Armagh Club football & hurling

[fitzroyalty]

To be fair TAC you'll be hard pushed to ever see such a tame performance from any club in the SFC again, never mind the Clans.

[winsamsoon]

Tac i am not going to get into the ins and outs of my club on a public forum. As i have said before, what has happened in the past doesn't guarantee anything for the future so drawing with cross last year doesn't neccesarily mean you will draw with them this year.

I haven't seen anything in the Armagh championship over the last few years that has changed my opinion. That opinion being that Cross are the team to beat and the og's are probably next best. I think there is a net then that can be thrown around another 5 or 6 teams that could beat each other. That would include yourselves, Dromintee, Harps, Ourselves and Granemore. By the way i am not taking a dig at Cullyhanna i am only commenting on them because i know you are a cullyhanna man and we can have some sort of debate which others can join in.

To answer the question as to why cross didn't hit top gear last year, the answer is i don't know. But what i will say is that if they would have put in a performance like they did against Kilmacud i think they would have beaten anyone in Armagh comprehensively .

[Ulick]

Yesterday in Lurgan.

[winsamsoon]

Yesterday in Lurgan.

Lost me there lad

[Orior]

Bit of symmetry about the eyes there.

[ogshead]

"Despite the fact that the Harps got to the final once 2 years ago I still wouldn't have had them down as contenders"

Who would have thunk it eh.....

There also seems to be some justification to my opinion now.

[Armagh Cúchulainns]

"Despite the fact that the Harps got to the final once 2 years ago I still wouldn't have had them down as contenders"

Who would have thunk it eh.....

There also seems to be some justification to my opinion now.

just some!!

[ogshead]

"Despite the fact that the Harps got to the final once 2 years ago I still wouldn't have had them down as contenders"

Who would have thunk it eh.....

There also seems to be some justification to my opinion now.

just some!!

6-18 to 0-4... big gulf in class. I know it was only a friendly match but there's no way the Ogs should be beating the Harps by that much if they are real challengers for the championship. Who knows, maybe they can turn it around.

[BenDover]

there should have been another 3-4 goals on top of the 6

[bennydorano]

Revised targets alrite. We've lost 9/10 starters from the County Final, unbelievable number to lose in such a short period of time. We've put out stronger B teams in recent years  than last night's team.

[Scarface]

"There also seems to be some justification to my opinion now."

Haha - well done you...you are a bright lad after all.

Thats some score alright...really bad - the Ogs are not that good so the Harps must have been really bad...did not make the match but got one or two texts about it....hardly believed the score I was hearing could be correct. It must have been a poor enough team fielded. Any reports on who was playing, who did the damage for the Ogs etc etc?

[Rufus T Firefly]

Revised targets alrite. We've lost 9/10 starters from the County Final, unbelievable number to lose in such a short period of time. We've put out stronger B teams in recent years  than last night's team.

I've always felt over the last decade or so that we have been in the top four or five in the County, without ever really threatening to be number one. Consequently, we could go far with a good draw, or get kicked out in round one with a tough draw. Indeed there were two occasions (2003 and 2008) when we went under to Cross in semi-finals where we gave them a good run, with young teams, and it might have reasonably been expected that we could buld on those performances and go on and make the breakthrough in the coming years.

However last year was the first time I felt our position in the grand scheme of things slipping. At the end of last season, I would have had Rangers, Dromintee, Ogs, Granemore, Ballymacnab and St Pats ahead of us. You could argue one or two others.

Against that background, we have since lost a number of significant players - Collie Holmes, all round legend and gentleman, has called time - the leader of the team who is quite simply irreplaceable. Kevin Kelly and Martn McCoy are in England and there are others who have quit for their own reasons ( ). There is now a significant danger that the potential brought by a rich seam of underage talent is going to turn to dust at Senior level. For instance, I'd be curious to know how many of our Ulster Minor Club winning team will feature regularly this year
at Senior Level.

This was always going to be a testing year. That said, what happened on Thursday night shocked me, and would increase my concerns for the short to mid term period.

Knowing that, I will not be going to Harps matches this year expecting success. All I would ask is that those that do play give off their best, and do so with pride in the jersey. I know for a fact that the Senior Management will!     

[pearseog]

Revised targets alrite. We've lost 9/10 starters from the County Final, unbelievable number to lose in such a short period of time. We've put out stronger B teams in recent years  than last night's team.

I've always felt over the last decade or so that we have been in the top four or five in the County, without ever really threatening to be number one. Consequently, we could go far with a good draw, or get kicked out in round one with a tough draw. Indeed there were two occasions (2003 and 2008) when we went under to Cross in semi-finals, with young teams, and it might have reasonably been expected that we could buld on those performances and go on and make the breakthrough in the coming years.

However last year was the first time I felt our position in the grand scheme of things slipping. At the end of last season, I would have had Rangers, Dromintee, Ogs, Granemore, Ballymacnab and St Pats ahead of us. You could argue one or two others.

Against that background, we have since lost a number of significant players - Collie Holmes, all round legend and gentleman, has called time - the leader of the team who is quite simply irreplaceable. Kevin Kelly and Martn McCoy are in England and there are others who have quit for their own reasons ( ). There is now a significant danger that the potential brought by a rich seam of underage talent is going to turn to dust at Senior level. For instance, I'd be curious to know how many of our Ulster Minor Club winning team will feature regularly this year
at Senior Level.

This was always going to be a testing year. That said, what happened on Thursday night shocked me, and would increase my concerns for the short to mid term period.

Knowing that, I will not be going to Harps matches this year expecting success. All I would ask is that those that do play give off their best, and do so with pride in the jersey. I know for a fact that the Senior Management will!     

I take it your referring to Sean Morrison there Rufus? Why did he leave?
How many were missing last night other than the 3 with the county? You're going to have to play most of the league without those 3 so the majority of that team will be what your working with in the league. I can see Lenny and Joe coming in there. Any others I'm missing?

[bennydorano]

Revised targets alrite. We've lost 9/10 starters from the County Final, unbelievable number to lose in such a short period of time. We've put out stronger B teams in recent years  than last night's team.

I've always felt over the last decade or so that we have been in the top four or five in the County, without ever really threatening to be number one. Consequently, we could go far with a good draw, or get kicked out in round one with a tough draw. Indeed there were two occasions (2003 and 2008) when we went under to Cross in semi-finals where we gave them a good run, with young teams, and it might have reasonably been expected that we could buld on those performances and go on and make the breakthrough in the coming years.

However last year was the first time I felt our position in the grand scheme of things slipping. At the end of last season, I would have had Rangers, Dromintee, Ogs, Granemore, Ballymacnab and St Pats ahead of us. You could argue one or two others.

Against that background, we have since lost a number of significant players - Collie Holmes, all round legend and gentleman, has called time - the leader of the team who is quite simply irreplaceable. Kevin Kelly and Martn McCoy are in England and there are others who have quit for their own reasons ( ). There is now a significant danger that the potential brought by a rich seam of underage talent is going to turn to dust at Senior level. For instance, I'd be curious to know how many of our Ulster Minor Club winning team will feature regularly this year
at Senior Level.

This was always going to be a testing year. That said, what happened on Thursday night shocked me, and would increase my concerns for the short to mid term period.

Knowing that, I will not be going to Harps matches this year expecting success. All I would ask is that those that do play give off their best, and do so with pride in the jersey. I know for a fact that the Senior Management will!   

Joe Brolly recently said Derry are a side in transition and have been for about 8 years!  That's how I feel about the Harps at the minute, looked to be on the brink of acheiving and then dealt a few body blows with retirements and losing players to work across the water.  We're right back slap in middle of another period of (enforced) transition, we've some great talent there who are wild young and will undoubtedly take a few years to mature. 

Also think the right manager is in place and has to be given a few years to bring us on (hopefully he'll be interested in doing so!).  It will be a testing year and hopefully Harps people realise this & judge the team, management and season accordingly.

[Scarface]

All is not yet lost though for the Harps. It is a matter of having a good structure in place, fellas who believe they can achieve something and will give it their all. I saw a year or two ago how Ballymacnab - with a young and quite physically small team were able to run away with division two. A good season in the division is very achievable even in a so called period of transition. In the same way as one swallow does not make a summer then one very bad result does not a season make!!