and nine times for Blackpool.

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Up, up and over the bar

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The story of the season began with a little shuffle on Friday night, a glance of the eyes, a handshake and a high five. It gained momentum as the whispers went around the main stand, came to a crescendo as the referee made his move and the board went up.

No, it wasn’t the news reaching Tallaght Stadium that local boy Mipo had scored the goal for Shelbourne on the night of the fading lights at Dalymount, the night Bohs gave up on their own championship ambitions.

Nor was it the third and fourth and decisive goals from Aaron Greene and Dylan Watts inside three second-half minutes that ensured the SSE Airtricity trophy was on its way back to South Dublin for the sixth time in seven years, a run only halted by the dazzler that was Damen Duff at Shels.

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Support through the dark…

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A week out from the self imposed Bohemians media ban, Alan Reynolds came out with one of the quotes of the season and where else did he deliver it other than in a media conference ahead of their penultimate game of the season, at home to Shelbourne tonight.

It’s a derby game that will go a long way to deciding if Bohs or Shamrock Rovers take the league crown, a game that the Gypsies must win under the dying Dalymount Park floodlights to stop their great rivals securing a sixth title in seven seasons this evening.

That in itself, the chance to prolong what has been a frustrating season for the stop-start Hoops, is incentive enough to keep the Bohs players and their demanding fans on their toes tonight.

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When the party’s over…

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Forget everything you have read or heard about James McClean, Daniel McDonnell and Paul Kimmage this week - there are only six words you need to know about James McClean and they came from his wife Erin.

The world and his mother are getting their knickers in a twist about comments contained in the book promotion interview between the former Ireland player and the Sunday Independent last weekend and the reply from Derry City on Monday.

The quote from James in relation to the merits - or not - of grown men seeking help with mental health issues has ensured his soon to be released story remains in the headlines and his publishers will doubtless be happy with all the publicity.

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Up, up and away…

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His passing was almost lost in the midst of the last international window, his passing is so, so lamentable. Jacko McDonagh was a League of Ireland legend with a genius touch that was way ahead of his time.

The 64-year-old Dubliner left this world a month or so ago and he left it all the better for those of us who were lucky enough to see him start out as a young kid with Bohemians, graduate to international honours via Shamrock Rovers and prosper in the professional leagues of France and Belgium.

That football didn’t reward him - or his family - with the fame and fortune that his talents deserved is just one of those things so typical of a game that can be a cruel master.

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Will to win…

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There’s a football man from Waterford called Matt who’s very excited right now as he looks forward to the Club Orange FAI Cup final next month and the meeting of his beloved Blues and Derry City at the Aviva Stadium.

He’s a man well versed in all things League of Ireland, a man who knows what it takes to win league titles and FAI Cups and what is needed to survive relegation battles as his club are attempting right now.

He’s also a man who regularly signs off his social media posts with a simple and very relevant statement - you can’t beat live football. And he’s right as events proved at Tallaght Stadium on Monday night when Shamrock Rovers re-installed themselves into pole position for this season’s title.

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Back of the net…

That was as good a live sporting event as you will see in Ireland this year, full of drama on and off the pitch and even after the final whistle.

In fact, the drama has continued all week. In his post-match press conference, Hoops boss Stephen Bradley had a pop at more than Bohs and the manner in which some coaching staff members from various clubs conduct themselves.

The Bohs, currently engaging in a self-imposed media ban, then broke that ban to allow their manager Alan Reynolds vent his frustrations with a few verbal offerings of his own aimed firmly in the direction of Tallaght.

Just as we were digesting that release came further rumblings from the St Pats’ boss Stephen Kenny about the fact that his team have had to wait 27 days between their win over Sligo on September 19th and tonight’s enticing Dublin derby at home to Shels.

That delay was of course due to the international break and the FAI Cup semi-finals which the Saints failed to qualify for but Kenny has a very good point - they will now put their own title hopes on the lines against Shels tonight in Inchicore and Derry City at the Brandywell on Monday evening in a re-arranged fixture.

By Tuesday they could be confirmed as the only side left with Rovers in the title race as Bohs could well stumble against the aforementioned Waterford at Dalymount tonight when Rovers face a difficult journey to Galway United.

Thanks to Messrs Bradley, Reynolds and Kenny, the off-field action has nearly been as enticing and as interesting as the potential for drama offered by tonight’s fixture list. Nearly.

Those three managers have had their say and will, no doubt, have plenty more to say tonight at Eamonn Deacy Park, Richmond Park and Dalymount Park.

And their words will garner even more attention as the business end of the League of Ireland season reaches boiling point.

But there’s one other certainty around all of this - what really matters in the title race is who does their talking on the pitch, who puts their manager’s beliefs into action rather than their words.

Rovers have the ascendancy and Bradley is currently top of the pops. Pats must ignore the injustice of a 27 day wait to sample live football, twice in the space of four days now as it happens.

And Bohs, for all their media releases amidst a media ban, have to hope that their players can drag themselves off the floor tonight following their recent cup disappointment against Waterford and the derby defeat on Monday.

All that really counts at any time in football is the action on the pitch, the live football that can’t be beaten as my friend in Waterford says.

That live football tonight promises to be juicier than ever in Dublin and Galway and it will tell us so much about where the SSE Airtricity LOI trophy will be going for presentation purposes over the next three weeks.

So do yourself a favour tonight - get to a game. And enjoy it. If the past week is anything to go by, you won’t be disappointed.

It's another pivotal weekend in the race for the League of Ireland Premier Division title. particularly so for St Patrick's Athletic who must beat Shelbourne today and Derry on Monday to keep Shamrock Rovers in sight. Our LOI regular pundit Darryl Geraghty and editor Cathal Dervan look back to the Tallaght derby and ahead to all the big matches between now and Monday.

The full episode is available on site now and you can watch all the previous Let’s Talk Football episodes now on TheSportsHacks.com

or you can listen to all of our podcasts on our Spotify channel

Check our socials (X here or insta here or tiktok here) for all the latest or just to see the World Cup giraffes again!

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Move over #GreatestLeagueInTheWorld, there’s a new hashtag in town, Dublin town to be precise. After Monday night’s drama in Tallaght, this is a marketing suggestion that is well worth pursuing - #GreatestDerbyInTheWorld.

Okay, so it may seem a little far fetched when compared to other games that would lay claim to that very coveted title. United against City of all the charges in Manchester. Celtic against Rangers in Glasgow. Inter versus AC in Milan. Dundee v Dundee United in, you guessed it, Dundee.

There’s even an Irish twist on El Classico in the Midlands derby this Friday night when Longford Town host their nearest neighbours Athlone in a game of huge significance to both their First Division seasons.

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Poles to go…

Those games listed above are all fixtures that mean something extra special to the supporters of all the clubs concerned. In their own right, they are every bit as important and as unique as the meeting of Shamrock Rovers and Bohemians was to the Hoops and the Gypsies of North and South Dublin on Monday.

But any of those games will do well to match what was a triumph for League of Ireland football in general and the most renowned Dublin derby of them all this time around.

This was a pivotal match wrapped around a title race that has been intriguing for weeks now, a game that neither side could afford to lose as the likely destination of the 2026 league crown becomes ever clearer.

It was a game hyped up by all connected with our domestic league and it turned out to be a game that delivered on all fronts.

Consider the crowd for a start. On a night when Virgin Media, who’ve done a great job all season, beamed the action from Tallaght live into our living rooms, Rovers v Bohs attracted 10,208 fans to the best stadium in the league.

On a night when Premier League football was live on Sky Sports, albeit Coventry at home to Newcastle, Rovers and Bohs attracted the biggest crowd ever to attend Tallaght Stadium for a competitive game.

On a night when the schools were back and workplaces were only closing, Dublin’s biggest rivals drew the crowds and delivered an experience to match.

Monday night’s game had a bit of everything but let’s start with the genius that is Graham Burke. If he doesn’t win Player of the Year this season, there is something wrong. How he isn’t earning Premier League millions in England every year, even now at 33, remains a mystery.

Like Bohs legend Jackie Jameson before him, Burke has that uncanny ability to hold the ball up in the tightest of spaces, conjure something magical out of nothing and hit a killer pass or a sweeping shot on goal with the ease of a magician. His performance on Monday night was worth the admission money alone.

He wasn’t alone. Bohs played with verve and passion, Rovers hit them hard when it mattered and the game ebbed and flowed like the Liffey itself.

How Bohs didn’t score as they dominated the first 20 minutes of the second-half is beyond me. How they conceded so sloppily five minutes after Ross Tierney’s deserved 71st minute equaliser will be beyond them.

Even when the game was over and Dylan Watts’ reward for his industrious night came via the winning goal, there was more drama to come as tempers flared, punches were thrown and the bragging rights for the final Rovers-Bohs derby of the season were celebrated a little too zealously for some.

Much has been made of the ‘melee’ that prompted four red cards for those caught misbehaving in that post game scrap but, as Eoin Doyle said so well afterwards, a derby match demands that rattiness, that edge.

Without it, it will be as useless as a half and half scarf on sale at Dalymount or Tallaght when such fixtures arrive. It may have looked unpleasant but it was no more than the occasion had threatened all night.

As for the impact of the Rovers win, let’s just say they took two massive steps forward in the title race this past week with wins at home to Drogheda and now Bohs that have put the League of Ireland trophy firmly back in their grip.

It is theirs to lose once again - and they’ve already recovered from that scare once this season. They won’t be caught twice.

With the international window well and truly closed now, our Merseyside based pundit Kevin Bannon returns to Let's Talk Football to discuss the Manchester City story that just won't go away - and he tells editor Cathal Dervan why the Sky Blues should be kicked out of the Premier League.

The full episode is available on site now and you can watch all the previous Let’s Talk Football episodes now on TheSportsHacks.com

or you can listen to all of our podcasts on our Spotify channel

Check our socials (X here or insta here or tiktok here) for all the latest or just to see the World Cup giraffes again!

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There’s an oddity about a Thin Lizzy track that has often raised its head in online debates, a question about a Phil Lynott lyric that will almost certainly be aired on January 4th next in Vicar Street.

That’s the night of the annual gig in Philo’s hometown when the great man is celebrated, as always, on the anniversary of his passing back in 1986.

This year Brian Downey and Peter M. Smith will be among the artists and you can bet your bottom dollar that Jailbreak will get an airing, including the line in question.

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Pure passion…

It goes: ‘Tonight there’s gonna be a jailbreak, somewhere in this town’. As those who debate such things have pointed out, said jailbreak is likely to be from the jail and not somewhere else in the town.

It’s a small thing, the sort of topic that can while away a dark evening in a wintry public house as the evenings close in. Dave, the man who plays the music at Tallaght Stadium, might even play the song tonight.

There won’t be a jailbreak this evening by the way but Rovers and Bohs both need to stage a breakout as the League of Ireland title race reaches boiling point and one of the greatest derbies in the world returns.

Rovers were commanding when they played their game in hand against a poor Drogheda side on Thursday night, the 3-1 win putting them back on top of the table with three points to spare over Pats and Bohs.

They won a game they had to win and the return of John McGovern to their team proved vital, the 23-year-old from Newry grabbing two first-half goals and showing the Hoops what they missed when he was out injured last month.

McGovern was the perfect foil to the creative genius of Graham Burke, surely the player of the year this season, as Rovers found their groove again at the right time of the season.

That they won so handsomely on Thursday night will be a concern for the Bohs fans crossing the Liffey tonight for the game they always look out for when the fixtures computer does it thing,

But Bohs have more than John McGovern and Graham Burke and a rejuvenated Rovers attack to worry about tonight. They have plenty of problems of their own to think about when they board the Red Line Luas this evening.

Half the Bohs season, and a dream, came to an end on Friday night when they battered Waterford in the first-half of the FAI Cup semi-final and still lost 2-0 to the Blues.

That they failed to turn possession and chances into goals in one of the biggest games of their season has to be ominous going into this derby. They simply cannot afford such leniency in front of goal tonight.

That’s why there is a suspicion that Colm Whelan will start against Rovers. Many of those Bohs fans who spend their lives online are adamant he should start. He probably will.

This is make or break for Alan Reynolds and his team. A defeat tonight will put them six points off Rovers with three games to go. A win and they will jam open the title door for themselves and Pats - the side they go to for the last game of the season.

For that game to have any real merit, Bohs must break out tonight as the Jailbreak song says, score goals and win the match. For Rovers, a break out of their own tonight will push them six points clear of their only two title rivals with nine points to play for.

We won’t get a jailbreak but we may well get the breakout that is also mentioned in the Lizzy classic.

And just as Liverpool’s music man taunted Manchester City with Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Tell Me Lies’ even after the Reds were thumped at Anfield yesterday, don’t be surprised if Rovers fans taunt Bohs with a Johnny Logan classic if they take the three points tonight.

It will be more ‘What’s Another Year’ than ‘Hold Me Now’ across social media if the Hoops trump the Gypsies.

What a game it promises to be.

Coaching corner will return soon with Larry and Cathal. In the meantime, we’ve been spending some quality time with the most popular independent football podcast in Scotland - Open Goal. Here’s last week’s edition for a little light entertainment as we start the week

You can listen to all of our podcasts on our Spotify channel

Check our socials (X here or insta here or tiktok here) for all the latest or just to see the World Cup giraffes again!

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After a tumultuous week, Irish eyes will turn to Astana at noon today as the Girls in Green look to take another step forward in their quest to qualify for next year’s World Cup in Brazil.

Ireland have undertaken a journey of more than 5,000km to the Kazakhstan capital for the first leg before the sides meet again at Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Tuesday, with Carla Ward’s side entering the tie as overwhelming favourites.

The Girls in Green earned their spot in the play-off semi-finals due to their performance in the Nations League, but a third-place finish in a difficult group containing European powerhouses France and the Netherlands ensured Ireland had a seeded draw.

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Let the games begin…

Ireland impressed throughout the qualifying campaign. Two victories over potential final-round opponents Poland, along with a famous win over the Netherlands in Cork, helped build belief that this side can go toe-to-toe with elite international opposition.

Few expected Ireland to challenge for automatic qualification when the group was drawn, yet they entered the final matchday with a genuine chance of reaching the World Cup directly. After making their World Cup debut in Australia and New Zealand in 2023, Ireland are now aiming to establish themselves as regulars on the global stage.

Ward faces some selection headaches going into the first leg. Key players Katie McCabe, Denise O’Sullivan and Marissa Sheva will miss out but the suspended McCabe has travelled to support her teammates.

Ireland are also without Saoirse Noonan, Tara O’Hanlon and Ruesha Littlejohn. Noonan and O’Hanlon miss out through injury, while Littlejohn remains without a club following her departure from Crystal Palace at the end of last season. Her lack of game time has also seen her omitted from the squad.

One of the biggest surprises from Carla Ward’s squad announcement was the inclusion of Shanade Hopcroft. The 29-year-old midfielder has received her first senior international call-up after qualifying to represent Ireland through her Irish grandmother. Previously on the books at Chelsea, Hopcroft recently returned to newly promoted WSL side Crystal Palace, where she has quickly established herself as a regular in midfield. Her experience could make her a candidate to start in Astana, particularly with O’Sullivan unavailable and Littlejohn not part of the squad.

Kazakhstan enter the tie after finishing second in a qualifying group containing Belarus and Armenia, recording two wins, one draw and one defeat. Ranked 98th in the FIFA rankings, Kazakhstan were arguably the most favourable opponent Ireland could have drawn. That, however, does not mean they can be taken lightly.

The long journey to Astana will test Ireland’s recovery, while Kazakhstan’s relative unfamiliarity could present another challenge. Kazakhstan are targeting their first major women’s tournament appearance since 1999 and will see this tie as an opportunity to produce a major upset.

After the first leg in Astana, Ireland will return to Páirc Uí Chaoimh for the decisive second leg. Poland or Belgium await the aggregate winners, with Ireland having beaten both sides in recent years.

For now, Ireland’s immediate task is clear: navigate the trip to Astana, take control of the tie and return to Cork with their World Cup hopes firmly in their own hands.

It's semi-final time in the Club Orange FAI Cup and LOI pundit Darryl Geraghty and editor Cathal Dervan discuss all the juicy bits ahead of Bohs v Waterford and Galway United v Derry City.

You can listen to all of our podcasts on our Spotify channel

Check our socials (X here or insta here or tiktok here) for all the latest or just to see the World Cup giraffes again!

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The curtain has finally come down on the elongated international window, the Nations League is gone back to bed for another month and thank God for that.

This was the window everyone involved in Irish football dreaded and it didn’t fail to deliver. From an abject performance in Kosovo, farce and really good football in Debrecen, second-half capitulation in the Aviva and bizarreness in Serbia, these two weeks had something for everyone.

There’s been enough said and written, here and elsewhere, about the off-field stuff so let’s park that and leave it for others to ring Liveline and vent their feelings.

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Kisses all round…

Two months out from the draw for the 2028 European Championship qualifiers and on the back of Sunday’s 1-1 draw against Israel, let’s see what we might have learnt from this endless window.

TROY PARROTT IS BACK

He is scoring goals for fun again but Troy Parrott’s Ireland career is an overnight sensation seven years in the making, ever since Mick McCarthy handed him his first cap against New Zealand in November, 2019. It’s taken the brave move to Holland and the escape from the expectations of life at Spurs for Troy to blossom but now he has found his stage and his audience. If he can avoid injury, he is only going to get better for Ireland via La Liga and might just kick-on to world class status, given time.

EVAN FERGUSON NEEDS TO GET BACK

Adam Idah’s flick for Troy’s brilliant first goal against Austria was as telling as the mazy run that followed and his 63 minutes on the pitch were some of his best for Ireland. They also proved that Troy needs a target man alongside him to fully exploit his trickery and whilst Adam is the man of the moment, there’s every reason to believe that a fully fit Evan Ferguson will be the perfect foil for Parrott and will offer more goal scoring threat in his own right than the Swansea striker. Get well soon Evan, please.

CONOR COVENTRY IS THE NEW JOSH CULLEN

It was telling that Charlton schemer got the nod ahead of Jayson Molumby and Jason Knight against Austria, more telling than the revelation that Brother Coventry is now leading the Irish team in prayer before every game. He may be saying the prayers but Coventry is more industrious than Molumby and more consistent in the demanding and thankless midfield work required at this level so he might finally be the answer to our number six prayers before Josh Cullen gets fit again.

WE NEED A NEW LIAM BRADY

The one thing we still lacked throughout this Nations League window is a creative midfielder who can split a defence and turn a game in an instant. Not since Liam Brady have we had such a player - Wes Hoolahan’s magic came close - so we really need someone to break from the traps and provide the key to unlock defences in the Euro qualifiers. Nobody put their hand up these past weeks so the search must be extended.

IN-GAME MANAGEMENT NEEDS TO IMPROVE

Stephen Kenny’s Ireland had a real issue conceding goals from distance. Heimir Hallgrimsson’s Ireland have a problem protecting two goal leads as Austria proved once again in a repeat of the Prague failures. That ability to close out games is crucial at this level. Preparing the team well in advance is a trait this current management are very good at but they, and the players, need to cope better in real life when they have a lead. That will be essential if they are to secure one of the automatic qualification spots for Euro 2028 and home games in Dublin.

As the League of Ireland returns, our regular LOI pundit Darryl Geraghty looks back at the Women’s FAI Cup success for Shels and the SSE Airtricity Women’s Premier Division title win for Athlone. Plus a look ahead to all the big League and Club Orange FAI Cup action in the men’s game this weekend.

You can listen to all of our podcasts on our Spotify channel

Check our socials (X here or insta here or tiktok here) for all the latest or just to see the World Cup giraffes again!

No noise, just the news & views that matters. The Sports Hacks is a reader supported publication - if you like what you read, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber and sharing our work.

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Troy Parrott deserves all the praise that is coming his way for one of the great Lansdowne Road goals on Thursday night, a goal born of individual brilliance, stunning creativity and sheer cheek. The quality of the run alone deserves headlines of its own.

He probably deserved a hat-trick on the night and Ireland deserved a win but those second-half substitutions and tactical naivety on and off the field when 2-0 up in a game again came back to haunt this Irish set-up. More of that anon.

Let’s consider the Troy goal for a second. Firstly, it was old school and long ball in its initiation, an actual kick forward from a goalkeeper rather than a sideways pass. Most great Aviva goals start that way as Shane Long will tell you.

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And so it begins..

Secondly, the flick from Adam Idah just in front of the halfway line was superb. He, as much as Parrott, made a point to the manager and the crowd against Austria. That flick alone should guarantee his starting role for many games to come.

Now we get to Troy. This goal wasn’t created last night. It was created when Troy was just a kid with an uncanny ability to score goals and dominate defenders back in the days when the great Belvedere Football Club provided his field of dreams.

I will bet any money that Troy Parrott scored that exact goal on the training pitches with Belvo, in DDSL matches with Belvo, on the training ground with Spurs when he first went to London.

It is a goalscorer’s dream goal, one they will have got away with when they were the best kid in the class so to speak, one they can only pull off at the highest level even if they are blessed with genius.

Troy Parrott is blessed with a genius style talent. We’ve known that for years but football, cruel business that it is, and life hasn’t given him the easiest route to the goal of a lifetime at the Aviva Stadium or a World Cup redemption performance in Budapest.

He has had to fight every inch of the way to get here. He has had to be brave when choosing first Holland and then Spain to resurrect his career. The irony of Spurs fans asking if they’d have him back on social media last night won’t be lost on the 24-year-old.

What Troy has also lacked, until Adam Idah sprung like a salmon last night, is real support in the Irish team to make the most of his ability to play off the cuff.

Against Kosovo a week earlier he was left isolated and alone up top, the tactics failing to give him any real support. When Adam Idah was replaced by Jason Molumby - and Liam Scales was sacrificed for Liam Kitching - in the 63rd minute last night, Ireland again lacked the foil that Troy needed.

Those strange substitution decisions and the lack of a real back-up for Parrott on the Irish bench are the real worries for Irish fans this morning.

For now, we should celebrate a brilliant Troy Parrott goal in a game that was there for the taking and thrown away once again.

Was it the greatest goal ever scored in Dublin 4? For those born this century probably yes, in terms of skills alone.

Shane Long’s strike against Germany was more valuable and just as memorable. Go back in time and we can add an Ashley Grimes wonder goal against Spain, Liam Brady’s stunning effort against Brazil and a certain Jason McAteer finish, for sheer importance, to that list.

Should we celebrate the goal and the player this morning? Absolutely. That Troy Parrott is one of our own should always be celebrated.

The international break will soon be over and normal footballing services will resume. Let’s Talk Football will also return, in the meantime, here’s a little something else.

Ahead of Sunday's contentious 'home' fixture against Israel in Serbia, RTE pundits Didi Hamann and Richard Sadlier discuss the noise around this Nations League game.

You can listen to all of our podcasts on our Spotify channel

Check our socials (X here or insta here or tiktok here) for all the latest or just to see the World Cup giraffes again!

No noise, just the news & views that matters. The Sports Hacks is a reader supported publication - if you like what you read, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber and sharing our work.

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Somewhere around 7.30pm tonight, protests permitting, the great and the good will begin to make their way from the Green Room to the President’s Box at the Aviva Stadium, swapping finger food for the comfy seats.

Somewhere around 7.45pm, protests permitting, a football match will break out between the Republic of Ireland and Austria. This, in case you don’t know amidst all the other noise, is a fixture in the Nations League tournament that means one thing to those who play in it - money.

They will tell you, as we heard in the real corridors of power yesterday, that failing to play a Nations League match will cost multiples of €10million but we can take €10million as the base figure for tonight’s ‘big’ fixture. Nice money when you can get it.

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Rough & tumble…

There’s always talk around these things of ranking points as well and seedings for tournament but the reality is that ranking points and seedings existed long before the Nations League was ever heard of as a money making alternative to meaningless friendlies.

And the suits in Switzerland will always find a way to work out who should play who in the qualifying rounds of the real major tournaments - the World Cup and the Euros - whether or not the Nations League ever existed.

This League was introduced in 2018 and has been a Godsend for the accounts departments across Europe’s football associations. Competitive games rather than meaningless friendlies, against Poland or Qatar in all probability, means more TV and commercial partner revenue.

More TV money from games against the likes of England, Scotland, Wales and Denmark in this competition should mean more money for real Irish football.

It should mean more money for the grassroots, for the kids who play in the rain every November because summer football was abandoned after the vote was passed.

It should equate to more money for the League of Ireland clubs to bring female toilets up to standard up and down the country, to improve their pitches, to add some wattage to their Friday night lights.

It should mean having enough money in the bank to construct a purpose built arena for Football For All, to ensure that all those who love our game can play it in the best possible surroundings.

They’re some of the things the Nations League should do, some of the reasons why the €5.5million and €4.8million and a ‘potential multiplier’ of those figures were so important to the Tesco suits in the Oireachtas yesterday.

Sadly, they are not the main reason the Nations League means so much right now because most of the profit on that €10million plus will go to the FAI debtors - to one of the big banks, to UEFA, to FIFA and to the Government, the very people who bailed out the FAI in its 2019 hour of need that is now stretching to years of need.

We are all responsible for that including the government that failed to take a decisive stand on Israel other than for Ministers to say they won’t go to the games, the same Government that has swapped the FAI’s definition of conflict for genocide.

Those 68 per cent who voted in favour of playing Israel at the July EGM of the General Assembly - and those who didn’t bother to turn up - are party to this current mess.

Those of us with Irish football in our DNA who didn’t shout loud enough when the emperor had no clothes and allowed Shane Ross to impose independent emperors on us and our board, are complicit in all of this.

And those of us, myself included on the inside ‘p*****g’ out as Mick McCarthy would say, who worked bloody hard to keep the FAI afloat post the 2019 Oireachtas shambles, are all guilty of trying to fix a problem that, in hindsight, should have been consigned to the scrap yard and relaunched under a fresh start and under a new organisation, a federal organisation.

Still somewhere around 7.45pm tonight, protests permitting, a football match will break out in Dublin 4. When that football match stops, when Monday comes and Israel is already a memory, Irish football needs to break free.

Free of those living in fear of the debt and the Oireachtas, free of those subservient to the banks and the government, free of those saddled with the past. Free to concentrate on what matters - football for all the people on this island.

It’s time to start again.

Those hard working lads at the Lansdowne Road debate the big topics in Irish football on a regular basis and this episode looks at the 21s late, late show along with a look ahead to Austria and the trip to Serbia...

You can listen to all of our podcasts on our Spotify channel

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Ben Dorgan, Contributor

It’s been the most dominant headline amongst Irish sport over the last few weeks and indeed a mainstay talking point in the months previous ever since the draw was made to play a terrorist state.

Once the draw was made, you could hear an entire nation say: “That just had to happen, didn’t it?”.

Ireland are coming off the back of a result and performance that was as uninspiring as you could get, as a late concession in Kosovo meant that we fell at the first hurdle in this Nations League campaign.

Uninspiring is perhaps a theme that has ran through football in this country for the better part of the last decade really and the handling of the Israel game fits into that bracket.

As the match draws closer, the calls of ‘There is still time to do the right thing’ still reign heavy in regards to a boycott of the fixture, so much so that mass crowds of protestors surrounded the Castleknock hotel earlier this week to send a further message to the players and management of the national side.

Barring a miraculous turnaround of a decision which would potentially send shockwaves around the world, I genuinely think these calls now fall upon deaf ears.

The FAI has shown what direction it’s been heading in for some time now, while the handling of this as a broader issue rather than a football match has only dug themselves a deeper hole in the eyes of the Irish sporting public and avoiding any chance to assert integrity back into an organisation that has let down the sport in previous years and, on this occasion, the players who will take to the pitch.

What I don’t agree with, however, is the targeting and in some cases attacks on individuals within the squad in the build-up to the fixture. For me, these players have been put in an ungodly position where they unfortunately have the spotlights on them from the get go.

There was something off about seeing images of Irish players with words such as ‘shame’ brandished behind them on social media this week, the same players who brought a level of unity to the country earlier this year and at the back-end of last year.

I understand the strength in the voice behind the protests regarding this fixture, but the players are not to blame here.

Israel should be nowhere near kicking a football on a UEFA stage. UEFA’s hypocrisy and gutlessness shouldn’t surprise anyone anymore, while the FAI’s concerns regarding the prospect of playing this state have seemed half-hearted at best.

If the game goes ahead, I believe a backing of the Irish representatives on that pitch to earn a result would sooth a marginal portion of the sour taste surrounding this fixture.

That’s not to say the event is right.

The ideal statement is one of not playing Israel at all and given the behaviour of the Israeli FA on social media in the build-up to the fixture where bullying tactics have been on display before a ball is even kicked, giving them even a sliver of the time of day leaves a bad taste.

Ultimately, there will be no winner come the end of the 90 minutes in Hungary on Sunday regardless of the final score.

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It’s the young people you need to feel sorry for now that September has come and reality has dawned - the old people on the Tesco-like board and in the concreted executive offices lost it months ago, when February came to be precise.

Those young people live in a bubble whilst those kids whose shattered lives are the reason we are in this mess live in a crisis, and one that is not of their own making.

Sometime this morning a bunch of young Irishmen will sit down in a room in Kosovo and do the very thing that others do for them all the time in their professional lives - they will make a decision. It is not something they are used to.

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Lighting up the night...

In their world, everyone is a fixer and they are left to do what they do best - play football. Sometimes they play it very well. As Thursday night’s irrelevance in Pristina proved, other times they don’t play it so well.

For 99 per cent of their career, that game of football is all they have to worry about. Their only responsibilities arrive when they cross a white line and a referee blows a whistle. Then a nation holds its breath.

Some of you might well consider holding your breath as you await the news today, news that has been badly controlled by the FAI all week because they are living in fear of the reality, in fear of what these young men might actually decide now that they have to think for themselves.

That reality is driven by the fact that the old fogeys let these kids down. They didn’t take the decisions that needed to be taken after the draw in Brussels last February.

They didn’t put pressure on UEFA or FIFA or the Irish government when they should have, six months ago, because they are financially behoven to all of them and worried sick that the Euro 2028 cash cow might be sacrificed by making the wrong decision with no desire to make the right one.

That they didn’t consider any alternative decision until a tennis ball fell on the Aviva Stadium against the moral no-gooders from Qatar of all people says it all.

Even when the Irish government abandoned them, the old fogeys failed to open their eyes. On their PR circus last week, they again gave the impression that they are blind to reality with their corporate PR speak.

They hung their young ones out to dry as we would have said back in the day . But today that is not an appropriate analogy as kids wake up without a roof over their head, not just in Gaza but in Kyiv and in Dublin and Cork and Donegal as well as our homeless figures rise.

The decision these young Irish people have to make today is not just about Palestine. It is not just about them finally realising they have been left in a helpless and hopeless situation when they meet today.

It is about growing up and taking moral responsibility. About realising that there is a world and a life beyond a professional contract and a closeted lifestyle.

After holding their heads in their hands last night after a brutal performance, they must lift those heads and engage their brains and their conscience.

Whatever decision they make, we should respect it. Like those kids in Gaza, Kyiv and everywhere else where war is being waged across the world, these Irish kids have been abandoned by the elders, by those who know how to look around corners.

That is the biggest sin of this whole debacle, one that only Irish football could conjure. We are, as Declan Lynch famously said, the dysfunctional sporting body that other dysfunctional sporting bodies call the Galacticos.

There are no winners in all of this. But why, oh why, do we have to be losers again without even trying?

Good luck to those young men in that Pristina hotel room today before their scheduled afternoon flight from Pristina to Debrecen. That’s all I can offer them. Everything else has been stripped away by those who should have known better.

As for Thursday night? Best forgotten. We lost a game of football. That’s all. As a nation we have lost so much more in recent weeks.

There's only one Premier Division game tonight but there's still plenty to talk about for Darryl Geraghty and editor Cathal Dervan on this week's LOI special as they review last week's action and take a look ahead to Sunday's Women's FAI Cup final...

The full episode is available on site now and you can watch all the previous Let’s Talk Football episodes now on TheSportsHacks.com

or you can listen to all of our podcasts on our Spotify channel

Check our socials (X here or insta here or tiktok here) for all the latest or just to see the World Cup giraffes again!

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International football is back. Love it or hate it, Manchester United and Tottenham fans might be quite happy to have something else to watch for a few days.

For Ireland, attention turns to Pristina on Thursday night as Heimir Hallgrímsson’s side begin their UEFA Nations League campaign away to Kosovo, carrying an eight-game unbeaten run and looking to do something they have never managed in this competition: win their opening game.

There has been so much discussion around the two matches with Israel that you would be forgiven for forgetting Ireland have to play somebody before them. Unfortunately for Hallgrímsson, Kosovo are a little too good to be treated as a formality.

Ireland do arrive with a few problems. Captain Nathan Collins is out, while Jamie McGrath and Harvey Vale have also withdrawn through injury, with St. Mirren man Killian Phillips called in as cover. It leaves Hallgrímsson without one of his most important defenders and a little lighter in midfield before a demanding run of four games in 11 days, beginning in Pristina before meetings with Israel and Austria.

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The heart of the matter from the ground up…

The more encouraging part of the week is the form of the players who have made it.

Troy Parrott has made a fairly lively start to life at Real Betis. He scored the winner against Real Madrid, followed it with another decisive goal on his Champions League debut against Lille and then created the only goal in a win over Getafe as Betis climbed

towards the top end of La Liga. We know he can decide big games, and Ireland will need some of that across this international window.

Jack Moylan has also forced himself further into the picture after two goals and an assist for Cardiff City at the weekend, while Finn Azaz has started the season well at Southampton.

Jake O’Brien’s return at Everton could prove especially useful with Collins unavailable. After beginning the campaign outside David Moyes’ team, he has worked his way back into competitive action at centre-half and given the Scot a reminder of why he should be there.

Ireland’s eight-match unbeaten run means there is a bit of momentum behind Hallgrímsson’s side, although Kosovo should give us a better idea of where Ireland really are.

They are playing in League B for the first time and came within one game of reaching the 2026 World Cup, finishing ahead of Sweden and Slovenia in qualifying before Türkiye eventually ended their run in the play-off final.

Their biggest threat is fairly obvious. Fenerbahçe’s Vedat Muriqi gives Kosovo a physical reference point through the middle, but Ireland cannot afford to become obsessed with him.

Edon Zhegrova and former Norwich winger Milot Rashica give Kosovo quality and unpredictability in wide areas, while Hoffenheim forward Fisnik Asllani offers another mobile threat around the box.

Muriqi occupies centre-halves, and the danger comes when that creates room for the players around him.

There are problems behind that attack though. Napoli defender and captain Amir Rrahmani is absent after stepping away from the national team amid dissatisfaction with the leadership of the Kosovo Football Federation, while Florent Hadërgjonaj is also unavailable. For a side facing Parrott in his current form, losing your most experienced centre-half is hardly ideal preparation.

Kosovo haven’t taken long to get here either. They only became full UEFA members in 2016, but a decade on they are playing in League B and have already come within one win of reaching a World Cup.

Thursday will be the first senior meeting between the two countries, which makes Pristina a fairly interesting place for Ireland to start the campaign.

Ireland, meanwhile, are still chasing something fairly basic in Nations League terms: a winning start. They have never won the opening game of a campaign in this competition, which feels very on-brand for a national team that has made slow starts something of a habit.

That gives Thursday a little more weight than a standard first game of an international window.

Ireland arrive without their captain, but Parrott, Moylan, Azaz and O’Brien all give Hallgrímsson reasons to be encouraged. Kosovo have problems of their own, but enough quality going forward to punish Ireland if they switch off or spend too long thinking about what comes next.

For all the noise around the matches still to come, Thursday should tell us plenty about Ireland on its own.

As the Premier League breaks for the first time this season, our Merseyside based correspondent Kevin Bannon and editor Cathal Dervan discuss the winners and the losers of the campaign to date - and Spurs! They also chat briefly about the noise around Israel v Ireland and the lack of noise around Kosovo v Ireland.

The full episode is available on site now and you can watch all the previous Let’s Talk Football episodes now on TheSportsHacks.com

or you can listen to all of our podcasts on our Spotify channel

Check our socials (X here or insta here or tiktok here) for all the latest or just to see the World Cup giraffes again!

No noise, just the news & views that matters. The Sports Hacks is a reader supported publication - if you like what you read, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber and sharing our work.

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There are two tricks of old school journalism that you won’t find on any third level curriculum teaching modern day communications for influencers, content creators and their like in a world where print is a thing of the past.

The first ‘old’ trick of the trade is to always talk to the taxi driver when you hit the ground in a foreign land. Trust me, nine times out of 10 they know more about their football team than most people in the vicinity.

And you can always quote a taxi driver as a local source if you’re struggling to make a deadline - more than one transfer rumour started in a black cab over the years! Some of them even came true.

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Quick step or waltz…

The taxi trick normally only works away from home mind you. Most media owners in my day expected their football writers to know more about the game on the ground than those working in the transportation industry! And I’m sure that hasn’t changed.

The other trick beloved of the old schoolers works home or away and it doesn’t cost as much as a taxi journey. Whenever a game doesn’t go the way your target audience wants it to go, just look up the TV schedule and find a listing to match the story and the sentiment.

Now I wasn’t in Glasgow yesterday for the Old Firm derby so I had to make do with the Sky Sports broadcast of the biggest game of his second coming from Martin O’Neill.

So when Roy Keane appeared on our screens, live from the Director’s Box at Parkhead as Celtic continued to chase a 1-0 deficit, it was time to have a look at the schedule on the remote control.

And there it was on BBC One - Songs of Praise live from the Harvest Festival in Somerset and hosted on a farm with faith at its centre.

Bingo.

By the time the last hymn sheet was consigned to the history books, Rangers had seen out the 1-0 win and O’Neill was explaining a third defeat of the week, two of them against Celtic’s bitterest rivals.

In an instant, the Songs of Praise were nowhere to be heard in the East End of Glasgow. The taxi drivers, I can only assume, were talking about the removal of O’Neill as manager. Even the man himself admitted afterwards that he would consider all options over the upcoming international break.

And Roy Keane could now be the Keane the Celtic fans are looking for - having ran the Robbie one out of town the minute it was claimed that he was on his way over the summer.

Roy of the Keanes has never made a secret of the fact that he still fancies a crack at management despite all the money he is making on the Overlap and on an endless talking tour of Ireland with Roddy Doyle.

And if there is one thing that this Celtic squad clearly need at the moment, it’s a leader who can turn their season around, quite a demand considering the fact they are still two points clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership after seven games played.

The fact of the matter is that Celtic have looked rudderless this past week, against Rangers and against a Ferencvaros side largely put together by Robbie Keane.

Martin O’Neill performed a miracle worthy of a Song of Praise last season when he snatched the league title from under the nose of Derek McInnes and Hearts.

But the same McInnes, and his new Rangers team, have regrouped and recharged their batteries - they looked more like title contenders than Celtic on Sunday and that has to be a concern for a Board that didn’t have the conviction to see the Robbie Keane appointment through in the summer.

They might have seen enough on Sunday though to go for a different Keane second time around. And they might get lucky at the third time of asking - seeing as how Roy turned Dermot Desmond down twice previously when it came to the Celtic job but was there on Sunday to see for himself the task at hand, the sort of task he would surely relish.

Stranger things have happened in football - just ask your local taxi driver!

The Coaching Corner is close to home this week as Larry Mahony joins editor Cathal Dervan to discuss the ever improving League of Ireland from a coaching and playing perspective - including some penalty shoot-out tips from Larry that apply across the game. You can follow Larry at www.bigpicturecoachingireland.com.

The full episode is available on site now and you can watch all the previous Let’s Talk Football episodes now on TheSportsHacks.com

or you can listen to all of our podcasts on our Spotify channel

Check our socials (X here or insta here or tiktok here) for all the latest or just to see the World Cup giraffes again!

No noise, just the news & views that matters. The Sports Hacks is a reader supported publication - if you like what you read, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber and sharing our work.

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That Petrol Emotion were never the Undertones and the Undertones were never That Petrol Emotion. Teenage Kicks were the boyhood dreams growing up in Derry for the young Tones while the ageing Emotions were looking for someone to Detonate Their Dreams by the end of their 15 minutes of fame.

Confused? Well you have every right to be if you were born any time after USA ‘94 but there is a League of Ireland connection and there is a Premier Division title race analogy here if you have enough patience to stick with rambling.

Teenage Kicks is one of the best pop songs in the history of pop songs, delivered with all the brashness of punk and still as fresh as ever as visitors to the Brandywell tonight will discover when Derry City entertain Galway United and the song will feature on the match day playlist - as it always does.

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Getting shirty…

The O’Neill brothers - Damian and John - are well known around the City ground and they are the links between the Undertones and That Petrol Emotion, the band that almost gave them a second shot at the big time.

These days the O’Neills are back with the modern version of the Undertones, Paul McLoone doing a very good job as long term replacement for the enigmatic frontman Fergal Sharkey. And the current edition of the Undertones are a band well worth checking out on their tour of Ireland this Christmas season.

By then, the League of Ireland title race will have been decided and one of current champions Shamrock Rovers, current table toppers St Patrick’s Athletic and current double contenders Bohemians will have the trophy sitting on their mantlepiece.

Who will it be? After an incredible weekend of football last weekend, including a Fantastic Friday and a Manic Monday for Pats when they beat Rovers at home and hammered Dundalk away, we can still only guess but the central question is really a simple one - who will detonate their dreams as That Petrol Emotion sang two singles before their 1994 break-up.

Now you can see where all this is coming from. Pats have a teenage dreamer in Ryan Sheridan, a wonderfully balanced young footballer who is filling Kian Leavy’s boots with real skill. And Rovers have clearly missed the teenage touch offered by Arsenal bound Victor Ozhianvunu before his injury at the start of the summer.

Those two, currently level on points and separated only by goal difference at the top of the table although Rovers have played one less game, are the most likely winners but Bohs, only three points adrift and with a game in hand on Pats as well, aren’t out of the running just yet.

Which makes this weekend’s games, the last series before the international break, so intriguing and so important from a psychological point of view.

Pats don’t get the chance to build on last week’s momentum until Saturday when they go to play a Sligo Rovers side already all but relegated. An away win is a racing certainty here unless Sligo pull a rabbit from a hat they don’t appear to have in their possession this season.

By the time the Saints kick-off at the Showgrounds tomorrow night, Bohs could be level on points with them if they beat their Drogheda visitors and the Dublin Rovers could be ahead of them based on the outcome of their biggest game of the season as rejuvenated Waterford travel to Tallaght Stadium tonight.

Beat the Blues and the Hoops will go three clear, draw and they move one point ahead. Win and they will convince their own fans and the detractors that they have the ability to keep the trophy in their cabinet. Lose and it will be very difficult for anyone outside their dressing room to believe this can be turned around.

That’s how big the games this weekend are. Season defining with the potential to detonate those teenage dreams. You heard it here first - mostly because you won’t read that line anywhere else!

As for Wednesday Week? That’s for another day!

After a fantastic weekend of Premier Division action in the League of Ireland, why is there no protest about the lack of local based players in the Ireland squad for the upcoming window? That’s one of the topics discussed by Darryl Geraghty and editor Cathal Dervan on this week’s LOI Let’s Talk Football Special...

The full episode is available on site now and you can watch all the previous Let’s Talk Football episodes now on TheSportsHacks.com

or you can listen to all of our podcasts on our Spotify channel

Check our socials (X here or insta here or tiktok here) for all the latest or just to see the World Cup giraffes again!

No noise, just the news & views that matters. The Sports Hacks is a reader supported publication - if you like what you read, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber and sharing our work.

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