Messages

Did anyone happen to watch the MacRory final yesterday? There were a few Down men on the St Pauls team according to commentary. Couple of men from An Riocht and a corner forward from Burren.

Why are these lads not playing for Down schools? St Colmans or the Abbey. Even one of the high schools like St Marks or St Malachys in Castlewellan.

Anyone able to locate the club league fixtures on our great county website?

They are being released tonight.

[Michael Cunningham, Kieran GordanDavid McKibbin, James Colgan, Daryl Brannigan, Declan Rooney, Conor Garvey, Kevin DuffinNiall McParland, Peter Fitzpatrick, Paul Greenan, Shane Harrison Ross McGarry, Chris Clarke , Robbie White, Caolan Mooney, Paul McComiskey, Paul Devlin, Conor Poland, Conor Maginn, Marty Clarke, Jerome Johnston]

Any one know the situation regarding some of following players with regards to senior setup;

Michael Cunningham, Kieran Gordan

David McKibbin, James Colgan, Daryl Brannigan, Declan Rooney, Conor Garvey, Kevin Duffin

Niall McParland, Peter Fitzpatrick, Paul Greenan, Shane Harrison

Ross McGarry, Chris Clarke , Robbie White, Caolan Mooney, Paul McComiskey, Paul Devlin, Conor Poland, Conor Maginn, Marty Clarke, Jerome Johnston

Have they been approached or are already involved or are coming into the panel at a later stage? I apologise if any of the players named above have an obvious explanation to their involvement. I am also not that familiar with the Loughinisland boys that could be involved, except for K. Gordan and possibly Dan Gordan but I am fairly sure Dan won't be back.

Division 1 was always going to be a baptism of fire for new management and evidently from what was on show tonight a lot of new players.

Being brutally honest I was looking at a few of our players tonight and I had to have a second or third look at the programme to get the name of them, I hadn't seen them before and they did not look like county standard. A lot of our household names are not present at the moment through various reasons but IMHO if we are to give a decent account of ourselves in Division 1 and not go down without a fight these players need re-introduced.

I have absolutely no doubt that the new players in the team are giving 100% at training and doing their best but it might just be the case that they are not good enough, especially at for Division 1. Having said that Donegal seemed a step ahead of Down and much fitter and sharper. This definitely should not be the case when playing the opening game of the league, on your home turf and trying to impress a new manager and cement a starting berth on team.

As mentioned before Donegal's bench was extremely strong and they had Down well beat before introducing some of their more regular players. On the other hand Down's substitutions were very poor tonight, which again would point to getting some of the more established players from previous seasons back in the Down jersey.

[Burren bridge fiasco]

Interesting points made about secretary, let me add , there's no doubting he works hard but sometimes it's better to work smarter not harder , he doesn't delegate so gets little help , he likes to have control of everything Down does that make him a bad , no just a control junkie,we have a few things wrong at present , it's incomprehensible that we have several still on the executive that presided over the Burren bridge fiasco, they should be asked to leave, we have a high profile county player who delighted in rubbishing his beloved county in the local newry newspaper, again he should be asked to choose, paper or county he can't ride two horses at the same time, why wasn't Croke park not advised what was going down with Burrenbridge deal, apparently they were pulled in when the extent of the loss was revealed-a mess , and finally what's the feeling regarding the proposal which was voted down to let the executive have sole control in appointing all county managers, thankfully it was defeated but it leaves me questioning the motive and finally as an east down Gael why did we as a county fund the erection of lights in the Abbey , presently the minors are training in Ballykinlar , why did we as a county not upgrade those lights, maybe to sensible

Could any one provide a general explanation of this Burrenbridge deal please?

If a club secretary publicly questioned its senior players committment in their AGM report they would not have a senior team for the incoming year.

i personally thought the report was emotionally driven and personally opinionated and a platform to blame everyone else but themselves.

a rule of thumb - if its not positive keep it to yourself

better to pen a few paragraphs of positivity than pages of drivel . everyone that follows Down GAA dont need a report on what went wrong - better to say how can we get it right

+100000

This loan was to pay of the remainder of the debt of Burrenbridge.

What is this in relation to?

Could any one post how the leagues shape up next year? Are they finalised?

Apologies if they have been posted prior.

"We haven't started yet lads" usually shouted by an oul boy along the line after 45minutes of play

"Where's your book ref???"

"Points win All Irelands"

"Take your points, the goals will come"

"Get him aff, ta f**k"

Just reading preview of the Loughinisland game 2mar, do neither of the O' Reilly's play for them anymore?

I also found this a bit curious? Are Jamie and Ben both abroad?

[I would not tolerate local fellas that wouldn t bother training though - no matter how talented they are. If your best players don t train and only show up a couple of weeks before championship, its a waste of time. Unless the top players drive training and buy in the rest will have no heart in it either. Utter waste of time.]

I know if I was the player that got dropped I'd feel sick. Professional athlete or not if he has just arrived and not been there for the majority of the season from January I would not start him. I agree with the some peoples opinions that some manager are just there for money and they justify the money they earn by how many games they win. I've been on teams in the past were a couple of fairly talented players have swanned in a week before the first league game of the season and trained once or twice and the manager has started them come the league game. The mood in the changing room and the attitude towards the manager afterwards from players who had been in line to start before the late comers arrived was awful, and it set the mood for the remainder of the season....

Sickening.

No doubt the following year there was an early push for training and usual bullshit about commitment. No doubt the lads stung the previous year learned their lesson and idled back the next or bother at all. There are better things to do in life than get messed about like that.

How many years of unbroken service would Tuohy have given his club from 6 years of age? It's not like he's a blow in

Touhy is a no-brainer. He's available and legal you play him of course. If he was local you can be sure he would be a trainer.

The discussion went off on a bit of a tangent then about prima donnas arriving late in the season in clubs. I saw it as a player and had to try and deal it as a manager as well. That was what I was talking about. You re fucked if you do and fucked if you don't. You try and keep the lads that did the slog in Jan/Feb involved and try to win games with a few more talented lads that make the effort to make the journey down for games. I would not tolerate local fellas that wouldn t bother training though - no matter how talented they are. If your best players don t train and only show up a couple of weeks before championship, its a waste of time. Unless the top players drive training and buy in the rest will have no heart in it either. Utter waste of time.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

I know if I was the player that got dropped I'd feel sick. Professional athlete or not if he has just arrived and not been there for the majority of the season from January I would not start him. I agree with the some peoples opinions that some manager are just there for money and they justify the money they earn by how many games they win. I've been on teams in the past were a couple of fairly talented players have swanned in a week before the first league game of the season and trained once or twice and the manager has started them come the league game. The mood in the changing room and the attitude towards the manager afterwards from players who had been in line to start before the late comers arrived was awful, and it set the mood for the remainder of the season....

Gents, I was hoping some old hands could help out here.

By any chance would any one have any old pictures or video footage from the Ulster final in 1981 or the All Ireland semi final of that year? Down beat Armagh in the Ulster final pretty handy I think, and lost out to Offlay in the semi.

Cheers

Four good ones

The cow dung square

Dancing

White collar boxing

Dog night :

All with ad filled programmes and raffle on night .

Thanks ashman. Did your club run any of these and you have an idea of initial costs or have you just attended such events?

Something I've found brought a lot of ones together from my home club is the Biggest Loser, it got a lot of people that weren't too involved with the GAA together, used the senior team as group leaders and exercise coaches, charge a couple of quid for circuit classes etc fantastic for community relations and did good work int he community.

Great idea, could even pull a few boys out of retirement  How long did you run it for? Was it a post Christmas kind of thing? Seems like something that could fizzle out after a month or so?