Sickening to not be coming away with a win there but relief at the same time given they had a penalty saved by Blaine and your man shit the bed when through one on one.
Positives first as always- great crowd, great to see the flags there and the noise was unreal. Some of our play was great to watch today up until the shot which let us down a good few times.
McElroy I thought was superb, got through serious work and linked the play and even got a score or 2 himself if I remember rightly great to see given the stick he has got in the past. Blaine was unreal we barely lost a kick out all day and the penalty save- lets just say we could have been doing with him a time or 3 in the last couple of years. First class. Conor O’Neill was brilliant especially in the first half, driving us forward and had a couple of excellent scores. As for Murnin- some performance for a fella thats supposedly done, covered serious ground, won us kickouts when we needed to go long and obviously did the business in front of the posts too. Conaty didnt have as flashy a game as the last few days out but worked hard and got a great score in the first half.
One of the highlights of the day was seeing Rian back, he’s got that extra wow factor that very few players in the country have and we’ll need him firing if we want to compete with the big boys this year. A pity he didnt catch that first shot properly, but then goes a scores from a crazy angle. Few weeks and he’ll be cutting teams to shreds.
Few negatives obviously- would have to question the decision to take Forker off- felt we lacked a leader to dictate play, surely a fella with his experience should be trusted to play on a yellow card? Conor O’Neill another one I thought could have been left on although maybe he had an injury? Another criticism was that McElroy was clearly signalling for a good while that he needed to come off and was half hobbling around and nothing was done, fair play to the lad he gritted his teeth and soldiered on but surely fresh legs were the answer there.
Said on here during the week that Jarly Og didn’t look fit- I take that back it is laziness, has a great burst of speed to get forward and seems to be in slow motion when he has to track back. Between that, carrying the ball into contact and seemingly being unable to kick the ball I don’t think he deserves his place. Disappointed that Oisin O’Neill didnt get his chance today, think his physicality would have been a great help around the middle and he would have likely got on the end of a few of the moves towards the end.
Turbitt was very disappointing today, not doing enough defensively imo, missed a scorable enough free and again just not at himself against higher quality opposition- well and good destroying shite teams but needs to up his game against the better ones. No doubting his talent we just need more from him.
Apart from those couple of gripes, think management have to be praised, we seem to be playing more positive than last year, the kickout issue is working. I know we failed to win another tight game, but they can’t be blamed for Rian missing from the D in front of the nets, Grugan missing a tap over free, Jarly Og not being willing to kick from 14 yards and Soupy missing handy scores among other mistakes.
Think I’ve ranted on enough now- overall more positives to take from that than negatives, Cavan game is massive now so hopefully get the same support out and get a win that’ll more or less see us promoted. Sitting nicely, seen we haven’t a whole pile to fear from Donegal and still lots of lads to come back in.