Down Club Hurling & Football

[dundrumite]

SFC
Mayobridge 2.14 Saval 0.7
Loughinisland 3.4 Burren 0.10

IFC
Annaclone 1.10 Glasdrumman 2.5
Darragh Cross 2.9 Kilclief 1.9

JFC
Bright 1.15 Aghaderg 3.6
St John's 2.5 St Paul's 0.7


Went to the JFC game between St Johns and St Pauls. The better team won. St Pauls kicked themselves out of it and didnt show enough to merit a win. Before the game I was led to believe that St Johns were going to be a force to reckon with. Im not so sure. They look a very ordinary Division 3 side at best but despite this they should account for Bright in the Final.
It looks like its going to be an intriguing SFC Final. I didnt expect the Island to win through but fair play to them. However, I just cant see past the Bridge. Supposedly their weak spot is midfield. The Island will probably look to dominate this sector. Yet, if Donnelly is any sort of manager he will have a plan to counteract this shortcoming and this should be enough to get the victory.

Wouldnt look too much into one performance DF. Surface was a big factor with the pitch cutting up quite badly.Taking two mid table division 3 teams with ease despite playing division 4 football speaks volumes for them. Could cause a lot of teams trouble in Division 3 next year.

[Whacker]

Who is over Loughinisland this year?

[goldenyears]

paul murf feared ankle ligament damage on the same ankle he had operated on last year, but it seems just a v bad sprain. fingers crossed, wont know the damage until swelling goes down. one thing's for sure, he is gone for the rest of this season.

re: jumping fences, some of the kingdom supporters wanna take a good look at themselves if verbal abuse of county players is what they like to get involved in!

[Leo]

How did Gareth Johnston do for Loughinisland?

McGourty will now be available for Darragh Cross in the IFC final. 

Are the senior finals not scheduled for the same day?

As a neutral at the match. Magic, despite not looking like a footballer at all, caused havoc with every high ball that went in and was instrumental in all three goals although the third one is 99% down to the goalkeeper who had clean possession but became inflicted bu the Down disease of the hand-pass in front of your own goal.

While Molloy was clearly MOM, the L'island half back line was immense especially Joe Doran. L'island far superior to Burren in tactics while Burren failure to release James McGovern from CHF made him an easy mark. As for our county players, D Rooney held on to ball too much, Dan McCartan had nightmare & should have conceded 2 penalties, K McKernan  invisible, D Gordon had a shocker, Ciaran McGovern looked very unfit. Burren took off Cunningham who was one of their best players and I think Johnston was taken off as he had already played a hurling game earlier (in whwich he was injured!). L'island goalie very secure and excelled in kick outs. Both O'Reilly lads look useful and full of energy.
However I believe Burren are a team in the making and hey should stick to a local manager to get the best out of them.
Interesting game but clear to see that neither team would live with the likes of Crossmaglen so our championship is very much grade 2 at presenmt I'm afraid.

[guevara]

islandboy- im not a Burren fan, i was merely noting as a neutral that Burren were very poor compared to the performance they displayed against Kilcoo, in actual fact i was glad to see yourselves win, it'll bring a bit of hype to the final as loughinisland havn't been there in 19yrs.

But what you have to remember Dulaney is that Burren had an extra man for almost 50 mins!
I thought Burren contributed to their own downfall the other night and set themselves up for big fall.
Apparently a lot of them were already getting ready for the final against the Bridge.
I think they had 7 or 8 boys who just didnt show up on Sunday night Eoin & Dan McCartan included.

[Super Dupe]

The worst defensive performance i have seen from a Burren team in a long time.  Some of the mistakes were hard to believe.  I did not think that Burrens performance against Kilcoo was a true refelection of their form, nor do i believe they are as bad as they showed the other night. 
Loughinisland were the same as they have been all year.  Strong defensively if they get ahead of you.  Play with at least 10 defenders at all times.  This may cost them against the Bridge if they go behind but if they happen to get a good start then they could be in with a shout.

Magic played some good stuff.  He has good hands, but like a previous poster said he is not a great footballer.  He does not pretend to be one however and sticks totally to his strength which is in the air.  It was a bad move from Burrens management not to move someone on to him.  A player even like Sean Ward, who could have competed with Magic in the air would have fared a lot better than McCartan.

[spiritof91and94]

 five in a row beckons for the sky blues - although loughinisland have the strength to be their closest challengers.
[/quote]

I dont do predictions that well but I thought the Loughinisland team have the strength down the middle to cause an upset after they dismantled the hoops on 30th August

[Leo]

Magic played some good stuff.  He has good hands, but like a previous poster said he is not a great footballer.  He does not pretend to be one however and sticks totally to his strength which is in the air.  It was a bad move from Burrens management not to move someone on to him.  A player even like Sean Ward, who could have competed with Magic in the air would have fared a lot better than McCartan.

Agree with the Sean Ward issue-  a big physical player was needed to handle Magic whose own mobility (apart from one sweet turn & shot) looked questionable. Not the only tactical faailure by Burren - using James McGovern as a playmaker when he was bottled up by a tight defence and needed to be relesed to a free role further forward - getting totally sucke in to the L'island deep defensive play of the second half and moving the ball far too slowly in trying to unlock this - after Molloy dominated the first half in the "sweeper" role (surely the best display of this btactic thius year at any level - leaving him to carry on in the same vein when the thing to do was put a "spolier" on him to disrupt him. Putting him undeer pressuure would also have had the effect of chipping at the confidence he was giving to his backs. These are simple basic things and while Burren under-performed is so many other areas I still think the game could have been salvaged by them because L'island di not appear to have enogh scores - this was proven by the fact they registered only 2 points in the second half and despite the gift of 3 goals won only by 3 points.

[Lecale2]

No fixtures in the paper for this week. Does anyone know what's on?

[islandboy]

The tactics we used were successful against burrren and we won the game.think the bookies in downpatrick suffered badly as they had us at 2to1 against.  against the bridge we know we will have to play differently and play to the best of our ability but there is more to come from a lot of our players and we do have a chance.

[Green+Gold]

Friday 19th 8 00pm
ACFL Div 2
Downpatrick v Warrenpoint


Friday 19th 6 00
ACFL Div 3
Bredagh v Glassdrumman


Saturday 20th 5 00pm
ACFL Div 1
Ballyholland v Rostrevor
ACFL Div 2
Atticall v Darragh Cross
Dundrum v Kilclief
Annaclone v Tullylish
ACFL Div 3
Glenn v Ardglass


Thursday 18th Burren 8 00
RFC Semi Final
Caislean Ruairi v Droichead Mhaigh Eo

[stpauls]

Friday 19th 8 00pm
ACFL Div 2
Downpatrick v Warrenpoint


Friday 19th 6 00
ACFL Div 3
Bredagh v Glassdrumman


Saturday 20th 5 00pm
ACFL Div 1
Ballyholland v Rostrevor
ACFL Div 2
Atticall v Darragh Cross
Dundrum v Kilclief
Annaclone v Tullylish
ACFL Div 3
Glenn v Ardglass


Thursday 18th Burren 8 00
RFC Semi Final
Caislean Ruairi v Droichead Mhaigh Eo

are these the only games scheduled for this weekend? presuming these are games that were postponed during the year at some stage!

[guevara]

My take on the Burren tactics is that they got it all wrong and underestimated the Island.

For a guy getting paid a rumoured 30k Barton did nothing in terms of tactical changes to turn the game!
Dan McCartan was getting roasted as mentioned Sean Ward, Ciaran Doyle or Ciaran Byrne shouldve been put on Johnson.
Even Rooney (who was anonymous at midfield) couldve went in and bring someone like Ward to midfield.

James McGovern won a heap of ball and showed great pace but done very little in terms of contributing to Burrens fightback.
McKernan was AWOL and was a total waste at midfield, why was the fella put there?? As was Eoin McCartan and when your 3 best forwards arent getting you scores your in trouble.

I thought big Cunningham had a decent game and shouldnt have went off, especially when Burren were always gonna have to bombard the square the last 10mins.

For Loughinisland I agree olloy was immense, totally unspectacular and played the holding role to perfection.
Dan Gordon was very poor he caught two balls but very little else. Jamie O'Reilly had a very good game, brave going for the ball and caused Burren a lot of problems. But his younger brother Ben was very poor, I realise he's young but for me he didnt do anything.

Big Johnson had a good game at fullforward and done it simple he won his ball and laid it off (apart from one effort in first half) but I doubt hes county material, remember the last guy in his mould Packie Downey being blown up as the saviour of Down!
And finally the Loughinisland corner forward Mark Valentine (Sharky??) was very good and took game to Burren.

Cant see the Blues getting past the Bridge but all the best to them!

[cloneman]

Friday 19th 8 00pm
ACFL Div 2
Downpatrick v Warrenpoint


Friday 19th 6 00
ACFL Div 3
Bredagh v Glassdrumman


Saturday 20th 5 00pm
ACFL Div 1
Ballyholland v Rostrevor
ACFL Div 2
Atticall v Darragh Cross
Dundrum v Kilclief
Annaclone v Tullylish
ACFL Div 3
Glenn v Ardglass


Thursday 18th Burren 8 00
RFC Semi Final
Caislean Ruairi v Droichead Mhaigh Eo

are these the only games scheduled for this weekend? presuming these are games that were postponed during the year at some stage!

Ours isn't a refixture, we're up-to-date so far. We were told there was to be a full fixture list this saturday and next saturday!

[DownFanatic]

Was just going through Mayobridge's very extensive collection of footage there on YouTube. Some excellent stuff.
Benny Coulter stood out like a sore thumb at underage. He was simply unreal from midfield in the videos I watched, especially the 1998 U-16 County Final v Liatroim.
There seemed to be three other very prominent players in Coulter's age group that impressed me. Im not 100% sure of names but I think they were John Goss, Niall Kennedy and Nigel O'Hare. All three looked very talented, especially Kennedy, who seemed to have a fierce pace.
What has happened them?