Armagh Club football & hurling

[Onion Bag]

Can anyone confirm definetly when the cut off for the League matches are? I mean do they all have to be played by a particular date?

[Aghdavoyle]

Illdecide - not sure what the story is with sunday. put it like this... we wouldn't be that disppointed if the game needed to be postponed for some reason!

winsamsoon - you sure do go out of your way to take offence. "you think that cross are streets ahead and dromintee are a close second and then a massive gap" are your words. its my opinion that cross are a fair bit ahead of everyone but we are the best of the rest. second is nowhere. noone other than cross have beaten dromintee in chamionship football for eight years now so surely all the teams we've beaten, including clans, harps, ogs, mullaghbawn, etc would've beaten us at least once if they were better than us?

is this the same Dromintee team that only scored 2 points against the cross in a semi final of a county championship.

You can start picking results out of the blue if you like. i'd prefer to say that we took the all ireland champions to a replay, and that replay was the first time they'd beaten us by more than 3 points for 7 years. if the ogs and clans are ahead of us, how come we've beaten clans twice and drawn once in our last three meetings and our last game against the ogs we beat them by 10 points.

we all support our own clubs but a bit of objectivity wouldn't go astray now and again.

[full back]

FFS lads, is this what it has come to?
People are posting and disagreeing about who is the 2nd best team in the county
How embarrassing

[Aghdavoyle]

Feel free to ignore any aspect of local gaa discussion you aren't interested in...

[Aghdavoyle]

http://www.hoganstand.com/ArticleForm.aspx?ID=84159

Best of luck fella

[High Catch]

Big loss for Armagh and Dromintee.....huge gain for Collingwood. I thought the money would have been better though but i suppose its only a rookie salary and the big bucks would follow after the first 2 years.

[High Catch]

I was reading somewhere than the Collingwood coaches believe that Dyas is more advanced than Marty Clarke was at his first trial.  Thats a good sign that he could well be as successful as Clarke.

[Rufus T Firefly]

Have to say that I enjoy these sort of discussions about football within the County. Someone mentioned (was it Maximus) that Cross winning twelve in a row points to a bad standard of club football - I would disagree with that. Maximus also pointed out that Cross winning twelve in a row pointed to the rest having a mental block with Cross, I would agree with that assertion.

Over the twelve years that Cross have dominated in Armagh, there are in my opinion, four teams who could have given an Ulster Club a good rattle.

Mullaghbawn 1996-98. Bear in mind, when Cross won their first Ulster Title, Mullaghbawn were the existing Ulster Club Champions, and their team had the McNultys, Geezer, Neil Smyth and Benny Tierney as it's backbone, and were still a formidable side - if memory serves me well, Cross beat Mullaghbawn in Silverbridge in 1996 in a quarter final, and pulled away late on to win by 4/5. They met again in the 1997 final, and Cross, the exisitng All Ireland Club Champions, edged it by a point. After that, Mullaghbawn began to lose their big players, and faded away - they were for those three years, in my opinion, a top five in Ulster side - their clashes with Cross would support that.

Clan na Gael 1997-99 Another club littered with excellent players at the peak of their powers, the O'Hagans, John Campbell, Philip Oldham, the Marsdens - won back to back Armagh titles in 1993/94, hammering the Mullaghbawn side in the 1994 final that would go on to win Ulster a year later. Not as good as Mullaghbawn above, but I would have said a top 6/7 side in Ulster in the period above.  

Pearse Og 1999-2001 Alright, pains me to say it, but they had a very good team in this period, but were unfortunate to come up against Cross at the height of their powers in 1999 and 2000. The Ogs had a very young team, full of exciting footballers, and in my opinion would have been a top 9 club in Ulster at that time. This was the first time though that I saw serious challengers who clearly had a mental block about Cross. From 2001 on, they fell to three in the County as the challenge of Dromintee arose, and Dromintee were a hurdle that they could not overcome. The Ogs came back again in the first round in 2005 and had Cross at their mercy on two occasions, but the mental block arose again, and a few chances to finish them off were not taken. Plus Dessie Henderson had one of his more eccentric performances at a vital time!   The real losers that night though were Dromintee!  

Dromintee 2001-2004 Another excellent side full of great footballers. They run Cross close on a few occasions, at a point where both sides were giving their all and the result was very much in doubt. Were the second serious challenger however to come undone by the mental block, when winning chances presented themselves. After a  few defeats, it was clear that Cross had their number. In my opinion, that Dromintee side were top five in Ulster - no question about it they would have been in the running for an Ulster Club Title - they just could not get out of their own County. I get the impression though that Dromintee now feel that their chance has gone and they now play with the acceptance that they will not win the County title. I believe this lack of self belief is now shared by the other main contenders.

As of now, Cross are way out in front and comfortably so. Dromintee, in my opinion, would be second on their own and after that I would see a group of Ogs, Harps, Mullaghbawn with Maghery showing signs of improvement.  

[illdecide]

When was this threat made illdecide?
Was it said officially or on the grapevine?

aye he (Brady) rambled something like that last week about how teams could get relegated to division 4 if teams failed to fulfill their fixtures. I don't know if that was official or he was just blowing his trumpet.

P.S. I'm not getting into a stupid row about who is the second best team in Armagh

[Aghdavoyle]

noone was debating about who the second best team in armagh are until winsam imagined thats what he was reading. the discussion was on whether any of armagh's other clubs could compete in the ulster club championship, if the opportunity arose.

[brokencrossbar1]

This row about who the second best team is is silly, we all know that it is Cross's subs who are the second best team

Good synopsis an Rufuiseach.  I note with interest you do not see Na Clarsaigh as part of the main challengers, which on performances in the championship is understandable.  They may have the players but there is something missing.

IMHO, Armagh club football is perceived as being a joke country wide.  No matter how much you try to explain to people that Cross simply are a special bunch of players, the seem to think that there is some county wide failure to try to beat Cross.  I, for one, can tell anyone here that over the time of my career playing I never was marked by a harder marker than Collie Burns, nor played against a team as good consistenly as Dromintee.

Mentally it may be that the sight of the jersey has teams a few points down, but in fairness that was the case before, it just seems to have gotten worse.

I have no doubt that Dromintee would have given Ulster a fair rattle, Mullaghbawn obviously did, Clans would have had the ablity to rattle a few teams but would not have won it as they rely on too few of players, Ogs I think would struggle as football in Novemeber is a big mans game and the are not the most physically imposing team.  That is not to say though that they would not make a big name side sweat, I just think they would struggle.

Anyway, roll on the Ulster, I may get up for the semi or the final if they make it.  I also have to support Mrs BC's home club, Cushendun, in the Intermediate hurling so I could be a busy traveller.

[Rufus T Firefly]

Good synopsis an Rufuiseach.  I note with interest you do not see Na Clarsaigh as part of the main challengers, which on performances in the championship is understandable.  They may have the players but there is something missing.

Well for our part BC we defintely have potential, but the prevailing attitude will see to it that we will come nowhere near to fulfilling that potential. We played Cross in the league last Sunday week, and with a degree of comfort I could have named a Harps 1 to 15 that the Harps could have fielded that would have hammered the Harps team that lined out - the team I could name would have included 9/10 County Minors and 4 County Seniors. It's a real pity, and I see it repeated elsewhere throughout the County to a bigger or lesser extent.

That said, over the last twelve years, we were able to get one or two big performances that unfortunately could not be replicated on a consistent basis. We beat Clans off the park (in football terms  ) in the first round in Derrymacash in 1999, and that Clans side was building for what they saw as a date with destiny with Cross - that Clans team were top six in Ulster at that time. We followed it up however with an absolute shocker against a Geezerless Mullaghbawn in Cross, when we were beaten 0-11 to 0-04.

Mentally it may be that the sight of the jersey has teams a few points down, but in fairness that was the case before, it just seems to have gotten worse.

100% correct, and it is Dromintee who have suffered the most - as stated, I get the impression that defeats to Cross have totally undermined their self belief in being able to dethrone Cross.

[winsamsoon]

Aghdavoyle for starters me saying that Dromintee were the best of the rest ( even though i never said this) is the same as saying a team is second best. It really doesn't matter who beat who in the last 8 years the only team to have won the championship is Cross. Dromintee have won nothing so stop talking like you have. By all means engage in discussions but don't try to represent something that your club has not yet achieved. Rufus , you think that Maghery should be rated higher than the clans    then i really have nothing further to say to you. I really don't know where you are coming from. Certainly we are a team in decline but Magery are a very young team with no experience and i can guarantee they will break no delf in the next ten years. Ask the maghery men about the article written in the lurgan mail, claiming they were the best team in north Armagh. Look up the league result for the following week Draw your own conclusions. I will agree with one thing you said rufus i like the club debates and Ahgdavoyle is correct when he says if you don't like the discussion feel free to bypass them.

[pintsofguinness]

carrickcruppen game with silverbridge will now take place in silverbridge on tuesday night of next week under floodlights to facilitate the opening of the new field on sunday at silverbridge!

Well even without the opening I wouldn't be to happy if the fixture was forced as it would mean playing lads saturday and sunday or not fielding sunday.

[Rufus T Firefly]

Rufus , you think that Maghery should be rated higher than the clans    then i really have nothing further to say to you. I really don't know where you are coming from. Certainly we are a team in decline but Magery are a very young team with no experience and i can guarantee they will break no delf in the next ten years.

Wouldn't be a lot in it to be honest - I would have Maghery ahead of Clans, based on what I have seen in the league and this year's Championship results.

You seem very confident of your position, given that there is a tacit acceptance in your quote that Maghery are young (and it is thus likely that their best years are ahead of them) and Clans are in decline.

Clans have a greater tradition than Maghery - I hope that does not blind you to the realities of today!