NFL Division 1 2024

[An Fhairche Abu]

I say unless there a miracle Donegal and Monaghan be going down.

Monaghan have never needed miracles to beat Tyrone in the league. We can't possibly play as bad as that 2nd half performance  in Galway and notwithstanding it took Galway ages to get that game closing goal, even that had to handed on a plate to them.

Galway controlled that game handily and had it not been for a moment of madness (that the ref should've sorted far earlier) and 4/5 Beggan punts from soft frees, it probably would've been a double figure scoreline. Galway missed a gilt edged goal chance 15 mins before their actual one on 63 mins, and fisted another when a goal chance was glaring. Not sure Monaghan got within sight of a goal

Monaghan were comfortably the worst team Galway have played this year, really poor.

[Rudi]

Fitness wise Mayo seem to be a good bit ahead of everyone else. Only won by 2 points yesterday, but never looked like losing the game. Always seemed to be in total control & if we scored, they could go up the field and score. In truth they were probably 7 or 8 points the better team yesterday, without showing too much of their hand.
Fair play to our lads for not giving up & scored 2 well worked goals, thought Smith was impressive yesterday, tried very hard. But we were poor, totally out played for the first 22 minutes. Why is that?
This league campaign we have played pretty poor, but have won games, we would normally lose. We are a hard team to figure out. Need much more fire in the bellies. This Kerry game away is almost certainly a write off. Going to be a nervous must win/ draw game V Donegal. Hopefully we can lose our flaky tag.

[seafoid]

Fitness wise Mayo seem to be a good bit ahead of everyone else. Only won by 2 points yesterday, but never looked like losing the game. Always seemed to be in total control & if we scored, they could go up the field and score. In truth they were probably 7 or 8 points the better team yesterday, without showing too much of their hand.
Fair play to our lads for not giving up & scored 2 well worked goals, thought Smith was impressive yesterday, tried very hard. But we were poor, totally out played for the first 22 minutes. Why is that?
This league campaign we have played pretty poor, but have won games, we would normally lose. We are a hard team to figure out. Need much more fire in the bellies. This Kerry game away is almost certainly a write off. Going to be a nervous must win/ draw game V Donegal. Hopefully we can lose our flaky tag.

Ros should be able to beat Donegal.

[Maroon Manc]

Good to see Finnerty back fully fit, thats 5 points from play since been introduced at half time in the Donegal game. Idiotic from Cooke, can't believe he did that in front of the ref. Eoghan Kelly has done really well so far but he's not comfortable on the ball and will get targeted if he doesn't move it on quicker.

McGrath did well, has a great turn of pace. Sweeney has a lot of talent but looks like Joyce is unsure where his best position is, he's got to improve his decision making.

Slightly better from Gleeson on kickouts yesterday but Monaghan definitely let Galway off the hook with this.

Monaghan were tragic though.

[Rudi]

Fitness wise Mayo seem to be a good bit ahead of everyone else. Only won by 2 points yesterday, but never looked like losing the game. Always seemed to be in total control & if we scored, they could go up the field and score. In truth they were probably 7 or 8 points the better team yesterday, without showing too much of their hand.
Fair play to our lads for not giving up & scored 2 well worked goals, thought Smith was impressive yesterday, tried very hard. But we were poor, totally out played for the first 22 minutes. Why is that?
This league campaign we have played pretty poor, but have won games, we would normally lose. We are a hard team to figure out. Need much more fire in the bellies. This Kerry game away is almost certainly a write off. Going to be a nervous must win/ draw game V Donegal. Hopefully we can lose our flaky tag.

Ros should be able to beat Donegal.

Roscommon should have been able to beat Clare last year. Derry didn't have to think twice, just went out  & hammered them. Derry look like a really strong side this year. The pressure will be on Roscommon to deliver a result against what looks like a poor enough Donegal side.

[From the Bunker]

Fitness wise Mayo seem to be a good bit ahead of everyone else. Only won by 2 points yesterday, but never looked like losing the game. Always seemed to be in total control & if we scored, they could go up the field and score. In truth they were probably 7 or 8 points the better team yesterday, without showing too much of their hand.
Fair play to our lads for not giving up & scored 2 well worked goals, thought Smith was impressive yesterday, tried very hard. But we were poor, totally out played for the first 22 minutes. Why is that?
This league campaign we have played pretty poor, but have won games, we would normally lose. We are a hard team to figure out. Need much more fire in the bellies. This Kerry game away is almost certainly a write off. Going to be a nervous must win/ draw game V Donegal. Hopefully we can lose our flaky tag.

Ros should be able to beat Donegal.

Roscommon should have been able to beat Clare last year. Derry didn't have to think twice, just went out  & hammered them. Derry look like a really strong side this year. The pressure will be on Roscommon to deliver a result against what looks like a poor enough Donegal side.

Donegal like Monaghan are a bit of an anomaly. They can be out-right terrible, or catch you on a bad day and beat you. Both are s diffferent proposition at home.

[An Fhairche Abu]

Good to see Finnerty back fully fit, thats 5 points from play since been introduced at half time in the Donegal game. Idiotic from Cooke, can't believe he did that in front of the ref. Eoghan Kelly has done really well so far but he's not comfortable on the ball and will get targeted if he doesn't move it on quicker.

McGrath did well, has a great turn of pace. Sweeney has a lot of talent but looks like Joyce is unsure where his best position is, he's got to improve his decision making.

Slightly better from Gleeson on kickouts yesterday but Monaghan definitely let Galway off the hook with this.

Monaghan were tragic though.

I'd let Sweeney take a few licks and mistakes during the league like the kick at the end of the Mayo game to let him get experience and get up to speed, clearly has a ton of football ability in him.

Bar a misplaced hand pass when he was up the pitch Gleeson was absolutely fine yesterday, came out and cleared the balls that he had to, kickouts looked fine bar a couple of ones that went astray but he won't face a more anaemic effort at pressuring them again this year.

[seafoid]

Fitness wise Mayo seem to be a good bit ahead of everyone else. Only won by 2 points yesterday, but never looked like losing the game. Always seemed to be in total control & if we scored, they could go up the field and score. In truth they were probably 7 or 8 points the better team yesterday, without showing too much of their hand.
Fair play to our lads for not giving up & scored 2 well worked goals, thought Smith was impressive yesterday, tried very hard. But we were poor, totally out played for the first 22 minutes. Why is that?
This league campaign we have played pretty poor, but have won games, we would normally lose. We are a hard team to figure out. Need much more fire in the bellies. This Kerry game away is almost certainly a write off. Going to be a nervous must win/ draw game V Donegal. Hopefully we can lose our flaky tag.

Ros should be able to beat Donegal.

Roscommon should have been able to beat Clare last year. Derry didn't have to think twice, just went out  & hammered them. Derry look like a really strong side this year. The pressure will be on Roscommon to deliver a result against what looks like a poor enough Donegal side.

Ros are an improvement on last season. Donegal are probably the weakest team in the division.

[naka]

Still all to play for
Great league so far
Armagh need to get at least a point from the Galway game as would hate to go to Omagh needing a result .

[Manning18]

Good to see Finnerty back fully fit, thats 5 points from play since been introduced at half time in the Donegal game. Idiotic from Cooke, can't believe he did that in front of the ref. Eoghan Kelly has done really well so far but he's not comfortable on the ball and will get targeted if he doesn't move it on quicker.

McGrath did well, has a great turn of pace. Sweeney has a lot of talent but looks like Joyce is unsure where his best position is, he's got to improve his decision making.

Slightly better from Gleeson on kickouts yesterday but Monaghan definitely let Galway off the hook with this.

Monaghan were tragic though.

Finnerty's really kicked on. He's verging in on top tier now and is absolutely essential in a forward line not awash with heavy scorers. I actually think the top 8 is fairly set now injuries aside. Heaney, Tierney and Conroy have dispelled any notions that their places might be up for grabs with excellent league campaigns. Cooke, while very prone to stupid mistakes, is still way too talented not to play imo. Finnerty, Comer, Walsh and McDaid are undroppable. That's acknowledging the amount of games however, so possibly the notion of a settled first 15 might be dispelled for every team this season.

Conroy will probably need minding from certain matchups and positions on a Croke Park pitch later in the year but can cross that bridge when the time comes. For now I can only marvel at how he's still bossing games at 34 with his smarts and technique.

Nobody else has put the hand up really unfortunately. If you wanted to be brave later in the year and a Patrick Kelly (especially), Tomo or Ian Burke was in very good form, maybe you could get brave and move Heaney to wing back. Sweeney's an interesting case, hard to know is he better at wing back or forward (and if there's much difference between the two). At the moment though I feel he should be trying to make the open no.7 slot his own. The Corner Back spot opposite Glynn is the other seemingly open spot, albiet Eoghan Kelly has been reasonably good there. Not fully sure id fancy him marking a Tommy Conroy later in the year but we'll see. McGraths another option who did very well yesterday, albiet probably slightly behind physically than others.

[imtommygunn]

Finnerty doesn't get enough credit for his performance in the AI final last year. I don't think he scored but his distribution was fantastic. Very good player and still young so you'd expect to kick on quite a bit.

Armagh Galway in the athletic grounds will be interesting. Looks to be some atmosphere there.

[Armagh18]

Finnerty doesn't get enough credit for his performance in the AI final last year. I don't think he scored but his distribution was fantastic. Very good player and still young so you'd expect to kick on quite a bit.

Armagh Galway in the athletic grounds will be interesting. Looks to be some atmosphere there.

Yeah should be electric- hopefully its as good as game as the QF last year. At least it wont go to fecking penalties though lol.

[seafoid]

I think it's quite a good league for Galway in building on last year and giving the half forwards the chance to develop, bring a few players on, develop momentum in the absence of the full forward line and prepare for the championship. The relegation in 2021 was really an anomaly because Galway were a Division 1 team in Division 2 last year.  I don't know when the last time a D2 team reached the all Ireland final was.

[illdecide]

Armagh v Galway will probably be a full house or v close to it. It's a must win game for Armagh to stay in the division as there is plenty of talk doing the rounds that teams may not want to play in the League play off so the two bottom teams may well pick up points that normally would be out of their grasp. I'm assuming this is down to the Championship openers happening the week or two after the League play off. For this reason alone Armagh must beat Galway in two weeks time, with a bit of luck we can clear up a few injuries in this time and just hope Galway are happy enough with their current tally of points and Armagh win with the edge...Here's hoping as this Galway side look to be getting better and when they get all their players back in they'll be hard to beat.

[God14]

I think it's quite a good league for Galway in building on last year and giving the half forwards the chance to develop, bring a few players on, develop momentum in the absence of the full forward line and prepare for the championship. The relegation in 2021 was really an anomaly because Galway were a Division 1 team in Division 2 last year. I don't know when the last time a D2 team reached the all Ireland final was.

Armagh 2002?