Fair play to our lads today. Poor game overall but we won’t care as we’re now in the draw for the Quarters. I really hope we get Cork or Galway.
Down were a terrible team in fairness-one of the worst we’ve played in a while (ie since Leitrim). They had no gameplan it seemed and the fact that Boccy lorded it today shows how inept their midfield was.
I thought I’d seen it all with Wexford football but then Boccy goes and gets MOTM and Collie Byrne scores a point. Unreal!
Red Barry definitely deserves special mention. One of the best roving, playmaking footballers around.
Tis hard to explain what happened today. Was in Quinns after the game surrounded by lads from Down and Mayo singing for all they could. The reason - they wouldn’t be able to sing till next year.
Did some research and found that team last night. Muttley was there today so surprised to see him not play some part. Very odd. Down are muck. Cannot belive how bad they were. Worse than how they played in the league.
I’ve ended up at home wearing a Mayo jersey. I’m still trying to figure it out!
Anyway, Red Barry is a fuckin legend. Covered more ground than anyone else. Cannot believe Boccy got MOTM but fair play for his league performances!
Rory Stafford - what a point!
All Ireland Quarter Final! Its never happened before and I wasn’t shy about reminding everyone I met tonight!
Think Bandage needs to learn the difference between a TFK exclusive and a TFK inclusive.
Surprised ye won yesterday - played well enough but by God Down were truly awful. Keeps the Leitrim lads quiet though, Leinster football isn’t looking so weak now.
Smashing win for the Wexford camogie lasses yesterday too. Despite conceding 4 points (including one from play) to a gallant Limerick side, Wexford shaded the win with a total of 7-27. Can’t be arsed doing the maths to work out the margin but it looks like a Wexford win at first glance.
Strange with Mutley going away on holidays between the Leinster Final and yesterday alright. He was back for the game but he didin’t deserve to play. Apparently his missus was pressurising him into going on holiday and he cracked. You’d think he would have told her to fook off.
Actually the more I think about this one the more I think Wexford have a great chance. Based on a form line through Fermanagh and Down, Wexford match up very well. Paul McGrane was well beaten by Dan Gordon in the Armagh-Down Ulster semi-final whereas Wexford dealt with him fairly easily. McGrane is 34 and the wide spaces of Croke Park will test him to the limit. Wexford beat Fermanagh in the League final while Fermanagh should have beaten Armagh in the drawn Ulster Final they won everything at midfield and half forward in the last 20 minutes and in the replay had mountains of possession but couldnt do anything with it. This weekend’s results would seem to bear out the view that it was a poor Ulster Championship.
Andy Mallon, Armaghs best man marker who would probably have picked up Matty Forde is out injured. Francie Bellew is vulnerable to a mobile full forward Kieran Donaghy destroyed him two years ago. Containing Clarke and McDonnell is the key. Those two absolutely killed Dublin in the league game in Crossmaglen back in April. If Wexford can come up with some way of limiting their effectiveness the way they did with Benny Coulter, Armagh dont have a whole lot else up front in that nobody else is a prolific scorer. They compensate for this with forward runs from half back by the likes of Aaron Kernan, Aidan ORourke and Charlie Vernon (who knifed through the Dublin defence for a goal) which were also very effective against Dublin. These guys are not great markers though and I can see Barry and Banville doing damage against them. But even though Dublin won midfield that day, we still lost by 9 or 10 points.
Armagh will think its a great draw and will be heavy favourites but they have fallen against lesser teams before at the quarter-final stage against Fermanagh in 2004 and in 2002 they were steeped to get a draw against Sligo when they should have been beaten.
[quote=“sid waddell”]Actually the more I think about this one the more I think Wexford have a great chance. Based on a form line through Fermanagh and Down, Wexford match up very well. Paul McGrane was well beaten by Dan Gordon in the Armagh-Down Ulster semi-final whereas Wexford dealt with him fairly easily. McGrane is 34 and the wide spaces of Croke Park will test him to the limit. Wexford beat Fermanagh in the League final while Fermanagh should have beaten Armagh in the drawn Ulster Final they won everything at midfield and half forward in the last 20 minutes and in the replay had mountains of possession but couldnt do anything with it. This weekend’s results would seem to bear out the view that it was a poor Ulster Championship.
Andy Mallon, Armaghs best man marker who would probably have picked up Matty Forde is out injured. Francie Bellew is vulnerable to a mobile full forward Kieran Donaghy destroyed him two years ago. Containing Clarke and McDonnell is the key. Those two absolutely killed Dublin in the league game in Crossmaglen back in April. If Wexford can come up with some way of limiting their effectiveness the way they did with Benny Coulter, Armagh dont have a whole lot else up front in that nobody else is a prolific scorer. They compensate for this with forward runs from half back by the likes of Aaron Kernan, Aidan ORourke and Charlie Vernon (who knifed through the Dublin defence for a goal) which were also very effective against Dublin. These guys are not great markers though and I can see Barry and Banville doing damage against them. But even though Dublin won midfield that day, we still lost by 9 or 10 points.
Armagh will think its a great draw and will be heavy favourites but they have fallen against lesser teams before at the quarter-final stage against Fermanagh in 2004 and in 2002 they were steeped to get a draw against Sligo when they should have been beaten.[/quote]
Some very good points Sidney.
It’s a blatantly obvious thing to say but the twin threat of McDonnell and Clarke could kill any team. It would be utterly stupid to leave a 2 vs 2 against them in the full back line so I’d expect to see something similar to last Saturday with Brian Malone playing in front of 2 man markers on the half turn and trying to cut off the supply to them.
But that in turn puts more pressure on the players further out the field. They’ll have an extra body to snaffle up breaks in the middle third and it will require an incredible workrate and a huge amount of selfless running from the likes of Barry and Banville to stop their half backline from marauding forward. Down had a decent amount of possession against us and you’d have to expect the likes of Kernan and O’Rourke to use it better than they did.
My fear would be their power and strength all over the park and that they might suffocate and strangle the life out of us and beat us by 4 or 5 points in an ugly enough game with McDonnell and Clarke being the difference. There’s absolutely no point soloing into contact against these cunts as they’ll just gobble you up and force a turnover. We need to use the full width of the pitch and play a running and support game out of our defence before hitting our inside forward line with good deliveries rather than hopeful high punts that Bellew would feast upon.
We should also look to get the maximum out of Forde and if he’s not getting enough possession inside then he should be brought out to centre forward where he can influence matters more. Overall, I don’t fear them and we can certainly give them a game and I’m gagging for the weekend again already.
5 of our players were in for cryotherapy in White’s Hotel yesterday and are scheduled for more during the week. Everyone who featured on Saturday is expected to be fit though. Not sure about Tommy Howlin.
My (more sobered up) take on things. Down were utterly awful. We didnt really play that much better than the Dublin game. It was very very ugly and the standard was low but a win is a win. The placing of Flynn at wing back freeing up Malone to play as a sweeper with Morris half covering the corner at times worked well. Felt though that we left Mattie and Lyng too isolated at times with a 60 or 70 yard gap between them and our other players.
Masterson - did well and mixed his kickouts up a bit. Not just hitting and hoping.
Walsh - shaky start with giving away an early free and a yellow card but has to start the next day.
Wallace - much improved and helped out by Malone being free in front of him.
Malone - Intelligent enough to play as a sweeper and was solid if unspectacular.
Morrissey - wasn’t all that impressed and he seems to have gone back in his box since the Laois game. Hopefully more to come.
Murphy - Controlled things and is probably our most important defender. When he plays well, the whole team usually do.
Morris - Not so many rampaging runs forward and has to be disappointed with an easy miss in the second half. Will be a very important player next weekend.
Boccy - got man of the match and fair play to him for it. Made a general nuisance of himself and probably saw more ball than in any other match in his life. Needs to up his game for next weekend.
Bradley - what we have come to expect. Ran himself into the ground and has to play midfield against Armagh.
Red - Utter utter class. Full of energy and sums the man up with the amount of ball he cleaned up in our half back line in the second half.
Colfer - too slow for centre forward. If Howlin is fit the next day I think we could see Paddy dropping out. More suited to being an impact sub at this stage but took his point well.
Flynn - has gone way back from his league form but he spent more time defending on Saturday. Tireless and like the other Adrian, I really hope he ups his game the next day. Awful miss in second half as well.
Lyng - great finish for goal but suffered due to our game plan. Have seen him play much better games before and looking forward to see him take on Bellew and co next weekend.
Banville - full of running and energy. Is having his best season by far this year and seems to have regained a lot of his old confidence.
Forde - the fact that he looked only 70% fit and still finished up with 7 points says it all about the man! Looked like he couldnt run and just hope he didnt damage the hammer too much. Should probably have been taken off close to the end to save him from any further damage.
I think Flynn will do well to hold on to his place as he hasn’t been great in any game since the league. Maybe he did too much in the early season and its taken it out of him?
Maybe himself and Roche could be useful as 2 impact subs to come on when the Armagh legs are tiring. Aside from the full forward line Armaghs biggest threat will come from their half back line so we need a half forward line to combat this. We have it in Red, I dont think Colfer has the legs for it - he was struggling at times against Down last week, wouldnt surprise me to see us starting with a 3rd midfielder like Rory Stafford and bringing Banville back out to the half forward line as well.
For what its worth the team I would pick would be:
One of the things that intrigues me about gaelic football is that A can beat B, B beat C and then C beat A. Now, this is probably me talking scheidt but games are decided on which team’s gameplan and set-up matches up better against the specific opposition they’re facing on that particular day. I think it’s irrelevant to Saturday that, for example, Dublin us annihilated us and Armagh comfortably beat them in the league earlier in the year. I think the game will simply be decided by whether ourselves or Armagh can get the upper hand in the middle third on Saturday. Last Saturday, we saw Bocky/Boccy (anyone have a definitive spelling? Is it a play on Rocky films or something unconnected?) clean up and the likes of Red win all the breaks, while Leinster Final day saw Dublin steamroll over us from numbers 5-12 on the field.
Getting the advantage in that area is the difference between the opposition getting oceans of good ball into their forwards or us being able to feed Forde and Lyng. That gets me onto match tactics and some of the selection issues raised by Mac. If we play an extra defender deep between the full back line and half back line then will we lose out in the midfield sector where they’ll have an extra body? Can light enough players like Banville and Barry snaffle up breaks in the middle third against a physically powerful side such as Armagh? Or will we need to include strong men like Colfer and Stafford to negate Armagh’s advantage in the physical stakes? Or is playing bigger but less mobile lads playing into Armagh’s hands and giving them the kind of attritional game they’re masters at winning? Should we replicate a style Fermanagh successfully used against them in the past and pick speed merchants like Roche?
Holy Jaysus, the road to Croker just had Mark Landers and John Meyler on as guests - did they realise what they were doing? The 2 barely looked at each other. The researcher from that show really earned her shillings tonight!!
Id say they knew full well what they were doing…hoping the two of them would go to blows…maybe its water under the bridge sure its not like them cork lads to hold a grudge…
Laughing at that cos I was out of the room when they came on and could only hear them talking. Saying to myself - typical RTE, getting 2 Cork lads on to preview the hurling cos all I could hear were they’re accents! Couldnt believe when I came back in and saw the 2 of them side by side.
Did anyone see it tonight? Thought Gleeson did a decent enough job in the anchor role but he should stop using the token betting phrases. We know you work on the racing Brian, and that you’re from Waterford - no need to keep reminding us!
Anybody hear anything about the meeting the players had with Meyler after the Waterford game? My sources are being very coy but I gather the senior players are in favour of him continuing but some of the younger lads are well set against it.