Down V Armagh - Newry 26th Feb

[guevara]

Firstly I thought Down deserved their win & but for some poor decision making they couldve walked away 5/6 point winners.
Pluses for Down were :
Ronan Murtagh - Offered a target man all night long & had the ability to take on his man & get scores. Looks to have got rid of the glorying which pherhaps restricted his performances last year? Now seems more of a team player.

Danny Hughes - Incredible engine & workrate. No longer gets bullied out of games by defenders using borderline tactics to stop his game. Ran the Armagh defence ragged all night & was pivotal as a link man for the defence & midfield. Downs best ball carrier.

Kevin McKernan - Defensively he isnt ever going to be a terrific man marker but counters this with a strategy of putting his man on the back foot for more as much of the game as he can. Done this very well Saturday night.

Kalum King - Although not as noticeable as some above I thought he was the one who seemed to take Armagh's physical players on head to head & showed Down finally have a guy in their who if you want to get physical with you will more than likely end up on your arse. Always plays things simple & held the Midfield together for Down when Fitzpatrick went awol for long periods.

Dan Gordon - Good display & the big diagonal balls that Armagh tend to favour into their isolated forward line allowed him to dominate McDonnell. But at times stood too far off his man & on another day McDonnell couldve caused him some serious problems.

Some fellas seemed to struggle. Gerard McCartan needs to add some weight to his game. looked to light in the tackle & too easy put off the ball. Fitzpatrick chose countless wrong options in the first half. He seemed more concerned in adding his name to the scoresheet. I thought Martin Clarke was poor enough. Made some strange decisions & at times wants the eye of the needle pass. Freetaking was poor also. blasted one wide from 21 yards & hit another from in front of the stand in the 2nd half with a few mins left that hadnt a chance of ever making it with the conditions. This at a time there was the minimum between the teams.

On McEnaney I thought he was very poor. A TV Ref who lords the limelight & was totally inconsistent in his decisions. Seemed to allow Armagh to be a lot more physical in the tackle than Down but to be fair both sets of fans were puzzled at times by his view.

Armagh arent a bad team & Paddy O'Rourke will never win over some of their fans simply due to the fact he is from Down. His team were well in the game for long periods but seemed to struggle in areas. McDonnell & Swift were their only major threat in the forward line. In Midfield Vernon wants to carry the ball far too much & this prevents quick ball into the full forwards. Duffy never got forward all night & Morriarty always seems more intent on getting in a late hit than offering an option to his fellow defenders. In Kevin Dyas they must be scratching their heads because since his return from Oz I have seen very little in his game that warrants inclusion, maybe Armagh folk could tell me different?

But come The Championship it will be two fairly different looking teams Id imagine. Good performance from a Down perspective but by no means does it mean Armagh will be walkovers come The Atletic Grounds meeting.

[tevez]

My point about Paddy Orourke is that he has had 2 yrs in charge and there is still no real plan about how we play and how we go about getting scores. Compare this to what McGeeney has done with Kildare, they have a gameplan that they stick to all the time and the players no exactly what to do. We have the same thing get the ball to stevy. I dont think anyone wud say Kildares forwards are any better than us, but they know there jobs and the team know their gameplan. Players know this and cant believe their stuck with him!

[DuffleKing]

Armagh arent a bad team & Paddy O'Rourke will never win over some of their fans simply due to the fact he is clueless

fixed that for you

[pintsofguinness]

Armagh arent a bad team & Paddy O'Rourke will never win over some of their fans simply due to the fact he is from Down

Why was it that a lot of Down fans couldn't wait to get rid of him when he was over them?
because he was from down?

[bennydorano]

Dan Gordon - Good display & the big diagonal balls that Armagh tend to favour into their isolated forward line allowed him to dominate McDonnell. But at times stood too far off his man & on another day McDonnell couldve caused him some serious problems.

I get the feeling from various posts here that Down people are trying to convince themselves that they have an answer to their FB problem in the shape of Dan.  I dont buy it guys, if Stevie had've had his shooting boots the other night it could've been embarassing for Dan.

[guevara]

Lads Im just looking at it from an outsiders point of view. Joe Kernan the "God" in Armagh Football who many would claim to be a genius struggled badly in Galway without the abundance of talent he had at his posession at Crossmaglen & Armagh.
The truth be told O'Rourke picked up an Armagh team in a period of transition in my view. The old stalwarts like McConville, McGrane, McGeeney & Marsden had all called it a day & new blood had to be brought in.
What do you want the man to do?? Pull players out of nowhere?? The simple fact is Armagh are probably at a stage Down were in 3/4 years ago in that they had good Club players who had achieved absolutely nothing at County level & were failing to transfer their Club form to Intercounty standard.
McGeeney had the chance to go back & take Armagh & avoided it as he probably realised that he couldnt have done what he wanted to for Armagh Football with that group of players at the time.

[BerfArmagh]

Must say I really enjoyed the match on saturday, there was some outstanding play (particulalry from the Down forwards) & some complete episodes of comedy. It pains me to say it, but Down were by far the better team & ifthey had of took their chances could have been out of sight. When Down run at teams with their speed and swift hand passing they are a delight to watch & with Dublin are possibly the most lethal goal chance makingteam in the country. I was particularly inpressed with young Hughes & who was the wee fella (13) he is lightening quick.

From Armaghs point of view, I would agree with many previous comments, Armagh are a team in transition, a lot of the lads it is only their second season at inter county level, i firmly believe you need 2 full seasons under your belt when transitioning from club level to get fully comfotable with the levels expected and gain real confidence.

Points
Armaghs mid field won hands down (I thought Down were wiped out in this sector) however a combination of poor play into the forwards and very poor movement from the armagh forwards for such passes, returned a very low return. Toner had a great improvement on the first 2 games.

Stevie Mac is still the best forward in the business and still shows a great hunger for the cause. I also thought swift showed and won a fair amount of ball

Armagh needs a forwards coach and they need one now. The lack of movement or imagination or connected inteplay was astounding. (in contrast to dwons forwards movement)

I thought Paddon was very unlucky to be taken off, while he does make some silly mistakes I felt he tried very hard, was on the ball a lot and at least tried to make things happen. Was his best game so far

How mallon & O rourke stayed on for 60 mins is beyond me, they were very poor. Youcould see the confidence visibly drain from them in the second half & towards the end, they were not showing for the ball, basically hiding.

Mc Keever did well on clarke, dyas does some very good things and then in the following seconds will do the mosts stupid (I just cannot form an opinion on him yet) Duffy while good going forward is a liability at thgis level, he has no positional sense and loses his man too often. (Maybe this is a tactic?) Andy Mallon got a fair roasting by the No 13, i think we might have seen the best of Andy (hopefully I will be proved wrong)  DOnaghy has developed an awful habit of consistently fouling and giving away kickable frees (I believe this is down to fatigue, as hes playing too much football at the minute)

All in all, while disappointed, when kernan, 2 clarkes and (dare i say it, i've always liked stephen kernan as a chf) come into the side, Armagh will give Down a fair run for their money come May

[whitegoodman]

Dan Gordon - Good display & the big diagonal balls that Armagh tend to favour into their isolated forward line allowed him to dominate McDonnell. But at times stood too far off his man & on another day McDonnell couldve caused him some serious problems.

I get the feeling from various posts here that Down people are trying to convince themselves that they have an answer to their FB problem in the shape of Dan.  I dont buy it guys, if Stevie had've had his shooting boots the other night it could've been embarassing for Dan.

If my granny had balls she would be my granda.  The fact is he missed them, could this not be down to good pressure by dan, no of course not.  The tremendous block was probably down to hesitence from stevie too was it!!!! 

Sure it is probably the same for Donaghy last year, 2 of the best forwards in ireland just had off days on dan and IF they got him again they would roast him alive!!!!

[naka]

Armagh arent a bad team & Paddy O'Rourke will never win over some of their fans simply due to the fact he is from Down

Why was it that a lot of Down fans couldn't wait to get rid of him when he was over them?
because he was from down?

i wouldnt care if he was ian paisley and nelson mc causland`s love child if he could get us an all ireland sadly he is not up to it , its an irrelevance that he is from down,
simple question for you is whether you would offer him the down job if wee james quit and i think i know the answer

[loughshore lad]

Armagh needs a forwards coach and they need one now. The lack of movement or imagination or connected inteplay was astounding. (in contrast to dwons forwards movement)

Just out of interest what would you envisage a "forwards coach" to do??  Work with the forward players only?

Surely how the Armagh team attacks would be something for the entire team to work on as opposed to the forwards only as after all the majority of the time the forwards are dependant on the ball they are getting.

You compliment Down on their movement, have they a "forwards coach"?

[whitegoodman]

Armagh arent a bad team & Paddy O'Rourke will never win over some of their fans simply due to the fact he is from Down

Why was it that a lot of Down fans couldn't wait to get rid of him when he was over them?
because he was from down?

i wouldnt care if he was ian paisley and nelson mc causland`s love child if he could get us an all ireland sadly he is not up to it , its an irrelevance that he is from down,
simple question for you is whether you would offer him the down job if wee james quit and i think i know the answer

It wouldn't matter if armagh had bob paisley, they still wouldn't win an all Ireland.  If u don't have the forwards u don't have the forwards, and armagh don't. 

I freely admit down don't have a great defence but u can work a system around a dad defence, u can do nothing if u don't have scoring forwards or break ball winning forwards ur fucked

[5 Sams]

Armagh needs a forwards coach and they need one now. The lack of movement or imagination or connected inteplay was astounding. (in contrast to dwons forwards movement)

Just out of interest what would you envisage a "forwards coach" to do??  Work with the forward players only?

Surely how the Armagh team attacks would be something for the entire team to work on as opposed to the forwards only as after all the majority of the time the forwards are dependant on the ball they are getting.

You compliment Down on their movement, have they a "forwards coach"?

Yep...we call him Wee James...can't do much better imho.

[thewobbler]

Forwards coach now?

People are losing the plot.

Armagh have 3 county standard forwards. One is injured and may never be seen again. One is on club duty. That leaves just one.

That's not POR's fault. You can't make average players into county forwards no matter what you do with them.

Some of our orchard brethren need to wake up and smell the apples. You could get Mick O Dwyer and Mickey Harte in charge of this Armagh team, and allow them to spend hundreds of thousands on coaches, physios, and everything else - and they still wouldn't get past an AI semi final. The players aren't there. But even despite POR, they could make a quarter final this year.

Get realistic chaps.

[loughshore lad]

Armagh needs a forwards coach and they need one now. The lack of movement or imagination or connected inteplay was astounding. (in contrast to dwons forwards movement)

Just out of interest what would you envisage a "forwards coach" to do??  Work with the forward players only?

Surely how the Armagh team attacks would be something for the entire team to work on as opposed to the forwards only as after all the majority of the time the forwards are dependant on the ball they are getting.

You compliment Down on their movement, have they a "forwards coach"?

Yep...we call him Wee James...can't much better imho.

Think I remember reading last year "wee James" said he takes none of the training, the way he set up Queens, St Gall's and Ballinderry in his time over each of them would suggest he likes (or at least did like) a defensive style but then maybe he didn't have as many good forwards at his disposal then as he does now.

[bennydorano]

Dan Gordon - Good display & the big diagonal balls that Armagh tend to favour into their isolated forward line allowed him to dominate McDonnell. But at times stood too far off his man & on another day McDonnell couldve caused him some serious problems.

I get the feeling from various posts here that Down people are trying to convince themselves that they have an answer to their FB problem in the shape of Dan.  I dont buy it guys, if Stevie had've had his shooting boots the other night it could've been embarassing for Dan.

If my granny had balls she would be my granda.  The fact is he missed them, could this not be down to good pressure by dan, no of course not.  The tremendous block was probably down to hesitence from stevie too was it!!!! 

Sure it is probably the same for Donaghy last year, 2 of the best forwards in ireland just had off days on dan and IF they got him again they would roast him alive!!!!

Just something i noticed, Armagh's (many) inadequacies are a separate issue. Bigging up Dan will do Down no good in the long term,no matter how much you want him to suceed.