Donegal GAA Discussion Thread

Nidgeweasel

1/4 on tonight.

We should win and we must win. There can be no excuses after tonight. Our record in finals since 2010 has not been good enough.

Down to the players now. They're going well and confident. Fingers crossed for a performance.

North of 32

Stoner wrote: »

Is the game being streamed on TG4 ?

Yes, at 19:55.

Redsoxfan

On the way to Our Maw. My record with the U21s is poor - lost 2010 All Ireland and then Ulster 2014 and 2015. Hopefully I won't drag us down tonight.

North of 32

You can watch live on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBgHiADjZ1c

Brego888

Watch live in YouTube/ Tg4 website. Then open up a Highland radio tab. Pause the radio for 20 seconds or so and you're synced up. Sorted!

Stoner

Derry mean business all the same

Boom__Boom

Even enough up until the goal, which looks like it could be a big score.

Brego888

Some soccer run by Brendan!

Nidgeweasel

Making hard work of this. We are far better than Derry.

Finger out 2nd half, quit the f*cking about and put this to bed.

On another note, disappointing crowd as expected. A really poor decision from the Ulster council.

Redsoxfan

Great stuff in Armagh so far. Derry more than able for our massed defence but we look great going forward. Derry not done by a long way but a good start to the second half could break them.

Lads with senior experience making all the difference.

Nidgeweasel

Redsoxfan wrote: »

Great stuff in Armagh so far. Derry more than able for our massed defence but we look great going forward. Derry not done by a long way but a good start to the second half could break them.

Lads with senior experience making all the difference.

It will break them.

We went a couple of points up, Tony should have buried that chance and we eased off. They will not be able to cope with us if we deliver what we should do.

Boom__Boom

Redsoxfan wrote: »

Great stuff in Armagh so far. Derry more than able for our massed defence but we look great going forward. Derry not done by a long way but a good start to the second half could break them.

Lads with senior experience making all the difference.

Yeah they are really standing out.

dog_pig

The TG4 website won't load, class.

Is there any radio coverage?

Boom__Boom

dog_pig wrote: »

The TG4 website won't load, class.

Is there any radio coverage?

Just go to straight to the YouTube address below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBgHiADjZ1c

Stoner

Game over.

Going to watch some Bully gets Owned clips now

Redsoxfan

Brilliant.

Nidgeweasel

A super bunch of lads. Been watching most of them play since they were 15 and they are a credit.

U-21 champions again.....at last!

RMDrive

Really powerful display from Donegal. Incredible pace and no shortage of skill either. Well done to the lads and great to see Pat Shovlin on the steps after.

Alvin Holler

Great team performance, as said above the seniors really stuck out, Carroll, Brennan and Eoghan Ban were excellent. Jason McGee really could be one hell of a midfielder. You'd imagine Dublin will be much stronger physically and able to cope with our running game. I was surprised just how strong Brennan was on a number of occasions to hold off defenders.

To pick fault, you'd worry about the frees and how we defended in the first half, Gillespie is a massive loss but it's great to see the amount of quality coming through. Mulligan and McBrearty were relatively quiet, Niall O'Donnell will really be pushing for a start on Saturday.

Firblog

Any word are they coming back to Donegal Town tonight?

downthemiddle

Any time you put double scores on Derry it's worth the trip. Make no mistake that was a decent Derry team who caused us plenty of problems until the sending off.
Like all our county teams our kick outs caused us problems. Derry scored twice directly from our restarts and could also have had a goal from one. When we went long we tried to isolate our big men one on one but if we didn't win the ball we weren't getting bodies into the break zone. We also had another high ball that caused Rogers difficulty and should have led to a goal. However, he did deal very well with a high ball later in the game.
Derry's movement up front was excellent in the first half, playing with great width they caused untold difficulty down our left flank. The dragged a defender out from the corner back position, made an angled run from the centre into the hole left and then the original attacker looped back running a diagonal towards our goal. We struggled to pick up the runs and were fortunate on a number of occasions. In the second half we had a better shape defensively but Derry still caused us problems with some excellent angles of running.
From an attacking perspective there were times we were excellent carving Derry open with our ability to transition from defence to attack at pace. We moved the ball into space and created numerous scoring chances. Michéal Carroll's goal was the highlight moving the ball quickly and switching the point of attack beautifully.
The first goal was a crucial score. Jamie Brennan showed great pace and strength as well as a cool head to set up the score. He was excellent all night with a very impressive work rate. He has improved immeasurably this year. Lorcan Connor showed well often ploughing a lone furrow up front but always making himself available. He also appears to have bulked up considerably since his minor days.
Michéal Carroll after a quiet first half really came to the fore after the break. Our other big men also caused all kinds of trouble for Derry. Jason McGee is such an exciting prospect. When he builds up a head of steam he is impossible to stop and he just eats up the ground. I know it is early days for him but there are shades of Anthony Tohill about him. McClenaghan has a great physical presence and is not afraid of responsibility. He will be an important senior player in future years. Eoghan Bán has some engine and is a key element in moving from defence to attack. It wouldn't surprise me to see him getting special attention from Dublin.
The two O'Donnells were excellent off the bench. Niall just makes the game look easy and always seems to have time on the ball.
Well done to Declan and the backroom team. They have invested hugely in this team over the last 5/6 years and it was great to see all their hard work rewarded.
As Eoghan Bán said in his speech we didn't want to be in Armagh tonight. However it was great to see how much support we had with Donegal supporters making up the vast majority of the crowd.
I would encourage anyone who can to get to Cavan on Saturday for what will be a much stiffer test. Get behind these lads now because they will give us many years of enjoyment.

downthemiddle

An interesting fact is that Anton Carroll played for Donegal when they won the first ever Ulster u21 championship in 1963 while his nephew Michéal played in the last ever Ulster u21 final last night.
It was also an u21 double for the Gallaghers with Eoghan Bán following in the footsteps of his father John Bán who was on the 1987 team.

charlie14

downthemiddle wrote: »

An interesting fact is that Anton Carroll played for Donegal when they won the first ever Ulster u21 championship in 1963 while his nephew Michéal played in the last ever Ulster u21 final last night.
It was also an u21 double for the Gallaghers with Eoghan Bán following in the footsteps of his father John Bán who was on the 1987 team.

I knew Anton Carroll, a proud Donegal man, in the days when he was principle in Darndale Community School. Brian Mullins of Dublin and a brother of Martin Carney`s taught there as well at the time as well as the author Roddy Doyle.

He was one tough footballer.
Traveled down home for years to play club before switching to a Dublin club before a broken leg, from what I recall, made him hang up the boots.
Fair play to him, even in that he didn`t put a tooth in it. Said he probably had it coming for all his own transgressions over the years.

It must be very pleasing for John Ban seeing how the young lad has progressed on the senior team and last night coming home with an Ulster medal.
A great shot in the arm for Killybegs CLG as well having another young lad carrying the torch forward from all the greats they provided for the county teams in the past.

squareball1988

That was very enjoyable. A very mature clinical performance from the team. Goes to show that when you play 15 men, which we did in the first half, behind the ball and break with speed it can be great to watch. I hope one R Gallagher clicked into the TG4 stream.

Very similar to the 2012 Ulster Final in performance, tactics and scoreline - and that's high praise indeed. That was a decent Derry team. Problem is that I have no idea what Dublin are about, I'm sure they're good but I doubt Longford and Offaly are excellent teams who happened to get hammered.

Kerry will likely win the competition outright but never too young to start beating Dublin.

Brego888

squareball1988 wrote: »

I hope one R Gallagher clicked into the TG4 stream.

I would hope that he made the effort to go to the game as half his players were on show.

downthemiddle

Brego888 wrote: »

I would hope that he made the effort to go to the game as half his players were on show.

Very difficult to go to the game when you're on a flight to New York.

Brego888

downthemiddle wrote: »

Very difficult to go to the game when you're on a flight to New York.

Poor excuse

Redsoxfan

Well, still buzzing after that performance last night - can't say that I have had that feeling since August 2014 I reckon. Hmm.

First off, have to say fair play to Derry, they never let the heads drop and played some good football. Big concern for me is that we had 15 men behind the ball for a lot of the first half and yet Derry were able to create some great opportunities. They moved the ball very quickly and from side to side well, but they didn't have the pace that we possess or the scoring options. They were under huge pressure at every kick out.

As said at half time, our Senior players were the difference makers - not that anyone else played particularly badly, but Eoin Ban, McGee, Carroll and Brennan stood out. Eoin Ban is so quick and he's stronger than Ryan McHugh so I'm hoping he will be a mainstay in the Senior team for a long time yet. Carroll is a bit like a Swiss Army Knife - does a bit of everything and did a lot of it last night - he was probably a better shout for Man of the Match than Brennan, but whatever. I've said that I can't really see his impact at Senior level (yet) but the potential is huge - we don't have too many players like him. McGee is getting better and better and it's hard to believe he's only 19. There's still something about him that bothers me - he's plenty strong and no fear in him either but he still seems a bit off at times - dunno what it is. Still, the talent and the size is there. Langan has a huge boot on him - had the distance on everything last night. Brennan is easily the most impressive newcomer for me - very hard worker, makes good decisions and can take scores in tight enough spaces. I was roaring at him to 'soccer it' last night and he showed his smarts - when you have 40 odd metres to run into don't worry about picking up the ball! Connor worked hard all night - ball didn't stick as much as you would like, but he looks a much more physical player than he did at minor level. I found it hard to judge the performance of most of our backs to be honest. Don't think anyone played badly, I just couldn't judge the impact. Conor Morrisson seemed to be picking up Danny Tallon so I wonder if he will have a man marking job on Saturday.

What an emphatic way to end our Ulster hoodoo. We were very much second best in 2013, we lost a stinker in 2014 and were beaten by the eventual Champions in 2015. Very satisfying to beat Tyrone and Cavan en route to taking out a Derry team that 'shocked' us in the 2015 Minor Final (although they were full value for the win that day and I didn't see why we were such hot favourites). Now that we have got that monkey off our back there is a great opportunity to go one better on Saturday. As far as I can see it's only hacks looking for clicks that are bitching about the 5 day turnaround - what odds says I? Sure we only had 5 days between beating Cavan and the Derry match and it didn't seem to affect us much. This team is in great form, racking up huge scores in the last 3 games so let's ride that into Breffni. This bunch won't fear Dublin, with a fair few from both teams having faced off in the 2014 Minor Semi-Final. I'd say the Dublin U21 team of 2014 had more talent (O'Callaghan aside) than this year's team and they found the going tough against a limited Cavan team that year. If they blink at the sight of the blanket defence, then I would really fancy our chances. But, if they have developed the process for dealing with defensive teams like the Seniors have done, then we will need to up our game. We have great pace and scoring power and this is what we need to leverage on Saturday, don't get dragged into the sort of game we have got too used of seeing at Senior level. Only issue with the short turnaround is whether it gives Gillespie enough time to get back into action.

Don't forget that there are some fantastic players to come into the reckoning too - aside from the likes of Gillespie, Rory Carr and Niall O'Donnell who could all feature strongly this year yet, there's Aidan McLaughlin from Muff (if he recovers from the injury), Peadar Mogan, McCormack from Termon and Kieran Gallagher from Naomh Conaill all looked terrific prospects last year - dunno what the U-20s will be like next year but if a few of those lads come through with what we have already, the the future is looking very bright. We just need the right man to lead them.

Tl;dr - really looking forward to Saturday.

Nidgeweasel

downthemiddle wrote: »

Very difficult to go to the game when you're on a flight to New York.

He only flew this afternoon.

Steve The Barman

downthemiddle wrote: »

Very difficult to go to the game when you're on a flight to New York.

the flight to new york didn't leave till tuesday afternoon