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Good luck to our men today. This is going to be a fierce tough encounter against Loughmacrory, never get an easy game against any Tyrone champions and expecting a real slog of a game.

#UTM

Kilcoo will beat Lough handy enough I reckon. Even on their best day Lough wouldn't be a match for them but they'll be out celebrating for weeks to come I'd say. Kilcoo have freshened the team up too have they? Haven't followed them to closely but it's what they needed

We will not be looking any further than Loughmacrory. Tyrone championship is wild competitive so won't be taking anything for granted. Yes, they'll celebrate their win for a few days but they'll be no push overs at all. Looking forward to this encounter.

@maurice,
   No mention of your U14 camogs winning the championship at the weekend?

A cracking wee team, the girls done brilliant and that would be a mighty scoreline to put up against any team, nevermind Portaferry in a championship final.

Kilcoo will beat Lough handy enough I reckon. Even on their best day Lough wouldn't be a match for them but they'll be out celebrating for weeks to come I'd say. Kilcoo have freshened the team up too have they? Haven't followed them to closely but it's what they needed

We will not be looking any further than Loughmacrory. Tyrone championship is wild competitive so won't be taking anything for granted. Yes, they'll celebrate their win for a few days but they'll be no push overs at all. Looking forward to this encounter.

Apparently that was made for their first go at it and Burren stopped the 7IAR, so it's still the original.

Found this out myself after Sundays game. Nice touch that it was held onto in the event we may have needed it 😄

A great day to be a Magpie!

Write us off at your peril!! Been reading all week about a changing of the guard, how we were going to get overrun in midfield and that Carryduff's runners would do serious damage!

Well...what a performance from our men yesterday, they were just outstanding. Not 1 of our men lost their individual match ups, will have to dig deep to pull the 2 Guinness brothers out of back pockets! The defending was clinical and our forwards ran riot against the Carryduff defense. Some of the score taking was unbelievable. PD scored one of the most outrageous points I think I've ever seen..a master at work!

We extend our lead as the club with the most Down SFC wins to 23. Burren being second on 14.

An interesting fact that was raised last night was that quite a number on the panel now have their 14th Down Senior championship medal, as many as the 2nd most successful club in the county in Burren, some feat!

Commiserations to Carryduff, their supporters were great around us. Read about the noise of the horns from their supporters being and online, was nonstop but became like white noise eventually. Also read some complaints about the colour clash for online viewers, must have been how the cameras were picking it up because it did not appear that way in person.

UP THE MIGHTY MAGPIES
#UTM

Throw in pushed back to 5pm now.

Pitch inspection for Park Esler happening shortly, think weather is to possibly improve.

There's been a serious rain fall there the last day and pitch will be in some nick after games on Friday and Saturday.

Be some slog of a game if goes ahead.

Hard luck to our men yesterday and congratulations to Errigal. Was a proper tight Ulster club game. Our lads put in a serious shift and were defensively sound, keeping the Canavan's relatively quiet. Errigal a good side and can't imagine their forwards being as well marked going forward. A few folk have already mentioned about the refereeing and missing black cards and the blatant square ball but there's not much point complaining about it now. The red card left us with a lot of work to do and we nearly pulled it off but can only admire our men for the effort they put in. We were a bit flat at times and didn't take some scores in vital moments but here that's football for ya.

Our men done the whole village proud and have given us great days out. They will take a well deserved break and we will see what next year holds for us.

I must add, we were sitting close to a big Errigal contingent, very good supporters and they gave their men some support. This Magpie hopes you can go on and win the whole lot.

#UTM

Is that figure correct of €8,065 per club in Down? Seen that figure doing the rounds but thought it's a bit lower than what was to be expected?

Anyone any idea if that's correct and if so how? Would mean there'd be just under 124 clubs in the county???

Yes fair play to Paul, hope he has a good final.

Hard luck to our men today. Wasn't meant to be for us, we didn't play to our usual high standards and made a couple of uncharacteristic errors and mistakes that we'd normally not do or get away with....but will take absolutely nothing away from Scotstown. They were up for it and totally deserving of their win. They are a quality side and although mentioned before by another poster, we were definitely not looking past them as we knew what we were up against. Fair play to them and I'd personally like to see them go on and win it but never know in this competition.

Also congratulations to our neighbours in Liatroim on a good win today, great to see.

[to bend the rules in their favour or to mislead with regards to winning frees.]

Fair to have an observation, mine would be that clubs do not present these management teams with players who have been invested in correctly or at least in the way that kilcoo have done. Through their juvenile playing careers they need to be moulded into athletes not just footballers and be tactically aware and of course coachable. Kilcoo isnt full of great footballers. They are the same as anyone else, some elite, some good and some average but whats different is their athletic ability, and their mentality and of course their ability to pay attention to detail even when it is to bend the rules in their favour or to mislead with regards to winning frees.

Now now...serious rule bending to win by 9 points on Sunday to be fair to us

Down football is falling down with coaches who can quickly spot and replicate the more negative sides of Kilcoo's game: how to form a blockade between your 21 and 25. How to endlessly recycle with patience. How to assign man markers who literally do nothing but man mark. How to wind up and leave sky digs on opponents. How to intimidate referees. How to appeal and jostle every county board decision. How to build a cloak of omertà around the team. Etc.

But despite all of their expensive support teams and specialists, and despite all of their infatuation with stupid statistics, and with even stupider GPS data, and despite all of their hours watching, dissecting then foisting the sheer boredom of club football videos upon everyone...... not one manager in the county seems to be able to get a handle on let alone replicate what makes Kilcoo so bloody good.

None of them have found a way to control momentum against Kilcoo; actually none of them have even found a way to negate Kilcoo's control of momentum. None of them seem to be able to stop Kane kicking the ball into an unmarked man in the right half back channel, even though this has been his bailout kick out for years. So nobody ever scores twice in a row against them. When teams do force Kilcoo into a mistake, it's almost a given that they'll then retreat and hug the life out of the ball for a couple of mins just to get a breather; the exact opposite of how Kilcoo behave in this situation, where they'll pile forward at multiple angles. When you have the ball and Kilcoo get you where they want you - endlessly recycling on the Kilcoo 45 - it never seems to dawn on anyone that this might be the correct time to load the square and make Kilcoo retreat to match up the numbers, and not just form a line with them across the 45, waiting for the inevitable dispossession.


I'm not saying that Kilcoo aren't better anyhow. They probably are. But by f**k wouldn't it be nice if one team in Down didn't just fall into their traps? Just once?

Management in Down club football is bluffery of the highest order. Absolute bluffery.

We are good like 🏁

Special mention to our 2 senior team medics after their quick actions assisted Philip Walsh who took unwell after the final on Sunday.

Much come out of the meeting?