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[lurgan has 4 teams]

As Aaron Kernan picks up his 18th senior championship medal, it further confirms how crap the senior clubs in Armagh are that they annually role over. What is it Cross are doing the rest of you are not apart from living rent free in your heads.

having a catchment area that is second to none
there is simply too may clubs in armagh
lurgan has 4 teams
camlough/ bessbrook  2 teams and am not counting corrinshego)
cross has a committed area with no infiltration from soccer
fair play though to both clanns in lurgan they are investing in youth which will get rewards in the future

Some fair points there.

Cross do great work in bringing players through..just enough to keep supplementing the senior team with real quality. As said before they are usually there or threrabouts in Minor as well.

Having said that....when you think of competing for resources....against other GAA clubs (and numerous soccer clubs)

Lurgan actually has 5 teams:

Clann Eireann
Clan Na Gael
St Peters
St Pauls
Eire Og (you can debate it's in Craigavon, I'd say it's on the border, lol)

and 4 within a few miles of the town

Wolfe Tones
Sarsfields
St Mary's (Antrim)
St Michaels (Down)

Compare that to the catchment Cross have....... and imagine if Lurgan had 1 or 2 superclubs.....

Armagh really do have some luck with the Ulster draws in recent years

Who was it that got the St Brigids senior position ahead of him, which he appears so annoyed about?

A highly rated manager by all accounts, very professional and players loved him. Brolly always hates these professional types. It smacks of petty jealousy from Brolly who is quickly becoming the class clown.

Who was the manager though?

Can't remember, but did he boycott Dungiven and pour forth much outrage when Stephen O'Neill became Dungiven Senior Manager?

Wonder did Joe have the same grievances about Brian Mullins when he took the Derry job or is it because he simply doesn't like Mickey Harte?

If you were to, ah hem, believe Brolly in an article of his last year were he said he was instrumental in bringing Mullins in as Derry manager 

From Joe's very own Indo column almost exactly this time last year...

'Derry needed a senior manager for the 1996/97 season. Brian was the principal of the huge Carndonagh Community School in Donegal. I met him after a game in Croke Park and asked him if he would be interested. He immediately said, "Yes." I said, "Really?" He said, "Yes."

I rang the county board and passed it on. A few months later, we arrived at Owenbeg and there he was, wearing that funny bushwacker hat, massive and intimidating'

Odd he didnt seem too exercised then about an outside manager for his beloved Derry..... wonder what changed 🤔

Who was it that got the St Brigids senior position ahead of him, which he appears so annoyed about?

Gonna be piss poor if they don't bring some new people on board. What was there last year didn't work

Winning an AI in your first year shouldn't mean a 6 year stretch in management with no questions asked. Any serious County, like Kerry or Dublin, would not allow that in this era.

There has to be upward progression and what we've seen to date after 2021 has been regression and stagnation.

If there is some root and branch review of what went wrong and a valid plan for making it better then OK, maybe 1-2 years to implement with a break option at 1 year if things stay the same.

Harte had them knocking on the door and there is definitely a  question around whether a few small tweaks and different voices tipped that team over the edge.

2 subsequent years of D&L being able to implement thier own system / ideology and shape a back room team has been very disappointing so far.

McConville embarrassing himself with a lack of understanding regarding what a black card offense is.

Correct it wasn't a deliberate pull down, it was, as Deegan pointed out, a deliberate trip. Then the huff afterwards with Harte having to calm him down

Learning the rules should be a minimum requirement to be a pundit.

McShane has struggled with injury and has not had a full pre season and clean league run since before the injury.

Defensively we are all at sea and seem way behind other teams in conditioning.

That and playing a non scoring HB and HF line

Doogan allowed mcKenna a bit of freedom, but I remember an article that looked at the stats and made the point that that Harte's team kicked long more than the 2021 team, so the front foot stuff Doogan supposedly brought was a bit of a myth. I think they essentially got over the line making a few very small adjustments to Harte's team and have brought nothing to the party since.

Correct.

Despite what the commentators think you can't lift ball off the ground with your knees.

Be worth commentators reading the rule book once in a while. Especially the black card section 

The biggest cliche at the minute seems to be that Tyrone won/stole/lucked an All Ireland in 2021.

It was there to be won. They beat 2 of the top 3 teams en route and every other team had the same chance to win it at the start of the year, but didn't.

They deserved thier win. Pure and simple.

Genuinely thought we were playing safe first half, trying to contain Kerry against the wind in order to let rip in second half.

How wrong I was.

Zero plan in attack. Leaving the big square empty most of the time and no-one breaking lines into it or making runs through it. High ball into small men. Aimless shots.

Agree with other posters that conditioning looked way off the opposition.

That second half was possibly one of the worst Tyrone championship performances in 20 odd years.

Still think Tyrone need a big athletic FF. There was an interesting article (Irish News maybe?) about how McShane and McCurry can't play together as they make similar runs etc , but surely that's what good coaching sorts out?

Strangely might have an easier game as third seed than second. Away to Kildare, Cork or Donegal as opposed to home to Mayo, Roscommon or Monaghan.

Away to DnG would not be good.....