Messages

I wouldn't bother Mighty, imagine the fun you'll have dodging Pat and Seamus the next you're lovely Donegal

Thanks McLovin, the field is looking well, the new lights brought abit to the occasion.  It was a fairly even game last night and I think a draw would have been a fair result considering both teams played good football at different stages throughout the match.  My two main gripes with the ref were two decisions he made in the second half - the cruppen keeper took a quick kick out with about 5 or 6 players inside the 21 yard line, ball went straight up the field and Peter Loughran scored a goal.  In the first half he made the Bridge keeper retake a kickout for exactly the same thing, abit of consistency wouldn't have went amiss there.  Also in the second half our keeper tried to catch a ball that was going wide.  Our umpire give it wide (there was no Cruppen umpire), the ref overruled him and give a 50 which was put over the bar.  That was 4 points, the difference in winning and losing the match.  That said, I thought the ref was fairly good, he let the game flow.

Asitis, you seem to be very interested in Silverbridge.  Out of 4 posts you have made on the board, 3 have been about the 'Bridge, and none of them complimentary!  This coming someone from another club as well.  By the way what is that club?

In responce to these comments about B final. I was at the game, and this certain county man was only giving encouragement to a very good cullyhana side. The game was a clean game for the most part and if anyone was dirty it would definately have been the former county man from the bridge who recieved a yellow card and should have got sent off! Prob would have only it would have done his tv image harm! He was very poor on top of that!

Tevez your first post has shown you up to be a gobsite of mammoth proportions.  The former county man as you described him (Jarlath Burns), received 2 knees in the back (otherwise know as a tackle in Cullyhanna).  His crime was to get up from the "tackle" and give out to the lad who carried out the offence.  Its clear that Martin Trainor (the linesman) and also Tony Watters (the ref) are afraid of Cullyhanna and aren't going to step on their toes, so a yellow card to the victim was the only action possibly from 2 yellow officials!

I look forward to more gems from you Tevez as you clearly seem to know your football, stones!

six inch as i read  about your third post on this board your face popped into my head and i could see you saying every word. and you've confirmed since then that you are that person. unreal. 

Am I that obvious Pints?  Well aren't you the real Sherlock Holmes.  You're proving to be abit more elusive though, although I'd be quite sure that I put the Pints theory to you a couple of times and you denied it, just like St. Peter, except that you're denying yourself .

I remember Eamon being interviewed going off the field at halftime in the 1993 All Ireland Final.  He was asked about the Gormley/Calahane incident and he said "the rule says that if you strak first you must go, Calahane struck and he didn't".  Classic.

RIP

six inch nail, its incredibale, you type just like you talk!

Pints, what exactly do you mean?  Besides, one has to keep up certain standards, doesn't one?

Corn I was talking about the incident you mentioned, I suppose you could argue that there wasn't alot of malice, but it was fairly high.  You're right about the match, it was shit, I'm sure from a Dromintee point of view the start was good viewing (and even from a netural's point of view), however the remaining 40 minutes were brutal.  I'm not going to get into a row with you about Martin O'Rourke, but he is a nasty bit of work and draws players out to the last.  He is constantly looking to wind players up, take the incident in the second half when the Newtown midfielder give him abit of a clip on the ground disguised as a tackle.  O'Rourke got up after he got abit of treatment and followed the player the whole way into the full forward line mouthing.  The Newtown player was already booked and O'Rourke was trying to get a rise from the player and a red card, don't like him.

I agree with you about refs not having the balls to do the right thing just because someone is on a card already.

As for Orchard County.  A great website, but most of the posters on it probably weren't even around to remember Armagh winning the All Ireland in 2002!

Dromintee had it handy against Newtown, a very poor outfit. Contest was over after 20 minutes when Dromintee went 8-0 up.

Hoghlight of the match was ther Newtown Keepers run to the half way line with the ball. Newtown employed some dirty tactics.

Corn, Dromintee were no doubt the better team over the hour.  However, they won the match in the first 15 minutes and things were pretty even after that, it just looked like Dromintee were much better because they always had a big lead.  For the last 45 minutes of the match it was 4 points apiece!

I agree that the keepers run in the second half was great, he was playing corner forward for Newtown in the drawn match so he is no stranger to that end of the field.  However I disagree that Newtown employed dirty tactics.  One of the Newtown players got a suspected broken nose in the first 5 minutes of the match, no punishment was the outcome.  Brendan Gorman generally takes no shit, however he is the most biased ref in the county towards county and former county players and I felt that he showed this last night.

As for that kn**ker McKeever and Cullyhanna generally, headbutting is what they are brought up on and its just second nature to them at this stage.  I would have expected more from Rory Robinson, but he's just shown himself up to be as gutless as alot of other ref's in the county, he might get a telling off from the county board if he was to send off a county kn**ker star.

Frank McGuigan Snr

[I remember thinking, as I stood in the Canal End as Dooher lifted it, that I was finally satisfied when it comes to my county's achievement.]

I have to say that, for me, Tyrone's success in '02, '03 and '05 has dimmed the absolute neccessity to attend every championship game. I think that, apart from the real diehards, it's a natural feeling. I'd also say the birth of my children also changed my priorities in life. The butterflies aren't the same. In saying that they'll return but not to the same extent. I remember thinking, as I stood in the Canal End as Dooher lifted it, that I was finally satisfied when it comes to my county's achievement. I know that time dims that memory and you want more but that manic yearning throughout the 80s and 90s has diminished for now.

Ditto O'Neill.  Hard to admit that you wouldn't want to follow your county, but other things become a priority.  I hope I don't miss too many games this summer (I haven't got a ticket for Sunday though), but if I do it won't be the disaster it was a couple of years ago.

Well one thing that many people that live near me, and this is just in East-Meath,

.  Where exactly is East-Meath, I heard of Westmeath alright, but never Eastmeath

A couple of things.  I was talking to a chap who was at the Down-Cavan replay in Newry.  He went to go into the new stand with his 13 or 14 year old daughter and was asked for £18 apiece.  No free admission for under 16's into this stand.  He went across to the other side and paid £12 for himself and the daughter got in for nothing.  Bad organisation, considering the new stand was half empty and as a result it looked very bad.  No sense at all.

Also for Paddy Heaney (who always writes great articles including Tuesdays, but lot of the times tries to get a rise out of people of the Off The Fence colum) to compare Gaelic supporters to soccer ones is silly.  The population of Ireland is in the region of 5 million, alot of the teams that he is referring to would come from cities where the population is over 2 million (this is a guess as I haven't done any research).  Plain and simple, numbers, to compare these two situations is ludicrous.

On the Kerry note, I used to think that they were badly supported.  However after Armagh's sucess since 1999 I now think that they are well supported because the same hunger can't remain after success.

PS, (and don't anyone bother giving me a telling off for this) its becomming increasingly hard to support a team which has Ciaran McKeever and Malachy Mackin in its ranks

Very easy for the faceless warriors to make these sort of allegations that cant be proven or disproven. All I'll say is that its a bit suspicious that someone who "isnt from either club" would be at a local derby. Why werent you at your own clubs match? And then use their first couple of posts to post soemthing like this which other people at the game have no knowledge of. I cant tell if the fella is lying or not but I'd have my doubts about taking his word as gospel.

And for your information inthemaking nobody in Cullyhanna is "loving it" as you put it. I hope the fella's alright, it was a bad accident and, as anyone at the match can confirm, our clubs official did their best to make sure he was taken care of properly.

Lets face Tacadoir, we know it to be fact for two reasons, 1. The boys carrying the stretcher heard it being said, and 2. We know the knackers who said it and it would be typical of them.  One of them bit one of our players last year in the championship melee.  Its not like their record is impecable.  And as for McKeever shouting about scumbags, hes some role model, a bigger sc**bag never pulled a jersey over his back.  The Cullyhanna officials were fairly sharp with the stretcher right enough, but what else could they do.  Your manager is another p***k of the highest level.  He was still trying to wind up our players doing the warm down after the match.  Probably so as he could get hitting someone from behind again!

You're right though about the 3 quick points before half time, they decided the match.  Although I felt that if we got the first score in the second half we were right back, Cullyhanna got two and it was game over.  I wouldn't necessarily say that Cullyhanna were better all over the field, we couldn't put our possession into scores, Cullyhanna couldn't miss.  As a result a gap widens and the game turns into a training session. 

Aidan O'Rourke is still paying the price for a bad team performance against Fermanagh in 2004, where, in particular their wings forwards give us a roasting.  After that Joe straight away started looking for smaller, faster halfbacks (McKeever, Kernan, Duffy).  None of these boys can defend like O'Rourke, strong in the tackle and a great sence of where to be.  I think he should still be there.  Sean O'Sullivan bullied Paul Duffy out of it last year, he wouldn't have done that to O'Rourke.  Obviously his passing is sublime - remember the pass to McDonnell for the winning score in the All-Ireland final in 2002.

[Gormley]

In Tyrone football,  Gormley and Dooher have been the bravest over the last 10 years. 

Difficult to add him because he dives so much and goes to ground too easily. Dont get me wrong he is strong in the tackle & brave winning break ball etc, but the fact that he drops like a fly if tackled when on the ball goes against him IMHO

Ditto with Dooher!

Brian Roper for me is a hardy wee bastard.  As someone else said a big man should be in there anyway, a small man who goes in with the animals is brave!

I went that direction a few times Donagh, a great job right enough.

Its hard to look past Donegal, even before yesterdays win they look the best in Ulster.  Although I was very concerned going into last years Ulster Final and we came out on top.  Donegal have now broken their duck as far as winning something goes.  However, how will they cope now being strong favourites?  I think they might do it.