Ulster Club SFC 2024

[thewobbler]

Fair play to EC and I hope they go on to win it, although Kilcoo would have had a better chance if they had prevailed imo.
There's been enough said about the game but the winning score was a reminder that fortune favours the brave. However, Kilcoo are unlikely to get any 50/50 calls from referees anywhere outside Down ( the square ball and absence of black card for example- the red was clear) and they should reflect on this before launching unnecessary and counter-productive legal challenges in the future.
It's a big setback for the Magpies as they had emptied the tank with their eyes on an Ulster- at least.
That management team doesn't come cheap and it will be interesting to see if they all make the big trips again next year. Equally , a few of the players might not feel they could give it another lash; PD and JJ looked jaded yesterday and Laverty might not want to continue his cameo role. However, there are more than enough replacements coming off the production line and I don't see anyone troubling them in Down at least for a few years.

Cannot at all understand the comment about not getting 50:50 calls outside of Down.

It's like one of those things that people are preprogrammed to say whether there's evidence or not.

Yesterday's referee neither was for Kilcoo or against them. As long as contact was "manly" he let it go. If it was dirty or lazy, he pulled players up. If anything what happened yesterday lends credence to the suggestion that Kilcoo don't like Paul Faloon, because this is how he referees the game. And they find it harder to keep their normally cool heads when physicality is increased.

But a more important point on this. Just a month ago Kilcoo got the benefit of the doubt on pretty much every key decision vs Crosserlough.

Referee didn't  beat Kilcoo yesterday. Not even remotely.

[giveherlong]

Thought Errigal done very well on stopping/slowing the Kilcoo ball carriers we seen V Scotstown. With the man coming at them they faced them straight up several times forcing them to run straight into the frontal contact rather than looking to get a hand in first

[Caitlin]

I gave evidence.
And I disagree about the Crosserlough game; I was there and Barry Cassidy was fair apart from the one/two black card issue with James Smith which made no difference as it was in injury time; just as he spotted Dab's red card offence yesterday

[Rawhide]

Jez the ref yesterday missed the most obvious black card in the first 5 minutes when an Errigal player dragged a Kilcoo player to the ground, a few minutes later stone wall square ball missed, then the very obvious aggressive and deliberate  block on a kilcoo plyers run in the second half, which again was a stone wall black card, all of those before the strike (not overly dangerous) by the same Kilcoo player whose was run was blocked, those are monumental mistakes for any ref to make in any championship game never mind an Ulster club final. Simply not good enough.

[bennydorano]

Thought Errigal done very well on stopping/slowing the Kilcoo ball carriers we seen V Scotstown. With the man coming at them they faced them straight up several times forcing them to run straight into the frontal contact rather than looking to get a hand in first

Said it a few times - Scotstown were masters of their own downfall tactically by sticking to the mano a mano approach. Errigal choked up the central channels yesterday with bodies, simple but very effective.

[tonto1888]

I thought the ref missed a couple of things. Tell me a ref that has never done that. Overall I thought he had a good game

[Mikhailov]

You can argue either way on the referee as regards whom did he hurt more with his decisions but the actual fact we are discussing this highlights that he did not have his best day.

Black cards, square balls, late hits all be dealt with in the correct manner by the top referees

Mooney is not in that bracket

[gallsman]

You don't like kilcoo, I think we've all picked that up at this stage. How many of their games have you seen or how many of their players do you know?

I'd say over the years I've seen them 15-20 times in total, the first being when they beat St. Gall's in the 2012 semi final. I know none of them personally, as if that matters at all. Good enough for you?

[03,05,08]

Do kilcoo have good youth coming through?

[DuffleKing]

Championships are won by the best teams in every county that year, if a team is walking it most years that's not down to a lesser league or whether they have knock out, back door or groups, it's down to the standard.

Antrim have had all styles of championships. It still didn't have jeopardy, the best teams won regardless.

The thing about the league in Tyrone I seen from above is they have the starred games, do non starred games have points to be won or are they friendlies due to no county players?

Tyrone is a one code county too so it's able to concentrate on the football and promote it better

We ran a starred format for a couple of seasons and the players and managers at the time didn't find it useful, so it was binned.

Why are EC able to win Ulster over the other teams?

Every game in Tyrone league counts whether it is starred or not. All worth 2 points for a win or 1 point for a draw. Maximum of 5 starred games (without county men) then 10 games when every team has full compliment to play with. 15 league games / 30 points. This year 22 points finished top of the league with 20 points getting into top 4. At the other end Clonoe got relegated in the highest position on 10 points - seriously competitive

Sorry, how does this differ from outer counties? Are there no ppoints for some league games?

[Mikhailov]

Championships are won by the best teams in every county that year, if a team is walking it most years that's not down to a lesser league or whether they have knock out, back door or groups, it's down to the standard.

Antrim have had all styles of championships. It still didn't have jeopardy, the best teams won regardless.

The thing about the league in Tyrone I seen from above is they have the starred games, do non starred games have points to be won or are they friendlies due to no county players?

Tyrone is a one code county too so it's able to concentrate on the football and promote it better

We ran a starred format for a couple of seasons and the players and managers at the time didn't find it useful, so it was binned.

Why are EC able to win Ulster over the other teams?

Every game in Tyrone league counts whether it is starred or not. All worth 2 points for a win or 1 point for a draw. Maximum of 5 starred games (without county men) then 10 games when every team has full compliment to play with. 15 league games / 30 points. This year 22 points finished top of the league with 20 points getting into top 4. At the other end Clonoe got relegated in the highest position on 10 points - seriously competitive

Sorry, how does this differ from outer counties? Are there no ppoints for some league games?

If you read the previous part of the original post, the poster asked were the started games treated as friendly games with no points won......I was just answering that part of his post to clarify that every game was treated equally and with the same importance

[befair]

Always supported Kilcoo, admired their succes for a small village and their tenacity despite their players being relatively small. But their behaviour has been nasty and squalid and has let them down (won't start to list it here)

[thewobbler]

Jez the ref yesterday missed the most obvious black card in the first 5 minutes when an Errigal player dragged a Kilcoo player to the ground, a few minutes later stone wall square ball missed, then the very obvious aggressive and deliberate  block on a kilcoo plyers run in the second half, which again was a stone wall black card, all of those before the strike (not overly dangerous) by the same Kilcoo player whose was run was blocked, those are monumental mistakes for any ref to make in any championship game never mind an Ulster club final. Simply not good enough.

He also didn't penalise Niall Brannigan for a knee up sliding tackle, and didn't card Ryan Johnston despite swinging out twice.

——

There's a point made after yours that if we are talking about a referee at any length then he must have had a poor game.

I call bullshit on that one.

The reason why we talk about referees after games is that we are culturally unwilling to accept that when two evenly matched teams meet each other, that the encounter can be decided by luck or skill: there has to be someone / something to blame. And the ref is always the target.

[Maurice Moss]

Hard luck to our men yesterday and congratulations to Errigal. Was a proper tight Ulster club game. Our lads put in a serious shift and were defensively sound, keeping the Canavan's relatively quiet. Errigal a good side and can't imagine their forwards being as well marked going forward. A few folk have already mentioned about the refereeing and missing black cards and the blatant square ball but there's not much point complaining about it now. The red card left us with a lot of work to do and we nearly pulled it off but can only admire our men for the effort they put in. We were a bit flat at times and didn't take some scores in vital moments but here that's football for ya.

Our men done the whole village proud and have given us great days out. They will take a well deserved break and we will see what next year holds for us.

I must add, we were sitting close to a big Errigal contingent, very good supporters and they gave their men some support. This Magpie hopes you can go on and win the whole lot.

#UTM

[general_lee]

Jez the ref yesterday missed the most obvious black card in the first 5 minutes when an Errigal player dragged a Kilcoo player to the ground, a few minutes later stone wall square ball missed, then the very obvious aggressive and deliberate  block on a kilcoo plyers run in the second half, which again was a stone wall black card, all of those before the strike (not overly dangerous) by the same Kilcoo player whose was run was blocked, those are monumental mistakes for any ref to make in any championship game never mind an Ulster club final. Simply not good enough.

He also didn't penalise Niall Brannigan for a knee up sliding tackle, and didn't card Ryan Johnston despite swinging out twice.

——

There's a point made after yours that if we are talking about a referee at any length then he must have had a poor game.

I call bullshit on that one.

The reason why we talk about referees after games is that we are culturally unwilling to accept that when two evenly matched teams meet each other, that the encounter can be decided by luck or skill: there has to be someone / something to blame. And the ref is always the target.

Refs will always be scrutinised. How games are refereed and the ambiguity of certain rules means it's only natural people question officials. It happens in most team sports to be fair. Big decisions will be talking points and it's natural to discuss what impact they have on the outcome of close games. Ahead of yesterday's game I was convinced Kilcoo would have eased to a 3-4 point win, i thought EC rode their luck in the semifinal and thought Kilcoo were more experienced and better conditioned - that might be true but the sending off (correct decision) means that it's hard to say whether that is actually the case.