Laois v Armagh, NFL Div 2, Round 1, Sat 2nd February

[DuffleKing]

Isn't Grimley the saviour of Armagh football?

Crossmaglens success is costing Armagh dearly, surely they have to make their players available for selection???

When the county management had them last year they started 2 players.  We are always told that Cross have a strong club 15 but a lot of them are not good enough for the county.  The reality is that PG would only have started 2 maybe 3 Cross players  if they were available.  Easy to have a ready made excuse for the others.

I believe James Morgan was injured last year. Most armagh supporters would have at least morgan, akernan, hanratty and jclarke in the first 15 but it has to work both ways, not just crossmaglen's way. How will we know whether cunningham, mckeown and others are good enough for senior championship unless they are available for more than the last league game. I think Morgan is exceptional and has already proved he is ready for the first 15.

regal, you are correct but the reality is that the county management have not given Cross players opportunities even when they were available.  Case in point is Paul McKeown. He was available to play in the league a few years back against Cork down in Cork.  The lad had won the AI and came to training the next available night.  He was told by the management that he would be starting and to be ready for the game, he wasn't even handed a jersey and hasn't played since.  This is a small example of the treatment. There was an incident last year that I will not go into detail about less I be accused of stirring the pot where a player were ridiculed by a member of the management set up.If people question why Cross players are not available this singular event encapsulates it completely.

Don't know anything about the situations you raise obviously bcb but I would make one point on this. If I was on the panel from November training hard and another player of a similar level came straight into the team at the end of March ahead of me, without earning the place ahead of me in the pecking order, I would be seriously pissed. Better than most you should know that this is not how you mould a team. Asking players to accept the above approach without resentment might work if the Club champions' players were making some effort in the other direction to be a part of the set up earlier in the year.

[T Fearon]

Completely nondescript performance,after a bright opening ten minutes,with not one Armagh player worthy of mention.

Feared a real hammering at half time and the fact that I left relieved only to have been beaten by 7 says it all about a thoroughly depressing night.All Mr Grimley seemed interested in doing was chastising the linesman.

Only bright spot was the size of the Armagh travelling support.Is there a bigger more loyal core fan base anywhere else?

[Throw ball]

Poor enough night. Armagh's lack of a mobile midfield and the lack of leadership from senior players when things were going against them in the first half are the most worrying things from an Armagh perspective. The performance of young Ethan Rafferty is a positive. Although Laois were the better team I thought a 3 or 4 point difference would be a better overall reflection of the match.

The antics the Billy Sheehan in the first five minutes reflect badly IMHO on him, McNulty and Laois.

[ck]

What did Billy Sheehan do?
Whatever it is I'm sure it'll be nothing new, he's at it most games. A very unsporting player, many would call him allot worse

[Throw ball]

Given the history from last years game most players and managers would have tried to keep things low key to avoid any further controversy but not Mr. Sheehan. Obviously on his a managers instructions he moved at the start of the game from wing forward to centre forward to be marked by McKeever. For the next five minutes or so rather than play football he decided the best course of action was to face down McKeever constantly shouldering him in the chest, standing on his toes and whispering sweet nothings to him. McKeever for his part was quite obviously trying not to react and stood with arms outstretched appealing to the referee and linesman to do something. When nothing was done and Sheehan realised he had free reign he continued. The tactic quite obviously worked as McKeever had one of his poorer games for Armagh. I am sure many will think this is fair game as is evidenced by Laois radio commentators suggesting McKeever is over rated. However, it is my opinion that after the comments our president made on sledging and the problems encountered in the same match last year that these tactics were out of order. Many in Armagh are of the opinion that this game was played on a Saturday night at the start of the league in Laois, when they also met in Laois last year, was just to get the game out of the way with as little controversy as possible. If Armagh get a chance to meet Laois later in the summer I have no doubt that Laois and Billy Sheehan will see that McKeever is far from over rated.

[The Boy Wonder]

Maybe Billy felt he got a raw deal last year - after all none of the allegations were proven. He certainly was animated after kicking his last point and gesticulating at the Armagh support. I'd agree that his face-on shoving of McKeever was provocative and linesman or referee should act to cut out this type of behaviour.

[Dont Matter]

Do Armagh have no stories to tell the press this year? No racial abuse? I'm not Billy's biggest fan but he was man of the match yesterday. In the first few minutes he gave away possession with a bad solo which was met with huge cheers and cat calls from the Armagh support, after that Billy went on to destroy McKeever and score 3 great points.
I hope Armagh and McKeever have learnt their lesson, don't invent stories and run to the papers. It can damage a players reputation and he wont forget it.

[Farrandeelin]

An unlikely rivalry developing, Armagh v Laois.

[lawnseed]

i was offered a bet today.. dont eat me but this lad is willing to bet that grimley will not win one competitive match with armagh this year.. and hes an armagh man!

emmmm...? if i were a gambler

[Armaghgael]

Jesus. I've never come across such pessimism as I've seen from the Ard Mhachians on this thread!

There's simply very little to be positive about. We've lost 8 of our last nine matches, replaced a floundering manager with a selection of the previous two regimes and enter into Saturday's match without our star forward, missing our best corner back, full back and arguably also our most talented midfielder. We field without a recognised man marker in the starting XV.

That said, 15/8 about an Armagh victory is probably big enough.

Who`s that?

It must be a Paul McGrane comeback?

Thought the same myself

Malachy Mackin

That has brightened up my day after last night 

[T Fearon]

Good day for Mc Nultys Bros Ltd yesterday,as Enda is part of the Irish rugby back room team and apparently managed to convince the boys they were the All Blacks yesterday,well for the first half in Cardiff anyway.

[David McKeown]

I thought last nights game was a very strange one, better team in the first 10 minutes of both halfs when Armagh actually looked half decent but then soo unbelievably poor thereafter that we didnt deserve to be within 20 points let alone 10.  The tactics in the first half were poor as it was painfully obvious within 5 minutes that the running from the Laois midfield was destroying us yet nothing was done to counteract this until the 25th minute or so and even then it wasnt overaly effective until there was a change to make McKeever mark space in the second half rather than follow the man which worked wonders and stopped runners coming through but Laois were able to counter this and change tactics much more quickly than Armagh were able to respond. 

The substitutions then were down right bizarre, Armagh conceded 20 scores yesterday yet 4 forwards and a midfielder were subbed and 0 defenders were taken off.  Added to that the forwards that were taken off were taken off at the wrong time just as Armagh had gotten back into the game and the players were starting to get on top.  The substitutions also necessitated a change of game plan to suit the players coming on (Kingham etc) which was strange when the previous style was starting to get Armagh back into the match. It struct as if the substitutions were pre planned and not reactive

All in all a hard game to describe, Armagh showed promise in glimpses but we utterly awful for periods as well.  Mc Nulty seemed a lot better at responding to the the ebb and flow of the game as well than Grimley did. 

Hopefully there will be an improvement from both the team and the management in the upcoming few weeks

[T Fearon]

It could be worse! We could be Meath!

[our_fella]

the programme listed the team as follows last night:
1. Geoghegan - was on the bench
2. C McKeown - 3rd choice keeper
3. Mark Sheilds - played at corner back
4. Brian Mallon - played at corner forward
5. Niall Rowland - was on the bench
6. Finian Moriarty - played at wing half back
7. Barry Loughran - was on the bench
8. Ciaran McKeever - played at centre half back
9. Gary McCoey - played at corner back
10. Gavin McParland - played at corner forward
11. Kieran Toner - played at midfield
12. Stephen Harold - was on the bench
13. Peter Carragher - was on the bench
14. Ethan Raffery - played at wing half forward
15. James Lavery - played midfield
this above was the biggest waste of 3 euro i have ever spent. could have wrote it myself!

[bennydorano]

The team was named Tues or Wed as well, some lazy hoor has just made that team up.