NFL DIV3

[Trevor Hill]

Firstly congratulations to Tipperary, who deserved to win this evening, they played the better, more direct football and could and maybe should have won by more.

When are we ever going to learn how to defend??? FFS its not rocket science. We conceded two scores because we played the ball across or own goal mouth, but in a way it would be simply to easy to blame the defence, there was no one showing for the ball. Down at times were playing with a 12 and 13 man defence. That is alright when you have men who can actually defend, but as has been seen time and again, we simply cannot defend. We have to depend on our forwards outscoring the other team. They were simply unable to do that today.
Other than the last 15 minutes of normal time Down were very poor. Midfield were being cleaned out, the defence was its usual porous self. Tipperary were able to walk through the middle unchallenged and take their scores all too easily at times, where as Down seemed to labour at times to get a score.
Down still don't seem to have a game plan. The give it to Benny rule was unenforceable today and we missed the movement of McComiskey up front. Murtagh was his usual exasperating self, yes he got a couple of scores including the goal, but he wasted too many opportunities. We seem to play a style of football that has no direction and there is no direction coming from the line, maybe we should ask for the goalposts to be put along the sideline, we`d be All Ireland champions every year.
It was a sharp contrast to last Saturday, when a Down team played open, direct football and played as a unit. The U21s won most of the breaks around the middle of the park last week, whereas no one seemed to want to do the dirty work tonight and get stuck in.

But lets give Tipp a bit of credit, written off as no hoper's at the start of the league, they have shocked everyone but themselves. Well done and good luck in the championship.

Will the GAA ever learn that playing games like this in the arse hole of nowhere serves no real purpose. They are losing out on gate receipts as no one wants to travel to the likes of Longford on a Saturday evening. The game should have been played in Dublin, be that Parnell Park or where ever, or if that was not viable then they should have tossed a coin and given the winner a home draw. The fans of the 4 competing counties voted with their feet this evening and stayed away. When are the GAA going to realise that they are doing no one any favours.