Down Club Hurling & Football

[Mourne Rover]

It is fairly typical of our season that we lost a game today by eight points which we could easily have won. The crucial moment was our best move when Barry O'Hagan took a brilliant catch and gave a pass to Ryan Johnston which left him with only the keeper to beat. A goal would have brought us level with 20 minutes to go, the wind behind us and a man up. Johnston is normally an excellent finisher but he hit it straight at the keeper, we missed the subsequent 45 and the match slipped away from us.

It was not a good day for us defensively, although Cunningham was unlucky with the first penalty and black card as he came off his line to make a decent save and his momentum carried him into the forward. The kick out came straight back in again, our central defenders hesitated and we had conceded two goals in less than a minute.

Several of our backs are happier pushing up than actually marking, and our midfield worked hard but frequently struggled against two opponents who had height and pace on their side.

Our forwards cover a huge amount of ground, but other than O'Hagan do not bring much of a scoring threat. A win in Cork is overdue and not out of the question but the indications are that we are slipping to a second consecutive relegation.

[Smurfy123]

Unless we can beat Cork it's looking like 2 relaxations in 2 years.Shocking
Kildare on the other havd will have gained 2 straight promotions
We are all over the place as a county with the supporters well and truly not even showing up for games now
From the days of James McCartan when we were competing against Kerry Tyrone Mayo Donegal Galway we are now not even close to a flaky Galway/Kildare
Midfield again was a major problem surely 1 of the 10 men along with this team can see it?
O Hagen Mooney and O Hanlon with most of our scores sure why would you pick a Mark Poland or Paul Devlin in the forward line they are proven scorers.
The sub keepers comes on and kicks the ball over the sideline which resulted in a goal.Any keepers about?
God help us if O Hagen or Mooney pick up an injury
Cavan can draw against Kerry and beat Mayo.
I'm not falling into the crap excuse we have not the players.If anyone says Cavan have better players than us they are badly mistaken.Badly coached and badly organised.
Time to swallow the pride lads and get Jim McCorry back
The only plus about this weekend is that Armagh are equally as bad

[snoopdog]

Very hard to win away in Cork so Down all but relegated. At least this is the end of the road for Burns and his backroom. Losing to Fermanagh at home was as bad as it gets. Who would want the job though facing Div 3 next year. Big effort needed to win against Armagh on Champ, both as poor as eachother.

[whitegoodman]

We have a smattering of decent to good players, a few average layers and quite a few poor players.  Coupled with a non existent midfield and a management team completely out of their league, we are on the road to nowhere.

A Harte, McGuiness, Gallagher or dare I say it McCartan might do something respectable with this team but div 3 and out in the first or second round of the qualifiers is in the pipeline.

[snoopdog]

Another year of nothing. Which i suppose is the Down way

[SHEEDY]

another poor display today sees us all but relegated. midfield got wiped out and the defence struggled all day against strong running galway forwards. the forwards struggled to get much change from the galway defence although we did hit a couple of excellent long range scores. the game was in the balance up until they hit 2 quick fire goals but even after they got the man sent off they were still well on top.
the supporters seem to have deserted the team as well with a very poor crowd turning up with maybe half of those in attendance from galway. another disappointing day in a long list of poor days.

[Smurfy123]

Spot On whitegoodman about the panel of players at our disposal.
2 relegations on the bounce looks likely but I would imagine our county board will make no changes next year and the same management team will be in place.
Donegal have lost about 10 starters in the last 2 years and is still Competitive
Where does Down football go from here?

[gaaman2016]

Spot On whitegoodman about the panel of players at our disposal.
2 relegations on the bounce looks likely but I would imagine our county board will make no changes next year and the same management team will be in place.
Donegal have lost about 10 starters in the last 2 years and is still Competitive
Where does Down football go from here?

Down?

[Smurfy123]

Down maybe?
If we go down to division 3 next year it will be one tough league to get out of.
Johnstone Poland Devlin have to start next Sunday against Cork

[Smurfy123]

Social media is saying Mark Poland was dropped from the 26 and played for Longstond yesterday scoring 1-3 in the process from play.This is just unacceptable.Leave the personally issues aside and pick the best players

[snoopdog]

Down are a laughing stock. But can anyone realistically see the incompetance changing anytime soon.

[Smurfy123]

You got it in 1 snoopdog.To leave a player out of the 26 due to personal issues is not acceptable at this level.I could not imagine Mark Poland being a troublemaker around the dressing room.Would he have 20 minutes football in him from the star of the year?There is about 20 men running around in the Down backroom team from different counties and this is the way we treat our own.
Another few problems lie within our promotion of our teams.
I have said it before that the Down PRO team are the worst in Ireland.Not a word of any of their matches prior to any game this year on social media.No wonder we are down to 1300 at games.It doesn't cost a penny to promote things on social media.
The only PR work that was done this year was the re launch of club down 3 months ago and it has been a dead donkey.In the back page of yesterday's programme club down congratulated St Mary's university etc on recent success which is fine but surely a full page on fundraising events that they should be at would be more appropriate as that's what they are getting paid to do?
If Down put there best 15 on against Cork they can win but that includes Mark Poland.For the greater good of Down football put your personall differences with Mark to the side

[John Martin]

It's a shame Poland isn't playing as he is always a stand out player any time I've seen longstone play. What are the personal issues with him?

Obviously if it's not something that should be shared on here, don't bother telling me.

[Smurfy123]

I meant personal issues between himself and the management
Why else would he be playin for his club on the morning of a county's match?

[SamFever]

Irish News have us ahead of Fermanagh on the league tble but surely they are ahead of us on the head to head.