Ulster Final 2008 - Armagh vs Fermanagh

[balladmaker]

fermanagh wernt great in the first 50mins but we all believe it was nerves none if these boys have ever been in a ulster final but when they realised that they have the skills to win they went into action. fermanagh will come out on sunday and will play for the full 70mins they will have an even better second half and armagh wont be able 2 content with them. of course armagh will still be hot favourites to win bt i dont think they will be able to finish the game off they will have a good 1st half but they wont turn up for the 2nd half.

Who the feck are you...Nostradamus? 

[Skiddybadoo]

fermanagh wernt great in the first 50mins but we all believe it was nerves none if these boys have ever been in a ulster final but when they realised that they have the skills to win they went into action. fermanagh will come out on sunday and will play for the full 70mins they will have an even better second half and armagh wont be able 2 content with them. of course armagh will still be hot favourites to win bt i dont think they will be able to finish the game off they will have a good 1st half but they wont turn up for the 2nd half.

Who the feck are you...Nostradamus? 

No, he's NostraMcmanus

[McManus.]

Who the feck are you...Nostradamus? 

and what excaly would you mean by that?

[Skiddybadoo]

Who the feck are you...Nostradamus? 

and what excaly would you mean by that?

I wouldn't wanna predict Balladmaker's response.

Go to bed McManus, your Summer Club starts early in the morning.

Good night and good luck.

[High Catch]

AOR, it has been good to see him back, he is a great reader of the game and is always in position but he hasn't the legs or speed.  Too often he was left trailing a faster Fermanagh player who had 3 or 4 yards on him before he got going.  He can play by sitting in from of Francie but his distribution of the ball can be quite poor, often losing possession.  It's time to remove sentiment, AOR has done a great job in the transition without McGeeney but McKeever needs to be given his chance to take over at CHB with Donaghy moving into half back.

Surely abit harsh?

[Goats Do Shave]

I thought he was definately exposed last Sunday! Was because his little brother wasn't there to bail him out??

[corn02]

He can play by sitting in from of Francie but his distribution of the ball can be quite poor,

One of the stupidest things I have ever heard on the GAABOARD.

[Tommy Tibbs]

He can play by sitting in from of Francie but his distribution of the ball can be quite poor,

Agreed, A O'R's districution in general is of a very high standard from centre half back, quite possibly an significant improvement to the days of Geezer. He may have had a bad day last week but that doesnt mean he's finished.

[mackers]

You were going rightly there TYP until the AOR thing. I don't think McGrane should shoulder the responsibilty for Sunday's collapse, he can't be competing for the aerial ball and the broken ball. I would presume that this would be central to this week's training sessions. We need to get more bodies in there to compete for the break ball.
The half backs have to push further up the field to compete for the break ball. We seem to be leaving the break ball to MOR and have been doing so all year.
IF we are going to start kicking to the wings from kickouts then Hearty is not the man for between the posts, every time he tries this he kicks it over the sideline.

[corn02]

The Hearty v McKinney situation is very interesting.

It is lenght v accuracy.

I have a feeling that we could see McKinney in nets on Sunday.

[dodgyrightfoot]

What's the Armagh publics opinion on McKinney? I remember he was due to start against us a couple of years back but then cudnt because of a family bereavement or something to that effect, but he must be a good men between the sticks.

How is he under the high ball? Is shot stopping his strength?

[Malone Aristocrat]

Armagh comfortably beat down and Cavan and everyone is brilliant - the players can do no wrong! 20 poor minutes against fermanagh (totally forgetting they were good enough to take an 8 point lead) and everyone is shite! insightful stuff.

[Uladh]

Quite a bit of badly thought out and irrational analysis floating about re last week's game. For 50 minutes everything was moving ok, when Fermanagh turned the tide and consequently the game.

What happened with 20 minutes to go that wasn't happening before? Two of the half forward line were changed – probably the two most mobile and hard working two. Before this, particularly in the first half, Armagh chewed up and spat out these waves of Fermanagh attacks at ease. Suddenly, Fermanagh were creating overlaps and McCloskey and Tommy McElroy were getting through the gaps.

The half forward line were not tracking their runners effectively as had been done before. In addition, the removal of Martin O'Rourke massively impacted the break ball scenario. Not only the breaks the man wins but if you watch the game closely, when a Fermanagh man wins a break in a danger area, O'Rourke is on him like a clag and the effectiveness is minimised immediately.

The lazy reaction that because this happened in the last 20 minutes means that the older players haven't the legs is badly informed. McGrath, who had shaped the course of the Monaghan and Derry games produced very little. McGrane fetched more ball and drove forward more. In the final 20 minutes McGrath never caught a ball but kicked one point – off the back of McGrane having to leave him to tackle an attacking half back. Mostly these two broke even, with McGrane probably shading it. Inevitably the ball will break off the pair of them and its up to the rest to compete then.

In the first half, Aidan O'Rourke was the barrier that totally undermined Fermanagh's attacking intentions. When they ran at Armagh's centre, O'Rourke doubled up on the tackles at the right time and caused numerous turnovers. More importantly, Fermanagh's intended attacking ploy of hitting Murphy on the square was completely blotted out by O'Rourke and they were forced to carry the ball into the waiting tackling nets. The point about O'Rourke trailing Fermanagh forwards indicates poor understanding of what a sweeper deals with. Inevitably if a runner breaks through to run at the sweeper, he is doing so full speed at a static tackler. Those situations depend more on technique and strength than speed and O'Rourke's copes better with this than most.

On a general point, for whatever reason Armagh certainly missed both men's long deliveries into the forwards on Sunday. In particular, I feel that O'Rourke was too deep to contribute his usual relieving passes, which Armagh have depended quite a bit on this year.

Armagh's second half problems centred around two things in my opinion. Firstly and most worryingly the break ball situation. This has been the case against cavan and down also so there's a fundamental weakness in the team's make up here. If you are getting cleaned out on breaks, the opposition are in the front foot all day and you have to cope with a hell of a lot of pressure at the back. Secondly, the roles of the half forward line seems to be confusing. Where are they supposed to be playing? Too often in that last 20 minutes there was no half forward line – only 100 yards of space to Clarke and McDonnell. No prizes for guessing that the ball has to be run out of defence in that scenario.

Take your points – some of your other points are baffling.

McGrane and the defence had settled to hold on to the lead

– eh?

Hearty was booming the ball out to around 70 yards which allowed the whole Armagh defence and two half forwards to blanket in front of their goals

– I never saw an armagh half forward in their own defence for kick outs at any stage of the game.

running at the Armagh defence who fouled and gave away frees which thankfully Fermanagh were unable to convert

– surely you are watching Armagh long enough now to know that these fouls don't occur in difficult scoring positions by accident?

Yes, Paul McGrane does not play a great role as the captain.  He does lead by example, a real workhorse but he doesn't marshall his players, he doesn't direct the play and they cannot benefit from his experience.  Armagh were leaderless in defence when they most needed someone to direct the players because there is little communication between the sideline and players throughout the match.  This should have been the role for AOR but he couldn't position himself properly and fell back onto the square.

– how can you know anything about the communication between the players on the field or from the sideline?

Fermanagh are very limited in attack but they do play to their strengths.  Their main strength is the ability to run all day in the hope of wearing down the opposition

– Fermanagh's goal and most of the hysteria created in the last ten minutes with high ball launched onto the square.

AOR.... He can play by sitting in from of Francie but his distribution of the ball can be quite poor, often losing possession.

– jaysus, that's the icing on the cake.

It's all about development for Armagh, we are still in the transition phase for this squad.

– noone else really believes that

[corn02]

Spot on.

[dodgyrightfoot]

jaysus that was some rant!