Messages

Don't mean to speak ill of the dead Bensars, but what McAnallen achieved in the game was testimony to hard work, intelligence and application, and not natural talent. To even mention him in the same thread as players like Canavan or Blaney is wrong.

And quite where you plucked Seamus Downey out of, I just don't know.

Where is Magic? He gets my vote anyway.

A team of players I'd like to see getting a run-out this year:

Declan Alder (Carryduff)
Paul Magee (Rostrevor)
Andrew Kane (Bryansford)
Domhnall Murphy (Saval)
John Turley (Loughinisland)
Paul Shields (Clonduff)
Liam McVeigh (An Riocht)
Adrian Carvill (Bryansford)
Martin McClean (Kilcoo)
Joe Ireland (Bryansford)
John Boyle (Warrenpoint)
James McGovern (Burren)
Brendan Loughran (Shamrocks)
Aidan Burns (Castlewellan)
John Fegan (Clonduff)

Really lads, goalkeeping isn't a problem in our county. I'd agree with Brick's assertion that Peter Travers is the best around bar McVeigh, but he's hardly going to reappear on the scene at the age of 30-odd. But with the likes of McAllister and Declan Alder waiting in the wings, McVeigh can't rest on his laurels - and there's plenty of talented keepers around who probably won't get any sort of a look in like Gibney from Loughinisland, Featherstone from the 'Bridge, big Sloan from Rostrevor and Kieran Murphy of Ballyholland. Every one of those is a better keeper than Packie McConnell, All-Ireland winner 2005.

Mike Sheehy - it's now been some two years since you posted a message on the gaaboard that wasn't a (pointless) attack on Ulster football. Once upon a time it might have been called for. Once upon a time it might have been relevant. Perhaps once upon a time it might even have been funny.

But these days, none of those things apply, so please take your hopeless crusade and f**k off back to the hole you appeared from.

Midfield has long been Down's biggest problem, and particularly so at winning breaking-ball. But the way to solve this problem isn't to take your best midfielder and play him at full-forward. Benny has been starved of possession at full-forward in recent years with Dan at midfield. I shudder to think of what the reverse might be like.

We aren't Kerry, we can't afford to put our best ball-winner in full-forward.

Anyway, anyone who watched Gordon playing in the National League last year couldn't have helped get the feeling that he was blossoming into a true intercounty midfielder, a good ball-winner, an excellent athlete. So at the age of 22-23, the worst thing we could do is chart him off on another course. Especially when in the shape of Benny Coulter, you have nearly as good a full-forward as you can get if all you want to is rain high balls into the 21.


5iveTimes - you've obviously must never watched Brendan McVeigh play, judging by your comments. There might be areas of his game he could work on, but shot-stopping really isn't one of them.

What a way to start - the Antrim debacle. For some reason though I don't think Shieldsy started that day. He was due to start, but if my memory is right, something happened and he didn't. I could be wrong. My clearest memory of that defeat is that it was the wettest and coldest I have ever been at a match. Even wetter and colder than Newcastle, which is always wet and cold.

Good luck to you with that GY. You'll need it.

You can get everything from 2000 onwards easily on the hoganstand http://www.hoganstand.com/general/results/index.aspx and with a bit of care you'll get reports on every game from 1997 from the Examiner http://www.examiner.ie or the Indo http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/.

Once you get past that though, you'll probably need to do a Jerome Quinn and spend a whole lot of time looking at microfilm in Belfast Library.

Paud, you really should make your email address hidden if you want to remain anonymous 

If more GAA players had the good sense to follow Brolly's lead and rather than spending 30 hours a week training, use some of that time to raise their public profile and further their careers instead, then there would be less need for a GPA.

Who was it that said "players should not expect payment for taking to excess something they are supposed to enjoy"?

But I nearly wet myself when I saw this...



Poor jesus

I don't know if things really are much different now than they ever were. Players capable of beating men inside out have always been more commonly found in the full-forward line, where there is less chance of them running into traffic.

FYI, the All-Ireland winning wing-forwards of the past 20 years:

1987 - David Beggy, PJ Gillic
1988 - David Beggy, PJ Gillic
1989 - Dave Barry, Barry Coffey
1990 - Dave Barry, Teddy McCarthy
1991 - Ross Carr, Gary Mason
1992 - Joyce McMullan, James McHugh
1993 - Damien Cassidy, Dermot Heaney
1994 - Ross Carr, James McCartan
1995 - Paul Clarke, Jim Gavin
1996 - Jim McGuinness, Graham Geraghty
1997 - Pa Laide, Denis O'Dwyer
1998 - Michael Donnellan, Shay Walsh
1999 - Nigel Nestor, Donal Curtis
2000 - Aodhan MacGearailt, Noel Kennelly
2001 - Paul Clancy, Joe Bergin
2002 - Paddy McKeever, Oisin McConville
2003 - Brian Dooher, Ger Cavlan
2004 - Paul Galvin, Liam Hassett
2005 - Brian Dooher, Ryan Mellon
2006 - Paul Galvin, Sean O'Sullivan

There are some fabulous players on that list, but I reckon the only one who would genuinely relished taking on a defender one-on-one through pure skill is James McCartan, who played most of his football at corner-forward anyway. It would suggest that top-level wing-forwards over this era have tended to be more into creativity and athleticism than into skilful running with the ball.

Maybe pre-1987 the game was full of dashing wing-forwards, but from what I've seen on TG4's match replays, I wouldn't think so.

Loving the personal attacks lads.

Wobller (nice handle by the way) - no I don't think at all that county players only come from Division I. My point is this, people keep talking about rough diamonds, but the truth is if you ask anyone familiar with Divisions III and IV to name players who might be able to step up to county standard, the same names will always pop up i.e. Stephen Kearney, Paul McComiskey, Kevin Anderson, Declan Lavery, Niall Mulholland, Mark Rooney, Marcus Miskelly, Dan McCabe, Jackie Lynch, Packie Downey. Something all those players have in common is they've all worn the red and black at minor, under-21 or senior level already. They aren't diamonds in the rough, they are players with a lot of talent and a reasonably high profile in the county. Most of them are still very young, but if they continue to play football, all will come under some sort of consideration at county level over the next few years.

The way some fellas are talking you would think that the lower leagues are full of players who have been shit upon by poor coaching and by playing at a poor standard. This isn't the case. The lower leagues are full of players who simply aren't as good at football as players in the higher divisions. That's what a league structure determines.

I guarantee you now that the standard of the top six teams in the ACPRL is a cut above the standard of Division III. There are players playing at the ACPRL standard who apart from being talented, are bloody committed, and would look like bonafide superstars in Divisions III and IV, yet they can't get a senior game for their clubs. Yet people want to tell me that there are 'rough diamonds' all over the lower leagues?

Imagine/Courtneyboy - rather than call me a deluded clown or a nut for having this opinion, try changing my mind by bringing some names forward. There is a lot of shite talk in our county about bias East vs South and bias top clubs vs small clubs, but it isn't in anyone's interests to let a good player slip through the net. And not many do.

For the life of me, I don't see how anyone could realistically suggest that an unknown quantity from the lower leagues could develop into a county player if trained to county standards.

County football requires a balance of skill, athleticism and dedication that although can be honed by intense training, still requires natural levels that are simply way beyond most players. Players don't improve because happen to be on the county team, rather they improve because they have the basic tools and on top of that want to be on their county team.

Truth is, a player capable of making county minor standard would stand out like a sore thumb in the lower leagues, let alone a player capable of playing county senior. Let's be honest, more than a few teams have made it into Division II over the years on the back of being carried by just two or three players genuinely capable of playing at Division I level, nevermind capable of playing higher than that.

In response Passedit, do you believe that if there hadn't been trouble at the Cargin match, would brief highlights not have been shown anyway? BBC NI didn't send a camera up there just on the off chance that a fight would break out. It's not the fault of the Beeb that a goalkeeper ran 50 yards to throw a punch. Sure, they could have ignored the incident, but why would they?

As for your second place/last place comment, I would fairly confident that Gaelic Games received more dedicated coverage than any other regional sport on BBC NI during 2006. The Irish League and the AIL would love a dedicated Sunday night highlights package. I'm quite happy to see GAA remain the "and finally" on Newsline in return.