NFL Division 3 2012

[SLIGONIAN]

Ref was brutal by all accounts from the commentators on Shiteside. The number of times he pulled Rossie lads for over carrying had Donie Shine Snr pulling his hair out. Onwards now to Park Markthepitch to play Sligo

I think Countess Markievicz has earned the right to have her name spelt right and not takin the piss out of, a little respect ffs,

[The Insider]

Bit unfair on the ref ,some tight calls on the over carrying but if you keep been pulled for the same offence who is wrong? The player who holds onto the ball without attempting to play it waiting for a free , or the ref.Ref was codded a couple of times by Kavanagh who pulled down the Rossie full back on top of him to "win" the frees.  Longford gifted the 2 goals also Roscommon scored directly from Sean Mc Cormack's missed 13m free which never left the ground. M Quinn's move to midfield made a huge difference. Defence tightened up well with some magnificent fielding , the highlight of which was Damian Sheridan's take on the 13 m line as Roscommon searched for an equaliser

[Billys Boots]

Ref was brutal by all accounts from the commentators on Shiteside. The number of times he pulled Rossie lads for over carrying had Donie Shine Snr pulling his hair out. Onwards now to Park Markthepitch to play Sligo

I think Countess Markievicz has earned the right to have her name spelt right and not takin the piss out of, a little respect ffs,

I think you'll find that no-one spelt Countess Markievicz's name wrong - he was referring to the Sligo county ground, which doesn't deserve the same respect in terms of nomenclature, I think you'd agree.  Maybe not.

[Onlooker]

Terrible result for Tipperary against Wexford today.  Very much looks like Tipp and Offaly are heading back to Div. 4.   Pity with so many good minor players coming along in Tipp these days.

[ross4life]

Disppointing display/result in hindsight the two goals in a couple of minutes papered over the cracks on how bad the display was. It reminded me of the 2007 Sligo championship game in Hyde park.

Todays display by us especially in that 2nd half was almost as bad as the Div 4 final last April i guess that puts the myth to bed that we were "minding ourselves" not many stood today for us Cregg was our best player IMO but he's just back from injury so was always going to taken off early. Our Fb line struggled badly I like Collins & i think he's worth a place on the team but like Donal Ward last year he's not a FB.

Anyways well done Longford the best team won on the day & should have won by more. Plenty of points will be dropped in the division i think 10 will be enough for promotion so if (it's a big if after watching that display today) we beat Antrim at home next Sunday we'll be back in the hunt for promotion.

[AZOffaly]

Pity for both Offaly and Tipp alright, but in Offaly's case there's too much transition too quickly. It's unfortunate for the young lads that they are shipping bad beatings and too much change to quickly can really hit confidence hard. They need a couple of results in the latter stages at least, even if relegation is likely, at least to give them a sense they are turning a corner.

[imtommygunn]

What's the story with McNamee AZ? Will he be playing this year or is he taking the year out?

[AZOffaly]

He's back in a few weeks now.

[spectator]

Deserved win for the Larries all right. They're the best team we've played in this division so far & must fancy their chances of making it to Div 2 now. Some cracking points from McElvanney there today.

[Syferus]

More midfield woes today, so many times Higgins didn't even jump for the ball or Finneran grabbed it and then spilled it. Mannion brought us back into contention in the middle after Newton re-jigged the midfield late on.

The ref pinged us too much in the second half and probably cost us a few points but we made plenty of mistakes going forward - Donie had a terrible afternoon, starting it off by kicking from the hand on frees (wtf?), missing sitters and the ball screwing off his boot anywhere but towards the target and ending it by kicking three garryowens in between the two Longford back-lines to his undersized full-forward, he seemed to be playing the ball as if he had Senan Kilbride on the inside. Someone needs to put an arm around Donie and help him get his head straight, he's ten times the player he's of the level he's been performing to so far in the league.

The backs dealt pretty well with the flood of pressure they got in the second half, once or twice the Longford full-forward got inside his marker, but it was hard to do much when every kick-out was coming straight back at them. The half-backs in particular were excellent, Niall Daly is continuing to grow and looked assured on and off the ball and Ian Kilbride was the best player on the pitch today, his vision, strength and intelligence was causing mayhem for Longford. Longford obviously got the message to try and nix him at half time - they trying to muscle him out of the game in the second half, but to little avail.

Cathal Cregg made a great return to the county, he probably shouldn't have been took off as we lost our shape a bit after he left. Darren McDermott scored an inspirational point late on and looked, as usual, skilled and assured on the ball. He should be challenging for a start the next day.

No need to over-react, we could have won this one but with Antrim coming next week we have the perfect opportunity to re-establish ourselves at the top of the league. Mannion should start and, barring injury, Senan Kilbride can do as much damage as his brother did today the next day and Cregg should be ready for a full game next week. Someone give Donie a hug, though!

And ross4life, this says nothing about the D4 final! This game was as tight as they come and could have easily been at least draw even with a minute and a half to go if Shine had his shooting boots on and scored his late free. Longford were good, but they're about the best in the division and we could have beat them with a bit of luck or a better refereeing display. We just need to focus on winning cleaner ball in the middle and we're very capable of beating any of the remaining teams.

[ross4life]

Syferus you must have been at a different game than me so. As i said already the two goals in as many minutes (against the run of play) gave the scoreline a false look, yes we had the opportunity to grab a draw at the end but in truth Longford could/should have won by more. BTW in the Div 4 final we missed loads of frees a penalty & the Longford keeper pulled off incredible save from Cregg so you could use the ifs,buts, & maybes on that game aswell.

I'll mark today's display down as bad day at the office & move onto the next game hoping for improvement.

[Syferus]

Syferus you must have been at a different game than me so. As i said already the two goals in as many minutes (against the run of play) gave the scoreline a false look, yes we had the opportunity to grab a draw at the end but in truth Longford could/should have won by more. BTW in the Div 4 final we missed loads of frees a penalty & the Longford keeper pulled off incredible save from Cregg so you could use the ifs,buts, & maybes on that game aswell.

I'll mark today's display down as bad day at the office & move onto the next game hoping for improvement.

Longford were just about worth a two point win, if that. Their backs had alot of trouble with our forwards all day and if Donie was half on form he'd have had enough points to swing the score-line our way, it wasn't Longford that were making him screw the ball like a Christmas balloon. It was a hard fought game where, apart from a 5 minute stretch by us at the beginning of the game and a 15 minute stretch in the second half by Longford, there was almost nothing between the teams. A very entertaining game, 16 points for Longford and we tallied 14 against a team who'd conceded no goals and only 15 points in their previous two games.

[ross4life]

Their backs had alot of trouble with our forwards all day and if Donie was half on form he'd have had enough points to swing the score-line our way, it wasn't Longford that were making him screw the ball like a Christmas balloon. It was a hard fought game where, apart from a 5 minute stretch by us at the beginning of the game and a 15 minute stretch in the second half by Longford, there was almost nothing between the teams

Well IMO Cregg was our only forward that had Longford defenders on the back foot, Heneghan scored a early goal but did little else same with Brian Murtagh & Devaney. Keenan played more in defense than the forward line while Shine named at corner forward was far too deep to trouble Longford like i know he can. Longford forward's were more fluent than ours & they were unlucky not to score a few goals in that 2nd half.

Thankfully You learn lesson's from defeats & that type of display from us today won't be good enough to beat Antrim,Wexford,Cavan or Sligo & i'm sure the players/Des Newton knows this already.

[Rossfan]

Syferus you must have been at a different game than me so. As i said already the two goals in as many minutes (against the run of play) gave the scoreline a false look, yes we had the opportunity to grab a draw at the end but in truth Longford could/should have won by more. .

I'll mark today's display down as bad day at the office & move onto the next game hoping for improvement.

It wasn't a good day for us anyway.
While the result of a League game in March might not be too important in the greater scheme of things our performance yesterday left a lot to be desired.
Looking at unchallenged Larries running all round the place brought back some nightmare memories of Clones/Crossmaglen/Parnell Park in 2008 or the awful hammering by Cavan in 2010.
Longford have a lot of nice forwards and if you let them play by God they will play. Against a team like that defenders have to be in their faces all the time.
Midfield was a virtual wipe out and it was galling to see the big Larry - McElvany - score 2 or three long range points without a yellow jersey in sight. Kavanagh and McCormack got an awful lot of space too and we could have conceded a few goals in that second half.
We have to hope it was just a one off bad day yesterday which they might get out of their system next Sunday.
One thing for sure  a repeat will see us drop 2 more points and have us praying Offaly and Tipp continue to lose games.

[Syferus]

Syferus you must have been at a different game than me so. As i said already the two goals in as many minutes (against the run of play) gave the scoreline a false look, yes we had the opportunity to grab a draw at the end but in truth Longford could/should have won by more. .

I'll mark today's display down as bad day at the office & move onto the next game hoping for improvement.

It wasn't a good day for us anyway.
While the result of a League game in March might not be too important in the greater scheme of things our performance yesterday left a lot to be desired.
Looking at unchallenged Larries running all round the place brought back some nightmare memories of Clones/Crossmaglen/Parnell Park in 2008 or the awful hammering by Cavan in 2010.
Longford have a lot of nice forwards and if you let them play by God they will play. Against a team like that defenders have to be in their faces all the time.
Midfield was a virtual wipe out and it was galling to see the big Larry - McElvany - score 2 or three long range points without a yellow jersey in sight. Kavanagh and McCormack got an awful lot of space too and we could have conceded a few goals in that second half.
We have to hope it was just a one off bad day yesterday which they might get out of their system next Sunday.
One thing for sure  a repeat will see us drop 2 more points and have us praying Offaly and Tipp continue to lose games.

Sweet Jesus! Some of us are a little too scarred by the past. Plenty to build on in our performance yesterday, very good half-back play, including a lot of turnovers, Cregg looking electric and a great spread of scorers. Mannion will start next week and maybe Donie in a sort of crossbreed of a midfielder and half-forward, he ended the game there and although his kicking was terrible he fielded balls he was dropping in previous games and was hand-passing well. Parity in the middle is enough for us to beat any team in the division, I have a lot of faith in our backs and forwards.