Managed to get to all the games over the course of the weekend and there was plenty to discuss arising from the action.
The Maghery and Nab match was quite poor fare to be honest, with neither side really deserving the victory. Both sides seemed to have mini periods of dominance, and I felt each looked as if they would go on to victory, but they failed to make their dominance count on the scoreboard. A case in point was Maghery, who I felt dominated either side of half time but could not put the Nab away. The match was therefore close throughout, and there was a feeling that whoever got the first goal was going to go through. The goal of course came for the Nab, and it was somehow in keeping with the contest that an attempt for a point fell short and was fisted to the net. It looked all up for Maghery at that stage but they rallied and I felt maybe were guilty of going for goals too early, when points might still have brought them level.
This was a game when many of the Nab's top players simply did not perform, although they won't mind that as the result is everything. For Maghery, I felt their challenge was fatally undermined by their absentees and even Cusack who played did not look fully fit to me.
The second semi-final was a much higher standard of game and much more physical in the exchanges. I thought St Pats started off well and looked to be making progress by running at the Rangers defence. However Rangers responded well taking a 6-2 lead. When St Pats scored a great goal, the gauntlet was thrown down, but it was Rangers who responded and stretched the lead to 4 point + and seemed to be able to keep St Pats at arms length thereafter.
Cross I felt deserved their victory - they seemed to be much more purposeful in possession and played a much more direct game that reaped dividends. St Pats in contrast took too many passes and ended up going back on occasions and into traffic, which was fatal with this ref.
Talking of the ref, he is well known for his willingness to let play go, but as others have suggested, there is a real danger that this can let things spill over and in a match such as yesterday, someone could get seriously hurt. I saw one or two challenges that I thought were straight red cards.
Looking ahead to the final, I feel the Nab will have to improve immeasurably if they are to win their first title, and to add to that, their big players are going to have to stand up and be counted. I'll confess though that my sense is that Rangers are too strong throughout the field, and indeed on the bench, and will simply create too many problems for the Nab.
Finally, I thought that was quite a high standard of football yesterday, and yet it was amazing to think that only one player on the pitch was available for our County team this year, and he was out injured for quite some time. I don't know the ins and outs of it all, but as an Armagh supporter I have to say that is quite frustrating. There is no doubt that we have the potential to be playing at a higher level if we had access to all our resources.
) using their physicality when they've got it. He took a massive thundering shoulder and [for a change] rolled with it. maybe 30 seconds later he was back on the ball and gave a pass that could have ended in the perfect score if the player hadn't pulled the trigger so quickly - sorry again escapes me who it was. He caught the resulting kick out and laid off for a point. You can't teach that. That's in you. I'm one of those that have criticised when he acted the maggot and few disagreed that he went too far, but I genuinely believe a team is better with him. Guess a bit like Donaldson in his day. Wasn't always the favoured guy, but worth his place every time!
