Quote from: yellowcard on March 20, 2023, 09:21:13 AMQuote from: illdecide on March 19, 2023, 11:53:19 PM
Now that the dust has settled a bit I'll give you my two bobs worth on Armagh...We have lost the plot, Armagh have great forwards and playing them all in our own half back line is a sin. I get what KMcG is trying to achieve by pulling everyone back and trying to hit the other teams on the counter as we're poor defensively atm but it's not working. I love Armagh and have followed them all my life and I'm considering taking a sabbatical away as I genuinely can't watch that crap atm. I honestly would rather be beaten and having a go/rattle than get beaten in a close game that was like watch grass grow.
For some reason our top forwards are all below par and seem to be short of confidence...do we go for a shoot out with the Kerry's etc and get humped as we'll be left exposed at the back?...I dunno but if we're still losing anyway why not try it out and see. We have to go to Omagh next week and Tyrone will love nothing more than relegating Armagh and we will only have ourselves to blame for this mess as we had a chance to win every game so far and couldn't manage it, from what i have seen the 3 teams at the bottom are the worst teams in Div 1 and there's nothing between Monaghan and Armagh so whoever has the goolies for it next week will stay up.
I know i'm a bit old school here but can someone please tell me why all forwards are afraid to shoot from 30-45m out, this is from all the games in general. Are forwards told not to shoot unless it's in front of the posts...is this a % thing?. you see guys in what i think is a scoreable position but they won't shoot and recycle the ball across and back and across and back and across and back before someone gets dispossed and the counter attack starts...WTF. You're a County footballer, get within 30-45m and pop the the ball over the bar. Even at club level I played with guys who didn't think twice about shooting from those ranges and hardly ever missed...Maybe the footballer is being replaced with an athlete now and fitness/strength is preferred to a proper footballer...
Rant over...
That's a good synopsis of the situation. I simply don't get the tactics we have adopted during this years League but it would certainly suck the life out of you watching us play at times. I honestly don't know what the attacking plan is other than to work the ball up the pitch slowly and retain possession. We have no identity as I don't know what our playing style is. Most of our best players are in the forward line yet we persist in asking them to play a game that is not suited to their strengths. Whatever feel good factor we had from last years championship run has now gone. We have got very little out of this years League other than blooding one new player (McCambridge) whereas at least the likes of Monaghan can say that they are going through a transition phase blooding new players. When you substitute your best player with 5 minutes remaining with the game still in the melting pot you have to ask what is going on.
If we remember we were also at a bit of a crossroads after the Donegal championship game last year when we played a similar running/possession type game where the players look stifled by fear. After that we threw off the shackles and went more gung ho where the players were encouraged to take risks. I'm holding out hope that we can still do something similar because its still the same bunch of players and we have shown last year that we are more than capable of beating Tyrone, however you wouldn't be confident that we can just turn it around in 8 days.
Very frustrating! I hear lots of complaints about McGeeney, but its fairly clear that he recognises that the gung-ho approach from last year, entertaining as it is, will not win championships. Enda McGinley mentioned this a few weeks ago in the RTE column and I think he was on the money.
However, his assumption was that their attacking game is fine and in the back pocket to be used when appropriate. On the available evidence, I don't think it is. Good and all as Armagh's forwards are, they are wasting chances when they do come along. I counted 5 shots dropped into the keepers' hands and two or three bad wides and a goal chance that they should have finished.
Galway are no slouches and some of those misses were down to Galway pressure - they packed the defence every bit as much as Armagh did. Teams are starting to realise that the answer to a packed defence is to pack your own defence. It's almost like a zero sum game and these fast transitions you dream of, won't happen in reality.
Two things frustrated me about Saturday night: Firstly, that some players first instinct is to go back (or go simple) as soon as they receive the ball, regardless of the risk/reward of a more ambitious pass. Secondly, there were players making runs off the shoulder last night that should have received the ball first time. Instead, the ball carrier took a solo, turned inside and gave the ball backwards - we have a number of players guilty of this. There is no urgency whatsoever when we have a lead. Players look busy, by scuttling about the 40" at speed, but they are going nowhere.
The frustrating thing about Armagh is that when they need scores they will play with urgency by pressing kickouts and flooding the attack when they turnover the ball. They did this against Mayo for the last 10 minutes. They did it against Monaghan for 10 minutes. They went looking for a goal last night and should probably have scored after an excellent turnover from Forker and Mackin's combined efforts.
They give you glimpses of this, but if they get any kind of a lead, all adventure deserts them. It's borderline psycological and not dis-similar to the 1999-2005 team. Give them something to chase and they will be fine. Ask them to defend a lead, they won't build on it, but retreat into their shells.