Club Senior Football League 2018

weeskitter

weeskitter

Member
bcb1 said:
I agree Rufus about being a referee but I will be honest, if they put themselves forward for it they should at least have a semblance of impartiality. A very simple example from yesterday. A cullyhanna man was going to pick the ball up and a cross player put his foot in. Clear foul and I would have no complaints. Cross man got booked, though I’m not sure if it was for this offence or something else as it wasn’t a bookable offence. Minutes later, and I mean minutes as it was from the kickout from the resultant score from the Cullyhanna free, ball breaks in the middle and Paul McKeown comes out from the scrimmage to pick up the lose ball. As he does a Cullyhanna player puts his foot in exactly the same way as the Cross players minutes earlier. Exactly the same movement. The ref waves play on and said that there was no foul. Cullyhanna I think scored from this passage of play. This is no a matter of interpretation, this is a matter of fact. I have watched this ref over a number of years and he has preceded over 4 games to immediate memory where there have been very violent scenes....not all of these involved us. He is an arrogant and ignorant man on the field. And for what it’s worth I have said this directly to his face when I met him and Ollie Hearty one day in a cafe in Newry so I have no qualms about putting it up here. I heard stuff he has shouted about us at underage matches and frankly he should not be reffing us full stop. He has a hatred for Cross that is palpable and said to a player who I am very close to that if he ever refs us in a final there’s no way we will win it. His lack of control of what went on the field caused the row. He said directly to my face last year after a game when I challenged him about his treatment of a number of our players who had been clearly fouled repeatedly was that he will only give them frees if they learn to keep their mouths shut!!! That’s a licence for opposing players to cut lumps out of players. He is a disgrace
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Sounds a bit like sour grapes to me. Every club have run ins with certain referees, just something that we have to deal with.
 
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bcb1

Well-Known Member
weeskitter said:
Sounds a bit like sour grapes to me. Every club have run ins with certain referees, just something that we have to deal with.
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Hardly sour grapes when the man openly said it to me and other people on this thread have said that he is a clown. Also like I said he has refereed other games that didn’t involve us that ended up killing matches due to his attitude. I’ll give you an example of this. Maghery and Whitecross a few years back in the championship match. He let Maghery physically hammer Whitecross as he has an issue with Whitecross from a few years before that arising out of a game against Maghery. There was a melee at half time that night that was unholy and he basically facilitated it by letting certain members of the Maghery team get away with blue murder.
 
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mackers

New Member
From a Cullyhanna perspective let me start by saying that I was at the opposite side from the stand where the trouble occurred but I have told by a trusted (Cullyhanna) source that bcb1 acted admirably in trying to diffuse the situation. As per usual neither club/team come out of this well. There is a running theme here at this stage. Crossmaglen have been involved with numerous all out melees with a variety of different clubs over the past number of years. There are two players that are at the fulcrum of what has developed into a major disciplinary issue for Cross. The two lads are superb footballers and have no need to get involved in what they do but like other bullies they can't help themselves. Our younger, smaller, least aggressive players were targeted again yesterday. We, as other posters know, have a few players who are physical lads who can put it about but these bullies tend not to go near them surprisingly.
It's a pity that this row has detracted from what was an outstanding performance by our lads. We were missing a number of our mainstays but the lads on the field were brilliant. Although it was a superb team performance a couple of individuals deserve special mention, Ciaran McKeever rolled back the years with a superlative performance in keeping Rian O'Neill quiet. Kieran Hoey had an excellent first half where he ran a suspect Cross back line ragged.
BTW, Cullyhanna felt aggrieved by a number of the referee's decisions also.
 
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bcb1

Well-Known Member
Mackers I did what I had to do as things were getting well out of hand. I do have to take issue though with your identifying the 2 lads as being an issue. Oisín O Neill had a superb game and was not involved in any dangerous play. He was however punched by your no 9 straight in front of me. I saw it. 9 has him by the jersey and wouldn’t let him past after the ball had been played on. Oisín tried to push him off and he was clear as day punched straight in the face. The ref in fairness couldn’t see it as he was following play but it was a clear strike. As for the row that started at the end I will say this clearly once more. Two lads were wrestling on the sideline and it would have blown over. The St Pats selector with the baseball cap struck our player. Neither player had hit each other at this point. It was straight in front of me. I have been told who the selector is. He also struck a player the earlier flare up when Ross McQuillan and Aidan Rushe were on the ground wrestling. I have been told who the selector is and he is an old associate of myself and frankly I’m surprised at him as he was never the type of lad over the years.

You’re right though that it does overshadow a good performance by yourselves where you punished out mistakes with the 2 goals and we could never really get going again. Till the two goals we were in full control, particularly in midfield where O Neill and Morris were excellent. Some of the scores that we kicked, or more accurately Oisín o Neill kicked, were outrageous
 
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mackers

New Member
Look, we could to and fro here all day. You and I both know that there are disciplinary issues at hand with those lads. How they dodged the disciplinary bullet after last year's semi remains a mystery. Rian played against us three times last year and was sent off all three times. Conor Nugent was struck off the ball by one of the two usual suspects in the dressing room corner which was the first act of knavery of the day. Ross McQuillan was pushed into the Cross dugout which was exceptionally dangerous (albeit not by the usual suspects) which also happened before the major melee. As I said there is a running problem with Cross' discipline currently. Where was the Cullyhanna selector with the cap when the rows started with Maghery and Harps over the last couple of seasons?
 
winsamsoon

winsamsoon

Well-Known Member
bcb1 said:
I agree Rufus about being a referee but I will be honest, if they put themselves forward for it they should at least have a semblance of impartiality. A very simple example from yesterday. A cullyhanna man was going to pick the ball up and a cross player put his foot in. Clear foul and I would have no complaints. Cross man got booked, though I’m not sure if it was for this offence or something else as it wasn’t a bookable offence. Minutes later, and I mean minutes as it was from the kickout from the resultant score from the Cullyhanna free, ball breaks in the middle and Paul McKeown comes out from the scrimmage to pick up the lose ball. As he does a Cullyhanna player puts his foot in exactly the same way as the Cross players minutes earlier. Exactly the same movement. The ref waves play on and said that there was no foul. Cullyhanna I think scored from this passage of play. This is no a matter of interpretation, this is a matter of fact. I have watched this ref over a number of years and he has preceded over 4 games to immediate memory where there have been very violent scenes....not all of these involved us. He is an arrogant and ignorant man on the field. And for what it’s worth I have said this directly to his face when I met him and Ollie Hearty one day in a cafe in Newry so I have no qualms about putting it up here. I heard stuff he has shouted about us at underage matches and frankly he should not be reffing us full stop. He has a hatred for Cross that is palpable and said to a player who I am very close to that if he ever refs us in a final there’s no way we will win it. His lack of control of what went on the field caused the row. He said directly to my face last year after a game when I challenged him about his treatment of a number of our players who had been clearly fouled repeatedly was that he will only give them frees if they learn to keep their mouths shut!!! That’s a licence for opposing players to cut lumps out of players. He is a disgrace
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This is the frustrating thing with referee's, Their inconsistency. They will give a free for something maybe once and they will let it go another 10 times during the game. The old "off the ground" one is the best example. The ref must remain in control of the game and all too many times we see them loosing it, this adds to frustration and this spills into the game causing a row. With the rules that now exist in the GAA there is no excuse to allow hitting off the ball etc. You are barely allowed to tackle by some referees and others will let it go a bit further which again is inconsistent. In fairness refs don't have a lot of support from anyone at games, the linesmen/umpires are from both sides and are going to go with their own side 9/10 decisions. Players are renowned for indiscipline and they should be punished accordingly on all occasions. Hard and fair is acceptable but bullying young lads, hitting off the ball and starting a full scale row are things I would never advocate on a football field. We have all got frustrated with refs , if they are coming into games with agendas(which I know they do) then there should be a system in place to report this and the county board should investigate accordingly. Having played against the majority of the teams I would have to say Cross/Cullyhanna were both on a similar level for dirt, seeing them fighting in a game is no real surprise.
 
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bcb1

Well-Known Member
You say that winsamsoon that you’re not surprised that a fight occurred but I’ll tell you something for nothing in all my years playing we never ever had a brawl when we played against Cullyhanna and to be honest there were a lot more physical players on both teams when I played. The likes of the Mc Conville brothers in Cullyhanna and some of our lads like Joe Fitz, Gary McShane and Laterally Donaldson would have been an awful lot more aggressive and physical then any of the lads today yet the game was rarely if ever breaking down into fighting. In Armagh I only ever was involved in 2 mass brawls like happened yesterday. One against Mullaghbawn and one against yourselves. In the last 5-6 years as a coach and a supporter I’ve seen and unfortunately been in the middle of 8-9 of them and like I said earlier not always involving ourselves. Maghery would have been involved in 3 of the ones I saw and they were nasty ones but Maghery seem to get a bye ball a lot of the time.
 
T

Tango

Active Member
I seen first hand what happened in the semi final last year and it was the two O’Neill’s that started it. Maghery were not to blame whatsoever.
 
winsamsoon

winsamsoon

Well-Known Member
bcb1 said:
You say that winsamsoon that you’re not surprised that a fight occurred but I’ll tell you something for nothing in all my years playing we never ever had a brawl when we played against Cullyhanna and to be honest there were a lot more physical players on both teams when I played. The likes of the Mc Conville brothers in Cullyhanna and some of our lads like Joe Fitz, Gary McShane and Laterally Donaldson would have been an awful lot more aggressive and physical then any of the lads today yet the game was rarely if ever breaking down into fighting. In Armagh I only ever was involved in 2 mass brawls like happened yesterday. One against Mullaghbawn and one against yourselves. In the last 5-6 years as a coach and a supporter I’ve seen and unfortunately been in the middle of 8-9 of them and like I said earlier not always involving ourselves. Maghery would have been involved in 3 of the ones I saw and they were nasty ones but Maghery seem to get a bye ball a lot of the time.
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I would agree that those guys were more physical, ironically though i would say they were more disciplined. By that i mean that era was mostly hard but fair . At the moment theres alot of players coming out with nasty, petulent stuff which i don't think the likes of Donaldson etc would have. There is no need for mass brawls. I remember the incidents you highlight . Our game is built around great rivalries, pride in ones community and a siege mentality towards anyone coming to your patch. I am not saying Cross are any worse than other teams, but i know there's huge rivalry there with Cullyhanna so tempers flaring didn't surprise me .
 
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