Down Club Hurling & Football

[Dubh driocht]

Don't agree with your analysis Pangurban - we do have a defence and there is clear evidence of a plan but we were torn to shreds in the first half. Management is all about making decisions and the analysis of problems to find solutions ; James and the team excelled in this regard yesterday.
I agree with your take on Laverty.
I'm posting this on the Down thread because it's more about Down than the actual game yesterday. I think we should recognise that Ambrose, Kevin and Aidan are men in their own right and it's wrong to make comparisons with their All Ireland winning fathers. In 2010 Ambrose and Kevin made their names for themselves and yesterday Aidan did the same. To have the balls to take the penalty and the equalising free ( after debate with Ambrose) showed that the man has nerves of steel. Then to crown it off he hits a 70 yard pass into the box which led to O'Hagan's winning point ; this was the same distance that Ross covered with his free ( )on 30th June 1991 (into the same goals!!) to equalise against Derry in the USFC SF. You couldn't make it up .

[Down Mad]

Was at the game yesterday, what a roller coaster!! At half time I was trying to see if I could find a Down official anywhere that would give me my £20 back!!! What a come back though, fair play to the squad and management for the turnaround.

After the dust has settled though, we will not get away with that first half display against Tyrone or Donegal. They will not make the mistake that Monaghan did, If either of these teams go 7 or 8 points up it is good night!

A lot of work needs to be done on the defensive side of things. Benny McArdle had his moments yesterday but all in all in was a very poor defensive display, from all conerned. Can we turn this around for an Ulster Final? I am not sure!

Just on the Ref; It was the worst display I have ever witnessed, and I have witnessed some awful displays in my time. This can never be allowed to happen again. The powers that be banned Brannigan after video evidence, and rightly so! On this basis this Ref should never be allowed to take charge of an inter county game again!!

[Mid Down Gael]

Their stay at the top was short lived, 5 days in total, and where joint top with Burren and ourselves. They beat a Kilcoo team minus 10 regulars and 4 other squad men as they wouldn't move the fixture for us to accommodate one of our main players stag weekend. They would do anything to beat Kilcoo, even though it was affectively a mixture of seconds/thirds players they defeated. Nice to see parity restored last night with a comprehensive beating for them by the harps while Kilcoo SENIORS also got back to winning ways and returned to top spot.

Not to dampen your anti-castlewellan propoganda, which is blatantly obvious when taking a quick glimpse through your post history Mid-Down-Gael, but a bit more notice might have seen kilcoo's postponement application sucessful (the first notice we were given was saturday before the game)...We were going to be missing between 3-4 lads had we moved the match to Thursday or Saturday and Wednesday was too soon after our bruising championship game v loughanisland (when 3 boys were taken off with impact injuries)...We were well entitled to go ahead with the game as per schedule. We have no problem accomodating teams with regards re-arranging games (Mayobridge were going to be unable to field at the start of the season because of a wedding so we changed it to suit) providing it is not going to adversely affect us.

With regards the exagerated number of missing players...your starting team featured Steven Kane, Aiden Brannigan, Darragh O Hanlon, Donal Kane, Jerome Johnson, James McClean, Paul Devlin, Martin Devlin, Sean Devlin, Paddy Devlin, cillian laverty, alphonsus mcevoy who have all regularly been playing senior football for kilcoo for this past number of years. Im sure those fella's would take kindly to you calling them 'affectively a mixture of seconds and thirds'...Of your starting team that leaves Nathyn Smyth, Conor McCusker and Darryl Brannigan....Perhaps it is these guys you are alluding to as 'Seconds and thirds players'?! Granted you were missing conor laverty, niall & gerard mcevoy, phelim mcgreevy but you must not realise that you are only allowed to have 15 players on the pitch at any one time judging by your almost weekly match reports beginning with 'A weakened kilcoo side...' For the record too we were missing fintan mcgreevy, kevin duffin, daniel morgan and a few others but then again...who really cares?...

On another note...Good luck to both Down teams today...would be a great achievement if we had double representation on ulster final day...

You are very selective on the guys you say we where without. Along with Felim, Gerard and Nial and Laverty we where also minus Nial Brannigan, Anthony Devlin, Dominic Mcevoy, Ryan Johnston, Ciaran McClean, Sean ohanlon, Nial Morgan, Paul Greenan and our captain Gary Mcevoy, while good squad men Aaron Brannigan and Daithi Ohanlon where also unavailable.
If you believe it was a great success story beating a severely weakened Kilcoo line out you should think again, yous struggled to scrape by one of our weakest line outs in years. From the championship winning team from 2009 we had 4 players lining out and I think that tells its own story.
Fair play to yous, yous beat what was on front of yous.

[TORGAEL]

DIV 3 RESULT

Drumgath 1-18
Tullylish 2-9

[DownFanatic]

Division 2
Loughinisland 1-05  Liatroim 0-08

0-04 each at halftime. The Island got a goal with just over 5 minutes left to take the lead. Liatroim equalised with a free but then spurned a couple of other set piece chances near the death.

Even game. Big plus point from a Down perspective is that Dan Gordon played the full sixty minutes and came through unscathed.

[Square Ball]

Div 4
Mitchels beat Bredagh by 2 points

[umpire]

SFC,
Sat 30th June
Pairc Esler Newry
7.00pm
Longstone v Ballyholland

[wildrover]

Their stay at the top was short lived, 5 days in total, and where joint top with Burren and ourselves. They beat a Kilcoo team minus 10 regulars and 4 other squad men as they wouldn't move the fixture for us to accommodate one of our main players stag weekend. They would do anything to beat Kilcoo, even though it was affectively a mixture of seconds/thirds players they defeated. Nice to see parity restored last night with a comprehensive beating for them by the harps while Kilcoo SENIORS also got back to winning ways and returned to top spot.

Not to dampen your anti-castlewellan propoganda, which is blatantly obvious when taking a quick glimpse through your post history Mid-Down-Gael, but a bit more notice might have seen kilcoo's postponement application sucessful (the first notice we were given was saturday before the game)...We were going to be missing between 3-4 lads had we moved the match to Thursday or Saturday and Wednesday was too soon after our bruising championship game v loughanisland (when 3 boys were taken off with impact injuries)...We were well entitled to go ahead with the game as per schedule. We have no problem accomodating teams with regards re-arranging games (Mayobridge were going to be unable to field at the start of the season because of a wedding so we changed it to suit) providing it is not going to adversely affect us.

With regards the exagerated number of missing players...your starting team featured Steven Kane, Aiden Brannigan, Darragh O Hanlon, Donal Kane, Jerome Johnson, James McClean, Paul Devlin, Martin Devlin, Sean Devlin, Paddy Devlin, cillian laverty, alphonsus mcevoy who have all regularly been playing senior football for kilcoo for this past number of years. Im sure those fella's would take kindly to you calling them 'affectively a mixture of seconds and thirds'...Of your starting team that leaves Nathyn Smyth, Conor McCusker and Darryl Brannigan....Perhaps it is these guys you are alluding to as 'Seconds and thirds players'?! Granted you were missing conor laverty, niall & gerard mcevoy, phelim mcgreevy but you must not realise that you are only allowed to have 15 players on the pitch at any one time judging by your almost weekly match reports beginning with 'A weakened kilcoo side...' For the record too we were missing fintan mcgreevy, kevin duffin, daniel morgan and a few others but then again...who really cares?...

On another note...Good luck to both Down teams today...would be a great achievement if we had double representation on ulster final day...

You are very selective on the guys you say we where without. Along with Felim, Gerard and Nial and Laverty we where also minus Nial Brannigan, Anthony Devlin, Dominic Mcevoy, Ryan Johnston, Ciaran McClean, Sean ohanlon, Nial Morgan, Paul Greenan and our captain Gary Mcevoy, while good squad men Aaron Brannigan and Daithi Ohanlon where also unavailable.
If you believe it was a great success story beating a severely weakened Kilcoo line out you should think again, yous struggled to scrape by one of our weakest line outs in years. From the championship winning team from 2009 we had 4 players lining out and I think that tells its own story.
Fair play to yous, yous beat what was on front of yous.

Mid Down Gael my post came as a response to your jibes that we would 'not move the fixture to accomodate one of your main players stags'...not to brag about 'a great success story' of beating a severely weakened kilcoo (I would be careful about your superiority complex here - you are not quite crossmaglen)...truth be told we were v.disappointed by our performance and should have won the game by a much more comfortable margin...

Kilcoo possess a huge panel of good footballers with a couple of stand-out players...I was selective about the players I named because they sprang to mind as being big losses...I accept I overlooked a couple more you mentioned on your list but, to my mind, and having seen kilcoo team-sheets since the start of the season, they have largely not featured...You have also delved into long-term injuries and immigration....To me that is not valid and in that case there is not a team in the county that is not 'severely weakened'...

Quick case study....Kilcoo have 50 boys at training and come match day 12 boys are unavailable for variety of reasons....Ballymartin (different divisions and levels I know) have 22 boys at training and come match day 5 boys are unavailable...who is more 'severely weakened'?! Having so many boys training and playing is commendable for such a small rural area, but the flip-side is that there will inevitably be more boys missing for matches throughout the year. Both teams fielded 15 players and castlewellan won. End of.

[dundrumite]

Their stay at the top was short lived, 5 days in total, and where joint top with Burren and ourselves. They beat a Kilcoo team minus 10 regulars and 4 other squad men as they wouldn't move the fixture for us to accommodate one of our main players stag weekend. They would do anything to beat Kilcoo, even though it was affectively a mixture of seconds/thirds players they defeated. Nice to see parity restored last night with a comprehensive beating for them by the harps while Kilcoo SENIORS also got back to winning ways and returned to top spot.

Not to dampen your anti-castlewellan propoganda, which is blatantly obvious when taking a quick glimpse through your post history Mid-Down-Gael, but a bit more notice might have seen kilcoo's postponement application sucessful (the first notice we were given was saturday before the game)...We were going to be missing between 3-4 lads had we moved the match to Thursday or Saturday and Wednesday was too soon after our bruising championship game v loughanisland (when 3 boys were taken off with impact injuries)...We were well entitled to go ahead with the game as per schedule. We have no problem accomodating teams with regards re-arranging games (Mayobridge were going to be unable to field at the start of the season because of a wedding so we changed it to suit) providing it is not going to adversely affect us.

With regards the exagerated number of missing players...your starting team featured Steven Kane, Aiden Brannigan, Darragh O Hanlon, Donal Kane, Jerome Johnson, James McClean, Paul Devlin, Martin Devlin, Sean Devlin, Paddy Devlin, cillian laverty, alphonsus mcevoy who have all regularly been playing senior football for kilcoo for this past number of years. Im sure those fella's would take kindly to you calling them 'affectively a mixture of seconds and thirds'...Of your starting team that leaves Nathyn Smyth, Conor McCusker and Darryl Brannigan....Perhaps it is these guys you are alluding to as 'Seconds and thirds players'?! Granted you were missing conor laverty, niall & gerard mcevoy, phelim mcgreevy but you must not realise that you are only allowed to have 15 players on the pitch at any one time judging by your almost weekly match reports beginning with 'A weakened kilcoo side...' For the record too we were missing fintan mcgreevy, kevin duffin, daniel morgan and a few others but then again...who really cares?...

On another note...Good luck to both Down teams today...would be a great achievement if we had double representation on ulster final day...

You are very selective on the guys you say we where without. Along with Felim, Gerard and Nial and Laverty we where also minus Nial Brannigan, Anthony Devlin, Dominic Mcevoy, Ryan Johnston, Ciaran McClean, Sean ohanlon, Nial Morgan, Paul Greenan and our captain Gary Mcevoy, while good squad men Aaron Brannigan and Daithi Ohanlon where also unavailable.
If you believe it was a great success story beating a severely weakened Kilcoo line out you should think again, yous struggled to scrape by one of our weakest line outs in years. From the championship winning team from 2009 we had 4 players lining out and I think that tells its own story.
Fair play to yous, yous beat what was on front of yous.

Mid Down Gael my post came as a response to your jibes that we would 'not move the fixture to accomodate one of your main players stags'...not to brag about 'a great success story' of beating a severely weakened kilcoo (I would be careful about your superiority complex here - you are not quite crossmaglen)...truth be told we were v.disappointed by our performance and should have won the game by a much more comfortable margin...

Kilcoo possess a huge panel of good footballers with a couple of stand-out players...I was selective about the players I named because they sprang to mind as being big losses...I accept I overlooked a couple more you mentioned on your list but, to my mind, and having seen kilcoo team-sheets since the start of the season, they have largely not featured...You have also delved into long-term injuries and immigration....To me that is not valid and in that case there is not a team in the county that is not 'severely weakened'...

Quick case study....Kilcoo have 50 boys at training and come match day 12 boys are unavailable for variety of reasons....Ballymartin (different divisions and levels I know) have 22 boys at training and come match day 5 boys are unavailable...who is more 'severely weakened'?! Having so many boys training and playing is commendable for such a small rural area, but the flip-side is that there will inevitably be more boys missing for matches throughout the year. Both teams fielded 15 players and castlewellan won. End of.

Here Ballymartin don't realise how lucky they are 

[here comes 6]

Its needs to be mentioned that yesterday showed that after all the flak the county players take they do take pride in wearing the jersey.  I like to put it on the record that no one will really want to play us as on any given day we can beat anyone.  Keep the hard work up lads at training as its paying of and remember september is growing closer.  Can we win the Ulster final? Not a problem and why should we fear Donegal or Tyrone?  If we play the way we know we can we are as good as anyone.  C'mon Down 

[DaisyCutter]

Well Done to the lads on Sunday for scrapping through a tough first half to reach our first Ulster final in years! The key in the second half was winning primary possession in centre field and moving the ball forward with pace and accuracy! Laverty was emense and has took alot of stick on this forum in the past but his last two performances have silence his critics.

Really happy with the solid game from Ambrose! Each game he plays, he gets fitter, faster and stronger. Looking forward to a massive game from him in the final. Hopefully Dan is fit where he can aid a wide open defense and with Brannigans return aswell. Badly missed Maginn for break ball in round the middle and his fast distribution. Benny will def start ahead of Eoin McCartan.
I think we won't be far away from an ulster title, but it will have to be our biggest performance in years!

Mid Down Geal and Wildrover are going at it on here... Magpies actually threw that game away that night if I remember.

[lucan]

to daisy cutter and here comes six.talk it up as much as you wish but would you back it up with hard cash in the book makers.you;ll get a great price.

[here comes 6]

well lucan Ive a score on them at 40/1 til win the all-Ireland so im happy enuf so far as we still have 2 chances left

[DownFanatic]

Division 4 tonight

Dundrum 1-14  St Paul's 1-05

[western exile]

I see that Caolán Mooney is to make his debut with Collingwood this weekend. Best of luck to him. 
Ironically it is Marty Clarke that is dropped from the team for the first time this year.