NFL Division 3 2015

[JP]

Not bad! winning relatively comfortably while down to 14 men for 45 mins is always a good sign. Some of the excellent kick passing we seen last year was in evidence again tonight. Optimistically looking forward to the championship.

[brokencrossbar1]

I think that there is a lot of potential in the Armagh team but the lack of real physicality around the middle could cost them in the long run. b It's hard to judge the level they are at based on tonight as Fermanagh are not great,  play a horrible bastardisation of rugby league style football,  unable or unwilling to kick it. 

[TomFun]

Says the man who comes from a tradition of rugby league tackling.

[Rudi]

Says the man who comes from a tradition of rugby league tackling.

+1, horrible stuff can't do a legal tackle, numbers back, counter attack, shite to watch.

[naka]

That's a good armagh team. Think they'll beat most in ulster. Geezer still won't smile though.

Typical geezer team, cynical play throughout.  Ref sent off Armagh player then crucified Fermanagh for the rest of the game. Giving them nothing

Loving that

Armagh played well

Though murnin had his best game yet for Armagh
And Morgan had a decent outing

[DuffleKing]

Video on TG4 and Gaago for those not attending.

Not in the black north I presume?

TG4 is transmitted in the Black North, is freely available to any IP number clearly in the Black North, while Gaago is available all over the world for those not too tight to pay for it.

Afraid not

[Agent Orange]

Happy enough with that, we dominated for most of the game and even with the help of a very poor referee Fermanagh never looked like they would get anything from the game. Maybe not the wisest decision to play the game in Croke Park, but at least the Erne men have had their day out for the year.

[tippabu]

Firstly well done to Armagh on winning division 3 and best of luck to both Armagh and Fermanagh next year in division 2.

A summary as I saw it from Tipp games this year

Armagh 2-8 v 0-13 Tipp.
First half we seemed to give Armagh far to much respect and probably felt they were better than they actually were. 2nd half we bossed the game despite playing mainly with 14 men, we should have been able to see it out but didnt. The ref certainly didnt do us any favours, the penalty in the first half was a disgrace and he played well over the alotted injury time, as i said despite this we had the game in our own hands and have ourselves to blame as much.

Tipp 1-14 v 1-2 Limerick.
As comfortable a match as youll see, it was over after 10 mins. Limerick didnt score in the first half and the second just petered out as the game was in the bag

Fermanagh 2-9 v 0-11 Tipp
This was the worst ive seen us in a long time, we started well and were on top for the first 10 mins and had we taken some of the bad wides we had it could have been different. Quigley caused us all sorts of problems and Fermangh got their win, probably harder than it should have been

Tipp  2-11 v 1-8 Clare
First half was again like the Fermangh match where we were really poor, 2nd half was a massive improvement and it turned out to be a comortable win

Louth 3-11 v 4-16 Tipp
we won this game 3 times and stupidly let louth back in twice. Very open game, we were far the better side and only for lapses in concentration louth stuck in it.

Tipp 0-15 v 0-13 Sligo.
We were missiing alot for this game and it showed, will be mostly remembered for the head injury to Colin O Riordan which stopped the game for 20 mins. sligo played well the first half but we pulled away near the end and ended up with a good 2 point win

Tipp 2-12 v 2-16 Wexford
This game was a dead rubber for both teams, was a challenge match pretty much. first half without our under 21s and a fair few normal starters we played really well, think we were 8 up at half time and missed a pen just before the break, second half we didnt turn up, gave away two bad goals and were beaten.

Overall happy with our league campaign, another year in division 3 shouldnt do us any harm seeing as weve such a young team. I feel next year we are certainly a match for everyone we played in the division this year , same with kildare westmeath who came down and longford offaly who came up

[LCohen]

LCohen, who's the Fermanagh fullback with Armagh blood?  What's his connection to the county?

Tiarnan Daly. Aul fella was An Port Mor clubman (I think)

[LCohen]

That's a good armagh team. Think they'll beat most in ulster. Geezer still won't smile though.

Typical geezer team, cynical play throughout.  Ref sent off Armagh player then crucified Fermanagh for the rest of the game. Giving them nothing

Certainly there were 3 or 4 cynical Armagh tackles in the game but not "cynical throughout".

2 very negative teams. 1 that moves the ball laborously from its defence and one that at least moves it quickly with the boot. Armagh a much better spectacle that Fermanagh.

Armagh clinical in the 3rd quarter, succesfully came through a tough challenge of playing with 14 men, a full match for Dyas, steps up in performance and maturity for Murnin, Ethan Rafferty and at times McKenna, a return to form for Morgan and a kickout strategy that delivers. So positives there. Also the belated wisdom to take Forker off after he commited a foul immediately after getting a yellow card.

Winning the Division 3 title is a minor detail on the path to where we need to be (i.e. winning matches in Croke Park on days when the gardai have the Clonliffe Road closed).

The negatives were the shooting early on, the lack of decisiveness to take Moriarty off after his first card (his second card was harsh but some players can play on with a card and mind themselves, Moriarty and Aidan forker are not in this category), Mallon getting burnt for pace, the fouling rate (even without Findon) and the lack of game time for Campbell.

The performance level won't trouble Tyrone and Donegal. How much can we up that level in 6 weeks and how much impact can Dyas, Campbell, Caolan Rafferty, Donaghy and maybe even Declan McKenna have? We still don't know but there were more positives yesterday than in the previous games this year. Moriarty's dismissal might actually have been a blessing.

[FermGael]

A Fair result with the better and more clinical team winning on Saturday night.
Fermanagh started off very positively and should have been further in front after 15 minutes. 
Armagh seemed to be slightly disrupted after late changes in the team and it took them a while to get to grips with Fermanagh.
We let Armagh back into the game through a combination of poor kick outs, poor decision making from our players when in procession of the ball and some bad wide's.  Morriaritys sending off was harsh, especially the first yellow but when he had a yellow, to do what he did was very silly and a more experienced team than Fermanagh would have punished Armagh for that. 
Fermanagh did not know what to do with the extra man. We were content to use him as an extra defender which suited Armagh as they seemed to finish the half the stronger.
Armagh blew Fermanagh away in the first 10 minutes.  They got a 7 point lead up and then after that played very defensively.  Some may say the Fermanagh style is hard to watch but in the second half Fermanagh had to play the way they did as Armagh had so many players behind the ball as you would expect being a man down and 7 up.  Fermanagh kept plugging away and got back within three points but still kicked an awful lot of wides.  Armagh hit us on the break on a number of occasions and should really have got a goal.

All in all an excellent league campaign.  Promotion was not expected.  Fermanagh were third favourites to get relegated.  We have a young team and they will have learned a lot from Saturday night. 
Antrim in 5 weeks and an ulster championship win has to be achieved as we have not won a first round game since 2010 I think.
A lot of positives to take from it and a lot of young players showing they are up to the required standards of inter county football.  A lot to be optimistic about.

[LCohen]

Some may say the Fermanagh style is hard to watch but in the second half Fermanagh had to play the way they did as Armagh had so many players behind the ball as you would expect being a man down and 7 up.

But you started the game playing that way. You played that way in other games. Fermanagh are terrible to watch. Armagh are better but not by much. But its nonsense to say that Fermanagh only played that way because they had to. You chose to and made that decision well before Moriarty got sent off. Probably 5 months before he got sent off.

[FermGael]

You must have seen an awful lot of Fermanagh games then if we played that way all year.
We scored more this year in the league than Armagh.
We adopted the carefree approach last year and we finished third.

If we played open attacking football Armagh would have bate us out the gate.
We chose to play that way because of the opposition we were playing.
Anything else would have been crazy

[Syferus]

In fairness from what I saw last year Fermanagh would have been the best team we played bar Cavan, and even then Fermanagh had much more invention going forward. Fermanagh are capable of hanging around in D2 and beating some fancied teams next year.

[illdecide]

As FermGael says Fermanagh out scored Armagh and racked up some big scores...they started the game well and I thought it was going to be another one of these days but when Armagh got the grips of the game then Fermanagh were forced to defend more...Their game is based on defensive work and bursting at pace when the ball is turned over (like most counties now) but it just didn't happen for them on the day.

I always thought Armagh were a few notches above Fermanagh (im sure you'll not mind me saying that) but Fermanagh are on an upward curve too and should hold their own in Div 2 next year