Armagh Vs Dorty Dubs

[Uladh]

Attempting to be analytical about the dubs is probably difficult after the fact, especially when you only concern yourself with your own team. however, a few notions i have about the dublin team that played sunday:

the full back line was nervious and vulnerable looking from the start. McConnell is very static and looked as though he was expecting an aerial bombardment into clarke and was cleaned out when the ball came low and early. Henry had a torrid day but to be fair there are few in the country who can handle McDonnell in this form. To compound the misery, athough deploying a sweeper seemed eminently sensible, moran didn't seem to have much idea how to do the job. armagh got the ball to mcdonnell and clarke relatively easily despite his presence in the centre.

I understand it was a big game for young Brennan lads but i don't see much there. very pedestrian and poor in possession. The less said about casey the better. unable to do anything with his roving man and seemed determined to find an armagh man with every kick.

Flynn broke even with vernon i suppose. vernon could have made a lot more hay in the first half having lost flynn breaking forward but didn't take his chances. Big fennel was hugely impressive. caught loads of ball and played it simple. worked hard in open play too to contain mcgrane. Whelan coming on turned McGrane's day around and he started winningpossession and frees. i genuinely think it will be impossible to leave fennell out of the championship team.

Bernard Brogan was very impressive. razor sharp and quick as lightening. got off sherlock's shoulder in a flash for his goal and generally was a menace to the armagh defence. Cullen was awful. O'Rourke dominated him in all departments and he didn't seem to know whether he should dropping back or pushing up to cause a threat. Keaney showed 3 or 4 flashes of strength and skill but was virtually anonymous for such a talented player. as has been documented, Vaughan didn't count. he didn't have the pace to beat McKeever to the wing for balls and didn't have the strength to go past him.

Difficult to assess the two inside forwards as their supply was so scarce and so poor. sherlock is a tricky customer and there was a sense of panic when he got the ball but he didn't get it often enough. bonner was cleaned out, pure and simple.

[armamike08]

Great to see that level of performance from Armagh and a much needed boost after the Meath game.  It's hard to know Armagh's true level at the minute, with all the highs and lows of the league performances but the performance yesterday shows that there are good performances in the team, just as long as the application and the mindset are right. Did the players get carried away after the Roscommon game?

As others have said here there were a lot of pluses in the individual performances, particularly Stephen Kernan and Paddy McKeever. When Paddy's in the mood he can put in a performance like that from time to - hopefully he can keep that up. I was very impressed with the tracking back and workrate of Stephen Kernan. Martin O'Rourke was immense (unbelievable amount of energy, workrate and incisive passing) and Kieran McKeever showed again, as he has throughout the league, that he is now in the top tier of inter county defenders.  Brendan Donaghy keeps getting better with every game - seems to be one of those players who blossoms into a solid inter county footballer.  Charlie Vernon showed glimpses of what he is capable of.  His direct and powerful running through the middle reminded me of a young Marsden. He's not a midfielder though - a wing half forward breaking from midfield is his best position imo. That type of direct running can really open up defences, and adds another dimension to the attack, as opposed to relying purely on the diagonal ball.

The team for the championship is taking shape, with probably around 3/4 places still up for grabs.  Maybe McKinney, Bellew, Mallon, Toner to come in? There are some good options across the panel, including the likes of O'Neill, Lavery, Swift, Courtney, Brian Mallon and McConville (more of an impact sub this year?).  Others like Micheal O'Rourke, Peader Toal and David McKenna still untested.     

Roll on Cork and two decent performances back to back!

[Mike Sheehy]

By the talk about who will contend and who will not, and how far Kerry are ahead, its amazing to think Kerry were within a kick of a ball of losing the 1/4 final and semi final last year.

They are the best team yes, no doubt.

But some people are going on as if they are invincible, which they are certainly not.

I must admit though, as bad as Dublin were yesterday, Armagh were better than I expected.

What you are seeing is just very poor attempts at "cute hoorism" by lads. You can be sure that  if we do come a cropper the very same lads will be on here telling us how they knew Dara o se was really shite and that Gooch is vastly overrated etc etc ....we've seen it all before........but, for now, thay are happy to build us up. Its just par for the course this time of year.

You can't out-cute-hoor the masters of cute-hoorism lads so dont even try. We know ye all secretly fancy ye're chances.

[PatDaly]

Why has no-one suggested moving Aaron Kernan to the half forward line?

Martin O'Rourke, Charlie Vernon and Aaron Kernan on paper seems like a great half forward line

Stevie McDonnell, Ronan Clarke and Stephen Kernan would then be our full forward line

[Hound]

Attempting to be analytical about the dubs is probably difficult after the fact, especially when you only concern yourself with your own team. however, a few notions i have about the dublin team that played sunday:

thanks for your analysis

[Stevie Nicks]

Why has no-one suggested moving Aaron Kernan to the half forward line?

Martin O'Rourke, Charlie Vernon and Aaron Kernan on paper seems like a great half forward line

Stevie McDonnell, Ronan Clarke and Stephen Kernan would then be our full forward line

If Stephen Kernan is to start the championship it has to be on the half forward line as in fairness it is his distribution into the two boys inside that has made the difference in the Roscommon and Dublin games. If you start him in the full forward line we lose that.

[bennydorano]

Why has no-one suggested moving Aaron Kernan to the half forward line?

Do you mean in the past half hour??

[his holiness nb]

Hound, Uladh got the Dubs spot on in his analysis.
The only additional I would say is about Derek Murray, hauled off after about 20 mins and it was coming from the start, destroyed.
I've yet to be impressed by him.

Fennell has been impressive to date but this was his best game. The Dubs lost midfield after Whelan came on.

[INDIANA]

Tacadoir there is a clear distinction between expressing an opinion and systematic abuse. there are plenty of players i don;t feel are good enough for my county team but i've yet to see any of the dublin contributors resort to the sort of personalised and unwarranted abuse stephen kernan got last year from so called "fans". Fair play to him for giving the swift two fingers to these clowns.
Aaron kernan is an excellent player going forward- but watch the vincents v crossmaglen game for his defending capabilties. A certain kerry forward who has marked him simply said to me recently they targetted him by putting runners into his channel. He's looks a natural half forward to me and with a sweet left foot - a bloody good one too.
Still he's better than our defence at the moment which quite frankly i don;t know what the management are going to do. At this time i couldn't say any of the dublin defenders have nailed down a championship spot which in april is quite disappointing. It's fine dropping key players when they are bang out of form but the unfortunate reality is that dublin won;t even challenge the likes of kerry  without these guys firing on all cylinders. That's the trade off.

[Uladh]

Indiana - you are talking out of your hole on the steven kernan issue.

Noone with an ounce of credability ever personally criticised sk on this site. the issues were all football ones and primarily that he had not merited the chances he had been given.

Now, either produce quotes or move on.

[downredblack]

Have to say the amount of Dubs going up the road on Sunday was unreal , around how many Dubs travelled ?

[his holiness nb]

Maybe there aren't any on this site but there were plenty giving abuse on Sunday in Cross. Mark Vaughan seemed to be on the end of a lot of it, with 'f**k back off to rugby!' the contribution of one of your fellow county men. Also the language and general behavior of that lot yous put behind the top goals was ridiculous at times, bordering on intimidating.

I was to the side of the guys behind the top goals and there were a group of about 2-3 guys roaring abuse at Vaughan, they were well out of order in my opinion, the same guy was roaring at Hearty after the game. Other than that there was a lot of slagging and joking with anyone in the vicinity, the same few guys, a few yards from me, did go a little over the top occasionally with the slaggings. Especially when the orange legged ladies went by at half time!

But as I said, it was 2 or 3 guys using bad language out of the thousands of Dubs in attendance who behaved impeccably and contributed to a great day out. And were gracious in defeat.

You could at least admit it was a tiny few who were misbehaving.

And before anyone accuses me of blindly defending the Dubs fans, anyone who has read my posts over the years will know I am not slow to condemn, or even bring to peoples attention, the bad behaviour of some Dublin "fans".

[Uladh]

I thought the dubs were great craic altogether as usual. they can take the good with the bad thats for sure.

you should have a fair view of brogan's sending off then holiness... what happened there?

[his holiness nb]

you should have a fair view of brogan's sending off then holiness... what happened there?

couldnt see it Uladh, he was in the middle of a group of players involved. Hard to see who did what.

Looked like handbags to me.

[Smokin Joe]

I missed the very start of the Brogan / O'Rourke incident, but when I first seen it there were 2 Dublin players having a go at Aidan O'Rourke.  As I say I don't know what went on before that, ie the initial spark.
Finnian Mo then ran in to give O'Rourke a hand, and shortly after that a dozen other jersies soon swamped in.