Ard Mhacha v Muineachán - 20/02/11 - Ard Mhacha

[Abble]

that was hard viewing today, until about the last 10 mins or so when Armagh finally decided to shake themselves up a bit. when it came to the crunch, they produced, not convincingly, but they have the all important points. from that i can see us getting no better than a draw in down.

the amount of basic stuff today going wrong was unreal, very frustating having to watch them almost throw a game away.
apart from some atrocious ball handling at times and then constant running into trouble holding on to ball too long (will we never learn and of all the teams to try it against!), i was thinking throughout that some of the boys have went backward in the last 2 years...but sometimes all it takes is a wee bit of spark, something to ignite them and one player in particular who i'm alluding to is Andy. he was caught out a good few times today and i know that wasn't the mallon of old, but low and behold, after a couple of near incidents where you could see furstration coming thru he finally decides to give us a bit of the old magic and then to make it all the more sweet he pops over the winner.

this in its own and the manner of how we finished would give me a slight glimmer of hope for the marshes, so hopefully things are improved from the whole squad next.

[anportmorforjfc]

Just off hand how far off would both teams be from "full strength"? I'd guess a long way off?

Id say Armagh were missing Hearty, Kernan and the two Clarke's from the starting line up! When we get these players back I'm hoping for a big improvement.

[Smokin Joe]

I thought Paul Duffy was immense, he is a great outlet and is always an option.  He did make some mistakes in possession, but that's just because he does so much with the ball every time he gets it.

[Sandy Hill]

Just off hand how far off would both teams be from "full strength"? I'd guess a long way off?

Id say Armagh were missing Hearty, Kernan and the two Clarke's from the starting line up! When we get these players back I'm hoping for a big improvement.

I'm beginning to wonder if Ronan will ever be back!

[crossfire]

I thought Paul Duffy was immense, he is a great outlet and is always an option.  He did make some mistakes in possession, but that's just because he does so much with the ball every time he gets it.

[/b]

yeah he gives it to the opposition almost every time

[el_cuervo_fc]

You obviously don't watch too many Armagh games then.

[thewanderer]

duff unfortunately gave away 2 crucial balls in the 2nd half which resulted in scores, however fair play to him he pressed on and was involved in the move for the winning point. crossfire u dont go to all games as ur club never ordered 1 ticket for the dublin game. sour grapes or what. but good luck next weekend but i wont be ther.

[gander]

People blame the management for Armagh not being fantastic today, but its not O'Rourkes fault the players give the ball straight to the opposition on countless occasions, i'd say nearly all Monaghans points came from either armagh errors out the field or from Free kicks.

On midfield I thought it was a massive improvement, won a lot more break ball and 5 or 6 clean catches.  Toner made 4 clean catches on his own.

[illdecide]

It's amazing the different opinion's you get from different fellas, any midfielder who gets 5 clean catches in the middle of the field during one game has contributed big time to his team also guys from rival clubs in Armagh who always think the county lad from his rival club was crop and gave away points and missed sitters. FFS lads call a spade a spade and call it how it was

[mackers]

I thought Paul Duffy was immense, he is a great outlet and is always an option.  He did make some mistakes in possession, but that's just because he does so much with the ball every time he gets it.

We must have been watching two different games. Yesterday was easily Duffy's worst performance in an Armagh shirt in about two years. He has been one of our better players during this time and I'm sure it'll be a once off but he had a stinker for me.
Dyas got MOTM match in the IN this morning and rightly so, he's improving game after game.
Fair play to McEvoy who was rightly criticised after his last couple of performances but he showed conviction yesterday in coming for a couple of balls that he hadn't done previously.
Frustrating is a word popping up in a number of posts and that's exactly how it was. Some of the errors whilst in possession by some of the Armagh players were unbelievable. We continued pumping high ball into Swift when it was blatantly obvious that it wasn't working. Darren Hughes is a superb footballer but we made him look even better yesterday with some naive play. When we started playing the ball in front of the FF line we started to get some joy and in a way I was glad to see us playing into the breeze because we had to play this way in the second half.
I thought Grugan played better yesterday and linked the play well along with MOR. Malachy Mackin had one of his better games and was unlucky to be taken off when he was.
Stevie was the other Armagh player who was a contender for MOTM and is starting to look a lot sharper.
I hope that there is lot of work done with the ball in hand this week in training as we have to cut out some of the basic errors if we are going to beat Down.

[upmonaghansayswe]

Lovely set up.. Just one observation we noticed from the terrace side.. The top of the commentary box is way off level with the roof.. Looks a bit odd.. Must have been some hungover levelling done that day!!

[BerfArmagh]

Very enjoyable game yesterday is less than perfect conditions. Monaghan will feel hard done by as I thought they were marginally the better team. There full back was outstanding.

From an Armagh point of view, far too much pissing about coming out of defense, the amount of times we spoilled ball, directed passes to the opposition was shocking. Duffy was particularly at fault, though he does offer a lot going forward (sometimes neglecting his defensive duties). I thought Donaghy had a poor game by his standards. Armaghs stand out performer (& I have been a critic to date) was Dyas, absolutely excellent. Stevie was excellent in teh scond half and was really up for it & showed great leadership. Massive improvement in midfield on the dublin game.

One thing we need to really improve upon is the ball which goes into the forwards. The quality of ball which went into swift was appalling, he had no chance against an outstanding monaghan full back. It was worth noticing nippy improved and got more into the game the last 20 mins when he come outthe field a bit.
Good results, need to improve if we are to beat down. Good sized crowd yesterday. One thing i noticed from the shed, is that there is terrific nosise generated from the new stand. National anthem was a complete balls up... fair play to everyone for singing (as it should be)

Up Armagh

[Armagh Cúchulainns]

Lovely set up.. Just one observation we noticed from the terrace side.. The top of the commentary box is way off level with the roof.. Looks a bit odd.. Must have been some hungover levelling done that day!!

Supposedly when they put the stand up the last bits that went up were in the middle and when it went up it bowed, so it was left as such.

[orchard 8195]

I thought Paul Duffy was immense, he is a great outlet and is always an option.  He did make some mistakes in possession, but that's just because he does so much with the ball every time he gets it.

We must have been watching two different games. Yesterday was easily Duffy's worst performance in an Armagh shirt in about two years. He has been one of our better players during this time and I'm sure it'll be a once off but he had a stinker for me.
Dyas got MOTM match in the IN this morning and rightly so, he's improving game after game.
Fair play to McEvoy who was rightly criticised after his last couple of performances but he showed conviction yesterday in coming for a couple of balls that he hadn't done previously.
Frustrating is a word popping up in a number of posts and that's exactly how it was. Some of the errors whilst in possession by some of the Armagh players were unbelievable. We continued pumping high ball into Swift when it was blatantly obvious that it wasn't working. Darren Hughes is a superb footballer but we made him look even better yesterday with some naive play. When we started playing the ball in front of the FF line we started to get some joy and in a way I was glad to see us playing into the breeze because we had to play this way in the second half.
I thought Grugan played better yesterday and linked the play well along with MOR. Malachy Mackin had one of his better games and was unlucky to be taken off when he was.
Stevie was the other Armagh player who was a contender for MOTM and is starting to look a lot sharper.
I hope that there is lot of work done with the ball in hand this week in training as we have to cut out some of the basic errors if we are going to beat Down.

Did nobody else think Dyas gave the ball away a shocking amount of times yesterday? Yes he did a good block 1 time and was in possesion a lot but i still think he is 3rd choice wing back behind duffy and ak. IMO he was nowhere near MOTM  stevey (Who needs to stop drifting out the pitch), Toner, vernon and MOR  were prob Armaghs most effective performers

[mackers]

Don't remember him doing so but I'll admit my head was getting light at one stage with the amount of ball we were giving away.
I don't agree with your assertion that he is third choice wing back. He picked up some serious break ball yesterday, an area we have needed to improve upon a number of years now. His distribution is good, maybe not just as good as AK or Duffy yet, but he is much better defensively than either Duffy or AK.
For that reason alone he is ahead of one or other of Duffy or AK for one of the wing back slots IMHO.