Crossmaglen Rangers v Kilmacud Crokes

[guevara]

Wasnt a great game but as some have pointed out already Finals sometimes tend to be terrible.

Fair play to Crokes, looked fitter, quicker off the mark & were downright hungry to beat Cross to the finish.
In Magee at midfield they had a tower of strength who cleaned out McEntee & young McKenna & provided the foundations on which the Crokes victory was built. He was superb caught clean ball all day & mixed it when needed.
Vaughan IMO was terrible, kicked stupid frees that were never on & tends to be more concerned with what he scores as opposed to what he can do for his team.
Crokes couldve won by more if they had been more clinical with chances & Vaughan was the main culprit. He went out & hit a free from 14 on his wrong side & even though it was inevitable he would miss instead of going short he continued to kick a stupid wide that couldve proven so costly.
Davoren at FF, Burke at 15 & Kavanagh at 11 all caused problems & were willing runners. Davoren cleaned McKeown then P Kernan & finally gave Francie the run around.

Cross on other side were lacklustre & guilty of too many basic errors in decision making. They must have dropped 6 or 7 short in first half alone.
Donaldson, Bellew, McEntee's & McConville all have a lot of miles on the clock but a team that can cut down Ballinderry & anything else Ulster had to offer cant be written off! Crokes simply got scores when it mattered & if Cross hadve been a bit cuter they could be celebrating another AI title in the Rangers tonight

[INDIANA]

Not at all if you knew your Gaa history(which you obviously don't) you'd know vincents won 13 county titles in a row and it wasn't because we were fabulous. had a lot to do with the others not being very good. But then again I'd have a sense of perspective not something I'd expect you to appreciate.

Wrong. Ye won 7 and 6 - 1949-55 and 1957-62. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Senior_Football_Championship

Ballina hold the record jointly with Cross of 13, unless someone else did it and is keeping very quiet about it.

We still dispute that to this day as it was a disputed championship but I suppose its not legimtiately regonised so I'll concede it . Even still the point remains it wasn't a reflection of us being fantastic. We had some very good teams in those eras- but others who wouldn't have won county championships had their been decent opposition.

[INDIANA]

Wasnt a great game but as some have pointed out already Finals sometimes tend to be terrible.

Fair play to Crokes, looked fitter, quicker off the mark & were downright hungry to beat Cross to the finish.
In Magee at midfield they had a tower of strength who cleaned out McEntee & young McKenna & provided the foundations on which the Crokes victory was built. He was superb caught clean ball all day & mixed it when needed.
Vaughan IMO was terrible, kicked stupid frees that were never on & tends to be more concerned with what he scores as opposed to what he can do for his team.
Crokes couldve won by more if they had been more clinical with chances & Vaughan was the main culprit. He went out & hit a free from 14 on his wrong side & even though it was inevitable he would miss instead of going short he continued to kick a stupid wide that couldve proven so costly.
Davoren at FF, Burke at 15 & Kavanagh at 11 all caused problems & were willing runners. Davoren cleaned McKeown then P Kernan & finally gave Francie the run around.

Cross on other side were lacklustre & guilty of too many basic errors in decision making. They must have dropped 6 or 7 short in first half alone.
Donaldson, Bellew, McEntee's & McConville all have a lot of miles on the clock but a team that can cut down Ballinderry & anything else Ulster had to offer cant be written off! Crokes simply got scores when it mattered & if Cross hadve been a bit cuter they could be celebrating another AI title in the Rangers tonight

Crokes could be around for a while. Massive adult football base - 1o adult teams- young age profile of this team - 4 defenders u21. Could be the start of a major era for them.

[thebandit]

Not long home from the game.... Very disappointed for Cross, better team won and fair play to them. Today was a chance for some of the legends of club football to go out on the ultimate high, but it wasn't to be. I've had some brilliant days following Cross over the last 13 years, and they have inspired so many people over the years.

I'm biased, and I don't care what anyone thinks, Crossmaglen Rangers are the greatest club side of all time and Oisín is the greatest club player of all time.

[armaghniac]

10 adult teams

By way of comparison, while Cross have a bigger pick than most around S Armagh, Crokes have more players than there are males in the senior playing age group in Cross.

[INDIANA]

Crokes have a bigger pick than all other club teams in dublin. Vincents have 4 adult teams - plunketts have 3. Brigids would be next biggest  with about 7. Unless of course you include UCD - who have all of ireland to pick from.

[INDIANA]

Correction - crokes only have 6 teams - must have got rid of a few- used to have a lot more than that. Catchment area of about 250k though- but you have to factor rugby into that though.

[winsamsoon]

Correction - crokes only have 6 teams - must have got rid of a few- used to have a lot more than that. Catchment area of about 250k though- but you have to factor rugby into that though.

Brilliant Indiana you should take up comedy. To put the achievements of this cross team down to the weakness of opposition is total shite .

Firstly Cross can only beat what is put in front of them
secondly Cross were also beating the other teams in Ulster and Ireland as handily a say Dromintee and Mullaghbawn. (Infact on many occassions their toughest matches came in the Armagh SFC (Sarsfields 96 when they won by 1 point) went on to win an All Ireland and they have had several ding dong battles with Dromintee over the years. Not to mention the Harps game last year. So it is a fact that they beat these teams because Cross were the best in Ireland not because Armagh teams were shite.
Thirdly If their record in the Armagh championship doesn't impress you (and they have no disputes over their 13 titles) then you only have to look at their record in Ulster you know that province where they play the most competitive championship.
The fourth point refers to that rediculous stat you posted to which i am still laughing. If Cross had a catchment area of 250,000 no one else would enter the all Ireland because they would put an under 10 team out and win it. You say you know some of the clubs in Armagh but you clearly don't understand the mentality of Cross. The whole county doesn't have a catchment of 250,000 ffs come on man catch a grip (plus i think rugby may have reached the plains of the north aswell as soccer and all the other distractions)

[INDIANA]

Yawn. You seem to forget my own club has a bit of history in multiple county championship sucesses. We won quite a few with very average teams- I should know I played on enough of them. I don't try and dress them up as anything else. Its just the way we are in Dublin- totally cynical and that includes assessing our own teams .

[armaghniac]

Crokes do not have a catchment of 250K, although it is large. But Cross do not have 2.5K.

[RedandGreenSniper]

We haven't hard the end of Cross by any means. People are very quick to write them off on the basis of today. They were poor today but they were still good enough to get to an All-Ireland final beating some very good opposition (Ballinderry spring to mind). One game doesn't end a team, its a lot more gradual. Cross won't be the force they once were, I'd venture, but they'll still be a serious force to be reckoned with.

To refer to my own county when Crossmolina won the county title in 2005 and lost the Connacht semi-final to Salthill everyone was on about it being the end of an era. Funnily enough they turned around and won the county title the following year (2006). They were then hammered in the quarter-final replay against Charlestown in 2007 (the worst I've ever seen them in championship) and the obituaries were written again but in 2008 they got to the county semi-final and deserved to win only for three fortunate enough goals for Ballaghaderreen, which gave the eventual county champions an undeserved victory.
This year they have as good a chance as anyone of winning in Mayo, esp with Maughan back in charge of them. Like Crossmaglen they'll rely on the old guard of McDonald, Nallens, Joe Keane, Paul McGuinness, Gardiner etc, with a sprinkling of young players. True, they won't be winning an All-Ireland anytime soon but you don't just drop off the charts altogether.
The same applies for Crossmaglen except for the fact that they seem to have a much stronger underage than Crossmolina, so they could conceivably be challenging for another few years.

[PadraicHenryPearse]

Congrats to Crokes  - Delighted for the guys. Will be back in Ireland on Saturday to celebrate.

There are 6 adult teams in Crokes. the 6th team started 2 years ago as the 5th team (drinking team) went on a good run and decided to take it a bit more serious leaving older and younger weaker minors with no football. The 5th team have won 2 promotions in 2 years and the 6th tem i think got promoted last year. There are a hard core of Kilmacud Men but the general support is not there in the Kilmacud/stillorgan area. It is not like the old country team i used to play for where the GAA club was the centre of the Community. KC have had a good team for around 5 years now and from what i hear about the young lads coming through they will be strong for another while.

Meanwhile i hope to get a game with the 5th and 6th teams when i get back home for 3 weeks, nothing like a year away travelling to let you know how much you miss a game of football.

[Zapatista]

Congratulations to Kilmacud Crokes. Deserving winners. Kilmacud were much sharper and battled harder for every ball. Crossmaglen were disappointing but I suppose that's because I expected them to win. Cross are an excellent team and any run down of them is taking away from Crokes victory. Crokes beat the best club in Ireland on the most important day of the year and deserve all that comes with it. Cross couldn't handle the high work rate of Crokes which spanned all 60 minutes. While I always expected Cross to come back Crokes kept the same pace throughout and really kept Cross against the ropes. No matter what changes Cross made they couldn't force Crokes to make a change and Crokes pattern continued. Cross had some very poor shot selection in the first half which left them playing catch up against a very energetic Crokes team making it very difficult to get close enough to maximise pressure at the end. I couldn't understand how Vaughan was allowed to hit some of those frees and why he thought he could make them count.

[full back]

Disappointing game but the best team on the day won

Very unlike Cross, but they looked dead on their feet - even in the first half. Just looked to have lead in their legs on occasions & looked lethargic in comparison to KC.
Cross took the wrong option on too many occasions, be it shooting from difficult/impossible angles or dropping the ball in to the keeper's arms.
Cross were well below par, but were still in the mix with 10 mins to go

[brokencrossbar1]

Indiana, I have no issue debating with you but since Vincents beat us last year you have gone out of your way to denigrate our achievements, make out we were finished, make out we only won because the opposition were crap.  Frankly, it became very tiresome and last night I had enough.  We are a small enough club with a fraction of the pick that urban clubs have.  We have built up a success story based on hard work and absolute self belief. 

Yesterday was a disappointment but we were beaten fair and square.  I have no issues with referees, I have no issues about Crokes tactics, I have no issue with the end result.  I have an issue with the way people are writing us off and how some people(including Armagh people) have, in the space of 24 hours, gone from hailing us as the greatest team ever, to a team of has beens.  Greatest is not built over one game and not destroyed over one game.  We lost a final yesterday(and to put it in perspective for you, in our history of 110 odd years we have played in 65 senior finals at county, provincial and  AI, and have lost 17, the majority of those loses we before WW2).  This particular team will be back.  We need to freshen a few things up, but there will be a rest from serious football for the older legs now till July/August and this will give the younger lads the opportunity to stake their claims.  We will not produce another Oisin just like that, but in Jamie Clarke we have a young lad who can make it big.  We will not produce another Francie, but Paul Kernan is an able replacement and a different style of FB, JD will be gone soon but the likes of Brendan and Paul McKeown will be major players in the next few years.   The twins in my view will be the hardest to replace, but given time David McKenna will be a domineering figure in the MF on a consistent basis.  But you has to be understood that outside of the names I have mentioned, the rest of the team are under 25 so to say we are finished is sheer nonsense.