Ulster Senior football championship 2024

[SouthOfThe Bann]

I dont think Mickey Harte will be too upset that Derry are out of the Ulster. They have the medals from the last 2 years in their pockets. Its all about SAM for them now. They get a nice 4 week break to get themselves ready. I would not be writing them off at all.

Will they definitely be playing in 4 weeks or could it be 5?

I believe they will be in Pot 3 so first game will be away to the Provincial winners in their group.
if its the Connacht or Munster winner then its the 18th-19th May ( so 4 weeks)
otherwise 25 May (so 5 weeks)

2nd Game on 1st or 2nd June
3rd Game on 15th or 16th June

So Kerry/Dublin/ or Mayo Galway.

If they get either Kerry or Dublin and get a similar 6 or 7 point defeat there will be major questions asked.

They'll want to be getting Mayo or Galway and start off with a signature win.

[grounded]

I dont think Mickey Harte will be too upset that Derry are out of the Ulster. They have the medals from the last 2 years in their pockets. Its all about SAM for them now. They get a nice 4 week break to get themselves ready. I would not be writing them off at all.

100% correct.

[tbrick18]

I dont think Mickey Harte will be too upset that Derry are out of the Ulster. They have the medals from the last 2 years in their pockets. Its all about SAM for them now. They get a nice 4 week break to get themselves ready. I would not be writing them off at all.

100% correct.

I really hope this is the case.
The weight of expectation will have lightened a bit after that defeat.
But time will tell what it has done to the players in terms of confidence. MH needs to learn to change tactics in-game if we are to have a serious chance at it.

[Wildweasel74]

Only tactic he needed to change was keeper to the 45, not in midfield, could do with a bit of heave around midfield when up against the heavies. Surprised  Dan Higgins can't make the 26. Apparently  told the nite, he was dropped to reduce panel numbers.

[Orior]

Can Cavan beat Monaghan? No, of course not.
Can Donegal beat Derry? No, don't be ridiculous.
Can Down surprise Armagh on Saturday? Hello no. Put your house and future salary on the orangemen.

[onefineday]

I dont think Mickey Harte will be too upset that Derry are out of the Ulster. They have the medals from the last 2 years in their pockets. Its all about SAM for them now. They get a nice 4 week break to get themselves ready. I would not be writing them off at all.

Will they definitely be playing in 4 weeks or could it be 5?

I believe they will be in Pot 3 so first game will be away to the Provincial winners in their group.
if its the Connacht or Munster winner then its the 18th-19th May ( so 4 weeks)
otherwise 25 May (so 5 weeks)

2nd Game on 1st or 2nd June
3rd Game on 15th or 16th June

So Kerry/Dublin/ or Mayo Galway.

If they get either Kerry or Dublin and get a similar 6 or 7 point defeat there will be major questions asked.

They'll want to be getting Mayo or Galway and start off with a signature win.

They could also end up with a trip to ballybofey (Omagh, Armagh or Newry), that might be the preference.
Second game at home to Clare and final game v meath in clones.
Presume draw will be made on Monday?

[onefineday]

I dont think Mickey Harte will be too upset that Derry are out of the Ulster. They have the medals from the last 2 years in their pockets. Its all about SAM for them now. They get a nice 4 week break to get themselves ready. I would not be writing them off at all.

From a Derry perspective I don't think its a massive deal to give up an Ulster title if it means that they can regroup and prepare for a tilt at Sam Maguire. But Mickey Harte will definitely be disappointed on a personal level, after all he is there not for any great love of Derry but for personal achievement, the financial package and his legacy. They will be the team that every provincial winner will want to avoid in the group stages.

As for the Glass debate, watching the match on the TV doesn't actually do him justice in terms of performance. His positional play is second to none and he does a lot of off the ball work that is not the most glamorous to watch but is highly effective for his team. Plus he can play football when needed to as well. He is definitely not a moments player as someone suggested earlier, in fact anything but.     

Agree with that, the defensive work he does, covering ground and space is immense, a total team player, he does whatever he thinks will help the team achieve the results. Regularly sacrifices his own game for the good of the game.
Rodgers is an excellent footballer too, but brings something entirely different.
All that said, I'm sure both will admit, Saturday was neither's finest hour!

[Milltown Row2]

I dont think Mickey Harte will be too upset that Derry are out of the Ulster. They have the medals from the last 2 years in their pockets. Its all about SAM for them now. They get a nice 4 week break to get themselves ready. I would not be writing them off at all.

From a Derry perspective I don't think its a massive deal to give up an Ulster title if it means that they can regroup and prepare for a tilt at Sam Maguire. But Mickey Harte will definitely be disappointed on a personal level, after all he is there not for any great love of Derry but for personal achievement, the financial package and his legacy. They will be the team that every provincial winner will want to avoid in the group stages.

As for the Glass debate, watching the match on the TV doesn't actually do him justice in terms of performance. His positional play is second to none and he does a lot of off the ball work that is not the most glamorous to watch but is highly effective for his team. Plus he can play football when needed to as well. He is definitely not a moments player as someone suggested earlier, in fact anything but.     

Agree with that, the defensive work he does, covering ground and space is immense, a total team player, he does whatever he thinks will help the team achieve the results. Regularly sacrifices his own game for the good of the game.
Rodgers is an excellent footballer too, but brings something entirely different.
All that said, I'm sure both will admit, Saturday was neither's finest hour!

I'm not saying teams would throw a match so that the timing of their training is to peak for the latter stages.

But I remember a team (some time back) having a peculiar heavy set of training sessions leading up to a championship match, in the game they were very heavy legged, but cone back door, they were in better shape, hit peak condition when it mattered

[Applesisapples]

I didn't see the Derry/Donegal match, but I am seriously impressed by any team allegedly out played who's best players were stymied but still managed 17 points. Goals win games but can be prevented. it was 15 scores to 17.

[tbrick18]

Can Cavan beat Monaghan? No, of course not.
Can Donegal beat Derry? No, don't be ridiculous.
Can Down surprise Armagh on Saturday? Hello no. Put your house and future salary on the orangemen.

I didn't hear too many people dismissing Donegal before the Derry match or indeed Cavan before the Monaghan game.
That means Down are a shoe in.

[illdecide]

A bit of reality for majority of you is Derry had 34 shots or something like that and most dropped short or wide, Derry will not concede similar goals like last week and will be tighter. Everything went right for Donegal on the day and I wouldn't get too caught up on the result. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle where Derry are better than they showed and Donegal are just not as far down the road as that result showed but they are a serious team who will only get better as the season goes on. Sin é.

[tbrick18]

I didn't see the Derry/Donegal match, but I am seriously impressed by any team allegedly out played who's best players were stymied but still managed 17 points. Goals win games but can be prevented. it was 15 scores to 17.

We got about 4/5 scores at the end of the match when it was already over to take the bad look off it. 17/34 attempts for Derry - awful percentages. A lot of that was down to how much pressure Donegal put on us, but we were generally poor.
Be under no doubt, this was a 6 point hammering.

I hope we can recover and a lot of talk going on about Harte being in this position before and going on to do big things, but I'm not so sure if he's to credit for that.

I still have huge faith in the players, including Lynch who has been unfairly picked out for criticism in my view. I don't think we'll be as bad again, but can we recover enough to really challenge an AI?

[illdecide]

As for Armagh game...Armagh will always give you good chances in a game and if you take most of them then you'll be in touching distance, if you fail they'll have a wee spell where they can pull away from you easily and game could be over (this is for the lesser teams BTW). Armagh are very unpredictable and could win by 1-2 pts or 15pts it's all down to the other teams taking the chances Armagh give them in the game.
What we have seen so far in Ulster is the favourite's are getting their balls slapped so hope this is different and Armagh have taken note of the previous weeks, a sending off or lose goal or two and anything can happen but I expect Armagh to win by 5-6pts as they should have too much for Down

[cornerback]

Lynch's positioning aside, Donegal would've scored a few goals anyway:
First goal - certain goal regardless of Lynch.  Donegal had 6 men level/ahead of the ball to Derry's 3.
Second goal - certain point opportunity, probably wouldn't have engineered a goal for this one as Donegal didn't have the same numbers in attack.
Third goal - penalty (not inside the box) but Lynch was in goals.
Fourth goal - Donegal would have had a shot on goal, think they had 5 level/ahead of the ball to Derry's 3.

The problem was much deeper than Lynch's positioning.

[J70]

I didn't see the Derry/Donegal match, but I am seriously impressed by any team allegedly out played who's best players were stymied but still managed 17 points. Goals win games but can be prevented. it was 15 scores to 17.

Derry were ten points down going into injury time and knocked over four points after that when the game was gone.

But yeah, the goals they conceded were ludicrous and it wont take a whole lot to prevent a repeat.