Down v Derry 1994

[Fear ón Srath Bán]

Best game I have ever seen without at a doubt...even if we did get beat. The difference between this game and the Armagh v Tyrone game is that this was pure attacking football from both sides at a breakneck pace with some of the most talented footballers that I have ever seen (note I say footballers and not athletes as I think SOME of todays top players are better described as athletes than pure talented footballers).

There was no emphasis put on defensive play and I think this particular game is a testament as to how the game is best played. Not that I'm against the tyrone/armagh style of play...if someone had told eamon coleman he would be guaranteed a win that day by blanket defense damn sure he would have done it!

...

I wasn't at it myself, but I did hear in the immediate aftermath from pals who were that this game would indeed go down in the annals as one of the best games, if not the best game, of football ever.  This was an honest, guileless, blissfully artful endeavour, with two almost equally matched sides, who only had forward gears and utterly offensive mindsets.  Given the choice, I think every football fan would opt for football like this.... given the choice; any designs Tyrone might have had about playing with such abandon and panache were well and truly banished against Meath in '96 (not complaining here, that's the way it was, and we just had to get on with it and deal with it the best we could).  Losers may adapt and still lose, but winners will always adapt when they have to.

In short, it was something of a different era, and it was absolutely fitting that the winner of that game would go on and bring Sam to the Mournes for the fifth time.

[Turfsmoke]

Quite simply, The Greatest Game of the greatest game.

You name it, it had it.

[heganboy]

Down have five all irelands kills me even to type that (and makes my wife laugh) but in fairness ye certainly deserved that one

[realredhandfan]

Watch the second half of this game last night and whilst it wasnt as good as the first it was still a carcker.  I thought the referee was outstanding.

[off the laces]

Would any of you know when/if that programme will be shown again, i was working on wed night and missed it i know they would normally show a re-run off player profiles on a friday but i looked at the tv section to-day no sign off the showAs for the reffereeing issue,Tommy Sugrue was the only man in ireland at the time that could have let the game flow as freely as it did. i have the video off sam 94 that shows the run to the all ireland and the only point i would make is that both wee james and his man give as good as each other.

[realredhandfan]

Yip, I spotted 2 dives in this game... at that tage it was known as being cute.  one lead to a point from a free I believe. 

[tbrick18]

Yip, I spotted 2 dives in this game... at that tage it was known as being cute.  one lead to a point from a free I believe. 

One direct score from a free earned by one of the "dives" but there were definately at least a couple of others which came about as a result of a free awarded for this. But fair play to him, if only we had someone as cute as wee james we could have had our second all-ireland on the trot.

Pity there hadnt been a back door back then....a Down v Derry replay that year would have been something else!

[screenexile]

Still didn't get a chance to watch the game the other night as the laptop played up on me and crashed when the match it was on. I was not a happy camper.

Anyway for anyone who hasn't got a chance to watch it yet TG4 have it on their WebTV archive if you click into the site:


www.tg4.tv/channels/sportarchive.aspx#

I'll get a chance to watch it over the nest few days and give an opinion.

[paddypastit]

Peter Quinn just bigged this up as one of the great gakmes of all time on The Sunday Game, adding in that the referee was one of the best of the era

[orangeman]

Peter Quinn just bigged this up as one of the great gakmes of all time on The Sunday Game, adding in that the referee was one of the best of the era

Definitely one of the best of all time altight.  Lives long in the memory.

[drici]

Just started on TG4.

[Wildweasel74]

Watching that game now, even 20yrs later that game seemed to have a serious pace to it, no sweepers, 3 man midfielders, defensive half forwards in that game, just ding dust from start to finish. Defenders these days don't realise how lucky they are, they get that much cover that its hard to work out if they are good or just not exposed by a systems of play, McKeever marked the best, man on man relied on this own ability and came out on top many times, defenders of today are not used to be left so exposed these days,

[Aristo 60]

Mickeys making music out there...

[screenexile]

Eamon Coleman died 7 years ago today . . . RIP!!

[5 Sams]

Eamon Coleman died 7 years ago today . . . RIP!!

+1 One of the games great characters. RIP. Watching that game again reminded me of how many really teak tough men were on both teams. Scullion, McKeever, Gilligan, Tohill, Blaney, Higgins, Conor Deegan, Breen. Great memories.