Antrim Hurling

[auld stock]

have to say that the referee was way out of his depth. in truth i didnt want to see anyone sent off from either team. shane got a straight red on advice from the umpire. johnny campbell who has never pulled a dirty stroke in his life blatantly & deliberately struck 3feet from the ref & got yellow. now let me say i am happy that he only got yellow as he is a fine hurler & never dirty but for me the ref was totally to blame for the whole incident as he had given a throw in ball. he then stood like a rabbit paralysed in a bright light for at least 60 seconds before he threw the ball in. all this did was encourage the players to jab one another which ultimately led to johnny striking. on at least 4 occasions he went in to seek advice from the umpires when the common sense approach would have been to let the game go. i think that the ref may well not get to bed tonight without first asking permission from garret duffy!!!!   i dont like to slate refs but his performance was at best shocking (for both teams) i said to a loughguile supporter beside me that there was a real danger of him either getting someone hurt or loughguile also losing a man for something very menial.johnny will blow a huge sigh of releif but as i said im glad & i honestly wish loughguile every success in their defence of ulster & all ireland.in all seriousness though mr mc grath days as a senior referee are surely at an end. b4 the galls men come in saying its easy to slate the ref & who else would have done the game my answer is simple. lets see how many people who were at the game have anything positive to say about his performance to both teams & lastly yes the game would have been better served with no ref as  the game was played in as sporting a manner with no blatanly dangerous or sneaky pulls from either team. SIE what do you think about this??

[Gizzy15]

commmon the dall, great team and would be great champions, but nothing away form dunloy, deserved to be there but had it been the dall.........., before u say it, if my granny had balls......, but do think if dall had of got to that final they would have romped it....

[Jesusjones]

Auld Stock why on earth would you be glad that someone who struck another player with a stick while the ball wasn't in play only got a yellow card? That send out completely the wrong message to everyone who plays hurling. Why would a parent take their child to play hurling when it is acceptable for someone to hit them on the head with a stick and not even get punished. As I said I won't try and defend Shane who deserved a red card but just because you think Johnny Campbell has never pulled a dirty stroke (which is rubbish by the way he did it the last time we played in the league) does it mean he shouldn't get a red card for deliberate striking off the ball? Complete rubbish Auld Stock. His was a red card offence and a red card should have been issued, regardless of Loughgiel's involvement in the Ulster Championship and his previous record. Mc Grath certainly didn't take Shane's previous record into consideration when he sent him off. Honestly I thought Mc Grath gave the worst refereeing performance I've seen in a long long time and his umpires were like detectives looking for Cushendall men but it was see no evil hear no evil as far as Loughgiel were concerned. Look at the incident where a high ball was landing in the Loughgiel goal mouth, Ronan Mc Closkey was holding Shane, Shane in trying to get away from him knocked him over and the 2 clowns in white coats called the ref in and he gave a free out. Now could someone tell me what good it is to a forward to commit a foul as the ball was dropping into the square? Complete and utter tripe from the officials. Also nice to see Conor Carson pop over the winner, certainly put a stop to the abuse he received from the baboons on the Loughgiel side of the pitch.

[wino]

JJ you won the match, and won the league. FFS wise up, you really need to take the blinkers off when looking at frees and cards, cushendall can't be right all the time. Anyway enjoy your league victory.
Ulster championship next week

[wino]

commmon the dall, great team and would be great champions, but nothing away form dunloy, deserved to be there but had it been the dall.........., before u say it, if my granny had balls......, but do think if dall had of got to that final they would have romped it....

Wise up, what a load of complete nonsense, was that congrats to Loughgiel

[Jesusjones]

Wino I'm not saying we are right all the time, far from it and I've said Shane deserved a red card
(Any shamrocks big enough to admit Campbell deserved to walk and miss Ulster Championship?) but what I am saying is that according to The County, who break by laws to rearrange fixtures to suit Loughgiel and referees who consistently gave Loughgiel special treatment all year, Loughgiel are never wrong. I could give you a list of examples and I'm sure Dunloy people could as well of Loughgiel getting special treatment from officials, both on the field and at County/ CCC level.

[wino]

Wino I'm not saying we are right all the time, far from it and I've said Shane deserved a red card
(Any shamrocks big enough to admit Campbell deserved to walk and miss Ulster Championship?) but what I am saying is that according to The County, who break by laws to rearrange fixtures to suit Loughgiel and referees who consistently gave Loughgiel special treatment all year, Loughgiel are never wrong. I could give you a list of examples and I'm sure Dunloy people could as well of Loughgiel getting special treatment from officials, both on the field and at County/ CCC level.

I didn't see the jc incident as there was 10-15 players in a very small space on the far side of the field.
You do need to wind it in a bit, it looks very much as sg says, we start to win and all of a sudden we're getting favours from county ccc and officials, that is complete nonsense. Maybe you said the same of Croke park after paddys day.
As I said enjoy your league win and give the other stuff a rest.

[Jesusjones]

How about you give the see no evil hear no evil crap a rest

[wino]

How about you give the see no evil hear no evil crap a rest

[auld stock]

JJ as far as im concerned theres a bit of the zealot in you. i was trying to highlight how bad the ref was. this rampage your on about preferential treatment. bullshit!!!! the reason we didnt win the c'ship was clear for anyone from the 'dall to see. a simple refusal to work like dogs to get to the top. the hard miles needed during the winter simply werent done. the holiday 3 days b4 c'ship was a summing up of the collective attitude. and by the way in defending big conor  are you just going to airbrush over the fact that he spent 40mins barraging around like a bull in a china shop trying to get himself sent off!!!! only again for mc graths incompetence we would surely have been down to 14 an awful lot sooner. sorry i used to think you were quite a reasonable talker but your fairly recent conversion to communism has left you with no mind of your own. toe the party line like a good little boy, like you have been told to. no room for an opinion of your own in the brave new world!!!

[lonely1]

JJ you really do have a problem with authority, in all fairness the ref should have had Neil Mc to the line after the dirty stroke across the hands of MC Carry in the first 10 minutes, the video should highlight that one also, NMac got away with a soft yellow there. Your lads continually slapped after the ball, the shams had no point to prove yesterday, some of your lads felt they had! Didn't see half the aggression showed yesterday against Dunloy few weeks back, maybe you'd have been in the final if you had!!!!

This was the same ref that was praised for U21 final that you threw away not so long ago? As the old saying goes "eaten bread is soon forgotten", maybe he had a bad day, christ I could name 10 players that had a bad day against dunloy, didn't see you coming on a nailing them, as always go for the soft targets, MC Grath yesterday, Elliott a few weeks back change the fckn record and lift a whistle, MR2 Im sure would coach you You won as previously said so shut the fck up!

[gelvis]

JJ as far as im concerned theres a bit of the zealot in you. i was trying to highlight how bad the ref was. this rampage your on about preferential treatment. bullshit!!!! the reason we didnt win the c'ship was clear for anyone from the 'dall to see. a simple refusal to work like dogs to get to the top. the hard miles needed during the winter simply werent done. the holiday 3 days b4 c'ship was a summing up of the collective attitude. and by the way in defending big conor  are you just going to airbrush over the fact that he spent 40mins barraging around like a bull in a china shop trying to get himself sent off!!!! only again for mc graths incompetence we would surely have been down to 14 an awful lot sooner. sorry i used to think you were quite a reasonable talker but your fairly recent conversion to communism has left you with no mind of your own. toe the party line like a good little boy, like you have been told to. no room for an opinion of your own in the brave new world!!!

HA!  Excellent

[Milltown Row2]

Firstly, I wasn't at the match and can't talk about the refereeing, but knowing the fixture this was always going to cause grief for the referee, Davy didn't set out yesterday to have a bad game (by your accounts) he probably didn't realise that there is a fair degree of rivalry in this fixture.

I would have struggled to keep an eye on the match if I were refereeing it, individual battles going on all over the pitch. Your first instinct is to have a hard fought tough game and let it flow. Problem is this, we in Antrim can't make the difference between a hard hit and a dirty stroke. If we get a hard hit we want to slap back, the feeling of, that that was personal overides the fact that it was just a hard hit. Ya should lift you fat ass of the ground and get the next fooking ball.

Too many scores to settle, people more interested in "doing someone in" that trying to bury the ball into the net. If Davy had a bad day then fine, he's man enough to admit that, he's refereed some cracking games this year and will improve. Give him a break, he also doesn't have an agenda of giving loughgiel handy ones, he's not part of some secret organisation that gives Loughgiel special attention, he doesn't give a fook who wins either. So get that "they are against us" attitude out of your heads lads. Hard work wins Championships putting the miles in as Auld Stock said. Being honest about yourselves. If you train and be 100% then that's all you can do.

Referees never really win or lose games, it's usually the players

[btdtgtt]

I have some sympathy for JJ here!

Too often are decisions made in light of the players / teams involved! The fact the dall won doesn't change this and if anything JJ is right in still highlighting a blight on our officials - the fact is some being personal bias / mindsets to the job. I get ur point MR2 and McGrath is genuine in my experience - but the fact is that refs do influence results. It is naieve to suggest otherwise.

Well HS I have stopped short of the blue & gold hat scarf & headband but I am a Rossa man for today!
Just pulling in to ballymena and back up the glens for the Carey game. Might be my last game for a while manballandall!
Good luck to Rossa today hop they add to underage titles in Belfast - and ur seniors prove me wrong they deserve to.

[btdtgtt]

Rossa won under16 championship.

A brave few supporters in fine fettle celebrating!
Good luck to them they deserved it.

Back on the road.