Your county’s toughest defeat to stomach

[Maroon Manc]

Football wise the defeat to Tipp in 2016, naively was convinced Galway would beat them comfortably only to be hammered.

[timmyot501]

Although Sunday last was a tough one to take as a Monaghan fan I still don't think it ranked with the feeling after the Kerry defeat in the 2007 QF when we had them on the ropes but failed to land the final blow.  Also denied a late free in that game as far as I recall and that may have resulted in Kerry breaking forward for Tomás to score the winner late on. 

[Duine Eile]

Football wise the defeat to Tipp in 2016, naively was convinced Galway would beat them comfortably only to be hammered.

That was a bad one but I dont think anything will beat the thrashing we got from Mayo in 2013, that day knocked us back for years.

[GaillimhIarthair]

Football wise the defeat to Tipp in 2016, naively was convinced Galway would beat them comfortably only to be hammered.

That was a bad one but I dont think anything will beat the thrashing we got from Mayo in 2013, that day knocked us back for years.

It would be the '83 Final for me (getting old!), terrible result for us in the context of how that game evolved.  Cork hammered us in a semi replay in '87 and it wasn't until 95 that we got near Croke Park again with a modest enough team.  We got a good trimming below in Castlebar too in a replay in the late '80s after Gay McManus fisted a later equalizer in Tuam. 
The 1990 final loss to Cork would be the worst one on the hurling side, would rate it worse than the '81 loss to Offaly.

[Bord na Mona man]

Hurling:
1982 and 1993 vs Kilkenny. Generous refereeing for both Kilkenny's winning goals. Worse still Kilkenny went on to land the All Ireland.

1995 vs. Klare. Should have been a tap in All Ireland but Offaly's mental block about putting away underdogs was a big factor. If the 'Ghost of Hurling Future' had shown the team the wasteland Offaly hurling was hurtling towards, Klare would have been shown no sympathy that day. Within a couple of years every other county was pissed with Offaly for allowing the Klare genie out of the bottle.

1999 vs. Cork. Epic match, but the sad conclusion was that the better hurlers lost to the faster ones.

Football:
1983 vs Dublin. Having spent 5 years building up to the epic crescendo of winning the 1982 All Ireland, Offaly then let a jammy one pass them by the year after. Kerry were already knocked out by the time Offaly ballsed it up against Dublin,

[Blowitupref]

Football wise the defeat to Tipp in 2016, naively was convinced Galway would beat them comfortably only to be hammered.

That was a bad one but I dont think anything will beat the thrashing we got from Mayo in 2013, that day knocked us back for years.

Div 1 final and All Ireland semi final this year would it be fair to say that 2013 defeat was a watershed moment for Galway football?

[Itchy]

Hard to pick a loss for Cavan, there have been so many!

Two that really hurt at the time were both at U21. 1st losing to Cork after a goal keeper clanger and a great comeback. Last kick of the game into the wind, free taker had been subbed off, subbed him back on to take a very hard free to force extra time and it went wide.

The worst one though was the semi final against Dublin. Lost by a point to possibly the strongest U21 team ever put together with 6/7 of them on the current Dublin panel. Totally fucked by a bollox of a ref from Tipp (who since then has got more and more games), lost by a point. That dublin team went on to destroy a decent Ros team in the final by 20+ points. That was Cavans chance of an All Ireland gone up in smoke.

With the seniors one of the most embarrassing was needing a draw at home to Waterford to get promoted from Div 3 and some how managing to lose such an important game out of sheer arrogance.

[Ethan Tremblay]

From an Armagh perspective, last year against Down was a hard pill to swallow for me.  Not registering a score in the second half, my thoughts were, we are at our lowest, were do we go from here. 

They have suffered big defeats and narrow defeats, but losing in that manner was bad.  I still shudder thinking about it. 

[Hound]

Hurling:
1982 and 1993 vs Kilkenny. Generous refereeing for both Kilkenny's winning goals. Worse still Kilkenny went on to land the All Ireland.

1995 vs. Klare. Should have been a tap in All Ireland but Offaly's mental block about putting away underdogs was a big factor. If the 'Ghost of Hurling Future' had shown the team the wasteland Offaly hurling was hurtling towards, Klare would have been shown no sympathy that day. Within a couple of years every other county was pissed with Offaly for allowing the Klare genie out of the bottle.

1999 vs. Cork. Epic match, but the sad conclusion was that the better hurlers lost to the faster ones.

Football:
1983 vs Dublin. Having spent 5 years building up to the epic crescendo of winning the 1982 All Ireland, Offaly then let a jammy one pass them by the year after. Kerry were already knocked out by the time Offaly ballsed it up against Dublin,

If you hadn't robbed Limerick in 1994, you would certainly have beaten Clare in 1995. How different the Clare / Ger Loughnane story might have been!

[AZOffaly]

Hurling:
1982 and 1993 vs Kilkenny. Generous refereeing for both Kilkenny's winning goals. Worse still Kilkenny went on to land the All Ireland.

1995 vs. Klare. Should have been a tap in All Ireland but Offaly's mental block about putting away underdogs was a big factor. If the 'Ghost of Hurling Future' had shown the team the wasteland Offaly hurling was hurtling towards, Klare would have been shown no sympathy that day. Within a couple of years every other county was pissed with Offaly for allowing the Klare genie out of the bottle.

1999 vs. Cork. Epic match, but the sad conclusion was that the better hurlers lost to the faster ones.

Football:
1983 vs Dublin. Having spent 5 years building up to the epic crescendo of winning the 1982 All Ireland, Offaly then let a jammy one pass them by the year after. Kerry were already knocked out by the time Offaly ballsed it up against Dublin,

If you hadn't robbed Limerick in 1994, you would certainly have beaten Clare in 1995. How different the Clare / Ger Loughnane story might have been!

Limerick are lucky Offaly only hurled for 5 minutes in 1994. If they hurled for 70, it would have been a massacre.

[An Fhairche Abu]

Football wise the defeat to Tipp in 2016, naively was convinced Galway would beat them comfortably only to be hammered.

That was a bad one but I dont think anything will beat the thrashing we got from Mayo in 2013, that day knocked us back for years.

Div 1 final and All Ireland semi final this year would it be fair to say that 2013 defeat was a watershed moment for Galway football?

It was a bit, I think that was when Galway football hit rock bottom and it was an irredeemable disgrace. To be honest though I wasn't one bit shocked at how bad it went and I felt it was even on the cards a bit before the match. That said, it was not the toughtest defeat to stomach, that was a bad Galway team and they got a clipping from a very good Mayo one.
For me the drawn final of 2000 was the worst as I felt we had really let one go against Kerry, it was a worse feeling than the replay loss looking back on it.
That shot from Savo into the keepers hands when a simple fist-pass to Joyce would have led to at the very least the leading point with little time left, maybe even a potential shot at goal. There's a small part of me that never got over that although mercifully they got the second one in 2001.

[manfromdelmonte]

1998 v Galway in extra time after Prior shafted Ros the first day in Tuam. The herring chokers went onto win Sam.

2001 quarter final in Castlebar. Everyone in the county knew a schelaking from Galway was coming due to the lose control on the players but the manner of it was galling, especially how we had beaten them in Tuam. Of course, the herring chokers win Sam again.

Neither Ros team lived up to their potential

[GalwayBayBoy]

Football wise the defeat to Tipp in 2016, naively was convinced Galway would beat them comfortably only to be hammered.

That was a bad one but I dont think anything will beat the thrashing we got from Mayo in 2013, that day knocked us back for years.

Was an awful humiliation at the time but in a way it signalled the end of years of drift and neglect. Things began to slowly improve from that point. Even some of the dismal 1 point defeats to bad teams in previous years didn't have the affect that day did on the Galway football psyche. The players often still mention it to this day. Nothing like being embarrassed by your neighbours on your home patch to finally shake people into doing something.

[larryin89]

Sure there was no Galway support there in 13 to witness it anyway.

[Champion The Wonder Horse]

I'm surprised that this thread isn't in the Derry section of the board, but it's good to see other counties have been there too.

Every defeat for Derry from 1994 to 2001 was a hard one to take, but the two worst were against Tyrone (1996) and Galway (1998), simply because of the abject nature of our performances. We were as arrogant as we were shite. Got what we deserved.

In the other games we were at least a match for the winners, but came up short. A different decision here or there would have seen us home in every one of those games.

But don't look back in anger.