Messages

Sean Hurson is the ref on Saturday.
Ruairi Kinsella is out for Meath - ACL in training.

Kinsella is a huge loss for Meath.
Hurson doesn't really give us much.

Marshals was absolute tripe.
Dutton Ranch is ok, not amazing.

Couple of episode into the latest series of Clarkson's farm - its still really good.
Watched season 1 of an apple series, Your Friends and Neighbors. Thought it was really good.

Just listened to the Boucher interview - that's one of the worst bits of politicking I've heard. Actually laughable.
The UUP is done. Give it 10 years and they'll either have been absorbed into some new party with the DUP or just cease to exist.

Legends was really good. Coogan is brilliant.

Didn't read the article but a friend of mine his daughter wanted to go to Trinity or UCD not sure which one, but he said that she could only get in if there was any spaces available after the locals took theirs..

Purely anecdotal, just in case   

Not true
Son went to trinity so can speak from experience
Daughter applied for ucd  and was also accepted but ended up at queens as mates didn't go to Dublin
Reality for the good degrees  in ucd/ trinity you need 4  a levels but tbf you need a serious high number of points in the south also .

Should nationalist politicians be looking at stuff like that and making it more accessible to students from the six counties to study at southern universities?  That's a simple, practical step they could try to do.


And on that, I know a lad who's son was trying to get registered as a teacher in the south. He wanted to live in Dublin.  Qualified in St. Mary's, Belfast but the hassle and grief he was put through to get registered with the Teaching Council was unreal. He said it'd be easier to get registered if you were from Australia.


He said the grilling and paperwork he had to put in was crazy. Ironic thing is, he said, is that there's a severe shortage of teachers in the south, especially in Dublin and commuter belt areas on the eastern seaboard.

Again, this is an area tht nationalist politicans should be working on - making it more accessible to northerners.

One of my kids wants to go into teaching but has no idea how/where to apply in the south. There are a very small number of teaching places here each year so it would make sense to apply elsewhere to be in with a chance, most seem to go to England - which she doesn't want to do.
Can anyone point me in the direction of where to look for courses in ROI uni? Or do you have to go to each Uni site and search all of them individually?
The school doesn't seem to know!

will they need some level of Irish for that?

I thought that had changed - where you only need Irish (or a language) if going into some of the language based degrees?

Brennan and McGuinness incidents like comparing apples to oranges the brains of the operation reckons...

The more time goes on, the more I think JB as a serious superiority complex. He talks some BS and expects everyone to buy into it.

I don't think he'll be seen as being a successful appointment, which is really disappointing as I thought he was a great appointment when he got the gig.

Mobile phones are banned in most schools, if brought out in class they are taken off them and retrieved at the end of the day, the problem was it wasn't enforced

Yeah thats the rule in most schools as far as I know, alright to have the phone with you but if you've it out in class it's lifted

Its the rule in my kids school, but the school also uses Google classroom for a lot of stuff and the kids need their phone in the room to do that.
The school has also blocked internet access to non-education auth devices - but, kids find a way. They all use VPN's and get onto the school wifi! Have to admire that.

On the one hand the school says no phones, on the other they tell the kids they need the phone in class. Doesn't sit well with me.

Didn't read the article but a friend of mine his daughter wanted to go to Trinity or UCD not sure which one, but he said that she could only get in if there was any spaces available after the locals took theirs..

Purely anecdotal, just in case   

Not true
Son went to trinity so can speak from experience
Daughter applied for ucd  and was also accepted but ended up at queens as mates didn't go to Dublin
Reality for the good degrees  in ucd/ trinity you need 4  a levels but tbf you need a serious high number of points in the south also .

Should nationalist politicians be looking at stuff like that and making it more accessible to students from the six counties to study at southern universities?  That's a simple, practical step they could try to do.


And on that, I know a lad who's son was trying to get registered as a teacher in the south. He wanted to live in Dublin.  Qualified in St. Mary's, Belfast but the hassle and grief he was put through to get registered with the Teaching Council was unreal. He said it'd be easier to get registered if you were from Australia.


He said the grilling and paperwork he had to put in was crazy. Ironic thing is, he said, is that there's a severe shortage of teachers in the south, especially in Dublin and commuter belt areas on the eastern seaboard.

Again, this is an area tht nationalist politicans should be working on - making it more accessible to northerners.

One of my kids wants to go into teaching but has no idea how/where to apply in the south. There are a very small number of teaching places here each year so it would make sense to apply elsewhere to be in with a chance, most seem to go to England - which she doesn't want to do.
Can anyone point me in the direction of where to look for courses in ROI uni? Or do you have to go to each Uni site and search all of them individually?
The school doesn't seem to know!

Galway were in everyone's Tier 1, but losing their star defender to the Big Brother reality show will impact their coverage in that area. 

Ah they're definitely up there. Tipping away nicely in the background with most people tipping Donegal to win it and Kerry with a good chance fitness dependent

With Comer being available again too they are getting stronger. Many had them as favourites the year Armagh won, and without the injuries they would likely have went on to win it. They seem stronger now than for that final so I wouldn't bet against them.

Derry have a good chance of reaching the quarter finals if they can avoid Tyrone/Mayo in the next game. That would be a successful season by Derry's standards now.

Getting ahead of yourself there.
There's the small matter of Meath in the way - who already beat us comfortably in the league, and our form is far from good.
I agree though, if we got to a quarter final, that would be a success given how the year has went so far.

Would still have to beat a decent team from the round 2a losers section even if they do beat Meath. Don't see Derry getting it handy against any of those 7 teams. (Assume they can't meet Armagh again if we're beat)

Yep. Would be a tough ask on current form - we need to improve to get over Meath and at the minute I wouldn't be thinking any further ahead than that.

Derry have a good chance of reaching the quarter finals if they can avoid Tyrone/Mayo in the next game. That would be a successful season by Derry's standards now.

Getting ahead of yourself there.
There's the small matter of Meath in the way - who already beat us comfortably in the league, and our form is far from good.
I agree though, if we got to a quarter final, that would be a success given how the year has went so far.

2500 i think

Non runner then as we've something like 3500 season ticket holders, would Louth have many?

Yeah this was an issue last year with Antrim too - not sure what happened the season ticket holders in that instance.
If I was Louth, I'd definitely want it in Ardee. A really tight pitch which will help them curtail Armagh runs.
I think this will be a really good game - Louth still being underestimated imo. Armagh rightly favourites, but a Louth victory wouldn't be that surprising.

That's a good draw for us - knock out match at home against a team that beat us in the league. No shortage of motivation, we'll be underdogs and there's a point to prove.
I hope Murray is fit, but outside of that I'd love to see some of the younger lads getting a start, then spring the experience from the bench going down the line.

Get Glass out of CHF I would say. If he's not in midfield should be CHB.

Glass was incredible last year, the team obviously struggled, but to my mind, he was pretty much the best player on the field in many of our games, he hasn't hit those heights this year yet, so I'd agree he needs to be further out the pitch, is the thinking that he's actually our only real 2-point threat? Shane was moved out to chf earlier this year on that basis too, but it didn't work out.
Speaking of 2 PT threats, Paul Cassidy is definitely one, so wasn't clear why he didn't start - maybe we wanted to have something off the bench?

I'd say if you watched the previous 3 or 4 games you'd have a fair idea on why Cassidy was benched. Shane McGuigan will likely still start, but he is also out of form and needs to get his head back in the game. Big Glass was powerful last year but hasn't hit the same heights. It's a strange one where we have pretty much had a full pick but so many of our go to boys are out of form. A few of our lads need a rocket to light a bit of a fire under them as we are being looked at as a soft touch. Hoping for a home draw tomorrow.

That's it in a nutshell.
Another thing I don't really understand - we are playing with 3 ff's who can win ball and cause damage, but we refuse to kick a ball into them. Armagh make those diagonal runs from ff and the ball is kicked in front of them time and again. Why do we never try something like that? We have a one dimensional attack that actually is easy enough to defend against.
When we were going strong a few years ago, each attack had 3 players coming at pace from deep - usually the half back line supported by clucky, rogers and glass at varying times. We seem to have abandoned that approach even though worked well for us. I want to see more of CD, McKinless, Clucky, Rogers driving at opposition defences.
Feels like we are afraid to concede on a turnover, so don't want to commit to going forward.

Defensively we held our own for large parts, even with Armagh attacking at blistering pace. I do think the Armagh goal was a shot for a point, so in that regard we more or less kept a clean sheet in terms of goals if you exclude a fluke. I might be clutching there.

Our kickouts I thought were poor, high hanging balls. And I was surprised to hear a stat that we won the majority. But we certainly didn't win the breaks to the same level Armagh did or have anything like the number of turnovers Armagh forced. Any short kickouts we took left a man isolated time and again with no support - we did the same in the latter stages of the Monaghan game.

There was very little intensity from our attack outside of Murray. It looks like he was injured from 5 mins into the 2nd half and I think he was signalling he needed to come off, but they persisted with him. I wouldn't be surprised if he's unavailable the next day. We seem to always be looking for the perfect inside pass in attack and even when we were 8/9 points down, we were playing like we were ahead, holding onto the ball and waiting for an opening that rarely came as Armagh defended really well.

I think tactically, the way we are set up to attack, removes that intensity and pace from the game so I'm in two minds if our attack is stuttering due to the tactics or if its simply the players not performing. Probably a bit of both.

I remember the SF game against Kerry which Meenagh took control off, we just went for it and were a sight to behold. I feel we need to go back to that approach in attack given the way the game has evolved.
I'd agree with some of the comments on senior players performances, McGuigan really needs to pass the ball - early goal chance was almost a cert but rather than pass he took a shot and blazed wide. Armagh come up the field and score. That single play seemed to knock the stuffing out of us. McKinless was our best player I thought at the weekend, and CD in the 2nd half was very strong, but there were too many players who you would be hard pushed to have even noticed. I think we need to bring in some of those young lads with the experience of winning AI minors from the start - no baggage, no confidence issues, and will just run at who ever is in front of them. There's nothing to lose at this point and realistically, they are now what we should be building with. Young, Kearney, Sargent, Rogers - start them then bring on the experience.

I still thing Meenagh is our best option in management, but I'd have a look at the back room team. Gilligan would be brilliant addition, but hard to see why he'd leave Armagh to come to Derry at the minute. We need more ideas in our attacking structure at least, but in general I'd like to see a backroom team that are bringing something over and above Meenagh's already substantial experience - whereas with McKaigue and Heron, what they know is more of the same from 4/5 years ago. Not slating them, I just think we need a modern game team in the background with different ideas complementing Meenagh, rather than recent players who probably have similar ideas to Meenagh. The mix of ideas and skills just isnt right imo.

The players really need to stand up though. There's no excuses for flat performances or missed easy scores. No excuses for not working hard. No issue getting beat by a better team (which Armagh currently are), but it's hard to stomach getting beat when the performance is so far below where it should be. I'm sure the players are feeling that too and I've no doubt they've put in a serious effort, but they need to somehow translate that to a performance on the pitch. I think if the performances come, the fans will come regardless of results.

I'm hoping for a home game draw against someone like Dublin - I think that's what we need to force a performance and we really need a performance against a big team this year to have something to hold on to. If we cant perform for a knockout game, then it's back to the drawing board and a complete reset of tactics and players for 2027.