Derry Club Football & Hurling original

[Derryman forever]

Lad,you needa get a life,go over and keep polluting the Tyrone thread.

Your lads were beat last week by a poor Roscommon team I wouldn't be on here gloating if I were you. Would rather be in Derrys position right now than Tyrone's.

What do we reckon lads are Mickey and Horse gone? I would think so and if Glen don't get out of Ulster I'd hope O'Rourke comes in!

Was no expectations here with such a turnover since winning in 2021 while Derry thought they were All Ireland certainly. 4 championship defeats. Laughing stock.

I have never been able to understand this childish school playground  mentality that believes another county's failure is a plus for their county.

[screenexile]

Lad,you needa get a life,go over and keep polluting the Tyrone thread.

Your lads were beat last week by a poor Roscommon team I wouldn't be on here gloating if I were you. Would rather be in Derrys position right now than Tyrone's.

What do we reckon lads are Mickey and Horse gone? I would think so and if Glen don't get out of Ulster I'd hope O'Rourke comes in!

Was no expectations here with such a turnover since winning in 2021 while Derry thought they were All Ireland certainly. 4 championship defeats. Laughing stock.

You haven't a clue! We were Div 4 5 years ago... that was laughing stock not this!

[JoG2]

Lads, ignore the sad hoor. He couldn't stay away from the board after making a fool of himself the last time

[Wildweasel74]

Derry had 2 good U20 Teams past 2years and they need start drafting these players in, or at least give them a chance to see if they are good enough. We have no right footed free taker,that ridiculous at this level. We cant take 45's consistently but a U-17 can hit 2 and a 50m one, the other week. What sort free taking drills goes on up at Owenbeg. The Search goes on for forwards in the county. We at least 3 short, plus Bench still not strong enough. It's abit like Deja Vu from the Galway game 2yrs ago. Need look at a more mobile goalkeeper to, if we to continue with the keeper wandering.

[Wildweasel74]

Probably McKeigue last game today,  and I thought he stood up well, Rodgers too, was good.

[Interstellar]

When you come to review the season Derry won the Mckenna Cup and the League with essentially the same 15 to 18 players. In the championship there was no easy game. Beaten by Donegal,  Armagh, Galway and today by Kerry who make up the AI semies. No team even with a big squad could sustain that sort of grind.For Derry to go next year obviously they need to find a few new players, rest the starters in secondary competition and maybe new management. Harte like Biden is past it.

[93-DY-SAM]

Unfortunately, I think the time has come to pull the pin on the Harte experiment. It was a big move by the county board at the time and one I did think would bring us on another step. But it just hasn't worked out (much to the delight of many). You expect there might be a dip a wee bit for a while with a new manager but we have regressed significantly since last year. Fair enough we had a great pre-season and league but when it came to when it mattered in the Championship we had an abysmal season. You can dress it up whatever you like but that's the cold hard facts of it.  For me Harte needed to at least prove we could compete when it mattered and we haven't come close. We need a major reset over the next few months. I just can't see how that works with Harte at the helm and that's why I feel all parties should draw a line under things and move on. What moving on looks like I've no idea. Last thing this Derry team needs is more drama to follow them around.

[the goal was on]

Harte will be going nowhere I suspect. Hes too stubborn to quit and unless county board had his replRacement ready to step in , I don't see them removing him. 

[lenny]

Harte will be going nowhere I suspect. Hes too stubborn to quit and unless county board had his replRacement ready to step in , I don't see them removing him. 

He deserves another year. Him and Horse had us playing really well in the league especially the final. We've been destroyed with injuries with mcgrogan, loughlin, mcevoy, doherty all massive losses for key matches.

[thebuzz]

Harte will be going nowhere I suspect. Hes too stubborn to quit and unless county board had his replRacement ready to step in , I don't see them removing him. 

He deserves another year. Him and Horse had us playing really well in the league especially the final. We've been destroyed with injuries with mcgrogan, loughlin, mcevoy, doherty all massive losses for key matches.

I don't know whether he deserves another year or not but I think he'll get it.
If he tries to blood a few new players in the McKenna Cup, stay in Division One and then go all out in the Championship it would at least mean he had learnt from the mistakes of this year.
If he starts by going all out trying to win the McKenna Cup again he should definitely be gone.

[Real Talk]

When you are playing Div 1 football it is very difficult to experiment with younger/less experienced players ... and managers will tend to put their best team out so that they don't get into a relegation battle.  In fact if you have a descent squad like Derry has had this past 3 seasons its almost easier to prepare for the championship while in Div 2.  In Div 1 the pressure is always on not to lose any matches as is the case in 2024,  Harte did that well this year but we were not able to give younger players a chance, and this along with injuries contributed to the problem.

In hindsight the system that was so successful with R Gallagher needed to continue to be practised on a training ground basis but i get the impression that this was not happening and this plus the fact that we lost our S&C coach to New Zealand Rugby (an indication of his quality !!!) and Ciaran Meenagh there was no continuity from the RG era. Also seemed to be missing was that players' bond with the team management/medical/ game prep and match analytical teams which was probably the most important factor that led to us losing 4 championship matches. Only once during the Championship period did I detect the positivity in the players body language and that was in Castlebar when the players game onto the field to play the extra-time against Mayo.

We need RG back asap and ride-out any social media storm from any quarter.  We have come too far to let the progress slip and and there are many young players of good potential coming through our underage system.

[Newbridge Exile]

We desperately need to strengthen your panel  so trying to unearth a few players in the upcoming club championship is going to be paramount for whoever the manager is next year ,Charlie Diamond would be one I think who would be worth a try out  but there has to be other players(and not just at Senior level )who would be worth looking at ,yes we have good minor teams coming through but it's going to take a year or two for them to develop into Senior players

[shamrocker12]

When you are playing Div 1 football it is very difficult to experiment with younger/less experienced players ... and managers will tend to put their best team out so that they don't get into a relegation battle.  In fact if you have a descent squad like Derry has had this past 3 seasons its almost easier to prepare for the championship while in Div 2.  In Div 1 the pressure is always on not to lose any matches as is the case in 2024,  Harte did that well this year but we were not able to give younger players a chance, and this along with injuries contributed to the problem.

In hindsight the system that was so successful with R Gallagher needed to continue to be practised on a training ground basis but i get the impression that this was not happening and this plus the fact that we lost our S&C coach to New Zealand Rugby (an indication of his quality !!!) and Ciaran Meenagh there was no continuity from the RG era. Also seemed to be missing was that players' bond with the team management/medical/ game prep and match analytical teams which was probably the most important factor that led to us losing 4 championship matches. Only once during the Championship period did I detect the positivity in the players body language and that was in Castlebar when the players game onto the field to play the extra-time against Mayo.

We need RG back asap and ride-out any social media storm from any quarter.  We have come too far to let the progress slip and and there are many young players of good potential coming through our underage system.


Agree with most of this. Loss of meenagh was massive in my opinion. He was there from day 1 of RG. Those players trusted him and I have no doubt he would have been key in introducing those young players coming off our very impressive conveyor belt at the moment. As for RG...I'm hearing rumours of Kildare. They have got rid of Glen Ryan..they are massively under achieving especially with successful u20 teams. He would be away out of the way of Ulster, possibly less press on him. I could see him performing miracles there like he did with us. My gut feeling is our county board have a big decision to make. Im not anti micky harte. I attended every game in mckenna, league with the exception of galway as i wasnt in the country and every championship match. I feel league was excellent obviously but we were so much ahead of everyone fitness wise. The championship..we were incredibly unlucky to lose loughlin, mcgrogan, Conor Doherty and MCkinless. 4 of our key players. Is that enough of an excuse to explain the manner of our 4 championship defeats? Would we have been better if they were all available? Yes we would. Westmeath poor. Mayo was all fire and guts. Great win. But mayo are famous for folding. Kerry in croke park 3rd weekend in a row...was always a massive ask. Would an extra week suited us?? Yes of course. These are all questions the county board must be asking themselves over the next few weeks. If they decide to stick with harte then we back him and go again but I would hope to see an entire new team in mckenna cup. Get some the young lads in. Get mcwilliams back when he's fit, mccarron, forbes, downey, mcnicholl, odonnell. Mcdermott etc. all men who played successfully at minor and u20. Like I said my gut feeling is leaning towards the county board making a change. Micky has won us a national title and fair play to him. However my eye test indicates a regression in this championship year. A regression I admit I wouldn't have seen after standing in lower hogan at league final. I just hope for the sake of derry and the very talented group we have that the right decision is made and we compete once again next year.

[toby47]

When you are playing Div 1 football it is very difficult to experiment with younger/less experienced players ... and managers will tend to put their best team out so that they don't get into a relegation battle.  In fact if you have a descent squad like Derry has had this past 3 seasons its almost easier to prepare for the championship while in Div 2.  In Div 1 the pressure is always on not to lose any matches as is the case in 2024,  Harte did that well this year but we were not able to give younger players a chance, and this along with injuries contributed to the problem.

In hindsight the system that was so successful with R Gallagher needed to continue to be practised on a training ground basis but i get the impression that this was not happening and this plus the fact that we lost our S&C coach to New Zealand Rugby (an indication of his quality !!!) and Ciaran Meenagh there was no continuity from the RG era. Also seemed to be missing was that players' bond with the team management/medical/ game prep and match analytical teams which was probably the most important factor that led to us losing 4 championship matches. Only once during the Championship period did I detect the positivity in the players body language and that was in Castlebar when the players game onto the field to play the extra-time against Mayo.

We need RG back asap and ride-out any social media storm from any quarter.  We have come too far to let the progress slip and and there are many young players of good potential coming through our underage system.


Agree with most of this. Loss of meenagh was massive in my opinion. He was there from day 1 of RG. Those players trusted him and I have no doubt he would have been key in introducing those young players coming off our very impressive conveyor belt at the moment. As for RG...I'm hearing rumours of Kildare. They have got rid of Glen Ryan..they are massively under achieving especially with successful u20 teams. He would be away out of the way of Ulster, possibly less press on him. I could see him performing miracles there like he did with us. My gut feeling is our county board have a big decision to make. Im not anti micky harte. I attended every game in mckenna, league with the exception of galway as i wasnt in the country and every championship match. I feel league was excellent obviously but we were so much ahead of everyone fitness wise. The championship..we were incredibly unlucky to lose loughlin, mcgrogan, Conor Doherty and MCkinless. 4 of our key players. Is that enough of an excuse to explain the manner of our 4 championship defeats? Would we have been better if they were all available? Yes we would. Westmeath poor. Mayo was all fire and guts. Great win. But mayo are famous for folding. Kerry in croke park 3rd weekend in a row...was always a massive ask. Would an extra week suited us?? Yes of course. These are all questions the county board must be asking themselves over the next few weeks. If they decide to stick with harte then we back him and go again but I would hope to see an entire new team in mckenna cup. Get some the young lads in. Get mcwilliams back when he's fit, mccarron, forbes, downey, mcnicholl, odonnell. Mcdermott etc. all men who played successfully at minor and u20. Like I said my gut feeling is leaning towards the county board making a change. Micky has won us a national title and fair play to him. However my eye test indicates a regression in this championship year. A regression I admit I wouldn't have seen after standing in lower hogan at league final. I just hope for the sake of derry and the very talented group we have that the right decision is made and we compete once again next year.

A lot of these guys need to prove they are in the best 30 senior players in the county first, before getting call ups off the back of playing for underage teams a few years back/

McWilliams & McCarron were minors in 2017, haven't shown much at county level since, especially for us to think bringing them in will get us closer to Kerry, Dublin etc. The Downey's, which of them would be anywhere near an improvement on our starting 15 players? They have all been hampered with injuries and badly stagnated after what was promised of them.

Forbes, McNicholl, O'Donnell and McDermott are all very young, and will hopefully all become county standard in time, having them up around the senior set up will bring them on. Another summer of Senior club action will hopefully bring them on a bit more, as the liked of Forbes hasn't played much senior club football yet.

[marty34]

If Harte and Devlin go, by whatever means and somebody else comes in, it'd be better to get it sorted asap.

Harte seems to be getting all the flack but what role does Devlin play?

Is he just the coach?