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I haven't read all 21 pages of the thread so forgive me if somebody has already made the same point. First of all in terms of a conflict of interest not surprisingly for this site I am a Nationalist and a Nordie of a certain age so hardly an unbiased spectator
Unionism like nationalism is a wide spectrum of views and opinions. loyalist paramilitaries are embedded within certain communities in the north.they are part and parcel of day today life. They don't want to understand the changes that have occurred and don't understand that the fact that there "Fenian" neighbours are no longer on their knees and they are no longer superior just because they belong to the "majority" community. The discovery of new weapons in East Belfast, reintroduction of paramilitary murals and issues around "Flegs" and parades should  tell us that the small nub of unconstructed bigots still exists

Didn't Pete stop a minor team from getting fed after a defeat a couple of years ago or is that another urban myth or Down legend.

With the best will in world things have moved on from 1994. Are there no young aspiring coaches in the county

Corrinshego won the Junior B league this weekend. Forkhill won the Junior A division also.

Fair play to all at the ranch and those that kept the club running through a lot of very difficult years.  Do they go to Junior A or Intermediate?

Add
Showing no sign of any emotion at even the most tense game and looking down on those that do.

Sandwiches out of the boot of the car, on the train to a game I saw a man with his complete Sunday dinner between four slices of plain bread, cabbage, spuds and meat.

Why should they get twitchy. I maybe slightly wrong in terms of numbers but I thought there were only ever two British soldiers ever imprisoned and both squad dies were welcomed back into the British Army and one was promoted on his return. Rough justice

Why is northern Ireland politicians a bunch of slimy sneaky underhand hoods just out for themselves who can never be sacked, no wonder visitors always seen as backward bible bashing gay bashing bunch of country yokels. Nelson Close the door on the way out son!! As Alan Sugar would say, you fired!!

Unless there is a clear knockout punch landed in terms of fraud or corruption it is very unlikely the "minister" will step aside. As regards corruption planning, re-zoning, brown envelopes, 26 counties. It's endemic in most political systems.

And to think that they were able to take control of certain planning decisions last week....

Having the DUP in power is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

Supported by the Shinners!

So Iceman, what you're saying is that i have to bring my schoolbag into a chapel in order to find god? It's all terribly confusing this religion carry on.

He also thinks you need to be Catholic to be Irish, a church of the long gone Roman Empire and a representative of a foreign and hostile state, The Vatican City. A church imposed on us by another extinct and formally hostile foreign state, England.

The Roman Catholic Church, the church that would have us ruled by London and Rome.

No you and Muppet are deliberately misrepresenting what he is saying. The facts on the ground are that CCMS schools incorporate a more cultural Irish ethos in a similar way to the state schools reflecting British cultural norms. This is because that since partition the body overseeing the Catholic sector were the only statutory body in the state which maintained or permitted some degree of Irish identify - merely because the Church was organised on a 32 country basis. If it wasn't for the Catholc Church and the schools northerners wouldl all be cheering on "our boys" and waving union jacks at jubbilee street parties. Times have moved on yes and a new setup is required but the Catholic Church deserves some credit for allowing the space of Irish culture to survive in the north when it would have been easy to lump in on the side of the state as it did in so many other countries.

Agree 100 per cent, Catholic schools in the north contributed significantly to the maintenance of the Irish identity during a period whe it was treated at best as "other" and at worst to be discriminated against and subverted at every opportunity.  Thank god the nationalist community in the north is now confident in itself and is no longer on its knees.

PatDaly your draw sounds good, especially as it gets rid of Down!

I'd prefer Armagh in the Athletic grounds to minimise travel costs for our beleaguered neigbours and to do our bit for the environment by making sure none of that dodgy diesal has to leave ARmagh

On a similar note, who do you reckon is the worst club in Ulster? There's always one team constantly rock bottom of the basement division. A team that can barely score never mind win a match. A team that you would probably laugh at but admire at the same time for putting in the effort and dedication of keeping the games alive. In Down it's probably Ballykinlar, though they'd have a bit of competition for the wooden spoon award - aughlisnafin, bright, magheralin etc.

I thought Aughlisnafin had been making good strides in recent seasons?

In Armagh it's Phelim Brady's by far.

Better by comparison . Have those from the ranch short memories

Isn't the start of a new intercounty season a wonderful thing. We can all kid ourselves that a few changes will see us right.
Rather than personnel changes is it not more about styles of play.
The Dubs won last year with a 12 man defense and only 3 decent forwards. In my view we have better fowards as a group but will the suffocating style employed by the Dubs and Donegal allow us to utilise them.
God forbid but must we consider dirty percentage football especially against the likes of these. Is it possible to switch this style off and on.
Its not that long ago that the sweeper was utilised and as far as I remember we had the best defensive record in the NFL that season.
What impact has O'Rourke had on the defensive set up, the cast looks the same.

Looking forward to the game tomorrow. Hope the traffic is better managed than last week and Burren to win, as the song goes 'perfect day'.

It may have gone under the radar but Downpatrick are back into Division 1. They beat Liatroim 1-09 to 1-08 in a promotion playoff on Sunday. Must of been around 2003 that they were relegated from Division 1 last time round. Won two IFC's in the intervening period. Probably one of the biggest underachievers in the county.

Good to see a town club heading in the right direction.  If only Newry could be sorted so they made a contribution worthy of its size.

Its been a knockout competition ever since we were beat by Armagh, am I missing something?.  The performance against Wexford was terrible.  We are now up against the current champions slightly different to the Wexford position.  We have made substantial progress since the Wexford game .

We have every chance against Cork, the real comparison is to last year.  The challenge this year in round 4 is much more substantial than last year round 4.  Post mortems are largely held after games and even then the true measure of a performance may only be seen when the season is over and we all know who the winners are   

Some people with very short memories, wasnt that long ago we were playing Division three football and looking for Fermanagh, Antrim or Cavan in the Ulster championship to try and get a win of any sort and we came up short on a few occassions there.

As others have said the game is 70 minutes long, very few teams dominate entire games now.  Entire teams will not have great games all that is required is that the sum of the parts is better than the other lots.

To criticise Coulter in particular is laughable.  The man carried Down teams for the best part of a decade, two weeks ago he scored 7 points , last week he contributed to two goals give me more "one trick ponies"