Ulster championsip 1st... Donegal v Down

[Down South]

Danny Hughes is better than Martin Clarke.

[Down South]

In your opinion. Today was the first game I missed this year and you see very little on telly. Ambrose was Downs best player all year, closely followed by D Raff, then Daniel McCartan and James Colgan. Up front John Clarke was outstanding, Marty was consistent without ever setting the world alight. Hughes had a good game against Armagh, worked hard in others but never puts in 2 consecutive good performances.
Martin Clarke is just finding his feet in gaelic football. He does the simple things well and like all good players makes space for himself. He is potentially the best footballer since Greg Blaney, I would go as far as to say he is potentially the best Down footballer.

[Dubh driocht]

HS, I presume you haven't been to too many Down games this year - you need to see Marty Clarke to understand what he has done to lift an average team to a better than average team

[ExiledGael]

Danny Hughes is better than Martin Clarke.

Danny Hughes is the best player Down have imo.

Danny Hughes is in the prime of his career.

[Mourne Rover]

Let's be real here. Marty Clarke has played one game in the USC, did reasonably well and is capable of better. We can judge him when he has played at least one season and not before. Danny Hughes is now a senior member of our team, has had ups and downs, but is starting to look as though he might deiliver. Benny, by any reasonable assessment - check the overall USC goal scoring stats - is already somewhere close to the heroes of the 60s and 90s, and, yet again, imposed himself on a game and turned it in our favour. Anyone who was at the match today knows who was the main man, by a distance.

[Highlander3]

Hard Station i think that you are being way too hard on m clarke, it was his first USC, i dont think he was at his best today, which was reflected in his frees he only hit one of them right. But still he scored 3 points, a 50 that went a mile over and 2 other points from way out on the wing, this is not only his first year playing championship football, its his first year playing GAA in about 3 years. I really think people are expecting to much to soon, you have to give him at least a year.

[Jinxy]

In your opinion. Today was the first game I missed this year and you see very little on telly. Ambrose was Downs best player all year, closely followed by D Raff, then Daniel McCartan and James Colgan. Up front John Clarke was outstanding, Marty was consistent without ever setting the world alight. Hughes had a good game against Armagh, worked hard in others but never puts in 2 consecutive good performances.
Martin Clarke is just finding his feet in gaelic football. He does the simple things well and like all good players makes space for himself. He is potentially the best footballer since Greg Blaney, I would go as far as to say he is potentially the best Down footballer.

I dunno, I thought he gave the ball away a good few times.

[Highlander3]

Hard Station i think that you are being way to hard on m clarke, it was his first USC, i dont think he was at his best today, which was reflected in his fee's he only hit one of them right. But still he scored 3 points a 50 that when a mile over and 2 other points from way out on the wing, this is not only his first year playing championship football, its his first year playing GAA in about 3 years. I really think people are expecting to much to soon, you have to give him at least a year.

I'm giving him as long as he wants but quotes like this annoy me...
He is potentially the best footballer since Greg Blaney, I would go as far as to say he is potentially the best Down footballer.

How the feck can anyone tell? This is putting a lot of pressure on him to prove this. FFS let him get on with it without humping this bullshit on to him.

Thats a fair point us Down wans have been hyping him him up a bit to much, there will only be one Greg Blaney in my opinion one of the best players i ever saw, Marty is his own man and it will be at least 5/6 years before he should be mentioned with Blaney.

I still think that what this team misses outside off a few defenders is a real hard ball winner like Blaney was

[guevara]

Hardstation I can see were you are coming from but simple fact is Coulter has been Downs most consistent performer over last 6/7 years. Danny Hughes is a very talented guy but can be frustrating at times in consistency & belief in beating his marker on regular basis to take scores.
Benny is feared by any defender who marks him & for good reason......ask Mallon, McMenamin etc & they will testify he is one of the best. For too long he has been like a one man band, dragging poor Down teams along with him. But James McCartan has brought in guys who have taken some of the workload off his shoulders. Guys like King, Marty Clarke, Mark Poland & John Clarke have all added to the team.

On the Marty Clarke issue, it has to be said that he has been better than average so far, but in no way is he the Messiah that a lot of fellow Down supporters were making him out to be!!
He's a great story for the media who have hyped him up to the point were the young fella is expected to be winning games by himself.
He is still green in terms of Championship experience & today it showed at times. He kicked 2 sideline balls for points that if they had've went over would be all over the media in the morning but in hindsight posession would have been the best option at that stage. I think Marty himself would want to improve in his overall contribution to games, especially after the Armagh game were he was kept very quiet. But overall he's going well & it can only be a bonus for Down that he has chosen to be here in the Summer months & not in Oz!!

[5 Sams]

Coulter's a freak....cutting in along the line to to set up a score, winning vital possession in his own box, fetching balls in the middle of the field and lumping it over the bar from 60 yards, scoring goals at vital times, outrageous points from equally outrageous angles...if there's a better all round player in the country today I've yet to see him...we spoke, albeit slightly tongue in cheek, on here a few times about him being the best footballer in the country...I do believe he's not far away...

As for Danny Hughes being a better player...as we say down this way...aye right...

[Highlander3]

I like Danny have saw him play some brilliant games, some times he looks like an all star, but its just that he is so inconsistent

[tyroneman]

.     Benny is feared by any defender who marks him

Coulter is a fine forward but let's not forget the fear was hangin out of him when he played against McKeever. It's like anything else- some defenders have the measure of a forward. McNulty always had a bit of an Indian sign over Canavan for example.

he could do with being a little less selfish too. Open goal fir his team mate at far side of square and he shoots from a ridiculous angle. Poor decision making.

That said I would gladly have him in the Tyrone team and he has caused us no end of bother over the years. 

[Down South]

In your opinion. Today was the first game I missed this year and you see very little on telly. Ambrose was Downs best player all year, closely followed by D Raff, then Daniel McCartan and James Colgan. Up front John Clarke was outstanding, Marty was consistent without ever setting the world alight. Hughes had a good game against Armagh, worked hard in others but never puts in 2 consecutive good performances.
Martin Clarke is just finding his feet in gaelic football. He does the simple things well and like all good players makes space for himself. He is potentially the best footballer since Greg Blaney, I would go as far as to say he is potentially the best Down footballer.

I dunno, I thought he gave the ball away a good few times.

He did, like everyone else and was an also ran imo.

I think people are expecting too much from what is still a young man finding his way in championship football. I have watched Marty since he was in his early teens. I got a phone call from one of our boys who was marking him in a game against the college, he said he had never seen anything like him, he was a freak. I went to the next game just to see this unknown player and I was very very impressed, he was the most complete footballer I had ever seen. I saw most of his big games at schools level and all his minor matches for Down. At underage level he simply had no equals. He was as 5Sams would say, a freak. He had no real position at underage football, Marty played were Marty played, a nightmare for any marker. He won an All Ireland minor in 2005, he was the stand out player on a very good minor team.
He came home from Oz and won a league title for his club, they simply would not have won it without him. Then when he quit Oz to come home for good, he helped them win promotion against Ballyholland. I remember reading this board and people were saying that he didn't play that well, but thewobbler, who was on the line with Ballyholland saying that everything good came through him, every good ball played into the An Riocht forward line came from Marty. He did the simple things well and helped his team win another vital match.
He has played most games for Down this year and it is no coincidence that Down have had a good year, by our standards anyway. He brings out the best in those around him, he plays good quality ball into the forward line, be that a quick ball over the top or pass into the corner, he wasted very few balls over the course of the national league and was deadly accurate from the placed ball, ending up as Downs top scorer.
Sadly I couldn't make it to Ballybofey yesterday, but I didn't see him do a lot wrong. He was involved in everything good that Down done and it was no coincidence that Downs 3 best players on the day were involved in the Down goal, Hughes, Clarke and Coulter. Coulter had one of those days yesterday, it wasn't just a man of the match performance, it was Benny at his best. Benny hogged the limelight yesterday and none of us will begrudge him a bit of it, on that form he is unstoppable.But I think Clarke has a lot to do with Benny's form. For  to long Down have been a one man band. Stop Coulter, Stop Down. Donegal had to think of Clarke yesterday as well and this gave Coulter  a wee bit more room. Many think Clarke had an off day, he will have another day in the Ulster Championship this year. Michael Murphy wont and no one is saying that Murphy is over rated today.

[johnneycool]

Marty Calrke didn't look himself yesterday and was puffing fairly heavily early on.

has he been carrying an injury or bug of some sort recently?

Is Liam Doyle anyways back near the team yet?

[The Worker]

coulter has given the best performance in the championship to date, hopefully he can maintain this form for the remainder of the season.

donegal will have to go back to the drawing board, their style of play is not playing to their strengths IMO