Ulster Senior Football Championship 2021

Big Jim

Big Jim

Well-Known Member
Armagh_paul said:
I think that is another problem, management team is always changing. I am only speculating but is the backroom team always changing because McGeeney won't listen to others input? Although in some cases they could be absolutely useless but then why are they being picked?

I am not sure if the Kieran Donaghy assignment was only for the year (all that traveling must be a pain) but I think he has been a good for our attacking play. However for reasons beyond my comprehension we never brought in a defender who has done it all. We have top class forwards within the county not so much the case for defenders it would appear. We definitely need someone to work with us in terms of defence. A blanket defence is all well and good but we need defence to develop for next year and this is a priority. However I wouldn't hold my breath on this one considering we have been arguing about having one for the last 4 years.
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I'd totally agree on Kieran Donaghy AP. The "flicked" goal was very reminiscent of his style of play - "get up high and bury the ball regardless of the consequences". Sadly I'd also say that was all he had in his armoury and was not a great tackler or winner of the ball. If he can only just work his magic on that side of the game, then he's worth having.

With Ciaran McKeever we have a player who has been there and done it. Got massive plaudits as an international rules player as well so is highly experienced in the art of play. I'm desperately hoping he can shore up the defence and make apples out of seeds. We just just need those seeds though. For a county that was so proud of and praised heavily for our defence, we've a lot of improvements to make. Get that right in the next few months and prepare for whenever the next season begins and a good team "could" become great.

I've jumped ship and now firmly believe that the Anglo Celt in the AG is the only goal for next year (in terms of championship, along with again retaining Div. 1 status, as difficult as that may be with the teams that will be there). Getting to the final will no longer be enough for me to say, "I remain devoted to supporting the manager and management team". Even one with tinted glasses so dark will have to admit that it's time to change.
 
Armagh_paul

Armagh_paul

Well-Known Member
Big Jim said:
I'd totally agree on Kieran Donaghy AP. The "flicked" goal was very reminiscent of his style of play - "get up high and bury the ball regardless of the consequences". Sadly I'd also say that was all he had in his armoury and was not a great tackler or winner of the ball. If he can only just work his magic on that side of the game, then he's worth having.

With Ciaran McKeever we have a player who has been there and done it. Got massive plaudits as an international rules player as well so is highly experienced in the art of play. I'm desperately hoping he can shore up the defence and make apples out of seeds. We just just need those seeds though. For a county that was so proud of and praised heavily for our defence, we've a lot of improvements to make. Get that right in the next few months and prepare for whenever the next season begins and a good team "could" become great.

I've jumped ship and now firmly believe that the Anglo Celt in the AG is the only goal for next year (in terms of championship, along with again retaining Div. 1 status, as difficult as that may be with the teams that will be there). Getting to the final will no longer be enough for me to say, "I remain devoted to supporting the manager and management team". Even one with tinted glasses so dark will have to admit that it's time to change.
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Donaghy has had the exposure to different management setups, different tactics, different players...he bring a whole range of knowledge to this management setup. I think the management setup now is going to start becoming toxic for the development of this team. Without success you can only believe in the management for a certain amount of time because there will come a time where players will think "Why am I doing this? Its been 5 years and we have not done anything". I know I would be. Once this starts we will start seeing our top players drop off the county panel because they might feel they have given up too much of their youth to the county setup all for nothing.

Back to Donaghy - some might only see him as a target man but he has had his fair share of success. In addition to this, we tried to replicate that style of play when O'Rourke brought in John Kingham. Like I said, I am glad we have him but my question is why didn't we bring in a renowned defender? We have a manager who was a defender, we have McKeever - why is it that 90% of the users on this forum and those outside the county are able to see the defensive issues but it doesn't seem like this management is learning from past mistakes? It really does boggle my mind. If we had our defensive problems sorted then I would feel hell of a lot more confident about next year and would be confident about going on to winning Ulster.

By the way can someone tell me where has Paul Grimley disappeared to? Has he dropped out of management altogether? 2014 he turned the team on it's head from the first game and almost got us to a quarter final.
 
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ragingbull

ragingbull

Well-Known Member
Armagh_paul said:
Donaghy has had the exposure to different management setups, different tactics, different players...he bring a whole range of knowledge to this management setup. I think the management setup now is going to start becoming toxic for the development of this team. Without success you can only believe in the management for a certain amount of time because there will come a time where players will think "Why am I doing this? Its been 5 years and we have not done anything". I know I would be. Once this starts we will start seeing our top players drop off the county panel because they might feel they have given up too much of their youth to the county setup all for nothing.

Back to Donaghy - some might only see him as a target man but he has had his fair share of success. In addition to this, we tried to replicate that style of play when O'Rourke brought in John Kingham. Like I said, I am glad we have him but my question is why didn't we bring in a renowned defender? We have a manager who was a defender, we have McKeever - why is it that 90% of the users on this forum and those outside the county are able to see the defensive issues but it doesn't seem like this management is learning from past mistakes? It really does boggle my mind. If we had our defensive problems sorted then I would feel hell of a lot more confident about next year and would be confident about going on to winning Ulster.

By the way can someone tell me where has Paul Grimley disappeared to? Has he dropped out of management altogether? 2014 he turned the team on it's head from the first game and almost got us to a quarter final.
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He got us to the quarter final that year against Donegal we lost by a point:(
 
JoeH

JoeH

Well-Known Member
In fairness the changes were made and have been made this season regardless of the person and usually at the right time
 
P

Patrick-Armagh

Well-Known Member
I think we're all in agreement that defensively we are not up to scratch and is always going to be a major flaw in our game that other teams go after and which will cost us in the biggest matches against the best teams. The question is, what do we do about it? As far as I know, it's not like there is a wealth of rock solid defenders playing club football that aren't on the panel. We have lots of good players in our defence, but we are lacking a bit of size and presence that would really sure things up back there. We look very light and I think that if we had a few more physically imposing (while also mobile) defenders, we'd see a massive improvement. No matter how good Forker, Morgan and Burns are, we are missing the type of robust defenders, that would compliment these guys. I'm not sure what we can do about that.

Another thing to note, I was chatting with a guy who was a coach with the Donegal team for a few years. I was saying to him about how Armagh got the kick outs so wrong against Monaghan. He was saying how he was talking with one of the analysts with Donegal who was telling him that when Monaghan go long with their kicks outs, they only have a 40% scoring rate. When they go short, they have some in the region of 90%. I asked him if he was sure and he said that he was shocked too and queried the number a few times with the stats man. Point being, that may explain why Armagh pushed up more than seemed necessary.
 
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M

M18

Active Member
Think we actually a very big team across the pitch
As you say we do not have 6 brilliant defenders to play and rely on (to same standard as forwards)
I would like to see more natural marking defenders tried if we get more games next year - McCambridge would be one who I think could perform

I think we have to accept that we are going to concede scores. We were found out at weekend for goals and that was quickly stopped with Forker coming in who has proved to be top class man marker
We play with a lot of true forwards and I wouldn’t like to see that changed just so we don’t concede 20 points

I have a lot of pride in Armagh performance at weekend and I think the way we play is joy to watch
 
A

Armamike

Active Member
Very disappointing result and a sore one to take for players, management and supporters. Maybe we'll look back at this and view it as part of the pain and learning process that teams go through before gaining success. We are slow burners and maybe that's due to the fact that we don't have the proverbial 'conveyor belt' (hate that term) of talent. Since the 2009 minors our underage record is pretty dire, so the resources are thin and we have to rely on keeping and developing a few players coming through. The long and short of it is that we've produced decent midfielders and forwards but we just don't have the quality at the back. Whether we could be better at protecting the defence is another issue, but individually we're not up to scratch. The physical presence isn't there and we lack nous and football intelligence at the back. By that I mean we don't attack the ball enough, win it in front of the forward the odd time, break it away or at a minimum get really really tight and make life very uncomfortable. This tends to lead to a score (if the opposition are half decent) or a cheap free. Half back line is a big problem. It should be a wall. No team should want to run through the middle against us. It was a good achievement this year in staying in div 1 and hopefully that will bring the side on. But until we can unearth a few more players it's hard to see us getting to the point of winning Ulster titles (where Armagh football should be).
 
A

Armaghball

Well-Known Member
Armamike said:
Very disappointing result and a sore one to take for players, management and supporters. Maybe we'll look back at this and view it as part of the pain and learning process that teams go through before gaining success. We are slow burners and maybe that's due to the fact that we don't have the proverbial 'conveyor belt' (hate that term) of talent. Since the 2009 minors our underage record is pretty dire, so the resources are thin and we have to rely on keeping and developing a few players coming through. The long and short of it is that we've produced decent midfielders and forwards but we just don't have the quality at the back. Whether we could be better at protecting the defence is another issue, but individually we're not up to scratch. The physical presence isn't there and we lack nous and football intelligence at the back. By that I mean we don't attack the ball enough, win it in front of the forward the odd time, break it away or at a minimum get really really tight and make life very uncomfortable. This tends to lead to a score (if the opposition are half decent) or a cheap free. Half back line is a big problem. It should be a wall. No team should want to run through the middle against us. It was a good achievement this year in staying in div 1 and hopefully that will bring the side on. But until we can unearth a few more players it's hard to see us getting to the point of winning Ulster titles (where Armagh football should be).
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Agreed. Of the starting defence vs Monaghan I think only Morgan and Kennedy should be starting. Mackin and O’Hanlon have both done rightly but are both forwards at club level. I rate Aaron McKay but he was taken to the cleaners the other day, not helped by lack of cover in fairness.
We were missing Forker, Burns and Shields who would probably all be starters in that back 6.
 
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