Dublin v Armagh Sunday 11th March

[BennyCake]

Berf, I also thought the Armagh support was very sparse. I was in the Hogan andwhile, we didn't have much to cheer about, You could hardly hear an applause when we did score. Very disappointing, especially with a double header on.

[Armaghgeddon]

Cant put it down to Dublin hitting a high...in the three hammerings Armagh have recieved in the last three years against Monaghan, Derry and now Dublin, they have all apparently played to a level that no matter who they played they would have beaten easily. The only good thing to come from this is that it might mean this might drive on the collective mentality of the team. Unlike previous beatings we now have time to correct it.

[NaomhBridAbú]

Tyrone fan here, not looking to snipe either. Was at the game yesterday - as an aside, the hurling was lethal - and I'd make a few points...given the absence of Vernon, McDonnell, and the 5,6,7 or 8 (depending on who you talk to) Crossmaglen men due to return, I'd say that team yesterday bears no reflection of the Armagh potential for 2012. I think that alot of the more experienced players yesterday let the team down, rather than the youngsters. And when that happens, confidence will be shattered. Many times yesterday i spotted an Armagh player (mainly in midfield or defense), with his hands up in the air shouting out at others - i think there was too much buck passing, and not alot of self analysis.

Dublin were good, but were made to look great by a WEAKENED Armagh team...had Dublin been forced to play without their equivalent, Morgan, Clarke, Kernan x 2, Vernon and McDonnell, then it would have been an entirely different story.

The great management team that took points of Cork and beat Kerry are still in control... wouldn't be so quick to slag any off them off...ultimately they were unable to pick anything close to their best team

Its hardly the worst performance of an Armagh team in 60 years, or whatever...it may have been hard to watch, but yiz were up against the all ireland champions, yiz are in a period of transition and reconstruction, and without 1/2 a team....but yiz'll need to do better against Laois.

[naka]

Berf, I also thought the Armagh support was very sparse. I was in the Hogan andwhile, we didn't have much to cheer about, You could hardly hear an applause when we did score.

i was in cusack and there were very few armagh fans, although when we did score we were always at least 8 points behind so there was no need to get too enthused. 

[BennyCake]

Sensible post, NBA.

Are you sure you're from Tyrone? 

[brokencrossbar1]

I think that while it is important to emphasize that it was a weakened Armagh team yesterday, it is also very pertinent to remember that there were 5-6 Dublin first 15 players missing.  The reality is though that this game rather than expeosing Armagh as a weak team, it exposes them as a weak squad.  The back up is simply not up to the level of other counties.  Armagh are a bit like Liverpool to me, the "first" team would box it out with any of the contenders, take a few players out and they are not at it.

Watching yesterdays game, I feel, a lot of questions were answered for me about a number of players.  Also there seems to be a serious lack of fitness across the board.  Not to compare it in a c**k measuring way but I would hate to compare the fitness level of some of the lads that played yesterday in comparison to their direct "opponent" from Cross.  I would hazard a guess that they would be far apart in many cases. 

Anyway, there is an awful lot of work to be done physically and tactically and the honeymoon period of PG coming in has ended.  Time to start earning your corn.

[heffo]

Dublin were good, but were made to look great by a WEAKENED Armagh team...had Dublin been forced to play without their equivalent, Morgan, Clarke, Kernan x 2, Vernon and McDonnell, then it would have been an entirely different story.

As I posted yesterday, Dublin  were without Cluxton, O'Sullivan, Nolan, Bastick, Cahill, Cullen, McMenamin & B Brogan yesterday from their AI winning team.

[Orangemac]

There is too much short termism with Armagh football, hence , we have lost the capital of the era from 99 to 06 and we are aimless.  The shame of this is that in Armagh we have the greatest club side of all time as a model on which to build a competitive county side.

Would agree with this. Cross being the best club team in the country is no guarantee but it should be a good starting point.

With the right manager there are good enough players in Armagh to be in or around the top 8 every year. I don't believe Donegal have better players than Armagh but they have a game plan that the whole squad bought into last year.

[INDIANA]

McGurn is no longer with the senior squad as the trainer, he is still being well paid by the county board for other work.

BC1 is right, the overall fitness, speed and conditioning of the current Armagh squad is very far off the mark.  The Dubs are still operating on topping up super residual fitness from last year, none of the current squad have anything to fall back on and they are a long way from the fitness of Dublin.  They will never be close to the physicality of the Dubs, there is no one to match the stature of John and Tony McEntee, Enda and Justin McNulty to name just 4 from the golden age and there will be no one to match McGeeney.

The Grimley factor was there to see yesterday with Paul Duffy at CHB, a position where he is so unsuited to command the defence leaving a huge gap for the Dubs and anyone else to run through, and with Anto Duffy staying on the field so long when he had nothing to add but wild kicking of the ball wide of the mark.

Unfortunately, we still lack a system of play which matches the players we have. POR can't bring this to the table and to date PG hasn't brought any apparent system of play.  There are no answers to the problem by bring in Cross players without bringing in a Cross system of play.  Cross are a classic example of a team being much greater than the sum of its parts and until someone has the foresight to develop a system of play for Armagh football and not just the senior team and then begin to build a county team around the system, we will not see a golden age again for quite sometime.  There is too much short termism with Armagh football, hence , we have lost the capital of the era from 99 to 06 and we are aimless.  The shame of this is that in Armagh we have the greatest club side of all time as a model on which to build a competitive county side.

Conditioning? Some of your players couldnt handpass with one hand properly never mind two. Start with the basics first then worry about conditioning.

Some Tyrone poster above saying it was a weakened armagh team. thats a good laugh. We were missing half our team. We've a shitload of serious players between the ages of 18-21 at present. And I think we're going to be there or thereabouts for the next 10 years or so.

[Captain Obvious]

McGurn is no longer with the senior squad as the trainer, he is still being well paid by the county board for other work.

BC1 is right, the overall fitness, speed and conditioning of the current Armagh squad is very far off the mark.  The Dubs are still operating on topping up super residual fitness from last year, none of the current squad have anything to fall back on and they are a long way from the fitness of Dublin.  They will never be close to the physicality of the Dubs, there is no one to match the stature of John and Tony McEntee, Enda and Justin McNulty to name just 4 from the golden age and there will be no one to match McGeeney.

The Grimley factor was there to see yesterday with Paul Duffy at CHB, a position where he is so unsuited to command the defence leaving a huge gap for the Dubs and anyone else to run through, and with Anto Duffy staying on the field so long when he had nothing to add but wild kicking of the ball wide of the mark.

Unfortunately, we still lack a system of play which matches the players we have. POR can't bring this to the table and to date PG hasn't brought any apparent system of play.  There are no answers to the problem by bring in Cross players without bringing in a Cross system of play.  Cross are a classic example of a team being much greater than the sum of its parts and until someone has the foresight to develop a system of play for Armagh football and not just the senior team and then begin to build a county team around the system, we will not see a golden age again for quite sometime.  There is too much short termism with Armagh football, hence , we have lost the capital of the era from 99 to 06 and we are aimless.  The shame of this is that in Armagh we have the greatest club side of all time as a model on which to build a competitive county side.

Conditioning? Some of your players couldnt handpass with one hand properly never mind two. Start with the basics first then worry about conditioning.

Some Tyrone poster above saying it was a weakened armagh team. thats a good laugh. We were missing half our team. We've a shitload of serious players between the ages of 18-21 at present. And I think we're going to be there or thereabouts for the next 10 years or so.

With the pick Dublin have it makes one wonder why they haven't been there or thereabouts for the last 10 years or so.

[brokencrossbar1]

McGurn is no longer with the senior squad as the trainer, he is still being well paid by the county board for other work.

BC1 is right, the overall fitness, speed and conditioning of the current Armagh squad is very far off the mark.  The Dubs are still operating on topping up super residual fitness from last year, none of the current squad have anything to fall back on and they are a long way from the fitness of Dublin.  They will never be close to the physicality of the Dubs, there is no one to match the stature of John and Tony McEntee, Enda and Justin McNulty to name just 4 from the golden age and there will be no one to match McGeeney.

The Grimley factor was there to see yesterday with Paul Duffy at CHB, a position where he is so unsuited to command the defence leaving a huge gap for the Dubs and anyone else to run through, and with Anto Duffy staying on the field so long when he had nothing to add but wild kicking of the ball wide of the mark.

Unfortunately, we still lack a system of play which matches the players we have. POR can't bring this to the table and to date PG hasn't brought any apparent system of play.  There are no answers to the problem by bring in Cross players without bringing in a Cross system of play.  Cross are a classic example of a team being much greater than the sum of its parts and until someone has the foresight to develop a system of play for Armagh football and not just the senior team and then begin to build a county team around the system, we will not see a golden age again for quite sometime.  There is too much short termism with Armagh football, hence , we have lost the capital of the era from 99 to 06 and we are aimless.  The shame of this is that in Armagh we have the greatest club side of all time as a model on which to build a competitive county side.

Conditioning? Some of your players couldnt handpass with one hand properly never mind two. Start with the basics first then worry about conditioning.

Some Tyrone poster above saying it was a weakened armagh team. thats a good laugh. We were missing half our team. We've a shitload of serious players between the ages of 18-21 at present. And I think we're going to be there or thereabouts for the next 10 years or so.

With the pick Dublin have it makes one wonder why they haven't been there or thereabouts for the last 10 years or so.

Because they have been sowing the seeds for what will likely be a period of dominance over the next few years. The current team matured to the point they are at now. They got a bit of luck last year but with the pressure of the win off their back now they can build on it and the reality is they are streets ahead.

[lawnseed]

just reading Kenny archers interview with por in the Irish news today. i quote "the poor start made no difference we weren't going to win anyway" this is from the current armagh manager post annihilation. says it all really. perhaps he should have told the handful of armagh supporters that before they spent their hard earned cash. this guy is a born loser and he brings a losing mentality to the table. the good news is we only have to put up with him for 3 more games (if we adopt his attitude)

[Captain Obvious]

Can sow all the seeds you can like doesn't matter if you don't have the right people watching over them.

[Hill16 Blues]

Without wanting to rub it in to Armagh I would suggest you get off the back of your team and manager. Some of the stuff posted here is bordering on delusional. God knows we've had our share of this over last number of years. Armagh had great team for 10 years. That team is gone. Now you start again and hope you have enough quality players coming through to build team around.

After a lot of pain thankfully we are now entering what should be decent 3/4 years. We had 4 of our AI winning team vs Laois and 7 yesterday. It was bad beating for Armagh but could have been much much worse. Dublin have for first time in many years a conveyor belt of underage talent coming through. This together with last years team with average age of 23 is best position we've been in since early 90s. No guarantee well win any more but it's great turnaround over last couple of years.

Don't mean to be overly arrogant but in same way we came up short vs Kerry and Tyrone previously Armagh now find themselves back in similar position. Patience badly needed to allow new players come through and develop. Success won't come any other way. Team of Bellew, McEntees, McGeaney etc comes along once in a lifetime.

[Orior]

Without wanting to rub it in to Armagh I would suggest you get off the back of your team and manager. Some of the stuff posted here is bordering on delusional. God knows we've had our share of this over last number of years. Armagh had great team for 10 years. That team is gone. Now you start again and hope you have enough quality players coming through to build team around.

After a lot of pain thankfully we are now entering what should be decent 3/4 years. We had 4 of our AI winning team vs Laois and 7 yesterday. It was bad beating for Armagh but could have been much much worse. Dublin have for first time in many years a conveyor belt of underage talent coming through. This together with last years team with average age of 23 is best position we've been in since early 90s. No guarantee well win any more but it's great turnaround over last couple of years.

Don't mean to be overly arrogant but in same way we came up short vs Kerry and Tyrone previously Armagh now find themselves back in similar position. Patience badly needed to allow new players come through and develop. Success won't come any other way. Team of Bellew, McEntees, McGeaney etc comes along once in a lifetime.

A good post.