The 2015 All Ireland Senior Football Championship

keane2097

Boom__Boom wrote: »

Pretty sure Dont Foul has some stuff on the low number of goal chances Donegal let teams have.

Found this about the final

It's a point worth looking at, thanks for providing the list.

dofoul wrote: »

Missed the 2013 Laois qualifier and haven't completed the Armagh game from this year yet but the goal attempts Donegal have conceded since the start of 2012 are (oldest first)

2 1 3 1 1 3 1 3 0 1 9 (Mayo QF '13) 1 0 2 1 5 (Dublin '14 SF) 4 (Kerry '14 F) 6 (Tyrone '15) 2

Thanks for adding to it, and good to see you on boards at last

Donegal seem to have had a pretty stacked schedule since the beginning of 2012 so I wouldn't question the quality of opposition.

Still, even adjusting the 9 & 5 chances conceded to Mayo & Dublin down a little that averages out to close to 2 goal chances given per game, of which at least one or two must be to somewhat "weaker" teams.

I'd still be strongly of the opinion looking at that then that the number of chances coughed up in the first half against Dublin was not unexpected/system failure stuff, and that the Dublin point taking weighting of +3.528 in that period had a way bigger effect on the optic of Dublin running away with things.

Interested in hearing your take on that?

North of 32

Donegal were lucky against Dublin. After the first 25 minutes, Donegal outscored Dublin 3-10 to 0-8.

How fortuitous Donegal were that Dublin decided to sit back and allow themselves to be comprehensively beaten - maybe even hammered in another man's language.

Ceist_Beag

ultrapercy wrote: »

They didn't panic had faith in themselves and their plan and took their chance when it was presented to them, not purely because of a managerial master plan or tactics.

I agree in part with what you're saying in that the role of tactics can be overstated but there is a contradiction in some of what you say about management. The reason they didn't panic, had faith in themselves and their plan and took their chance was down to how they were managed up to this point. They had spent a number of years working on their gameplan by this point and were well drilled in how to perform to their best as a team. They believed in themselves because of the coaching they received and the fact that they saw the results on the field.
All of this is down to good management.
Obviously the players need to go out and do the job on the field but clearly there is big difference between teams with a motivated, organised manager who can instil his beliefs in the players and this cannot be underestimated imho. Just look at Kildare! There is clearly talent in that squad but it certainly does not translate to the sum of their parts on the field.

Just An Opinion

I am amazed at just how overkill the analysis on the Donegal v Dublin game are from last year. Fact of the matter is, a combination of game plan, tactics, bounce of the ball luck/bad luck on the day and quality players taking their chances/missing chances among other noticed and un-noticed factors outside of planned tactics and gameplan is what accumulates the final result.

On that particular day Donegal were ultimately the better team and won, end of.

What I particularly noticed from a Dublin perspective, there was no real difference between last years semi-final and the 2013 semi-final against Kerry in the sense that our vulnerability was exposed at the back shipping 3 goals due to our all out attacking approach.

On another day Declan O'Sullivan's narrow wide before the kick-out that led to MacAuley's flicked pass to McManamon's goal would have worked out in O'Sullivan nailing his point and MacAuley not getting the break on that loose ball resulting in a Kerry win.

With the top teams the main differences can be minuscule resulting in amplified outcomes, eg; Mayo v Kerry - very little to seperate them over 160+ minutes of football but the overall outcome is Kerry going on to become All-Ireland champions and Mayo left licking their wounds and leading to a new management team in 2015.

Sport is not an exact science, big guns clash, sometimes it's tight, other times it can be one sided either way on any given day for any number of unforeseen reasons.....

That's why we love it I suppose!

Jayop

Here's every team left in it.

2a
Antrim v Fermanagh Brewster Park
Offaly v Kildare O'Connor Park
Clare v Longford Cusack Park, Ennis
Cavan v Roscommon Kingspan Breffni Pk

2b
Derry v Wexford
Tyrone v Meath
Tipperary v Louth
Armagh v Galway

Finals
Sligo v Mayo
Dublin v Westmeath
Kerry v Cork
Donegal v Monaghan

Amazing that at the start of July there's only 10 teams gone out.

Anyway, you can really see how it's going to shape up now. Prediction time!!

2a will be a draw between;
Fermanagh
Kildare
Clare
Cavan

...with the winners playing Westmeath and probably Cork. The winners of those games play against Dublin and Kerry.

2b will be a draw between;
Derry
Tyrone
Tipperary
Armagh

...with the winners playing Sligo and probably Monaghan. The winners of those then play against Donegal and Mayo.

It's still hard to see any of Dublin, Mayo, Donegal and Kerry getting stopped by the qualifiers coming though. If they do all win as expected then the semi finals will be as follows.

Sunday 23rd Aug
Kerry Vs Donegal

Sunday 30th Aug
Dublin Vs Mayo


I'm going to predict an all Ireland final of Donegal Vs Dublin again.

OldMrBrennan83

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Fr Tod Umptious

Patww79 wrote: »

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12th is a Sunday so its usually observed on Monday 13th.
So the bonfires may be Sunday night.

OldMrBrennan83

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Jayop

Patww79 wrote: »

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Not really. The games are all being played in Border counties. Getting to Derry though Strabane or Letterkenny will be no problem for the Wexford fans, I don't see any big issues driving the 20 odd miles from the border to Omagh for the Meath fans either. Galway fans will have about 10 miles on the north to get to Armagh city.

They won't see a single thing on that trip and they wont encounter any problems.

Dr Crippen

the 2a side of the draw is not to bad

Jayop

Dr Crippen wrote: »

the 2a side of the draw is not to bad

I think this year more than ever before though the qualifiers are completely inconsequential. None of the teams going though will be able to beat the provincial winners and they will make up the 4 teams in the semis.

Ollieboy

Jayop wrote: »

I'm going to predict an all Ireland final of Donegal Vs Dublin again.

Again! they only met once in the final and that was 1992, but it does seem like more.

I would agree with your prediction 100% and I'm still not sure of Dublin. They mightn't get a decent game until the final which isn't good for them.

But Donegal/Dublin or Kerry/Dublin would be great for the fans.

Jayop

Ollieboy wrote: »

Again! they only met once in the final and that was 1992, but it does seem like more.

I would agree with your prediction 100% and I'm still not sure of Dublin. They mightn't get a decent game until the final which isn't good for them.

But Donegal/Dublin or Kerry/Dublin would be great for the fans.

haha, true about Dublin Donegal. They've meet in Croker a few times recently and I suppose I was putting those down as finals.

Dublin could potentially meet Cork in a quarter final and Mayo in a semi. Could be a tough enough run but you'd expect them to manage those games.

I'd prefer a Tyrone final but that's just me!

Dr Crippen

Jayop wrote: »

I think this year more than ever before though the qualifiers are completely inconsequential. None of the teams going though will be able to beat the provincial winners and they will make up the 4 teams in the semis.

Ah sure we all need a day out 😄👍🙈

Jayop

Dr Crippen wrote: »

Ah sure we all need a day out 😄👍🙈

Indeed. I'm a fan of the qualifier system and think it's great for the players and fans to get at least 2 games a year and in most cases 3+. I just think this year the top teams are so strong that I can't see any big surprises beyond the quarters.

Boom__Boom

Boom__Boom wrote: »

One thing on the Armagh Galway game I can see it being an absolute munter of a game to ref - both of the teams have exceptionally poor tackling technique - Armagh seem to think that a legitimate tackle is aimed to the man as opposed to the ball and Galway seem to have a loose, lazy style of tackling that I would describe as "throwing hands"

This bad tackling by both sides has contributed to a very high number of frees conceded by both so far in the championship.

Was thinking of this a bit more and had a look online at some of the match reports - I did remember reading after the Galway Leitrim game that the Leitrim manager was surprised at how much Galway fouled. Anyway found an article that said Galway had 42 frees awarded against them. Then in the Mayo game the ref penalised them for 32 fouls. I couldnt find anything about the New York game - coverage was very scarce. However 74 frees conceded in 2 games is just ridiculous stuff.

For Armagh I found a total of 23 frees awarded against them in the Donegal game - you'd assume that any team playing Michael Murphy would have as it's key aims not to concede frees, given how far out he can hit them from, but Armagh was so clueless on the day you'd have to question whether they even managed to do this a little bit. Donegal ended up scoring 5 points from frees. Couldnt find anything about the number of frees in the Wicklow game but one match report mentioned the fact that Wicklow had a disaster in terms of free-taking and put 8 kickable frees wide only converting 1. That total of 9 would only be the ones rated kickable, so you'd assume that Armagh's overall frees given away figure would be well into double-digits and it would be no surprise to me if it was over the 20 frees conceded amount.

From what I've seen in a very limited amount of games generally the number of kickable frees tends to be less than the non-kickable frees, which makes sense as pretty much every team is far more willing to foul in the parts of the field where a free isn't kickable. Also the amount of non-kickable frees conceded is probably related to the tackling ability/willingness of forwards and midfielders to commit fouls as it is extremely rare that the punishment for committing a foul is a score against their team.

As a comparison in terms of what top teams do Donegal conceded 10 frees in total in their game against Armagh in a game where Armagh's primary tactic was running into the contact with the Donegal defence. The first kickable free Donegal conceded was in the 47th minute. You starve a team of frees, especially scorable ones, you are starving them of those little momentum power-ups. Even if it's only conceding non-scorable frees to teams, you are still handing them back possession and a platform to go forward.

Anyway long story short don't be a bit surprised if you hear nonsense about the ref not letting the game flow and the game being a bit stop-start after the game. If it's a free ridden affair it will be because both teams are hopeless in terms of playing within the rules. Would be no surprise if a large part of the winning and losing of this game comes down to whatever team is better at converting their frees on the day.

Whoever ends up as ref for this is odds on to earn his petrol money and while I'm almost tempted to say I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, there are a couple of the intercounty refs, whom I wouldn't be overly concerned if they end up having to deal with the likely nonsense.

Jayop

I don't see it as being as bad as that. There'll be lots of frees but it won't be a particularly bad tempered affair because in reality both teams are playing out to see who is going to be beat in the next round anyway.

Boom__Boom

Jayop wrote: »

I don't see it as being as bad as that. There'll be lots of frees but it won't be a particularly bad tempered affair because in reality both teams are playing out to see who is going to be beat in the next round anyway.

The teams won't be remotely thinking about the next round and definitely won't be of the opinion that the match is an irrelevance because of their next round opponents .

Galway were seriously cranky against Mayo (picked up a serious chunk of cards) in addition to the frees conceded and Armagh have a fairly well-established tradition of being a mite cantankerous. The fact that Galway committed 42 frees against Leitrim gives a massive insight into what Galway's approach is likely to be.

Both McGeeney and Walsh will be under a serious chunk of pressure if they got knocked out, and I could easily see that being reflected by their teams.

Peist2007

2moreMinutes wrote: »

I wouldn't argue against that at all.

It's the more general argument that's often put out there about how Croke Park is apparently full of space compared to provincial pitches that is an annoyance to me. Granted, it doesn't take an awful lot to annoy me but still....

Have you ever played an inter county match in Croke Park? Ever played one in Brewster Park or in Clones? Dont be getting annoyed about things you dont know anything about.

Peist2007

intellectual dosser wrote: »

It's been 10 months and you're the first Dublin supporter I've seen take this angle.

Donegal were better, 6 points better. You're going to have to make peace with it.

This year, whole new story.

The dubs got their tactics spectacularly wrong. That is why they lost. Sending your half back line marauding up the pitch is a sure fire way to lose to Donegal.

Jayop

Boom__Boom wrote: »

The teams won't be remotely thinking about the next round and definitely won't be of the that the match is an irrelevance because of their next round opponents .

Galway were seriously cranky against Mayo (picked up a serious chunk of cards) in addition to the frees conceded and Armagh have a fairly well-established tradition of being a mite cantankerous. The fact that Galway committed 42 frees against Leitrim gives a massive insight into what Galway's approach is likely to be.

Both McGeeney and Walsh will be under a serious chunk of pressure if they got knocked out, and I could easily see that being reflected by their teams.

Galway and Mayo was a derby match, Armagh and Donegal was a derby match. They won't really be comparable.

How many of those fouls were technical fouls and simply rubbish tackling as opposed to being dirty and putting the ref under pressure?

closeline

Just re the Dubs. I really think these games are doing them no good whatsover.

Kildare and Longford have set up man to man, making it way to easy. If they played defensively Dublin would still win comfortably but at least they would have some bit of experience of breaking down teams with 12/13 men behind the ball.

Looking at the Derry/Donegal highlights. With all the men behind the ball. How will they Dubs react against that type of opposition. The Dubs need Wmeath to play men behind the ball. I'm not sure if they will though, if they don't it will be of no benefit to the Dubs at all.

Should the Dubs be more street wise and cuter? I certainly think so. Was there a need to get 5 goals yesterday? No way. Would Kerry have done the same, I don't think so. They would have tapped over a few handy points and let Kildare back into it. Dublin win so easy and with brilliant performances, they are raising expectations the whole time and increases the pressure.

Look at Kerry against Cork last year. Looked brilliant, yet they were average enough against Galway and it lowered the expectations some what.

2moreMinutes

Peist2007 wrote: »

Have you ever played an inter county match in Croke Park? Ever played one in Brewster Park or in Clones? Dont be getting annoyed about things you dont know anything about.

What has my inter-county career got to do with anything?

Nidgeweasel

Peist2007 wrote: »

The dubs got their tactics spectacularly wrong. That is why they lost. Sending your half back line marauding up the pitch is a sure fire way to lose to Donegal.

They believed their own bull**** and hype that they could just go and outgun teams. That's how they play, fair dues to them. Donegal play a different way and have more intelligent and natural footballers who picked them off with consummate ease. The game was over 2 minutes after the restart.

ColeTrain

closeline wrote: »

Just re the Dubs. I really think these games are doing them no good whatsover.

Kildare and Longford have set up man to man, making it way to easy. If they played defensively Dublin would still win comfortably but at least they would have some bit of experience of breaking down teams with 12/13 men behind the ball.

Looking at the Derry/Donegal highlights. With all the men behind the ball. How will they Dubs react against that type of opposition. The Dubs need Wmeath to play men behind the ball. I'm not sure if they will though, if they don't it will be of no benefit to the Dubs at all.

Should the Dubs be more street wise and cuter? I certainly think so. Was there a need to get 5 goals yesterday? No way. Would Kerry have done the same, I don't think so. They would have tapped over a few handy points and let Kildare back into it. Dublin win so easy and with brilliant performances, they are raising expectations the whole time and increases the pressure.

Look at Kerry against Cork last year. Looked brilliant, yet they were average enough against Galway and it lowered the expectations some what.

It's Championship football, you've got players playing for places. The starting 15 is going to want to impress to hang on their jersey and the subs coming on will be busting a gut to start the next day out e.g Brogan yesterday.

2moreMinutes

Nidgeweasel wrote: »

They believed their own bull**** and hype that they could just go and outgun teams. That's how they play, fair dues to them. Donegal play a different way and have more intelligent and natural footballers who picked them off with consummate ease. The game was over 2 minutes after the restart.

:popcorn:

salmocab

closeline wrote: »

Should the Dubs be more street wise and cuter? I certainly think so. Was there a need to get 5 goals yesterday? No way. Would Kerry have done the same, I don't think so. They would have tapped over a few handy points and let Kildare back into it. Dublin win so easy and with brilliant performances, they are raising expectations the whole time and increases the pressure.

Absolute nonsense, players are playing for their jerseys and have no responsibility to 'let' the opposition back into it. If Kerry or any one else were in the same position they would do the same. In fact if they had come off the gas and Kildare were back in it then people would be spouting nonsense about not playing for the full 70.

DoctaDee

Nidgeweasel wrote: »

..........Donegal play a different way and have more intelligent and natural footballers ........

Your concept of a natural footballer differs vastly from mine so .. and I don't think you have to be a Dublin supporter to appreciate that fact

Jayop

DoctaDee wrote: »

Your concept of a natural footballer differs vastly from mine so .. and I don't think you have to be a Dublin supporter to appreciate that fact

To be fair, Donegal have some supremely talented footballers. Players all over the field who can catch, solo, kick scores and tackle. The problem with his point was that he stated they have more of those than Dublin which is patently not the case. Dublin could probably get to an All Ireland final without their first 15 players. They have more strength in depth than any other county in Ireland and the subs are all amazingly natural footballers.

davidfitz22

Jayop wrote: »

To be fair, Donegal have some supremely talented footballers. Players all over the field who can catch, solo, kick scores and tackle. The problem with his point was that he stated they have more of those than Dublin which is patently not the case. Dublin could probably get to an All Ireland final without their first 15 players. They have more strength in depth than any other county in Ireland and the subs are all amazingly natural footballers.

If they improve their defensive game (which it looks like they are working on) they cannot be matched. They will want to play us this year and erase what happened last year. This is the game everyone wants to see again. We are the only team other than kerry who can beat them and hopefully we will again

Jayop

Aye most likely it's between the three of you. I'd love to say Mayo could put it up to them but the fact is that unless the game was held in Castlebar it won't happen.

ColeTrain

Jayop wrote: »

Aye most likely it's between the three of you. I'd love to say Mayo could put it up to them but the fact is that unless the game was held in Castlebar it won't happen.

If we go man to man we will get done. We are leaking far too many goals and that needs to be addressed.

It will be interesting to see if Connelly/Holmes put something different in place against Sligo.

Nidgeweasel

DoctaDee wrote: »

Your concept of a natural footballer differs vastly from mine so .. and I don't think you have to be a Dublin supporter to appreciate that fact

Neil Gallagher is a natural footballer.

Michael Darragh is not.

We've got intelligent natural footballers from 1-15. Dublin don't. It's why I consistently thought that Donegal would win last year. Shouldn't have perhaps said 'more' given the riches the Dubs have in reserve.

Jayop

ColeTrain wrote: »

If we go man to man we will get done. We are leaking far too many goals and that needs to be addressed.

It will be interesting to see if Connelly/Holmes put something different in place against Sligo.

I would have went to the Sligo Mayo game in Castlebar but I'm f'ed if I'm going to traipse to the Hyde for it.

Will be interesting for sure. I'd say Sligo will have to come up with something completely different for the Mayo game as they wont be able to use the same tricks again.

salmocab

Nidgeweasel wrote: »

. It's why consistently that Donegal would win last year.

what does this mean?

Slattsy

DoctaDee wrote: »

Your concept of a natural footballer differs vastly from mine so .. and I don't think you have to be a Dublin supporter to appreciate that fact

He's trolling surely.
Or drunk.

Slattsy

salmocab wrote: »

what does this mean?

Drunk it is.

Nidgeweasel

salmocab wrote: »

what does this mean?

Edited, apologies.

And sober fwiw.

Slattsy

Nidgeweasel wrote: »

Edited, apologies.

And sober fwiw.

:P

seligehgit

ColeTrain wrote: »

If we go man to man we will get done. We are leaking far too many goals and that needs to be addressed.

It will be interesting to see if Connelly/Holmes put something different in place against Sligo.

Yeah if we do happen to reach the semi final and attempt to go toe to toe with Dublin it will be suicide.A repeat of the league game result in Castlebar will be on the cards.We will have to learn to incorporate a more defensive system ala Donegal if we are to succeed.

Not convinced after 4 years on the road and our new management that any such plans exist or lessons have been learned.

MICKEYG

Folks, its a cup competition so there will always be games where the better team loses.
If the main compettion was a league (maybe two divisions of 16) and given the higher priority it is hard to see how Dublin would not win by a lot of points.
But the all Ireland is a knockout tournament where one off day can see you gone. It is a great achievement to win it but it does not necessarily mean you are the best team that year.

ColeTrain

seligehgit wrote: »

Yeah if we do happen to reach the semi final and attempt to go toe to toe with Dublin it will be suicide.A repeat of the league game result in Castlebar will be on the cards.We will have to learn to incorporate a more defensive system ala Donegal if we are to succeed.

Not convinced after 4 years on the road and our new management that any such plans exist or lessons have been learned.

If we do get past Sligo and then progress into the Semi-Final's against the Dubs, surely we couldn't be that naive like we were in the league.

I wouldn't be calling for 15 men behind the ball but there needs to be a sweeper put in place. If that means starting Kev McLoughlin wing back and giving the job to Lee Keegan then so be it. Keegan would have the engine for it. Personally, I'd start Higgins half foward and bring Cafferkey into corner back, then let Higgin's be the extra defender. He has the pace and aggression to do it, not to mention he could burst forward on the break.

Someone was saying on the Mayo GAA Blog that we won't put this into place against Sligo as to not 'to show our hand'. That might very well be the case. We will see on the 19th...

DoctaDee

MICKEYG wrote: »

Folks, its a cup competition so there will always be games where the better team loses.
If the main compettion was a league (maybe two divisions of 16) and given the higher priority it is hard to see how Dublin would not win by a lot of points.
But the all Ireland is a knockout tournament where one off day can see you gone. It is a great achievement to win it but it does not necessarily mean you are the best team that year.

Hand on heart we were the 2nd best team for all but 10 minutes in 2011 .. but what a 10 minutes

closeline

ColeTrain wrote: »

It's Championship football, you've got players playing for places. The starting 15 is going to want to impress to hang on their jersey and the subs coming on will be busting a gut to start the next day out e.g Brogan yesterday.

Yes I understand that. That seems to be one factor. But I wonder, like Kilkenny with Ger Alyward etc, is the Dublin team going to be picked on performances in tight A vs B games rather than handy Leinster championship games.

Dyr

Nidgeweasel wrote: »

Neil Gallagher is a natural footballer.

Michael Darragh is not.

.

Someone should tell him, he was kick passing to blue shirts all day on Sunday completely unaware how unnatural it was for him


Poor gallagher might not even remember what a kick pass is

Fr Tod Umptious

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

An interesting point on the Munster Final is that the losers will play the Leinster champions if they win their last-12 tie. One might see Kerry possibly beating Dublin in September, but not with off-peak fitness, so for once the provincial title effectively becomes an eliminator.

You are correct that the provincial title effectively becomes an eliminator, but it's not 'for once', it has been happening for the past 5 seasons.

Since 2011 only one non provincial champ has made it to the SF, and that was when Tyrone beat Monaghan in 2013, and to be honest Monaghans lack of, and Sean Cavanagh's abundance in, big game experience counted in that defeat.

Since 2011 one team in each province has been dominant, Dublin (4 out 4 in Leinster), Mayo (4 out of 4 in Connacht), Kerry (3 out of 4 in Munster) and Donegal (3 out of 4 in Ulster)
All four have played in 2 All Irelands, and 3 have won it.

So the last thing that any of the above 4 wants to happen is to meet one of the other 3 at the QF stage.

Kerry lost to Cork in 2012 and lost to Donegal in the QF, Cork on the other had had the luxury of playing Kildare.
Donegal lost to Monaghan in 2013 and lost to Mayo in the QF, they may have fared better v Tyrone if they had proper time to recover by winning Ulster.
Cork lost 3 Munster tiles since 2011 and have not got past the QF stage

The notion that the provincial championship has lost value since the qualifiers is no longer true, IMO it has actually gained value.

Well prepared, well coached teams like the 4 mentioned above, value the certainty that progression through the provincial championship brings.

STB.

Nidgeweasel wrote: »

They believed their own bull**** and hype that they could just go and outgun teams. That's how they play, fair dues to them. Donegal play a different way and have more intelligent and natural footballers who picked them off with consummate ease. The game was over 2 minutes after the restart.

Thats fighting talk.....

Yesterdays men, hang on to today.

Nidgeweasel wrote: »

Neil Gallagher is a natural footballer.

Michael Darragh is not.

We've got intelligent natural footballers from 1-15. Dublin don't. It's why I consistently thought that Donegal would win last year. Shouldn't have perhaps said 'more' given the riches the Dubs have in reserve.

Amazing claims for a team that only won 3 games in the league this year. Stop the lights.

Just An Opinion

Nidgeweasel wrote: »

Neil Gallagher is a natural footballer.

Michael Darragh is not.

We've got intelligent natural footballers from 1-15. Dublin don't. It's why I consistently thought that Donegal would win last year. Shouldn't have perhaps said 'more' given the riches the Dubs have in reserve.

Michael Darragh MacAuley - Footballer Of The Year 2013 says hello!

Stoner

Nidgeweasel wrote:

We've got intelligent natural footballers from 1-15. Dublin don't. It's why I consistently thought that Donegal would win last year. Shouldn't have perhaps said 'more' given the riches the Dubs have in reserve.

You don't Nidgeweasel. If you had you'd have more medals. If you had all those natural intelligent players you wouldn't have a team that had to develop the system you used to win the all Ireland in 2012 because you were getting beaten in Ulster all the time. If you had natural intelligent footballers from 1-15 you wouldn't have been so exhausted in 2013 that you had nothing left for a whole season and got completely taken apart by Mayo I 2013.
Kerry won four in a row with the same 15 players and a sub. They were natural intelligent players they didn't have to give so much in one year that they had nothing left for the following year.
You have a team with one super player and a handful of very good players. McGuniness won one all Ireland, he developed a system that most pundits recognise and have written about. If he had a natural intelligent player for every position 1-15 they would have beaten Kerry last year and Mayo the year before and Dublin four years ago. With a natural intelligent player in every position you wouldn't need to pull everyone behind the ball. You would have won more before McGuniness came on board.

Your claim is as arrogant and unbelievable as any of the BS and hype you have correctly pointed out has been written about Dublin in the past. Donegal were well worth their win last year, I don't like it when others try to belittle an all Ireland win either but I think you've gone ahead of yourself here. You are reading too much into the BS pushed by Brolly and the like. There is so much BS written about matches that McGuniness got right and so little written about the ones he gets wrong. Y

You can't be all things to all people.
A great system, the best manager, the best tactician, the best team, the best prepared, have an intelligent natural player in every position and only win one all Ireland in four or five years.

You left out dedicated, committed, disciplined all attributes that spring to mind when I think about donegal. Some of your players are intelligent and have a lot of natural ability. Some have average ability but all the lads are fully committed to the cause. You have an exceptional team, a team that has weaknesses that a system allows and compensates for like making defensive errors and limited scoring options.

After your well deserved a Ireland in 2012, the system that was used to win it was blamed by many for the flat year in 2013. The idea being that it takes so much to play to that system that it is unsustainable two years running.
Had you won the All Ireland with a natural intelligent player in every position you could have kicked on.
But you didn't. That is as much as a fact as Donegal were a better team than Dublin large year. That's what the results say and history will record.

Stoner

Nidgeweasel wrote:

We've got intelligent natural footballers from 1-15. Dublin don't. It's why I consistently thought that Donegal would win last year. Shouldn't have perhaps said 'more' given the riches the Dubs have in reserve.

You don't Nidgeweasel. If you had you'd have more medals. If you had all those natural intelligent players you wouldn't have a team that had to develop the system you used to win the all Ireland in 2012 because you were getting beaten in Ulster all the time. If you had natural intelligent footballers from 1-15 you wouldn't have been so exhausted in 2013 that you had nothing left for a whole season and got completely taken apart by Mayo I 2013.
Kerry won four in a row with the same 15 players and a sub. They were natural intelligent players they didn't have to give so much in one year that they had nothing left for the following year.
You have a team with one super player and a handful of very good players. McGuniness won one all Ireland, he developed a system that most pundits recognise and have written about. If he had a natural intelligent player for every position 1-15 they would have beaten Kerry last year and Mayo the year before and Dublin four years ago. With a natural intelligent player in every position you wouldn't need to pull everyone behind the ball. You would have won more before McGuniness came on board.

Your claim is as arrogant and unbelievable as any of the BS and hype you have correctly pointed out has been written about Dublin in the past. Donegal were well worth their win last year, I don't like it when others try to belittle an all Ireland win either but I think you've gone ahead of yourself here. You are reading too much into the BS pushed by Brolly and the like. There is so much BS written about matches that McGuniness got right and so little written about the ones he gets wrong. Y

You can't be all things to all people.
A great system, the best manager, the best tactician, the best team, the best prepared, have an intelligent natural player in every position and only win one all Ireland in four or five years.

You left out dedicated, committed, disciplined all attributes that spring to mind when I think about donegal. Some of your players are intelligent and have a lot of natural ability. Some have average ability but all the lads are fully committed to the cause. You have an exceptional team, a team that has weaknesses that a system allows and compensates for like making defensive errors and limited scoring options.

After your well deserved a Ireland in 2012, the system that was used to win it was blamed by many for the flat year in 2013. The idea being that it takes so much to play to that system that it is unsustainable two years running.
Had you won the All Ireland with a natural intelligent player in every position you could have kicked on.
But you didn't. That is as much as a fact as Donegal were a better team than Dublin large year. That's what the results say and history will record.