Down v Wexford

[Pangurban]

Terrible news about Ambrose, puts football results in perspective, hope he recovers well

[pintsofguinness]

Bad news on Ambrose, hope to see him back soon.

[stew]

Down flatter to deceive once again, they really have been one of the worst teams in the country since the late nineties, with so many clubs and players to choose from, how can they be this bad for so long?

They were in the last 12 of the AI series, during which they beat tyrone, offaly and laois, how can they be one of the worst teams you spa?

Well nail, tyrone are the only team left in the championship at this stage and offaly havent done shit in a couple of decades, laois are always championship under acheivers and tyrone were badly hit by injury when the teams played. Oh one other thing, i was looking at their body of mediocrity since the late nineties and they were brutal for the most part since then.

[Class of 99]

Totally gutted after yesterday especiially the news about Ambrose. We seemed to lack belief yesterday whish is a strange one.
There was no plan B either which will have to looked at. I thought the half forwards where very poor in particular and Dan had a bad day at the office to boot. Its a pitty but there is always next year.

[The Corporal]

Thought Danny Hughes had a stinker of a game, he constantly kicked away possession and missed an easy score from less than 21yrds out in the 2nd half. The ball into Benny and John Clarke was poor, fair enough Wexford had a man in front of them but Down just seemed to pass it straight to the Wexford player. Thought Jack Lynch should maybe have got some sort of run out to mix it up a bit. Rory Stafford (in the same mould as Jack) came on for Wexford, threw D Rafferty out of the way like a rag doll and then scored a point. Why couldnt our boys do something like that?

[Model Hammer]

Best way to sum up the game is what my friend beside me said: looks like a Division 3 match!

Little did we think it would turn out to be not even be the worst match of the 4!

As for Brian Malone standing in front of the Full-Forward line, isn't it amazing how often this tactic seems to work, even at this level? At every level of football it's mad how easy it can be to disrupt a team by putting an extra man in front of their biggest forward threat. I had been at the Offaly-Down game, when Down found their inside forwards with ease, and caused havoc. On Saturday the player in possession looked up, saw the path cut off, and there didn't seem to be too many other options. In fairness to our much-maligned Full-Back Line, I thought Davy Walsh making his first championship start did a fantastic job on Coulter, when the ball did come in. Wallace did well too, and I'm delighted for him after all the stick he's taken. The Wexford tackling was a vast improvement, and fair play to the backroom for all the work they put in over the two weeks. All the gaping errors frorm the last day were rectified.

As I said last week, if you don't at least break even on the breaking ball you're in big trouble, and in the second half all the breaks went to WX. Some were pretty fortuitous, but thems the breaks I guess. Down then started to look very tired and I think the last 2 weeks caught up on them, plus the turnovers just sucked the energy out of them a la Wexford two weeks earlier.

In my opinion, Wexford have yet to put in a really good 70 minutes performance this year, and will take great heart from this result. If they can use the confidence re-gained to put in as comitted a performance as that, and try to up the quality, they can give Armagh a run for their money.

Sad news about Ambrose. Hope he's ok. Football is only football after all.

[full back]

Awesome result for Wexford, awesome display, well done, 

I hope you are taking the p1ss

[D4S]

First time I've logged in since the result had a busy weekend.  Was gutted with the display and result on Saturday we really were brutal, and I didnt expect it at all, I really thought we would have won.  When I heard about Ambrose then on Saturday evening though the result no longer mattered.  So unfortunate for him, I know he's devastated by it.  Got out of intensive care last night and into High Dependency he's stable but very lucky.  Hope he recovers well but he'll be out of action for a long time!

[Orior]

Thats as bad a performance as I've seen from Down in a long time. Would the guys who called for O'Rourke's head now do the same for Carr? Bottom line is that no matter who the manager is, Down dont have enough county standard players.

[RadioGAAGAA]

Bottom line is that no matter who the manager is, Down dont have enough county standard players.

Agree 100%.


Look at the size of our full back line compared to Mayo or Tyrone. They have big athletic fellas that can take a hit.

Unfortunately, while our fellas may technically be on the case, physically we just aren't big or quick enough.

[Down Gael]

Look at the size of our full back line compared to Mayo or Tyrone. They have big athletic fellas that can take a hit.

Unfortunately, while our fellas may technically be on the case, physically we just aren't big or quick enough.

Andy Mallon of Armagh isnt the biggest defender in Ireland, though he is one of the best. Luke Howard was arguably our most consistent defender over the summer, its not the size of the man in the fight....
So Tyrone have a bigger full back line than us? Maybe I am wrong, but didnt we beat Tyrone and Pat McEnaney in Newry recently  even with our small defenders.

[Our Nail Loney]

Down flatter to deceive once again, they really have been one of the worst teams in the country since the late nineties, with so many clubs and players to choose from, how can they be this bad for so long?

They were in the last 12 of the AI series, during which they beat tyrone, offaly and laois, how can they be one of the worst teams you spa?

Well nail, tyrone are the only team left in the championship at this stage and offaly havent done shit in a couple of decades, laois are always championship under acheivers and tyrone were badly hit by injury when the teams played. Oh one other thing, i was looking at their body of mediocrity since the late nineties and they were brutal for the most part since then.

Yes obviously tyrone are the only team left out of the three because down put the other two out. Great argument.

[goh4205]

Look at the size of our full back line compared to Mayo or Tyrone. They have big athletic fellas that can take a hit.

Unfortunately, while our fellas may technically be on the case, physically we just aren't big or quick enough.

Andy Mallon of Armagh isnt the biggest defender in Ireland, though he is one of the best. Luke Howard was arguably our most consistent defender over the summer, its not the size of the man in the fight....
So Tyrone have a bigger full back line than us? Maybe I am wrong, but didnt we beat Tyrone and Pat McEnaney in Newry recently  even with our small defenders.

Andy Mallon is much harder & stronger than he looks. I remember the tryone/Armagh game in croker 2/3 years ago and he pulled that lad Mellon around like a rat when the hard hitting started.
Really sad to hear the news about young Rodgers, he is a player i rate in this Down squad along with coulter, Carr & Howard.  The rest in my view are very average county players.  He is a great athlete and a pleasure to watch when in full flow, but i suspect with such an injury his playing days are probably over, well at county level anyway.

[corn02]

Hughes, McKernan and James McGovern are also worth of a shout. I know Hughes is not prominent but he does a lot of work. Howard had not as good as game on McDonnell as people think - the amount of ball Stevie won was unreal - but he had a very good first season. Get back Walsh for a start.

[amallon]

The Wexford game was very disappointing, we never really looked like winning it at any stage.  We really seem to struggle against teams that play an extra defender against us, we had the same problem against Armagh when we lacked any penetration.  There were signs of progress this year but the performance against Wexford takes away a lot of the gloss of earlier performances.  I think if we'd been playing the Dubs or Kerry we could have been embarrassed.

Promotiion from Div 3 is a must this year.