Armagh Club football & hurling

[brokencrossbar1]

It is great to see the young lads getting stronger at home.  They may not be the best of recent years but they will compete to the last.

It is interesting for me as an outsider looking in how things develop in Armagh now.  Obviously Cross have a fantastic set up and a great underage structure but I find it difficult to understand why clubs are not benefitting from the success of Armagh in getting players out to challenge against us.  I presume that the people in the clubs are doing their best but something has to be seriously wrong.  

I can never remember a Harps team being beaten so comprehensively by Cross.  The have the structures and the pedigree within the club and such a defeat would have been unthought of before.  People often talk about teams being two points done at the sight of a certain jersey, and I know that the Cross jersey is one of them, but is that true in real life?  

I am not saying they will win the minors again this year as I do not know enough about the competition as a whole but I would say they will be there, or there abouts on the day of the Final.  I know we have had the success breeding success debate here before, and to a degree that is true but there has to be something more substantive than that for a team of such great tradition as Harps to presumably put in such a poor performance.  Cross have a serious under 21 team, that I do know and by all accounts they will be very hard to stop.  With the break from Armagh, the likes of Oisin and the Macs can only be in better shape than they have been for a few years.  As Uladh said barring something really unusual is there any realistic challengers to Cross over the next five years?

[Smokin Joe]

are tullysarran the only realistic competition for cross for the minor championship?

This current team must be the first time in Tullysaran's history that they are looked upon as potentially the best in the county.

[Hank Everlast]

wen does the draw for the next round of the minor championship take place? and is it an open draw?

[umgolaarmagh]

Smoking Joe:

What would you put this down too?

Summer GAA camps in the area

migration into the area

[Aghdavoyle]

Cross' dominance is almost complete at this stage every level.

Its like a plot from star wars.

Clubs like the two city clubs should represent the best candidates for challenging Cross. Surely they should have the numbers to go with the tradition? The armagh success bump won't appear on the field for a few years yet but wouldn't make any difference to the likes of ourselves. we already get every possible morsel out on the pitch who can tie their own laces but that rarely translates to a playin body of more than 18 - 22 fo any particular age group.

[Smokin Joe]

Umgola,
I'm not sure to be honest, I'm not involved closely enough to be able to give a knowledgable answer.

I do know that this age group have been very good right up from Under 12.

Let's just hope that they all continue to wear the red, unlike one of your current team mates  

[bennydorano]

Everything is cyclical to a certain extent, only a few years ago we were Ulster minor champions with a panel of 25 odd, this year we've depended on U16's to field a minor team on numerous ocassions, we've a good U16 team this year(that got suckerpunched in the mid final by a team they beat by 20 in the league) which will hopefully translate into a successful minor team in a year or two.  Harps have huge numbers at the likes of U8, U10, U12 & U14; I would suggest that skills deficiencies etc.. become more pronounced after that age and the numbers dwindle when some realise they're maybe not cut out for gaelic and are more suited to soccer or whatever, because our numbers from U16 up would be no bigger than most country clubs.

[umgolaarmagh]

Smoking Joe:

You've lost me!!

[topgun]

IMO cross have the footballers coming through but the majority of them are prepared to go that little bit further, in the words of Aaron Kernan "all we have in cross is cross, in armagh the harps have to contend with soccer rugby and some other sports, its all about crossmaglen rangers gfc for us"

[Smokin Joe]

Gregory Loughran (I think) played underage football for Tullysaran.

There is always the danger that some of the very good players could get poached by one of the "bigger clubs" in years to come.

[umgolaarmagh]

Didnt know that at all !!

you have to start somewhere 

[topgun]

remember marking loughran at u16 and minor level for the ogs, must have been u10 or 12

[illdecide]

I always was under the impression that when the Mac's and Oisin and the rest of their clan retired that other clubs in Armagh would have a fantastic chance of de-throning them. But in the name of F**k where do Cross get these teams from and more importanly what can the rest of us do about it.

There def is a fear factor when teams play Cross and it's only getting worse the longer their dominance continues, whether or not they can produce players of the same quality as the Mac's and Oisin is open for debate but the more they keep winning at Minor and U21 the less chance the rest of us have. Unfortunatly BC1 is correct i can't see anyone breaking their dominance any time soon.

Topgun has a point too that the likes of Lurgan and Armagh teams have too many distractions (soccer, rugby, a pub every second door in the town, women and rioting/hooding). If you live in south Armagh and you want to be involved in sport and you don't want to shame your family you play GAA it's that simple

[topgun]

IMO on their day the Harps, with right mental attitude and game plan could give cross a run for it, remember they shot 18 wides against cross in the championship this year, winning is a habit just like losing, if someone can break their hold on the championship once, these boys dont remember the last time they lost a county championship match, most of them have been on winning panels for the last 12 years , someone just has to plant the seed of doubt, a tough task i no, but on any given sunday, anything can happen in the championship, all those who put their houses on armagh against will no that

[Hank Everlast]

Gregory and owen loughran only came out to tullysaran for a while at under 16 but it was only for a brief period of a month or so... not sure why or what the circumstances were with that.