Nail squarely on the head with most of these pointsDepressing day all round. Great weather, great support and great expectations. But it all came to nothing , yes nothing as we were bullied, chased, out run, out thought ( both on and off the field)and outplayed for the vast majority of the game. It felt like Brewster park 2018 all over again only saving grace being it was a Division 1 team and not Division 2 or 3( Fermanagh ??). I haven’t posted much this good while but the sense of disappointment in all the posts is clearly here for all to read. From that great day in January in Croke Park etc I was happy that at last we were competing. We were playing in the big league and doing more than well. I didn’t think we would the All -Ireland or evening the national league but I did have high hopes of a possible Ulster title. A realistic chance of a final appearance and that’s why disappointment was etched on mine and many of the faces leaving a sunny but cold Ballybofey ground. We have had so many many Monday’s like this over the past 13 years.
We lost all the battles yesterday and whether we loose the war or not remains to be seen.
The psychological build up to the game was lost with the letterkenny debacle. Bcb1 pointed this out as to Peter Canavan in his summing up of the game. I feared we had handed Donegal a victims card when the suspensions were lifted. Rightly or wrongly and I may add here why wouldn’t any manager want his best players for a crunch championship game. Why wouldn’t they appeal. We’d all do it but in doing so we unknowingly handed them a stick to beat us.
Ethan Rafferty certainly saved us a point or two but it has to be said we lost so many kick outs . The ploy of playing Niall Grimley half back definitely back fired. Niall looked unsure and he was used to try and cancel Langan out. While it’s always good to look at opponents and try to counteract we focused to much and it simply didn’t work. Our tactics were cancelled out by Donegals strong running game and it looked as only a matter of time before they majored.
We didn’t have anyone to inject pace into a pedestrian forward line with only Grugan and his vision rising to the task. Soupy was the one player who did possess that and did it two or three times. Conor Turbitt in the first half showed his marker a clean pair of heels. But that was it . We stopped ,turned played it back. Yes the 10 mins in the second half gave us the required urgency the bite and the will to win in this type of cauldron. But once we didn’t come up with the goods Donegal seized their chance, put four between us. Game over. Our purple patch yielded zero, we gave them our best shot and we missed the target. They didn’t and there but for the grace of god they have could have left us heading to the exits with 15 to go.
All along at the back of my head I kept saying how come we have reached these new heights with basically the same team that had taken championship beatings years previous. On Sunday I found my answer.
We will continue to take a few scalps no doubt but for us to be a constant serious threat I’m not so sure.
What depressed me even more was watching our minor team on Sat evening . We were outclassed all over the field and we cannot blame the management.
I watched a schools cup game two weeks ago involving the college and a Derry team and again well beaten by players who were more comfortable on the ball and basically knew when to come off the shoulder, track carry the ball , off load etc and compete honestly but aggressively.
We have been in only one underage final that I can think of in ten years. I may be wrong but I don’t think so.
I see all the young players coming through.
It has to be said we need to improve our coaching at club level. Some clubs do coach to a high level. Many don’t. We have far to many amalgamations at under age .and yes many of these are a definite necessity but not enough young boys are playing Gaelic games. The development squads or the academy’s can only work with what the clubs send through and the talent is not there . It doesn’t matter if we get Jim Gavin up to manage we are there alongside Antrim Fermanagh when it’s comes down to the heels of the hunt. We have not won an Ulster title at any levels for years.
Oisin McConville and Barry O hagan did massive work with our under 20s but we didn’t have enough talent. Some but not enough. We really need to get this debate going and take a real in-depth study of our games in the county. It may well be the dev squads and it may not. Only for Cross we haven’t had a club title either. Let’s get coaches into the schools and clubs. Dev programme at club levels first and foremost. Monitor what is happening in the schools and clubs intervene when needed. But anyway that’s a debate for down the road but one that needs to be had.
Anyway sorry for the rant but it helps soothe the pain of yesterday.
ULSTER FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP 2K22
- Thread starter PutTheHighBallInLow
- Start date
Can't shake this feeling all day, I know football and sport in general will give you many more low days than high, but that yesterday was tough, I was resigned early in the second half that this was not going to be our day. I know the lads are giving their all, but it's not working. Is it a psychological issue at this point, we are not performing well or to our maximum on the big day, indeed how many close games have we been on the wrong end of over the past years. Are we over thinking how we stop the opposition, to the detriment of our own game, in fact, what is our own style? I thought it was moving the ball fast to our forwards, yesterday there was so much lateral slow play. I suppose Donegal were shutting down our options to their credit, but I dunno, the whole thing was incredibly frustrating, out with a whimper. I don't have the answers about gameplans etc, but to my eye there's an inability to string good performances together. Anyway, fantastic Armagh support yesterday and we move on.
'Armagh are big men when it doesn’t count – they showed no stomach for the fight in Ballybofey'
Even Dick Clerkin sticking the boot in in his article. I've actually noticed on other forums a lot of Monaghan posters having a go at us along with the Donegal crowd... interesting
ragingbull
Well-Known Member
Why would you say that ethan is stupid on here ?
Not only running down his county keeper but his own club player on a public forum ?
Can’t see what Rafferty done wrong yesterday? Seen two clips on the Sunday game… one had 5 v 2 and 6 v2 in favour of Armagh on Ethan’s kick outs and Donegal won both of them… but it’s easy to blame the keeper
JoeH
Well-Known Member
Please,please,please let's get Monaghan in the back door.
Best motivation headline ever
Dick reminds me of Brendan Behan's description of Patrick Kavanagh.
PatMustard
Well-Known Member
ShiftYa
Well-Known Member
Why do we alway try and create a “siege mentality” to motivate ourselves? can’t we just go out and play for the pride of the jersey instead of getting dragged down in this us against the world shite, lot of talk about not having the right mentality, we as a county worry far too much of what others say, the brawling and bottleing it when the chips are down are symptomatic of this. F*ck what others say time to focus on ourselves!
Bringyourboots
Well-Known Member
The disappointment from yesterday will no doubt linger for a while given our high expectations. Expectations that our league showing justified to some degree.
I don't think there can be too many complaints about the team it was pretty much as most would have picked. The inclusion of Grimley gave us effectively 4 midfield players all who have superb high fielding ability and i thought that might help us when kick outs had to go long. Unfortunately it didn't work on the day. I also didn't expect our scoring to shots percentage to be as low - a stato out there can probably confirm or correct this.
The periods either side of halftime determined the result. Going in 3 down didn't seem insurmountable especially with our bench but proved decisive. We threw everything at them at the beginning of the second half and it was a joy to watch but with no reward we were out on our feet when they plundered the scores to put the game out of reach.
As I reflect I realise what a formidable established top tier team Donegal are and accept that we maybe need a another couple of years in division one to bring on the talent we have to really compete consistently the top 5 or 6 teams come championship time. We have made significant progress this year and it's been great so I have every confidence that this group will acheive success if they continue to develop.
A good draw in the qualifiers, a few more days out in the sun, get the orange tinted sunglasses on again and focus on the football to remind the rest of the country who are taking far too much pleasure from our defeat what we're really about. Not that we'd ever do the same.....
I don't think there can be too many complaints about the team it was pretty much as most would have picked. The inclusion of Grimley gave us effectively 4 midfield players all who have superb high fielding ability and i thought that might help us when kick outs had to go long. Unfortunately it didn't work on the day. I also didn't expect our scoring to shots percentage to be as low - a stato out there can probably confirm or correct this.
The periods either side of halftime determined the result. Going in 3 down didn't seem insurmountable especially with our bench but proved decisive. We threw everything at them at the beginning of the second half and it was a joy to watch but with no reward we were out on our feet when they plundered the scores to put the game out of reach.
As I reflect I realise what a formidable established top tier team Donegal are and accept that we maybe need a another couple of years in division one to bring on the talent we have to really compete consistently the top 5 or 6 teams come championship time. We have made significant progress this year and it's been great so I have every confidence that this group will acheive success if they continue to develop.
A good draw in the qualifiers, a few more days out in the sun, get the orange tinted sunglasses on again and focus on the football to remind the rest of the country who are taking far too much pleasure from our defeat what we're really about. Not that we'd ever do the same.....
Armaghabroad22
Active Member
New to posting, but have followed both the club and county forum for years.
Most of my thoughts have already been expressed by others in terms of the bitter disappointment felt after Sunday.
However, I've just re watched the game and oddly it's makes for better viewing second time round.
When we played direct attacking football, we were a threat, and we asked real questions of the Donegal defence. Unfortunately we didnt do this enough, and I can't understand how having worked so well throughout the league - why we kept resorting to slowing the attack and recycling deep into our own half.
On second watch, the pick of our players were Forker, McCabe, Morgan, Grimley and Rory Grugan who came close to a MOTM performance IMO. Their work rate and ball carrying from deep defence and into attack was excellent.
Rafferty's shot selection for kick outs were overall good. Ultimately we lost the mid field contest, partly because we were physically outplayed around the centre, but also because we broke the ball for Donegal on countless occasions.
Ethan contributed well when he came out of goal and was reliable under the high ball.
I don't like picking on individual players, but it was not Jemar Hall's day. Soupy should have been on at half time if not before.
Many many questionable refereeing decisions. Rian's yellow was soft and I cant understand Deegan's thought process in giving a free out for Rian's goal, particularly given he was stood 20yards away. There were multiple dubious second half frees that undoubtedly frustrated the Armagh lads, and ultimately changed the momentum of the game after starting the second half with real intent.
Overall the better and more experience team won but by Jesus, whilst he is a great player, Murphy is a total yap who is constantly in the face of other players, contrary to the popular belief that others target him.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I agree we got too caught up in the league game in Letterkenny and the events that followed. The emphasis should have been seeing out 70 minutes of football and giving some of the subs game time. But that's easy to say on reflection.
I feel for the players. Us supporters have expressed our disappointment, and I can only expect they are feeling this 3-fold. They seem to come under disproportionate amounts of criticism from outside of the county, often in the form of personal attacks - it must be hard for players to sound this out and focus purely on the game at hand.
Hopefully we get a good draw, regroup, revert back to the high tempo, attacking style that we all enjoyed during the league and who knows .... see you all in June.
Most of my thoughts have already been expressed by others in terms of the bitter disappointment felt after Sunday.
However, I've just re watched the game and oddly it's makes for better viewing second time round.
When we played direct attacking football, we were a threat, and we asked real questions of the Donegal defence. Unfortunately we didnt do this enough, and I can't understand how having worked so well throughout the league - why we kept resorting to slowing the attack and recycling deep into our own half.
On second watch, the pick of our players were Forker, McCabe, Morgan, Grimley and Rory Grugan who came close to a MOTM performance IMO. Their work rate and ball carrying from deep defence and into attack was excellent.
Rafferty's shot selection for kick outs were overall good. Ultimately we lost the mid field contest, partly because we were physically outplayed around the centre, but also because we broke the ball for Donegal on countless occasions.
Ethan contributed well when he came out of goal and was reliable under the high ball.
I don't like picking on individual players, but it was not Jemar Hall's day. Soupy should have been on at half time if not before.
Many many questionable refereeing decisions. Rian's yellow was soft and I cant understand Deegan's thought process in giving a free out for Rian's goal, particularly given he was stood 20yards away. There were multiple dubious second half frees that undoubtedly frustrated the Armagh lads, and ultimately changed the momentum of the game after starting the second half with real intent.
Overall the better and more experience team won but by Jesus, whilst he is a great player, Murphy is a total yap who is constantly in the face of other players, contrary to the popular belief that others target him.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I agree we got too caught up in the league game in Letterkenny and the events that followed. The emphasis should have been seeing out 70 minutes of football and giving some of the subs game time. But that's easy to say on reflection.
I feel for the players. Us supporters have expressed our disappointment, and I can only expect they are feeling this 3-fold. They seem to come under disproportionate amounts of criticism from outside of the county, often in the form of personal attacks - it must be hard for players to sound this out and focus purely on the game at hand.
Hopefully we get a good draw, regroup, revert back to the high tempo, attacking style that we all enjoyed during the league and who knows .... see you all in June.
Geezersleftfoot
Active Member
Our league showing flattered us.
We beat two teams who got relegated. We beat a team who we got at the right time of year. Our last five games in the league were 1 win. 1 draw. 3 defeats. We done well to stay up but let’s not kid ourselves about where we are as a team
Bringyourboots
Well-Known Member
Kerry aside our league record is much the same as the other teams who stayed up. We weren't beat out the gate by anyone and with the way we played we were optimistic about winning every game and disappointed when we didn't in our return to div 1 proper. To me that shows theres more than just something here. Rightly success isn't measured in optimism and targeting an Ulster is a reasonable yardstick and one we need to achieve soon to turn optimism into something real.
The Monaghan W****r
PatMustard
Well-Known Member
Jamie's Coffee
Active Member
I don’t think ability is the issue, while we haven’t done a lot at underage of late, our players make up great college / University teams and club teams esp Cross are competitive outside the county. We’re going into our 3rd year in Div 1 so I don’t think talent or ability is in question. Without a doubt it’s a mentality thing. Our record in 1st round games is abysmal despite going into these games with hopes & expectations. The team has flattered to deceive. Let’s go back to 2010. Armagh beat Donegal out the gate twice that year once in the league & once in the qualifiers (and we were no world beaters). 2011 - Donegal were Ulster champions 2012 AI champions. They got a style of play to suit them & a strong mentality I was installed.
It’s not a root & branch assessment we need it’s a definite way of playing & a strong mentality- both are lacking right now which leads to choking in big games.
It’s not a root & branch assessment we need it’s a definite way of playing & a strong mentality- both are lacking right now which leads to choking in big games.
MrMaguire2002
Well-Known Member
Arguably the worst comment I've seen on here.
Kieran McGeeney makes decisions every day of his life for the betterment of Armagh football. He has dedicated his life to the cause.
Jemar Hall gives nothing but 100% every time he puts on the county jersey.
Rian believing his own hype? He had a poor game especially by his extremely high standards. He is one of the best footballers in the country and I can't recall the last time he had a poor game for Armagh. And you can rest assured he'll have a good day the next day out.
Sit in Grange and and type ridiculous comments slating these true Armagh Gaels all you like. Do you realise what they sacrifice for the county?
Your own use of the word 'stupid' is certainly applicable. But applicable to your own comments.
Armaghball
Well-Known Member
Agreed. Think McGeeney got a couple of calls wrong the other day but is human like us all.
Jemar didn’t have a great game the other day (not many did) but like you say, the lad gives 100% every time he plays. 100% agree with you on Rian, again a bad day out but show me a player that doesn’t have them, he doesn’t exist!
Mickey Gormley
Active Member
Think potentially a Preliminary round is possible if a dv3 or 4 side reaches the final.