Antrim Football Thread

[FermGael]

Fermanagh played the worst they have played all year.
We were poor.
We seemed happy to win by a few points.
Cosidering donnelly was not there and we lost mccluskey and r corrigan I was happy enough to come through it.
The Antrim tactic of playing k mcgourty out the field suited marty O'Brien. He was very destructive from open play.


Antrim were playing players who clearly had not trained.
Looked very unfit.
Conor Burke was excellent.

Must be the fault that fitness coach from Fermanagh!   Expect to see fitness level perk up for the qualifiers

Mike McGurn is a Strength and Conditioning coach.
One of the very best in the business.

[imtommygunn]

Kieran McGourty was very good - very clever on the ball as he always has been for st galls. Young burke great too. I thought Scullion was actually lucky not to get the line as he swing a few times at a fermanagh boy.

I thought the fitness was a bit off from one or two players too as they tired a lot.

As stated we were good up until the 45 yard line and then it all went wrong. If we can address that then depending on who we get in the qualifiers you never know.

Anyone got the minor lineup? Can't find it though guess it's in the Irish news?

[bannside]

Agree that Kieran McGourty has been a big asset - a really safe pair of hands.

Brother CJ must be able to do much more for us in open play, especially if taking up a berth around the 40 where you need a supersize engine in today's game.

The lack of a presence at CHF or around that part of the pitch was a real problem. Often players were lacking support for a lay off when it was needed. It was a long way up that pitch and an outlet was needed to provide the vital  link up  that was missing.

[Pub Bore]

Agree that Kieran McGourty has been a big asset - a really safe pair of hands.

Brother CJ must be able to do much more for us in open play, especially if taking up a berth around the 40 where you need a supersize engine in today's game.

The lack of a presence at CHF or around that part of the pitch was a real problem. Often players were lacking support for a lay off when it was needed. It was a long way up that pitch and an outlet was needed to provide the vital  link up  that was missing.

Maybe I'm old fashioned bannside but I thought Antrim could have done a lot worse than to stick Dowling in at FF  after 55 mins and boot the ball high into the air to him!  He'd have probably won 50% of those.  Giving my age away there!  Or put him in at CHF to win a bit of ball inside the 45.  I was sitting up at the end Antrim were attacking in the 2nd half and after they worked the ball in you could see players in possession looking up and all they could see were 3 saffron jerseys against 8 green ones.

[country bumpkin]

Another championship defeat and those who hammer their keyboards can have no hope in their hearts........we are languishing at the bottom of the heap and even the most ardent optimist within the ranks of the long suffering followers of the Saffron would struggle to look forward.
Kevin Madden was spot on in the Irish News.
We are a county who constantly field without our best players, have no training facilities or structured development planning and are led by a county board which looks on the polishing of egos as their main concern.
As to the future..........well consider who is the front runner for the chairman's post!
Jeez we were beaten by Fermanagh..........I am quite sure Cargin would give them a run for it and St Gall's would most likely beat them.

[getevennotcross]

Lets just be honest and admit it, we are absolute kack.

The main focus of the clubs is the county championship and nothing else. Its the only place will achieve success. Togging out for the county is meanngless in the grand scheme of things.

Not having a training pitch is a lame excuse. Even if we had the very best if resources we would still falter perpetually.

We just dont have the desire or ambition to improve.

[Farrandeelin]

I didn't realise until I overheard two Antrim men saying yesterday that ye don't even have you're own home ground! I know Casement Park has been taken over by the Ulster Council, but you'd think Antrim would have first pick as to where the matches are played in Antrim!

[brendanbelfast]

The training ground issue is a red herring. Of course we want to see Dunsilly up and running, but in the meantime our players have all the facilities they need at their disposal - its not an issue.

Where did we lose yesterday's match? Up front. We scored 2 bloody points from play, having a dedicated training ground wouldn't have solved that. Having scoring forwards would have.  If players and clubs made playing for the county a benchmark and all players made themselves available and committed to the panel, how different would yesterdays team have been? McCanns x 2, KN, Bam. There's 4 for starters who would have played. KOBO if fit would make 5. If those 5 were fit and had been playing, we would have won. I don't have any doubt about that.

Now if Bam, Niblock and others choose not to play, I'm not sure there is much the current manager can do about that either. Between us all though we have to create the circumstances where players - all players - strive to play for the county. We don't have that.

That's an attitude issue, a county wide attitude issue, and is nothing to do with not having a training pitch. I don't have the answers - wish I did.

[bannside]

Not such a bad idea PB. Nothing to lose by thinking outside the box (literally)Imagine two or three giants in there (Benny Hasson, Niall McKeever too lol). It's only a matter of time until someone tries this to beat the current defensive "blanket".

Even more so as very few goalkeepers are pinging it straight down the middle any more. That's just 50/50 and nowadays most keepers will hit a spare player out on the wing ( as Chris was doing yesterday for a while until he ran out of options). His putting the ball into big Jacks hands was excellent too.

All in all its a depressing day when things are weighed up. Maybe a few fresh faces back in time for the qualifiers might lift the gloom.

Not sure the management could have done a lot better, given injuries, unavailability and sending offs. A rotten day apart from a few notable individual performances and the emergence of a few real quality minors.

[mb80b60]

Another championship defeat and those who hammer their keyboards can have no hope in their hearts........we are languishing at the bottom of the heap and even the most ardent optimist within the ranks of the long suffering followers of the Saffron would struggle to look forward.
Kevin Madden was spot on in the Irish News.
We are a county who constantly field without our best players, have no training facilities or structured development planning and are led by a county board which looks on the polishing of egos as their main concern.
As to the future..........well consider who is the front runner for the chairman's post!
Jeez we were beaten by Fermanagh..........I am quite sure Cargin would give them a run for it and St Gall's would most likely beat them.

You can't be serious?

[getevennotcross]

The training ground issue is a red herring. Of course we want to see Dunsilly up and running, but in the meantime our players have all the facilities they need at their disposal - its not an issue.

Where did we lose yesterday's match? Up front. We scored 2 bloody points from play, having a dedicated training ground wouldn't have solved that. Having scoring forwards would have.  If players and clubs made playing for the county a benchmark and all players made themselves available and committed to the panel, how different would yesterdays team have been? McCanns x 2, KN, Bam. There's 4 for starters who would have played. KOBO if fit would make 5. If those 5 were fit and had been playing, we would have won. I don't have any doubt about that.

Now if Bam, Niblock and others choose not to play, I'm not sure there is much the current manager can do about that either. Between us all though we have to create the circumstances where players - all players - strive to play for the county. We don't have that.

That's an attitude issue, a county wide attitude issue, and is nothing to do with not having a training pitch. I don't have the answers - wish I did.

+1
You would think this thread would begin to run out of excuses.  It would seem we in Antrim have a range of excuses everytime we come up short.  The habit of losing year in year out, you would think we would have exhausted all the excuses, but not us.  We are a laughing stock throughout Ireland and have only ourselves to blame. Scrap the CB, County Football and Hurling teams and just focus on the club games, sure that's the only place we are competitive.

[Pub Bore]

Kieran McGourty was very good - very clever on the ball as he always has been for st galls. Young burke great too. I thought Scullion was actually lucky not to get the line as he swing a few times at a fermanagh boy.

I thought the fitness was a bit off from one or two players too as they tired a lot.

As stated we were good up until the 45 yard line and then it all went wrong. If we can address that then depending on who we get in the qualifiers you never know.

Anyone got the minor lineup? Can't find it though guess it's in the Irish news?

I held on to the programme imtommygunn:

Gavin Murray - Moneyglass

Ciaran Garland - St Johns
Conor King - St Brigids
Cameron Flynn - Lamh Dhearg

Eunan Walsh - Aghagallon
Donal Carey - Creggan
Barry McCormick - Randalstown

Gerard Walsh - Rossa
Cormac Murphy - Sarsfields

Ben Rice - Lamh Dhearg
Conor Small - Creggan
Eamon Fyfe - Glenravel

Odhran Eastwood - St Endas
Brendan Corr - Gort Na Mona
CJ McKenna - St Johns

Subs:
Christopher Gallagher - Davitts
Conan Lyttle - St Endas
Niall Crossan - Rossa
Patrick Finnegan - St Brigids
Patrick McCormick - Moneyglass
Joe Maskey - St Endas
Kevin Small - Creggan
Darren McCormick - Randalstown
Conor Stinson - St Galls

[Christmas Lights]

No St Galls Minors starting and only 1 on the panel?  Is the talent pool drying up?

[Milltown Row2]

No St Galls Minors starting and only 1 on the panel?  Is the talent pool drying up?

Finished, and looking at that panel (cause that will decide who wins the championships) Creggan and the Johnnies and St Endas will be winning it soon 

[imtommygunn]

Awful sensitive MR