Sam Maguire Group 2 - Galway, Armagh, Tyrone, Westmeath

[Maroon Manc]

That was a catastrophic loss for Galway in the general scheme of things, such nonsense about "business end". Dubs and Kerry turned up walloping all before them today, no surer sign we're in the business end now.

Too much nonsense talk about Galway and the panel, started that game yesterday with only 9 starters from last years final and next week will be similar. The draw hasn't helped my optimism levels either, didn't look great for Sean Kelly either.

[seafoid]

https://twitter.com/bennytierney/status/1670568213141176321

Not great viewing... I can't make out which player threw the box??

It's number 4 - Forker. They never learn. Not a likeable team under McGeeney.

I wonder how many reds and yellows Forker has gotten over the years.

He is that type of player.

He picked up a yellow yesterday as well.

He's unlucky here the way Sean Kelly's face deliberately batters his fist.

He must be a dirty Forker

[Walter Cronc]

https://twitter.com/bennytierney/status/1670568213141176321

Not great viewing... I can't make out which player threw the box??

It's number 4 - Forker. They never learn. Not a likeable team under McGeeney.

It'll probably be treated the same way as McGuigan's bite on O'Neill.........

Ah yes, there was conclusive evidence there. Swinging arms, closed fist tackles. Not going anywhere fast lads.

[tbrick18]

A few thoughts on the Armagh v Galway game.
Galway definitely need Comer in there. Walsh hasn't been the same player this year.
Armagh are a better rounded team without O'Neill!

Having just watched that video clip of the double punch, who ever that was will find themselves lucky if they don't get a retrospective red car and rightly so.
Dirty action.

It's really hard to like this Armagh side, too many boys running about like cubs looking a row outside a nightclub.
I still think if they focused more on the football they'd be a much better side as there are some excellent footballers there.

[Armamike]

Great second half from Armagh.  We clearly decided to push up on the Galway kickouts, forcing it long where Crealey caught a few.  Big lad with a height advantage over the Galway midfielders.  We won the game because we pushed up and brought more intensity.  If we had sat off and invited Galway onto us, then a different result possibly.  Yesterday lends more weight to the argument that it's not more rule changes we need but a change of approach.

[naka]

A few thoughts on the Armagh v Galway game.
Galway definitely need Comer in there. Walsh hasn't been the same player this year.
Armagh are a better rounded team without O'Neill!

Having just watched that video clip of the double punch, who ever that was will find themselves lucky if they don't get a retrospective red car and rightly so.
Dirty action.

It's really hard to like this Armagh side, too many boys running about like cubs looking a row outside a nightclub.
I still think if they focused more on the football they'd be a much better side as there are some excellent footballers there.

Most of us in Armagh couldn't care less if we are liked or not by the other counties .

[Whishtup]

After watching highlights, I thought Kilpatrick went down easy. Should have bulled on in for a goal. Tyrone boys doing a lot of slipping and fumbling the greasy ball. Are we not set up for wet weather? Definitely very disjointed. In that first half there were at times a hape of Tyrone boys standing on each other's toes in midfield, trying to send low balls into small forwards in wet conditions.  Morgan's Kickouts extremely risky at the wrong times of games. Needs to work on this. Yesterday's game reeked of not paying Westmeath enough respect and nearly getting caught. It seems that we need to play Kerry, Mayo, Dublin, probably Armagh to get motivated and focused as a team and that might not happen.  Hopefully it will be like the scare we got against Meath a few years back and kicks up holes are dealt out.

[mackers]

A few thoughts on the Armagh v Galway game.
Galway definitely need Comer in there. Walsh hasn't been the same player this year.
Armagh are a better rounded team without O'Neill!

Having just watched that video clip of the double punch, who ever that was will find themselves lucky if they don't get a retrospective red car and rightly so.
Dirty action.

It's really hard to like this Armagh side, too many boys running about like cubs looking a row outside a nightclub.
I still think if they focused more on the football they'd be a much better side as there are some excellent footballers there.

Most of us in Armagh couldn't care less if we are liked or not by the other counties .

It seems to be mostly Derry and Tyrone posters coming to the conclusion that they don't like us.......hardly surprising.

[Armamike]

A few thoughts on the Armagh v Galway game.
Galway definitely need Comer in there. Walsh hasn't been the same player this year.
Armagh are a better rounded team without O'Neill!

Having just watched that video clip of the double punch, who ever that was will find themselves lucky if they don't get a retrospective red car and rightly so.
Dirty action.

It's really hard to like this Armagh side, too many boys running about like cubs looking a row outside a nightclub.
I still think if they focused more on the football they'd be a much better side as there are some excellent footballers there.

Most of us in Armagh couldn't care less if we are liked or not by the other counties .

Yep.  There's a few on here who'll happily find a reason! It's the players, it's the supporters, it's the manager, it's the coaches, it's the ex players, it's the administrators, it's the fact that we grow apples.

[tbrick18]

A few thoughts on the Armagh v Galway game.
Galway definitely need Comer in there. Walsh hasn't been the same player this year.
Armagh are a better rounded team without O'Neill!

Having just watched that video clip of the double punch, who ever that was will find themselves lucky if they don't get a retrospective red car and rightly so.
Dirty action.

It's really hard to like this Armagh side, too many boys running about like cubs looking a row outside a nightclub.
I still think if they focused more on the football they'd be a much better side as there are some excellent footballers there.

Most of us in Armagh couldn't care less if we are liked or not by the other counties .

I don't care if you don't care 

[screenexile]

A few thoughts on the Armagh v Galway game.
Galway definitely need Comer in there. Walsh hasn't been the same player this year.
Armagh are a better rounded team without O'Neill!

Having just watched that video clip of the double punch, who ever that was will find themselves lucky if they don't get a retrospective red car and rightly so.
Dirty action.

It's really hard to like this Armagh side, too many boys running about like cubs looking a row outside a nightclub.
I still think if they focused more on the football they'd be a much better side as there are some excellent footballers there.

Most of us in Armagh couldn't care less if we are liked or not by the other counties .

It seems to be mostly Derry and Tyrone posters coming to the conclusion that they don't like us.......hardly surprising.

Are there many Derry ones who don't like Armagh? Personally I don't mind them. We have a lot in common namely our severe hatred of Tyrone!

[tyrone08]

A few thoughts on the Armagh v Galway game.
Galway definitely need Comer in there. Walsh hasn't been the same player this year.
Armagh are a better rounded team without O'Neill!

Having just watched that video clip of the double punch, who ever that was will find themselves lucky if they don't get a retrospective red car and rightly so.
Dirty action.

It's really hard to like this Armagh side, too many boys running about like cubs looking a row outside a nightclub.
I still think if they focused more on the football they'd be a much better side as there are some excellent footballers there.

Most of us in Armagh couldn't care less if we are liked or not by the other counties .

It seems to be mostly Derry and Tyrone posters coming to the conclusion that they don't like us.......hardly surprising.

Are there many Derry ones who don't like Armagh? Personally I don't mind them. We have a lot in common namely our severe hatred of Tyrone!

Dry your eyes. You also have in common that neither of use have won and AI in 20 years.

[David McKeown]

When I said last night I thought Grugan was lucky to receive a yellow it was on the basis I thought he was the one involved with Kelly. I think it will now be a nervous wait for Forker. Totally unnecessary

[mackers]

A few thoughts on the Armagh v Galway game.
Galway definitely need Comer in there. Walsh hasn't been the same player this year.
Armagh are a better rounded team without O'Neill!

Having just watched that video clip of the double punch, who ever that was will find themselves lucky if they don't get a retrospective red car and rightly so.
Dirty action.

It's really hard to like this Armagh side, too many boys running about like cubs looking a row outside a nightclub.
I still think if they focused more on the football they'd be a much better side as there are some excellent footballers there.

Most of us in Armagh couldn't care less if we are liked or not by the other counties .

It seems to be mostly Derry and Tyrone posters coming to the conclusion that they don't like us.......hardly surprising.

Are there many Derry ones who don't like Armagh? Personally I don't mind them. We have a lot in common namely our severe hatred of Tyrone!

I wasn't aware of any ill feeling between the counties but we've a few Derry ones on here spending a lot of their time giving us stick.......suppose it's better than being ignored. Hope they're giving out about us for another few weeks yet.

[An Fhairche Abu]

That was a catastrophic loss for Galway in the general scheme of things, such nonsense about "business end". Dubs and Kerry turned up walloping all before them today, no surer sign we're in the business end now.

Too much nonsense talk about Galway and the panel, started that game yesterday with only 9 starters from last years final and next week will be similar. The draw hasn't helped my optimism levels either, didn't look great for Sean Kelly either.

Patrick Kelly wasn't too far away from me on the terrace yesterday, likes of himself, Comer, McHugh, Molloy and Silke are really missed.
I felt last night like the season is as good as done given the position we've ended up in and the road that's ahead of them, Galway badly needed the week off to try and get key players recovery time, instead of that, the players are left having to play a Mayo team that has had Galway's number in knockout games going back a long time. If Galway can get to a semi-final (and that's the bar for these players now) from here, given the injuries and the schedule, it will be a greater accomplishment than making the final last year.

Sean Kelly is the heartbeat of that Galway team, can't fault him for the poor result yesterday, and is an incalculable loss if unavailable. Mannion looked a bit lost out there, the pick up off the ground that led to a 1st half Armagh point summed up his day. A better move in retrospect might have been McDaid to replace McHugh at HB and Maher to MF.
Without Comer as the focal point up front we look blunt, Burke hasn't been at it, amazed he stayed on for the duration yesterday, he's there to link play and the biggest opportunity of all he couldn't execute a standard enough return hand pass to Walsh for an attacking chance with Rafferty miles outside the goal. Burke had good performance against Rossies but outside of that, is playing more like he was in 2019 which isn't good. Heaney isn't having as much of an impact as usual, the dip in his performances is noteworthy as while he's unheralded outside the county he has been one of Galway's top men. Cooke made a mistake with the way the ball bounced on the kick pass back at the end but outside of that he has been one of Galway's best performers in the group stage. Tierney kicked a couple but isn't imposing himself on matches like you'd have wanted to see after the Connacht championship and league. Finnerty has been injured all the time.

We're just not scoring enough up front and Walsh is only playing middling at best, his decision making on the ball and free taking (which was immaculate in 2022 and one of the big reasons we made the final) have regressed to an unbelievable extent. Notable that he isn't taking kicks off the ground at the moment at all, I'd wonder if there's something up that we don't know about, if that's the case let Cooke and Tierney take them off the deck where needed. Conroy and Walsh had both ballooned the ball up with two similar attempts from the same position already in the second half. When presented with a crucial free at the death yesterday from a similar position, it might have been advisable to go off the ground to better deal with the tricky cross field wind which had proved problematic. Instead we got a carbon copy of the two earlier efforts, which was short and didn't curl in, summed up the day.

Kickout issues have been done to death but it's the speed of the restarts that are an issue as well as the inability of Galway to manufacture space for players, if we had a good system we wouldn't have lost yesterday as too many in the 2nd half became long ball 50/50s which we came out the wrong side of. Several times, and it was really obvious from being at the match, Galway players had made the initial run into a pocket of space and the ball needed to be kicked immediately to them, instead there is hesitation and the moment for that quick 30/40 metre clip to the player is gone. At one point Heaney made a run and the ball wasn't played for an easy, unmarked catch, in fact there was enough time for him to have to run back out and then back again at pace to nearly the 21 when the ball was clipped out and he got it. The difference is that instead of getting the ball 40 metres out with some Armagh players already bypassed, Galway now had the entire Armagh team to get through. These are the small margins that make up a loss.

Maybe I'm being overly critical of a one point loss but in the context of the year that was seismic, Tyrone couldn't do us the favour of a narrow win in the other game (how good have Westmeath been though? Hats off to them, unlucky not to have progressed from the group) so that result has derailed the season altogether.
Can Galway win next week? They can but given the injuries and the form upfront it will be a massive ask, I thought Armagh were decent yesterday but really and truly, Galway had more than enough of the ball to win that match, serious contenders wouldn't have come out the wrong side of it. Taking that and the Westmeath and Tyrone performances into account there doesn't look to be an AI in them despite the talk from some quarters, the two big boys started to stretch the legs yesterday although Kerry have been blessed with Mayo's collapse against Cork, mad how life's winners always seem get whatever luck is going even when they aren't involved.