Senior championship 2022 & 2023

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Armaghball

Well-Known Member
GAAGael said:
Over 3 minutes of that black card was wasted with a feigned head injury. Clear as day - when Cross scored - McPartland dropped to the ground with no one around him. This needs to be dealt with better. Ref should direct player off the field for assessment and let the game continue. In fairness he did instruct him after 2.30 minutes to go off - within 30 seconds McP was back on. If this was a suspected head injury - a proper assessment would take 5-10 minutes minimum.

As for the black card, I thought there was a far clearer one in the first half when Paul Hughes was rugby tackled to the ground when on the break. But the one that was given was for a trip/pull with the hand.
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In fairness to McPartlan he got a fair whack in a collision with Rian and had been holding his head a few minutes before the black card. Think the 10min black card time should stop for the likes of head injuries and any head injury the player should be made go off for at least 5 mins. But the way the rules are at the minute players are 100% right to try and kill as much of the 10 minutes as possible, was 2 balls on the pitch a few times as well.

Another rule change i’d like to see is when players get blown for over carrying they should be booked if they continue to hold the ball long after the whistle has gone. Soupy must have held it for 15 seconds at one point lying on the ground, completely killed any chance for Cross to break quickly.
 
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lurganblue

New Member
Fair play to cross, worthy winners. Clans had a good start but a few missed chances defo took the wind from their sails. I thought in truth that the tide had already started to turn before half time. I was glad to hear the whistle and get in with a point lead. Cross came out and continued to dominate all over the pitch. The black card was a poor decision in my opinion.

Our young lads will take a lot of lessons from the game. They have given us some fantastic days out this year and I'd be hopeful of more of the same next year.

Here's hoping that Cross give Ulster a rattle.
 
K

KilleavyGael

Active Member
Congratulations to Cross, and commiserations to a young Clans side.

Soupie and McPartland needed to repeat their feats from their wins against us and Clan Eireann to have a chance, but it never materialised. Both lads will be disappointed with how it went, I think it's fair to say. I don't think the black card made any difference to the result, but probably turned a defeat into a hiding.

Looking forward to seeing young O'Neill in Orange, he's a fantastic prospect.

Heard Cunningham after the game saying that they are fine going forward, but they need to get their house in order defensively in order to have an impact in Ulster. I think that's a good summary and probably where they're most likely to fall down when it comes to facing Errigal or Trillick - would assume Errigal.
 
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niall1980

Well-Known Member
lurganblue said:
Fair play to cross, worthy winners. Clans had a good start but a few missed chances defo took the wind from their sails. I thought in truth that the tide had already started to turn before half time. I was glad to hear the whistle and get in with a point lead. Cross came out and continued to dominate all over the pitch. The black card was a poor decision in my opinion.

Our young lads will take a lot of lessons from the game. They have given us some fantastic days out this year and I'd be hopeful of more of the same next year.

Here's hoping that Cross give Ulster a rattle.
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The next few years with cross, yourselves and ourselves should lead to exciting championships
 
winsamsoon

winsamsoon

Well-Known Member
There's nothing guaranteed going forward and I would say Madden, Ballymacnab, Silverbridge, Killeavey plus and emerging Cullyhanna team will all be in the melting pot again also, for me it's wide open again. But Cross just manage this phenomenal consistency which can be found knowhere else in Ireland let alone Armagh.
 
Rufus T Firefly

Rufus T Firefly

Well-Known Member
Congratulations to Rangers and St Pats posters here and commiserations to any from Clans and St Pauls.

It was a disappointing day yesterday for the neutrals, with both games proving to be damp squibs.

I don't know enough about the Intermediate to comment in any great detail, beyond knowing that St Pats were a Senior Team playing a grade too low. I've often complained about the standard of Armagh football and sited our performances in the Ulster Clubs as evidence of that. I'll be very interested to see how St Pats go.

I'm assuming it was a lop sided draw, given the final score yesterday. I know St Pats had a much stiffer test from the Ogs in the semi-final, and from reports the Ogs were more or less level with Tones at the quarter-final stage. The thing that stood out for me yesterday was the physical difference between the teams, with St Pats winning many 50:50 challenges and being able to dispossess their opponents much more easily.

In the Senior Final, when Clans got their goal to go four up, I really thought this will be interesting. And then they only mustered a further point up until injury time in the second half. As I feared, Clans were too dependent on Soupy and Mc Partlan and that was never more evident than when Soupy went on a lung busting run up the stand side in the second half and was simply crowded out and dispossessed. His tour-de-force in the semi-final against Clann Eireann never looked remotely like being repeated.

I'd have to say, the black card for the Clans man was a mystery to me - not sure what it was for - and I'd have to say I actually thought it was a free in, as I felt AK was charging into the challenge. That said, the black card had no material impact on the result - Cross were already striding to victory at that stage.

The ref I thought did have a decent game. I'll probably get stick for this, but I thought if he'd have reffed the all Lurgan semi-final, his approach may have brought about a different result. And to be honest, I think Clann Eireann would have offered more of a challenge to Cross. A personal opinion only.

Rangers won the Armagh Championship with relative ease last year and were comfortably despatched by a team that did not make much of a dent beyond that. I hope for the sake of Armagh football that Rangers can make an impression in this year's provincials, but I have my doubts.
 
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armaghlad

Active Member
Congratulations to Cullyhanna & Cross, two handsome wins. That said, I don’t think yesterday’s results were a true reflection of either losing team.

I didn’t make it in time to see the Intermediate final, but having seen St Paul’s a few times this year I was surprised at the final score-line. While I fully expected a Cullyhanna win, I did not foresee such a hammering.

The senior final started well but Clans will rue some missed chances in the first half. It seemed to all go downhill after the black card, which was harsh enough. The influential trio of Soupy, McPartlan & O’Neill were kept quiet in the second half and Cross did what they always do and turned the screw. Clans lost their shape somewhat and didn’t bring that same intensity they did in previous games.

I’d expect both Cullyhanna and Cross to give Ulster a good rattle, Cross have it all to do though if they face as expected, a fancied Errigal side. Cullyhanna will be strong contenders v either the Moy or Pomeroy.
 
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huggy2002

Active Member
Congrats to both st pats and Cross on their wins yesterday, whilst i hope they make agood impact on Ulster i can't see either doing much, although hope im wrong.
Ardboe played Cross in a challenge game not long after the group stages in Armagh championship and beat them handy enough so going on that they will struggle against Errigal if as expected they beat Trillick.
 
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Armaghball

Well-Known Member
Would like to see the black card again for Clanns. Looked clear as day a pull down at the time but maybe I’m wrong
 
ragingbull

ragingbull

Well-Known Member
Ulster Club County winners
Armagh-Crossmaglen
Antrim-Cargin
Cavan-Gowna
Derry-Magherafelt/Glen
Down-Kilcoo
Donegal-Genties
Fermanagh-Derryconnelly
Monaghan-Scotstown
Tyrone-Trillick/Errigal Ciaran
 
winsamsoon

winsamsoon

Well-Known Member
Whilst the black card had no bearing on the final result as Cross were deserved winners. It did allow the Cross the additional space to overlap the clans defence which had looked solid until the black card. They were able to penetrate more and establish a 3 or 4 point lead in a game which there was only a kick of the ball in up to that point. I was sitting beside 3 Cross families right in front of the incident and they were laughing and baffled by the card so I am not sure what some other posters were watching.

When the game was back to 15 v 15 the clans had to take more risk and this further exposed their defence. However they were cleaned out at MF for a 15 min spell and had very little up front to hit when they were chasing the game.

Interested in the thoughts around the first ball into Soup? I was too far away to know if it was a penalty or not and haven't sat down to watch it again yet.

I love it when I hear posters talking about other players against cross being dirty etc, they are almost as funny as BCB's posts playing down the chances of cross. They are the masters of the dark arts and certainly they done a job on a few of our lads yesterday.

I am a firm believer that you won't beat the cross with a running game unless you have 4 or 5 running in tandem, if you give the ball to one man and expect him to take on the cross then they will gobble you up all day. I expected Soup to be out of the game for that reason, but I had hoped others would then have came to the fore, sadly it didn't happen. That was down to a lot of things, the most obvious being the age of the lads and their physical development which should come over time.

The few balls that went into the edge of the square troubked the cross and I heard AK refer to it in his post match interview, a team that can do that continually will be the team to unlock cross imo.

However the rack up 20+ points in their games which will win 9/10 and they were deserved winners on the day without a doubt.

I will be an avid watcher of them in Ulster where anything is possible, but there are some cracker teams in that mix for both the Ulster and a potential All Ireland. Rest assured non of them will want to meet Cross.
 
G

GAAGael

Active Member
huggy2002 said:
Congrats to both st pats and Cross on their wins yesterday, whilst i hope they make agood impact on Ulster i can't see either doing much, although hope im wrong.
Ardboe played Cross in a challenge game not long after the group stages in Armagh championship and beat them handy enough so going on that they will struggle against Errigal if as expected they beat Trillick.
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A challenge game in which none of the county players played for cross.
 
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