Donegal GAA Discussion Thread

Jayop

Nidgeweasel wrote: »

And them with 14 men behind the ball at the time.

Thought it really dissapointing.

The second time they all booed I counted and every single Galway player was in their own half. Very little understanding among them of what actually caused Donegal to retain the possession on those two instances.

harpsman

Nidgeweasel wrote: »

Not seen a full back out of his depth as Finian Hanley since Paddy Campbell. Thought he was dreadful.

We can get joy out of Mayo's full back line next week as I think about it but not as much as we did today.

I really hope Eamonns fit. I'd set the two McGees loose on O'Shea myself. Imagine those three horses going at it. Be fantastic.

Be nice to just see a 70 minute performance in any event.

Dont remember Paddy Campbell letting us down-did a good job on Benny Coulter,Enda Muldoon and Ronan Clarke, and we probably would have beaten Cork had he been playing.

harpsman

K-9 wrote: »

Nope Colm was dreadful for about 40 minutes of that game, he's a luxury player at HF, not somebody you can have against Monaghan or a Mayo. We got away today despite him, how many times did he lose possession today?

What a bizarre statement.
Would you like to bring in another guy who can run up and down the pitch handpassing the ball but wont score in a month of Sundays? That will definately help us against Mayo.

harpsman

jjdonegal wrote: »

That's the million dollar question. Considering Colm is playing out around the half forward line there is a few options that we wouldn't have if he were inside. Are they better than Colm? On his day certainly not. He was good for the most part yesterday but we need a Dublin 2014 like performance from him next day to keep it respectable. Oh how I bloody wish we had 3 weeks.

Eh Dublin 14 performance? Well any player who gets given the ball 4 yards out with no defenders around him tends to get a couple of scores, other than that he was pretty brutal against Dublin and his confidence shoothing was completely shot. On the other hand hes playing brilliant this year and hopefully can keep it up, obviously gonna be tough against Mayo.

Stoner

Jayop wrote:

The second time they all booed I counted and every single Galway player was in their own half. Very little understanding among them of what actually caused Donegal to retain the possession on those two instances.

That was when it was 7 points each ?

Donegal went very quiet for a while after that.

harpsman

Worrying how bad our defence was at times. Every time Galway won possession in the second half they opened us up. If Mayo get half that space then we're looking at another 4 goal job. Eamon Doherty was pretty awful, but poor organisation as well.

Jayop

Stoner wrote: »

That was when it was 7 points each ?

Donegal went very quiet for a while after that.

I'm not quite sure but it was before Donegal went too far ahead anyway. A lot of the Galway fans around us we're very poor. Slagging the Donegal lads if they missed and constantly moaning about the ref and "puke football".

I was surprised tbh because I've been to a fair few Connaught games that Galway were playing in and i never noticed them being so bitter before.

jjdonegal

harpsman wrote: »

Eh Dublin 14 performance? Well any player who gets given the ball 4 yards out with no defenders around him tends to get a couple of scores, other than that he was pretty brutal against Dublin and his confidence shoothing was completely shot. On the other hand hes playing brilliant this year and hopefully can keep it up, obviously gonna be tough against Mayo.

Brutal or not he got 1-4 (I think). We need that kind of return again and I should have specified that is what I meant although for my memory he was very good thar day although I stdnd to be corrected on that. Id dispute he is playing brilliant this year. He was absolutely atrocious against Monaghan from where I was sitting. Granted I have not watched it back on TV so you could be right. His shot selection at times was bloody frustrating with these outside of thw boot slicers.
He was brilliant against Tyrone for large parts and good for the most part against Galway. We need 5/6 points from him on Saturday that is an absolute given.
Hopefully your faith is proven right and ill be absolutely delighted to be proven wrong.
My early prediction is that it wont be 2013 levels but I still see Mayo running out 5+ points winners and comfortable in the end.

Ginzo

Should be a massive crowd from Mayo on Saturday. Will we bring many? It should hit the 50k mark at least with the four teams involved.

Jayop

Ginzo wrote: »

Should be a massive crowd from Mayo on Saturday. Will we bring many? It should hit the 50k mark at least with the four teams involved.

A lot of the Mayo crew won't bother with the first game, was the same with the Gaway crowd on Saturday. The Donegal support will get there early though so the first game should have 20+ on it's own.

I'd say around the 55k mark in total.

jjdonegal

Ginzo wrote: »

Should be a massive crowd from Mayo on Saturday. Will we bring many? It should hit the 50k mark at least with the four teams involved.

Hope so but 2 Mayo mates are "waiting to the semi" and I can see a few more doing that. To me thats understandable as it's a massive expense involved and I know plenty of Donegal people last weekend who were "waiting for the Mayo game" due to it being a Saturday game and the need to get accommodation etc. Sometimes people have to take these risks and hope they pay off.
Saturday evening games are brilliant for fellas like myself on the fringes of the Pale but they are a nuisance for those travelling from Mayo / Donegal. Too bloody late to be arriving home.

Nidgeweasel

harpsman wrote: »

Dont remember Paddy Campbell letting us down-did a good job on Benny Coulter,Enda Muldoon and Ronan Clarke, and we probably would have beaten Cork had he been playing.

This must be a joke?

He got absolutely destroyed in Croke Park in that Ulster final.thats the one I had in mind. It was embarrassing to watch at times really.

Don't think he'd have made a difference against Cork if we had anything about us we'd have won that game, but were found wanting. As we usually were back then.

K-9

harpsman wrote: »

What a bizarre statement.
Would you like to bring in another guy who can run up and down the pitch handpassing the ball but wont score in a month of Sundays? That will definately help us against Mayo.

More bizarre is some reading skills around here.

Ginzo

jjdonegal wrote: »

Hope so but 2 Mayo mates are "waiting to the semi" and I can see a few more doing that. To me thats understandable as it's a massive expense involved and I know plenty of Donegal people last weekend who were "waiting for the Mayo game" due to it being a Saturday game and the need to get accommodation etc. Sometimes people have to take these risks and hope they pay off.
Saturday evening games are brilliant for fellas like myself on the fringes of the Pale but they are a nuisance for those travelling from Mayo / Donegal. Too bloody late to be arriving home.

Yeah living in Dublin myself, so it's great for me! Should be a cracker. LAcey won't be fit I'm told which is a blow

Ceist_Beag

I don't think anyone here is calling for Colm to be dropped. He's a very frustrating player in that his decision making can be awful at times. On Saturday he made a number of poor decisions once again and turned over the ball a number of times once again. However I thought he along with Odhran, Murphy and Ryan were the outstanding players on Saturday. He was involved in all the goals and some of his kick passing was outstanding, not to mention his workrate. I don't think we'll ever get a flawless performance from Colm but Saturday was one of his best ever contributions to the team imho.
Reflecting on the game again with Mayo in mind, I would be concerned at how easily Galway opened us up when they ran at us and committed men ahead of the ball. I'm sure Mayo will do the same and won't be as wasteful as Galway were. I also don't think we can dominate possession against Mayo as much as we did on Saturday, so overall you would have to say Mayo are very warm favourites and I would expect the bookies to have them at about a 4 point handicap on Donegal come throw in.
Still at least we should have a week free from rumours at any rate!

Ceist_Beag

Hopefully Eamonn McGee will make it as I really don't think Eamon Doherty is good enough but it was good to see Thompson get a good run the last day. I would expect Thompson and McLoone to start on Saturday with Toye kept as an impact sub.

Alvin Holler

Ceist_Beag wrote: »

Hopefully Eamonn McGee will make it as I really don't think Eamon Doherty is good enough but it was good to see Thompson get a good run the last day. I would expect Thompson and McLoone to start on Saturday with Toye kept as an impact sub.

it's looking like thompson won't start at all this year, probably not fit enough for 70 mins.

we desperately need eamonn mcgee fit to pick up aidan o'shea. otherwise neil will probably have to do it instead of marking cillian o'connor.

i don't fancy our chances as we're not playing that well but i've really admired the way we've battled in the last couple of games when things haven't being going well.

i think we'll get chances on saturday as i don't rate that mayo defence, it's just about getting on top around the middle and then taking them.

harpsman

jjdonegal wrote: »

Brutal or not he got 1-4 (I think). We need that kind of return again and I should have specified that is what I meant although for my memory he was very good thar day although I stdnd to be corrected on that. Id dispute he is playing brilliant this year. He was absolutely atrocious against Monaghan from where I was sitting. Granted I have not watched it back on TV so you could be right. His shot selection at times was bloody frustrating with these outside of thw boot slicers.
He was brilliant against Tyrone for large parts and good for the most part against Galway. We need 5/6 points from him on Saturday that is an absolute given.
Hopefully your faith is proven right and ill be absolutely delighted to be proven wrong.
My early prediction is that it wont be 2013 levels but I still see Mayo running out 5+ points winners and comfortable in the end.

I think he got 1-1 from play and it was the easiest 1-1 hes ever got. Apart from that he had a few wides which were worse than his wides against Monaghan. Anyway i thought he was far from our worst player against Monaghan, and was better than he was in pretty much every game last year nut anyway we'll agree to disagree on that.

Re next week I agree that Mayo will win with a few to spare, even in 2012 our victory against them was down to us getting goals and keeping a clean sheet ourselves. I certainly dont see that happening the next day. They are at their peak and we've definitely gone past ours. Still at least we beat them when it mattered most. I wonder will their fans be as obnoxious as 2013?

North of 32

harpsman wrote: »

wonder will their fans be as obnoxious as 2013?

Holy moly they were bad that day.

jjdonegal

North of 32 wrote: »

Holy moly they were bad that day.

Ones around me were brilliant in fairness as they were in 2012. Have been to many Mayo games and they have always been A1. Every team has the small minority; like the six absolute disgraces wearing Donegal jerseys leaving Cusack Stand on Saturday verbally abusing a group of school children wearing what I thought were Mayo jerseys. They were absolutely tanked and I'd hazard a good guess they wouldn't remember the next day but there is a difference between friendly banter and expletives being used especially considering the age group being targeted.
As I've said; we all have them and they rear their head for the games in Croker.

Hulk Hands

Agreed every set of fans has their share of clowns, Donegal fans would have more of the 'drinking bandwagon day out' brigade than most, so not sure ye can be complaining too much about others, especially after stuff like the Pat Spillane incident. I shipped a bit of abuse the last day, the usual 'safe home now craic' until I reminded them I was staying down in Dub for Galways AI hurling semi in 2 weeks, and the best of luck on their quest to catch Louth on 3 titles. Easy targets but it cheered me up slightly from my depressed state

seligehgit

jjdonegal wrote: »

Ones around me were brilliant in fairness as they were in 2012. Have been to many Mayo games and they have always been A1. Every team has the small minority; like the six absolute disgraces wearing Donegal jerseys leaving Cusack Stand on Saturday verbally abusing a group of school children wearing what I thought were Mayo jerseys. They were absolutely tanked and I'd hazard a good guess they wouldn't remember the next day but there is a difference between friendly banter and expletives being used especially considering the age group being targeted.
As I've said; we all have them and they rear their head for the games in Croker.

Well said.There was none of that carry on around the area we were seated in 2013.Lots of rather excited,elated Mayo fans after beating the worthy All Ireland champions and gracious Donegal fans wishing us the best.Ditto we went for pints with a Donegal mate post the 2012 final.There is a healthy respect/needle between our respective counties.Familiarity does'nt necessarily breed contempt nor animosity but a strong rivalry.Sure is'nt the great Michael Murphy half Mayo?;)

Is Eamonn McGee likely to be fit for Saturday?It would be some battle between himself and Aidan O Shea.

harpsman

jjdonegal wrote: »

Ones around me were brilliant in fairness as they were in 2012. Have been to many Mayo games and they have always been A1. Every team has the small minority; like the six absolute disgraces wearing Donegal jerseys leaving Cusack Stand on Saturday verbally abusing a group of school children wearing what I thought were Mayo jerseys. They were absolutely tanked and I'd hazard a good guess they wouldn't remember the next day but there is a difference between friendly banter and expletives being used especially considering the age group being targeted.
As I've said; we all have them and they rear their head for the games in Croker.

Ive alot of time for Mayo fans but a larger proportion than normal were very ungracious that day. My personal theory is that their noses were very out of joint after losing a final to little old Donegal the previous year. Could be wrong.

jjdonegal

seligehgit wrote: »

Well said.There was none of that carry on around the area we were seated in 2013.Lots of rather excited,elated Mayo fans after beating the worthy All Ireland champions and gracious Donegal fans wishing us the best.Ditto we went for pints with a Donegal mate post the 2012 final.There is a healthy respect/needle between our respective counties.Familiarity does'nt necessarily breed contempt nor animosity but a strong rivalry.Sure is'nt the great Michael Murphy half Mayo?;)

Is Eamonn McGee likely to be fit for Saturday?It would be some battle between himself and Aidan O Shea.

Hard to know; Rory spoke positively yoday about him but someone on here said he is out. We really need all our panel to choose from to be competitive in my eyes. Dont see it being 2013 levels but dont see it being nice either!

Alvin Holler

Just saw a headline on another website about Marty Duffy reffing a quarter final...

...fortunately it's not ours. We've got David Gough, don't think we've had him before.

harpsman

jjdonegal wrote: »

Hard to know; Rory spoke positively yoday about him but someone on here said he is out. We really need all our panel to choose from to be competitive in my eyes. Dont see it being 2013 levels but dont see it being nice either!

Think anyone gonna struggle against OShea if he gets enough supply. Presume McHugh will sweep in front of him.

jjdonegal

Alvin Holler wrote: »

Just saw a headline on another website about Marty Duffy reffing a quarter final...

...fortunately it's not ours. We've got David Gough, don't think we've had him before.

2014 league final. Sent of Kav. Linesman in Ulster final too with selective vision that day.

jjdonegal

harpsman wrote: »

Think anyone gonna struggle against OShea if he gets enough supply. Presume McHugh will sweep in front of him.

True. Can see him causing absolute havoc if at FF but part of me says he might play most at 11

seligehgit

I think Aidan O Shea will be employed in around the square.No logical reason to mix things up,he may as usual drift out the field if needs require it.

jjdonegal

seligehgit wrote: »

I think Aidan O Shea will be employed in around the square.No logical reason to mix things up,he may as usual drift out the field if needs require it.

Yeah true but just an inkling they might change it up a little. Could be way off the mark though. What a superb footballer like Murphy that he offers such options at 8; 11 or 14. It's invaluable having a player like that to call upon.