Donegal GAA Discussion Thread

dog_pig

Looks like once again Donegal are responsible for dragging the game into disrepute according to Oisin McConville.

Whereas Fermanagh apparently are an "honest" side who endured a "learning experience" McConville describes Donegal's actions as "underlining the pathetic levels they are prepared to go to".

He also mentions "the level of gamesmanship and cynicism to which Donegal descended as they closed out the match — tactics that understandably left Fermanagh manager Peter McGrath fuming at the finish."

Bit of a strange one.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/sport/oisin-mcconville-cynical-gamesmanship-in-gaa-leaves-sport-in-gutter-34814876.html

Nidgeweasel

dog_pig wrote: »

Looks like once again Donegal are responsible for dragging the game into disrepute according to Oisin McConville.

Whereas Fermanagh apparently are an "honest" side who endured a "learning experience" McConville describes Donegal's actions as "underlining the pathetic levels they are prepared to go to".

He also mentions "the level of gamesmanship and cynicism to which Donegal descended as they closed out the match — tactics that understandably left Fermanagh manager Peter McGrath fuming at the finish."

Bit of a strange one.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/sport/oisin-mcconville-cynical-gamesmanship-in-gaa-leaves-sport-in-gutter-34814876.html

"The hope in all games is that the emphasis will be placed on winning fairly and squarely rather than by taking a more devious route to success."

Oisin McConville- who played for Armagh.

Avoid if you are allergic to elephant sized doses of irony.

Shítehawk.

charlie14

dog_pig wrote: »

Looks like once again Donegal are responsible for dragging the game into disrepute according to Oisin McConville.

Whereas Fermanagh apparently are an "honest" side who endured a "learning experience" McConville describes Donegal's actions as "underlining the pathetic levels they are prepared to go to".

He also mentions "the level of gamesmanship and cynicism to which Donegal descended as they closed out the match — tactics that understandably left Fermanagh manager Peter McGrath fuming at the finish."

Bit of a strange one.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/sport/oisin-mcconville-cynical-gamesmanship-in-gaa-leaves-sport-in-gutter-34814876.html

I may be open to correction here, but I don`t remember McConville wearing blinkers in has days with Armagh.
Then again, maybe it`s was just seeing all that good money chasing bad in his betting days that brought on early alzheimers.

Stoner

Nidgeweasel wrote:

Avoid if you are allergic to elephant sized doses of irony.

Nidgeweasel wrote:

Shítehawk.

Lol good man

Stoner

All the same neither Tyrone or Cavan looked great to me at the weekend. Wouldn't be a surprise to see the weekends winner go all the way in the UC. I wouldn't imagine anyone here was frightened by what they saw during the weekend's UC GAA action.

Nidgeweasel

Stoner wrote: »

All the same neither Tyrone or Cavan looked great to me at the weekend. Wouldn't be a surprise to see the weekends winner go all the way in the UC. I wouldn't imagine anyone here was frightened by what they saw during the weekend's UC GAA action.

We've enough to be frightened about watching ourselves!

Stoner

Nidgeweasel wrote:

We've enough to be frightened about watching ourselves!

For all the talk about Tyrone, Donegal still seem to have one or two extra quality players and don't look as bad as suggested.
#ShakeItAllAboutRory

charlie14

Stoner wrote: »

For all the talk about Tyrone, Donegal still seem to have one or two extra quality players and don't look as bad as suggested.
#ShakeItAllAboutRory

High ball on top of Tyrone`s backline caused them major jitters, unfortunately the two McMahon`s are fit to play or close to it seems.

Murphy14

charlie14 wrote: »

High ball on top of Tyrone`s backline caused them major jitters, unfortunately the two McMahon`s are fit to play or close to it seems.

Very un Tyrone like to concede 3 goals I think they went the whole championship last year only conceding one goal against ourselves I would expect Tyrone to overcome Cavan fairly handy the next day. Don't ask me why but I getting more confident that we will defeat the Farney county on Saturday we simply owe them. Dun Na nGall Abu

charlie14

Murphy14 wrote: »

Very un Tyrone like to concede 3 goals I think they went the whole championship last year only conceding one goal against ourselves I would expect Tyrone to overcome Cavan fairly handy the next day. Don't ask me why but I getting more confident that we will defeat the Farney county on Saturday we simply owe them. Dun Na nGall Abu

I hope you are right and having Mc Gee (the eejit) would have helped,but even so I believe man for man we are better than them. Whether we are set up to take advantage of that may be another story.

Redsoxfan

The first rule of Fight Club is that you don't talk about Tyrone until after Monaghan and only if we fall over the line on Saturday night.

So the meeja were not allowed to ask about the grounds for appealing the red card at the Press Night. Maybe Rory has lined up a load of surprise witnesses, each more surprising than the last.

Anyway, let's assume that Neil McGee is (rightly) suspended, it really could be the difference between the teams.

I mean, who will replace him? Obvious choice is Doherty, and well, that won't do.

The other alternative I see is that Lacey comes in to mark McManus and Eamonn McGee moves to full back. I don't like the sound of that either, unless they were being really cautious and keeping Lacey for this game. But I don't think that's the case. Lacey, by all accounts I've heard, is in worse shape than we've been led to believe and if he were any way ready, he would have featured at some point against Fermanagh.

I think the same is true of Big Neil. Wasn't even togged against Fermanagh and I just don't believe that he will be in any way ready for Saturday.

And then of course there's Murphy. He stepped up in the 2nd half against Fermanagh but nobody believes he's fully fit. Maybe he was holding something back the last day and he is raring to go for Monaghan, but I think that's wishful thinking. If he's less than 100% we're in trouble and that's before we start thinking about the Corey factor.

Assuming everyone else is ready and able then we match up ok, except that I have no faith in E McGee to handle K Hughes.

MacNiallais needs to hit the ground running and deliver a performance like he did in the 2nd half against Fermanagh.

Hopefully Frank is ok, came off against Fermanagh and we need him going well.

Paddy McBrearty needs to work hard and he needs to get reasonable ball to work with. Don't try and be too macho against Monaghan backs.

Hopefully the two McHughs get licence to roam and get some protection.

All in all I'd feel a lot better if Murphy was fit and Neil McGee wasn't suspended.

We were decent against them in one half in the League but were awful in the other.

Still have no real clue where we are at. Would like to think we have scope to improve but I have never seen 70 good minutes from this team in a long time. Anything less probably won't do on Saturday.

Alvin Holler

Redsoxfan wrote: »

I mean, who will replace him? Obvious choice is Doherty, and well, that won't do.

The other alternative I see is that Lacey comes in to mark McManus and Eamonn McGee moves to full back.

Eamon has been more of a full back than Neil for the last few years, I'd say they'll have McGrath on him like in the league. If Lacey plays I'd say it'll be more in a free role covering McManus.

I hope that Gillespie is ahead of Doherty at this stage, I think he's good enough to do a marking job on whatever other forward Monaghan have.

Redsoxfan

Alvin Holler wrote:

Eamon has been more of a full back than Neil for the last few years, I'd say they'll have McGrath on him like in the league. If Lacey plays I'd say it'll be more in a free role covering McManus.

Paddy on McManus won't work IMHO. We got away with it in the League because McManus wasn't quite right. Whenever Monaghan hit him with high ball it didn't go well for us.

Ceist_Beag

I don't see Eamonn picking up McManus - he'll be on Hughes again I'm pretty sure. If Lacey were fit he would be ideal to put on McManus but as ye say RSF that seems highly unlikely. Paddy is simply too small for McManus. We don't have too many man markers in the squad and clearly this is why the appeal is being pursued, no matter how unlikely it is to succeed. Without Neil it may well end up being Doherty on McManus and that is definitely a concern. However I wouldn't be surprised to see Gillespie given the task - it would be a massive ask of the lad but to me he is a natural full back so would be suited to the role - it would be a lot to ask of a young lad on his championship debut if it came to that, but look how Galway went last weekend with a bunch of new lads in at the back!
On Murphy, I'm pretty sure he's going to be out the field again on Saturday. To be fair he does offer an awful lot out there that others simply don't offer. His passing is excellent, his change of pace when bursting forward is better than anyone else around and he can kick from long range. So when you think about it, he offers more to the team out there at the minute than having him in the full forward line and he'll stay there until we get a midfield I'd say. However he clearly isn't 100% right at the minute so time will tell if he can offer enough on Saturday.
NOTE: I would add that one flaw in Murphys game when playing out the field is that he does tend to turn over possession easily at times so he'd need to work on that!

Murphy14

On the subject of Conor Mc Manus he will do the bulk of the scoring for Monaghan and I think Paddy Mc Grath is the man for the job even if Neil Mc Gee was available. Our biggest task is limiting there other long range scorers like Dessie Moan consistently scores against us from half back

Ceist_Beag

So the appeal was rejected, thankfully they have decided not to appeal the failed appeal so Rory can now plan on how to manage without Neil.

Nidgeweasel

Ceist_Beag wrote: »

So the appeal was rejected, thankfully they have decided not to appeal the failed appeal so Rory can now plan on how to manage without Neil.

Good.

He doesn't deserve to get off and we shouldn't have even been appealing.

If this was Tyrone it'd be posts about persecution, bias and victimisation!

overshoot

i can see why they appealed-purely in self interest. Some of the reds overturned in the last few years have been horrendous decisions. Hopefully this is the start of backing up refs (who can now be stricter) and finally stamping down in the thuggish side of the game.

squareball1988

Lads & Ladies,

I just don't know. Reading McEniff would give any of us hope - we've followed him for so many years so it is hard not to pay attention when he speaks. He reckons we need a full 70 minutes to beat them. And he'd be right. The past 5 years we've only needed 15 minutes to beat teams. That 3rd Quarter Push (or whatever quarter in which it happens - Armagh 2015) has always got us over the line. Derry 2011, Tyrone 2012, Cork 2012, Mayo 2012, Tyrone 2013, Derry 2014, Dublin 2014 etc.

The thing is with Monaghan is that we've never been able to kill them off in 15 minutes. They've never allowed that. So we need to find someway of pushing then holding. Or fighting for 70minutes. I don't think we have the sideline to know how to do either. We've the players. Which is the greatest pity.

I travel on Saturday with hope. That's about it.

Nidgeweasel

squareball1988 wrote: »

Lads & Ladies,

I just don't know. Reading McEniff would give any of us hope - we've followed him for so many years so it is hard not to pay attention when he speaks. He reckons we need a full 70 minutes to beat them. And he'd be right. The past 5 years we've only needed 15 minutes to beat teams. That 3rd Quarter Push (or whatever quarter in which it happens - Armagh 2015) has always got us over the line. Derry 2011, Tyrone 2012, Cork 2012, Mayo 2012, Tyrone 2013, Derry 2014, Dublin 2014 etc.

The thing is with Monaghan is that we've never been able to kill them off in 15 minutes. They've never allowed that. So we need to find someway of pushing then holding. Or fighting for 70minutes. I don't think we have the sideline to know how to do either. We've the players. Which is the greatest pity.

I travel on Saturday with hope. That's about it.

I have to disagree with this assessment. .
Re: the not playing for 70 minutes I think that is miles off. Under McGuinness we typically had full performances. Yes, there were times when we hit purple patched or times when we were under th cosh but in the main our application and discipline was spot on for 70 minutes.

I disagree with the Monaghan 2014 thing too, we dominated that game from start to finish. It was an absolute battle but it was on our terms and we weren't going to get beat.

I've no confidence in the short term for Saturday or longer term against Tyrone. But like you, that will all be forgotten come throw in. Up Donegal

Redsoxfan

Team named

1 McGinley
2 Mc Grath
3 Gillespie
4 E McGee
5 R McHugh
6 McGlynn
7 Lacey
8 Kavanagh
9 MacNiallais
10 Thompson
11 McElhinney
12 E McHugh
13 McBrearty
14 Murphy
15 O'Reilly

That's per Frank Craig.

Alvin Holler

I'd say Leo may start instead of Lacey, in any case it's a decent enough team.

I thinnk we're good enough to win, not sure if Monaghan are that much stronger in midfield where we are weak.

Not much between the teams but if we can get a goal or two then I think we'll win.

Redsoxfan

Fair play to those who called for Gillespie (assuming he starts).

Doubts around Kavanagh. Agree Monaghan don't have a great midfield with Lennon gone so mobility more important. McElhinney to drop back and Leo to come on for Kavanagh (or Hugh McFadden...). Leaves the bench a bit light. Don't want to see Colm Anthony on unless we are winning by 10 points.

Really hope Lacey is good for 60 minutes but just can't see it. Would be great to see him go against McManus.

McEniff suggested moving Frank back would be robbing Peter to pay Paul, it's worse than that. If Frank isn't fit and able to play a major part in our attacking strategy we can forget about it.

ghostfacekilla

If Gillespie manages to keep McManus quiet if marking him turns out to be his role...

I think I'll be doing backflips around the room.

It'd be a gamble with not the shortest odds.

squareball1988

No point in trying to keep McManus quiet. If he is on form and gets the ball he's good for 7 or 8 points.

No frees. Defend high up the pitch. That's all we need to be able to do. For 75minutes. Simple? Right?

Alvin Holler

Looks like it'll be a perfect evening for football, it would give a real good boost to the county if we can win tonight.

Hopefully the minors can win as well today, it'd be good to get them another couple of games.

Redsoxfan

Declan Bonner reckons Lacey hasn't trained since the Fermanagh match.

Also says he would have had Gillespie marking one of the Monaghan U-21s who is playing tonight if we had met them in Ulster Championship.

Dara O'Cinneide has a good piece in The Examiner (online) - can't post a link as on mobile.

Redsoxfan

Good crowd here in Cavan too see a good win for the Minors.

Seems Donegal play as selected. We'll see.

IamtheWalrus

Is this game on BBC?

retalivity

on sky sports 2, according to my stream anyway