Antrim Hurling

[Minder]

The ref has just indicated there will be 270 minutes of injury time so we wont know a winner until well after 9pm

[youngfella]

Sweet christ thats a late start, Sorry i didnt check i thought it was at a normal time. 8 pm wats that all about ?

[PlayWithTheWind]

did Magill play football today for his club?

also £10 entre fee, a more realistic price for a championship game. how does the ulster council decide its £19 into watch football and £10 into hurling.

[Glensman]

Too tired to write a full report but just a couple of comments.

1.
Though I didn't see the two specific incidents (within the first 8-10 minutes) I would guess that Watson did indeed deserve two yellow cards and had to go. Derry clearly had a pretty cynical (smart) gameplane to wind him up. It worked a treat and he got sent off.
He must realise himself that teams are going to try and do that.

2.
Thereafter every single decision (bar a couple) was got wrong by the referee..Declan Magee if I am not mistaken. That was officially thee worst display of officialdom I have seen EVER.
He gave frees the wrong way.
He blew for a free where there was a simple tussle and would en route to the specific place of the incident decide who the free was for.
He blew for a free once and en route to the specific place of the incident and couldn't decide so he gave a two man ball....a two man ball when he had blown up in the middle of the pitch??
He blew for a free and clearly forgot the direction in which the team was shooting and ran off towards the wrong goal, only to realise and then do a random loop around and act as if he knew where he was going.
He would blow for the most inocuous of tackles outfield, Paddy Richmond had nearly the shirt pulled off him in penalty box in his clear line of sight and he waved play on.

Referees have a thankless task - when playing myself I rarely blame them or give them abuse but he was a complete and utter joke. Apologies Declan but you need to take a look at yourself.

3.
Paddy Richmond would grace all county teams in Ireland

4.
Not getting into my usual, I've had a couple of pints so I'll be over optimistic but Antrim...having gone down to 14 men after 8 minutes (losing a super but fragile minded forward) eventually made their class shine through:
Graffin is a class act
Karl Stewart seems to have matured as a player
When important interceptions were needed McKeegan and Herron were there
And Richmond.

Downsides:
too many wides from long range
STUPID STUPID play when going down to 14 men. On the very few occasions when players took a look up and decided to play a diagonal ball, or quite simply decide to avoid their 15th man sweeping we did damage...why this wasn't barked from the sideline I don't know "please boys avoid that guy in the red helmet there, he has acres of space and I'd say that if you hit the ball to him it may very well come right back at you, but sure that's just a thought"...take that extra touch (against Derry you can with all due respect) the amount of times players did not look up when passing through was disgraceful.

Anyhow...I've gone on.

Down will be tougher.

Galway will be a different kettle of fish altogether but why the feck not?!

[Glensman]

Magill didn't play football today.

After about 3 mins he made a super catch a great burst out of defence but pulled up having pulled a muscle.
Thought at the time it was hamstring...told later it may have been his achilles.
Shame.
Hope he's not out for too long.

[Trouble Ahead]

Glensman, you are 100% correct, maybe the railway cup scenario with Loughnan has taken its toll!! John Gough the 2nd he was extremely poor, and this from a man who was saying down our way pardon the punn, that he felt that he should get the Ulster Final!!!!!

He systamatically killed the game, not that it was great anyway, referees have a major contribution to make to any game, he did,nt?

[Minder]

Listen lads, Deccy Magee is the worst ref i have ever seen, and i am not just talking about inter county refs, i am talking Antrim Div 3 hurling, the lot. I have heard he is one of the few that is mad keen to do games and that is why he has had a meteoric rise throughout the ranks. Thankless task but he does himself no favours.......

[podge]

i am afraid everything that has been said about deccy is true.  an awful performance with the whistle from start to finish and both teams must be frustrated.  he wants to the the star of the show.  he blew ryan mc garry up twice for quick puck outs and gave 2 men on the 21.  Now technically this may be correct (not sure??) but on the second occassion all antirm players were outside the 21 yard line and he still pulled it back.  so if derry were being smart, and wanted to slow the game down, they just had to take their time in getting outside the 21.

i must say derry;s tactics were a bit disappointing.  clearly they wanted watson off which is fair enough and can;t believe he fell for it.  after that they seemed to want to break the game up and every time there was physical contact a man went down, the trainer came on and we had a 1 or 2 minute delay.  very frustrating to watch and deccy did nothing to try and counter this.

as for antrim, they seemed lost when a man down and tactically they were all over the place in the first half.  a free man in their half backs so what do we do?  we have our two wing half forwards (natty and mick herron) dropping deep, leaving one half forward against his man and the sweeper.  that half forward being hippy is too slow for intercounty I am afraid and there couldn;t have been a man less suited to this role- we needed a man able to cover a lot of ground in short space of time.  He wasn;t helped of course by the aimless ball that was being played in.  Richmonds goal, which was awful play by the derry back, kept us in it in the first half.

To be fair, woody and sambo changed it in the second half.  hippy off and the two wing half forwards holding their positions.  the spare man didn;t count in the second half.

a few other observations:

for me, mc keague isn;t convincing at full back and gets caught on the wrong side a lot.  seems like a disaster waiting to happen but in his defence it doesn;t seem to come along that much at club level from what i have seen?

graffin, take a bow.   the best man on the park (only richmond was close).  showed leadership when it was needed- very neat and tidy player and uses the ball well.

though karl mc keegan had a poor game yesterday- missed several very easy catches.

karl stewart had a good game with some good scores and eddie mc closkey played very well when he came on in the first half.

paddy richmond- class act.   why do we not just play this man on the edge of the square and give him the space he needs.  reads the game so well and can take a score or pick out a team mate from anywhere.


down will hardly be quaking in their boots.

[NAG]

Is anyone really suprised by Watson?

This is what you get for pandering after him the way S&W have done.

Again hate to say to say it but i told you so about hippy and playing our best forward in richmond out of position to accomdate him.

Is there any progress being made with this team?

[Guillem2]

I wasn't at the game but I was told that Watson got a straight red for striking off the ball. If that's right he'll miss the next couple of games and make sambos decision for him. Can any one confirm what happened?

[Glensman]

1. Not sure whether we are better or not than last year, very hard to tell. I would think slightly. I recall struggling to beat Derry with 15 men let alone 14 and we were well ahead of them yesterday
2. I think we should beat Down, but then again strange things happen. If we can't beat Down then we should be having a look at ourselves. We need to start strong, play strong and finish strong...a constant problem for us as in 10/15 minutes we can stay with anyone (of maybe 8/10 mins)
3. Galway are on a different level and have aspirations way past us...A 100% performance and we'll keep them within 7/8. If we run them any tighter that is good work I think. Though of course we should be going out to win we will need everything to go in our favour.


Karl did drop a couple of balls but I always find he does that maybe 1/2 times a game when its not important. That is no excuse at all but when an interception/clearance is needed second half when things are tight he's normally grand.

Not surprised by Watson. Hopefully he has a real look at himself. He nearly made a very costly mistake(s) yesterday.

So he got sent off because S&W pander to him?? He went out there and thought "right, these losers are suckers, I'll show them?" What???
He has a screw lose alright and should know better but he is one of the two best forwards in the county and needs to be playing.

They didn't play Richmond out of position to accomodate Hippy...the half forward line as named played as the FF line and vice versa so Hippy was CHF. Hippy was a bit slow alright yesterday.

[Glensman]

I think he was shown a second yellow and then a red from where I was. Can't be changed I don't believe.

[NAG]

Glensman

You picked it up wrong from what I said.

It is the fact that they pander too him means that he has no discipline he is not giving up anything to play for antrim so therefore it doesnt mean anything to him and when it gets tight and someone is giving him stick he would rather lash out because:

a) he has no respect for S&W
b) he has no respect for his team mates
c) doesnt give a crap about playing for antrim


Harsh maybe but true definitely.

[Minder]

A few points

I will bet you any amount of money you like we will not be within 7/8 points of Galway. When we used to struggle to beat Derry with 15 that had more to do with how much better Derry were then, Mc Gonigle, Ollie Collins, Mickey Collins, Collie Mc Gurk etc and how poor they are now.

[Two Hands FFS]

1. Watson will now miss the Ulster Final through suspension as he was sent off for two yellows against Cork in the NHL. Really stupid of him. Not suprised. Doesnt give a toss.
2.Deccy was brutal...any wonder they let his tyres down on his bicycle in Portaferry after a match. But enough about the referee as it is a thankless job.
3. Even accounting for the extra man....Antrim were awful. Before the sending off you could see they were trying to play a system that they will use against Galway. Derry were poor & relied heavily on frees
4. Our full back line looked dodgy in the first half.....bar Graffin who was outstanding...& just pips Paddy Richmond for MOTM. Thank God he was in top form.
5. Good performances from Ciaran Herron, Karl Stewart in first half & Eddie McCloskey. Deserves to start in the final as he has been good for his club too.
6. Very poor in the half forward line...who do we start in there v Down

We could get it tough in the final as Down have very good forwards & Antrim need to tighten up in there. Alot of pressure on Richmond( who was made captain as we were debating a couple of weeks ago) to get us scores