I’ll do so presently, mate.
Tipperary Minor Hurlers beat Wexford in a challenge last night 3-20 to 0-20.
Breaking News / TFK Exclusive: Iggy Clarke has resigned as Faythe Harriers senior hurling team manager.
ex clergy man from galway?
FAO dublin based posters, Wex to play Monaghon in Artane tonight, throw in 7.30, st davids cbs.
[FONT=Calibri]How are the senior hurling and football camps fixed, chaps? I personally have no idea how things have been progressing since the end of the leagues but I’m not all that optimistic about the championship prospects for either team based on how the leagues panned out, the absence of important players through injury or unavailability and the form of some our key players.[/FONT]
I’d have roughly the same outlook. I expect Louth to turn us over and for us to run Dublin close before losing. The footballers will then be drawn against someone like Tyrone or Armagh and get a hiding up north while the Hurlers will string a couple of wins together before ultimately exiting in early / mid July.
However we’ll spend the rest of the summer talking about the great progress the Hurlers made while bemoaning the fact that our footballers continue to underachieve.
Louth wanting to play in Drogheda strikes me as a somewhat strange move, they dominated Laois on a big open pitch and yet they want to play us in Drogheda where we have previously beaten them and will hold no fear heading in to the clash.
The footballers were away in Fota Island last weekend, from what I hear it was a somewhat successful venture. I think we can beat louth, our full back line is no where near as porous as the Laois one and one would be hoping that Molloy can get to grips with Shane Lennon.
There’s hope.
count of monte cristo - I think it’s a case of Louth not having had many home championship games (wasn’t there capacity restrictions with Drogheda in the past too?) so they’re obviously going to want to play on home territory.
They have some good players but they’re hardly worldbeaters and it’s the old cliche 50/50 game really. Daithí Waters was superb in the league game earlier this season up there and comprehensively outplayed Paddy Keenan. That’s obviously going to be a huge battle as Keenan is excellent.
Brian White is also fairly impressive, especially with his long range frees off the ground (and 45s), and he could be midfield or in the half forward line. We need to be disciplined in our defending as he’s accurate from those frees.
They have a lad called John O’Brien who’s stood out when I’ve seen them play in recent years. He can play corner or wing back and is relatively small but very fast and sticky. He picked up Brosnan in the league game and will probably do so again.
We need some of our better players to step up - it seemed at times in the league like Waters was carrying the team on his back. Lyng missed most of the league but we need Brosnan and Barry to reach the levels they were playing at in previous years. I also still worry about the balance of the attack when you have those 3 and the likes of Roche and Banville too - 2 or maybe even 3 grafters are needed in the modern game and we’ve debated at length before the problem of our forwards not defending with conviction from the front.
Not sure if any of the U21 players have been called up either. I’d like to see that midfielder from Cloughbawn involved as we didn’t really bed down a midfield partner for Waters in the league.
[quote=“count of monte cristo, post: 778290, member: 348”]Louth wanting to play in Drogheda strikes me as a somewhat strange move, they dominated Laois on a big open pitch and yet they want to play us in Drogheda where we have previously beaten them and will hold no fear heading in to the clash.
The footballers were away in Fota Island last weekend, from what I hear it was a somewhat successful venture. I think we can beat louth, our full back line is no where near as porous as the Laois one and one would be hoping that Molloy can get to grips with Shane Lennon.
There’s hope.[/quote]
my sources tell me that the difference in pitch dimensions between Portlaoise and Drogheda is Portlaoise is 4m longer, and 3m wider.
Louth have played in Pairc Tailtean before, so that may have been one of few options to them. Some pitch dimensions I have to hand which could be options here, or comparisons if you are interested in that sort of a thing.
[FONT=Bookman Old Style]Wexford… Wexford Park…142 x 87[/FONT]
[FONT=Bookman Old Style]Laois… O’Moore Park… 142 x 86[/FONT]
[FONT=Bookman Old Style]Meath…Pairc Tailteann…135 x 87[/FONT]
[FONT=Bookman Old Style]Dublin…Parnell Park… 141 x 82[/FONT]
[FONT=Bookman Old Style]Louth…Drogheda Park… 138 x 83[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman]Its one of those things that gets talked about as being a factor, but in most intercounty grounds now, the size of a pitch is not massively different between counties anymore.[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman]Is Molloy fully fit too? I think we can beat them too, but being relegated was a big kick in the stones.[/FONT]
Molloy will be fine.
I’m gogin to look at that game toonight id say…isnt aidan o rourke’s bro manager of Monaghon???
[quote=“count of monte cristo, post: 778290, member: 348”]Louth wanting to play in Drogheda strikes me as a somewhat strange move, they dominated Laois on a big open pitch and yet they want to play us in Drogheda where we have previously beaten them and will hold no fear heading in to the clash.
The footballers were away in Fota Island last weekend, from what I hear it was a somewhat successful venture. I think we can beat louth, our full back line is no where near as porous as the Laois one and one would be hoping that Molloy can get to grips with Shane Lennon.
There’s hope.[/quote]
Did they get to see the giraffes?
junior team to play Longford tonight was named. Bandage may be happy to see 3 Sarsfields players on it. Quite a number of past U21 players on it so a chance for them to shine before the Louth game.
oh and Mattie Forde is named as a sub too.
I saw that earlier. Is Gaul at wing forward the same lad who was corner or full back on the U21 winnning team?
Count, how did the challenge go last night
[FONT=Georgia]Monaghan 0-19 Wexford 1-9[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia]Wexford started with a very under strength team in this meaningless clash in Artane. Aidan obviously playing his cards close to his chest considering the monaghan manager is the brother of Louth manager aidan o’rourke. Monagahn had the game recorded for posterity.[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia]Monaghan roared into the game, leaving our forwards blowing on their hands to keep them warm for the first 20 mins. We were sorely outclassed at midfielf with Rory Quinlivan and Paddy Byrne failing to win any ball, the former receiving a hospital pass from corner back Rob Tierney. [/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia]To combat this problem of being unable to win primary possession, we went with short kick outs to our full back line who got pinned in our own half.[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia]The introduction of Ciaran Lyng and Daithi waters after 20 mins changed the flow of the game, and surprisingly the introduction of Aindreas Doyle turned the game somewhat. Monaghans blanket defence swallowed us up in the first 20 but with the introduction of the aforementioned trio and clever kick passing we started to come back into it. We began to defend with more cohesion wit Waters barking orders from midfield in the stead of the shy Quinlivan.[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia]The second half continued in a similar fashion, one great diagonal ball to red barry saw us snatch a goal with 15 mins to go, directly after Ben Brosnan was put through but attemped to place the ball when power was needed and it was well stopped by the keeper. PJ banville had a deent game getting the better of his marker numerous times but poor handling letting him down on a few occasions. In the dying moments of the game Adrian Flynn hit the post which ultimalrly would have putmore gloss on the scoreline[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia]Monaghan were not overly impressive and the fact that we were tyring to hide our hand somewhat didnt help things.[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia]Positives:[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia]Very disciplined in defence only one scorable free given away which will hopefully continue for the louth game.[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia]Not goal chances afforded[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia]Negatives:[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia]Still conceding 19 points the majority from play.[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia]contstantly soloing into to trouble[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia]a number of players unwillingness to kick pass the ball.[/FONT]
How did the team line out count?
[FONT=Calibri]Clever stuff from count of monte cristo here by not revealing too much on the public forum. Unlike the Clare lads who have to be warned by Davy Fitz not to post up details of tactics and positional switches/combinations from challenge games on the internet.[/FONT]
[quote=“count of monte cristo, post: 778693, member: 348”][FONT=Georgia]Monaghan 0-19 Wexford 1-9[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia]Wexford started with a very under strength team in this meaningless clash in Artane. Aidan obviously playing his cards close to his chest considering the monaghan manager is the brother of Louth manager aidan o’rourke. Monagahn had the game recorded for posterity.[/FONT][/quote]
That was an evening well spent for everyone so.
Straight from the eamonn o hara school of analysis.