JOHNNY DOYLE FOR POPE

manufanu

I can't beleive how Pat Spillane and the rest of his "pundits" completely brushed aside any talk of Kildare after such a great 2nd half performance. Particularily from the one and only Johnny Doyle, the most underappreciated man in football, does anybody outside Kildare realise that he would walk on to any county team. Here is a little tribute I wrote to him to the tune of Galway girl.

Well, there is a man, who plays in white,
His name is D-O-Y-L-E
He has more scores than Zidane, you could say hes the man
And he does it all for free
And I ask you friend, whats a defender to do,
‘Cause most players kick with one but he uses two
And when he gets the ball, the crowd begins to smile
‘Cause were about to get another score from Johnny Doyle

Nalced_irl

gotta work on your html coding

beertons

Nice

Yavvy

you must be so proud of your son Ms Doyle

Infairness, Kildare have a few great players. but they still have not begun to play like a team. Unlike Fermanagh... I live in Kildare and have been to see a few games. Im sorry to say (honestly) they are unlikley to go any further this year. another year at the helm for McGeany before we see any true progress.

love the song BTW

kaimera

Nalced_irl wrote: »

gotta work on your html coding

it's BB code actually but thats being pedantic

thats happened a few times on boards. yore not unique OP

Nalced_irl

kaimera wrote: »

it's BB code actually but thats being pedantic

thats happened a few times on boards. yore not unique OP

ah, pretty much the same thing Close enough anyway.

Yavvy

stay on topic or you banned...

oh my how the tables are on the other shoe now.

Funkymonk83

best player in the country bar none. but seriously this chap is one hell of a footballer.

maybe we wont go any further then again maybe we will. according to the pundits we had no chance last weekend. people can keep writing us off we like it that way. there have been some great performances from a few players the last two weeks but the great JD stands above them all.

the best part about the performances have been to see the work ethic and hunger back which was completely lacking against wicklow.

we still might not be the best in the country but we will sure as hell give it our all next sunday

Nalced_irl

lol, Kaim, you ever feel some people might take advantage of your new position

Oh, on topic tho, sry
I cant see Kildare going any further either. For pretty much the same reasons as Alany tbh. They dont seem to have enough skill as a unit but have some good individuals. A bit of practice on moving the ball as a team and they will come on in leaps and bounds tho id say.

manufanu

I just copied and pasted it in from word and didn't bother typing it out again. I'll stick in another verse after we win on Sunday.

hawker

And not a mention of his sublime sideline kick with the outside of his right foot in any of the national media.

grenache

John Doyle is top class, and he's prospering more this year because of McGeeny's tactic of letting the ball in quick to the forwards, the Armagh man has taken them away from their traditional hand-passing game in favour of a more direct approach, and its paying dividends. I wish the Limerick backs had let the ball in as quick to Ian Ryan last weekend, instead of this mickey mouse hand-passing game.

Even though i thought Diarmuid Carroll did a great man-marking job on Doyle in the first half, you'll never keep a talent like him quiet for 70 mins, and he was everywhere in the second half. If Kildare had another forward like him, they would go a long way in the championship this year.

mousey007

ya they would go a long way...what has happened to tadgh fennin?i always thought he was quite a good forward

Yavvy

grenache wrote: »

John Doyle is top class, and he's prospering more this year because of McGeeny's tactic of letting the ball in quick to the forwards, the Armagh man has taken them away from their traditional hand-passing game in favour of a more direct approach, and its paying dividends. I wish the Limerick backs had let the ball in as quick to Ian Ryan last weekend, instead of this mickey mouse hand-passing game.

I thought Kildares attacking play (in the first half) was terrible, its no use kicking in fast ball when there is no one to come onto it. And their defence this having a lot of trouble keeping up with attackers, espically where there is an overlap situation..tracking back has been poor.

Perhaps one or two more pasess before releasing the bal would be a good idea. the issue is who on the kildare team can the provide the leadership/playmaking for that tatic ? I think Kildares biggest weakness is the Midfield & half back area...

cruiserweight

If he was pope would he not be unavailable most sundays

patmac

cruiserweight wrote: »

If he was pope would he not be unavailable most sundays

I'm all for it then.

Yavvy

If your the Pope you can do what you like, although other teams couldnt tackle him.. their ma's would kill them. :pac:

cruiserweight wrote: »

If he was pope would he not be unavailable most sundays

grenache

Alany wrote: »

I thought Kildares attacking play (in the first half) was terrible, its no use kicking in fast ball when there is no one to come onto it. And their defence this having a lot of trouble keeping up with attackers, espically where there is an overlap situation..tracking back has been poor.

Perhaps one or two more pasess before releasing the bal would be a good idea. the issue is who on the kildare team can the provide the leadership/playmaking for that tatic ? I think Kildares biggest weakness is the Midfield & half back area...

Granted it didn't work in the first half, but it did work in the second. I thought the Kildare full line showed very well for the ball in the second half.

Yavvy

yeah but my real concern is the ability to win and manage play in the middle third... without good ball going in the havent a snowball's.

Funkymonk83

with Mick Foley finally back fit and if Chalky White comes back into the half back line i wouldnt have too many concerns about Kildares half back line.

Also brennan and earley were pretty good in the first half against cavan before tiring. 1st half against limerick midfield was pretty bad but when flynn was introduced this changed and early also started winning ball second half.

Give me the first half performance against cavan and 2nd half performance against limerick and ill be quite happy to take our chances

mousey007

I think they will struggle quite a bit at the weekend

baztard

Alany wrote: »

yeah but my real concern is the ability to win and manage play in the middle third... without good ball going in the haven't a snowball's.

Yeah I agree. Earley and Brennan are ageing, they're not as fast as they once were. On a good day though they are a top quality midfield partnership. Hopefully on Sunday they'll have one of those days. Flynn was also good when he came on in place of Brennan against Limerick, I don' think he should start against Fermanagh though.

One thing that I'm not too sure about is the way the midfield keep punching any high balls down rather then trying to catch them. It seems to be happening a lot. I'm not sure if its a deliberate tactic on Kildares part, or if its just that the players are second to ball behind the opposition players a lot.

raven136

one thing that bugs me is that Mcgeeney was written off as clueless after the wicklow game by the national media.There was barely a mention of kildare and his fine tuning of the team for the 2nd half in limerick.Credit where its due

CyberDave

Let's not get carried away now. No doubt Doyle is a good player and would make it on to most county teams, but he is Kildares only real scoring threat. Take him out of the equation and Kildare are in trouble.

blackbelt

CyberDave wrote: »

Let's not get carried away now. No doubt Doyle is a good player and would make it on to most county teams, but he is Kildares only real scoring threat. Take him out of the equation and Kildare are in trouble.

Have to agree here and unfortunately for Kildare,that is more easily achieved than trying to keep Alan Brogan,Paddy Bradley,Ronan Sexton,Joyce,Mattie Forde,Colm Cooper,Michael Cussen quiet.Incidently,those aforementioned forwards have an extremely talented and dangerous forward line to support them so even if one may be contai9ned,others will step up and get scores.

John Doyle is very similar to Seanie Johnston...a one man scoring forward who is over-relied on.That makes Cavan and Kildare very predictable and predictable teams get beaten very fast.

I'm expecting a comfortable win for Fermanagh on Sunday.They are a huge step up from Wicklow,Cavan and Limerick.If Kildare lose,they should still be happy to have made it to the last 12.

grenache

blackbelt wrote: »

I'm expecting a comfortable win for Fermanagh on Sunday.

I couldn't disagree more. Winning Ulster was everything to Fermanagh, and they will find it very difficult to get up for the qualifiers, especially when they had the winning of both Ulster finals. It was the same story for Limerick a few years ago against Kerry after the Munster final replay. They were mentally exhausted and i expect Fermanagh to be the same this weekend. Kildare on the other hand will be confident after their win over Limerick. Sure its their third game in three weeks, but its much easier to play the following week after having won the previous week.

blackbelt wrote: »

They are a huge step up from Wicklow,Cavan and Limerick.

A huge step up? No, not at all. This is Fermanagh we are talking about, not Kerry. There isn't a whole lot between Fermanagh, Limerick and Cavan.

Yavvy

Fermanagh are not a huge step from Kildare and in the C'ship any thing can happen. But like the guys I except Fermanagh to dominate the middle third, Swamp Doyle and win the game by 5ish points. Unless the sneeky McGeeney has some tricks up his sleve, he is from Armagh after all.

Never the Less... C'mon the Lilly's

popebenny16

Alany wrote: »

If your the Pope you can do what you like,

As Blackbelt and the lads will tell you, this is not true if there is a mrspope lurking in the background.....

squire1

blackbelt wrote: »

Have to agree here and unfortunately for Kildare,that is more easily achieved than trying to keep Alan Brogan,Paddy Bradley,Ronan Sexton,Joyce,Mattie Forde,Colm Cooper,Michael Cussen quiet.Incidently,those aforementioned forwards have an extremely talented and dangerous forward line to support them so even if one may be contai9ned,others will step up and get scores.

John Doyle is very similar to Seanie Johnston...a one man scoring forward who is over-relied on.That makes Cavan and Kildare very predictable and predictable teams get beaten very fast.

I'm expecting a comfortable win for Fermanagh on Sunday.They are a huge step up from Wicklow,Cavan and Limerick.If Kildare lose,they should still be happy to have made it to the last 12.

Blackbelt are you a reporter? Your opinions are very like the gereralisations I have been reading in all the newspapers over the last three or four weeks about Kildare. A bit like McWilliams and the economy, if you say it for long enough, you are bound to be right sometime.

The problem is, most of the reporters in these papers wern't evan attending the games they are apparently reporting on.

John Doyle is different from the above players you mention for one reason: his workrate. Johnny is not the most talented footballer we all know, but the work he puts in is the reason he keeps popping up with vital scores.

The other forwards have all contributed in the last couple of games, most notably Michael Conway just returning from long term injury, James Kavanagh upon whom McGeeney seems to have had a remarkable effect, Alan Smith a very talented U21 player, Paudie O'Neill again returning from a long lay off. To dismiss these players is a mistake that I hope Fermanagh will repeat on Sunday but I doubt somehow that Malachy O'Rourke relies on the Sunday Game or the daily rags for his opinions

baztard

Having attended the last few Kildare games, I've been surprised by the reports written up about the games in the papers afterwards. For both the Cavan and Limerick matches all the post match talk was about Cavan and Limerick. The reports tended to go on in detail about they're performance, and only fleetingly talk about the Kildare one. What they did say, under sold the Kildare performance, and tried to make it out that the results were due to Limerick or Cavans bad play as opposed to Kildare good play. Kildare are better than how the media are making them to be.

Against Fermanagh on Sunday though, I still think it will be very tough game. The result could go either way, its far from predictable.

Yavvy

Harsh on poor Blackbelt there... We will have to get him a copy of the Kildare Post so he can read Glenn Ryan.

however Doyle is not any harder working than most of the guys Blackbelt mentioned.. Im thinking Joyce, Bradley and Dolan ... the put in amazing levels of effort .

manufanu

So we scored more than twice what Fermanagh scored, brilliant. The less said about the first half the better, the second half though was a good performance. I'm beginning to think that McGeaney has a new way of researching the opposition. Start with the same team every week, then see how they perform in the first half and make the subs accordingly, it worked perfect for the last 2 matches. He is setting new standards in management. Spillane actually devoted some time and discussion to the Kildare team but not too much again. They gave Dermot Early man of the match even though it should have been Kevin O'Neill of Foley. That goes to show that they don't know anything about Kildare and either do the opposition which will suit us. as long as we stay underdogs then we will have the advantage. Thats how we got to the final in 98 and as soon as we got there we thought we were invincible and Galway destroyed us.

Yavvy

all due respect to kildares win... but what are you on about.
thats was one of the worst Championship matches I have even watched in my life.
Kildare had a purple patch of average football for 15 mins that killed off Fermanagh.

the only thing worse than Kildare was Fermanagh. Even Down would have beaten either of these teams. kildare will be destroyed by cork... 10 point win maybe ?

I was not surpirsed by kildares performance, they have shown they are capable of playing terrible football but Fermanagh were shocking. I cant explain how bad they were or why.

Doyle was very poor... had 10 -15 mins.... i wont be voting for him in the next Papal election.

Flukey

Fermanagh were terrible, not that Kildare were much better but it did help. You could certainly see the McGeeney influence in the way Kildare defended. They'll step it up again for Cork. You'd still expect that Cork should have that bit too much for them. Cork will be very determined to progress this year.

CyberDave

manufanu wrote: »

Start with the same team every week, then see how they perform in the first half and make the subs accordingly, it worked perfect for the last 2 matches.

Yeah it worked against poor teams like Limerick and Fermanagh. How many wides did Fermanagh have in the first half? If they had forwards capable of converting half of them, Kildare would have been well behind at half time. Take that long to get into a game against serious opposition like Kerry or Cork and the game will be well over by the time Kildare start playing.

Nalced_irl

I agree, it was possibly one of the most attrocious (sp?) matches, championship or otherwise i have ever had the misfortune of watching. 2 absolutely awful performances with the slightly less awful coming out on top. Fermanagh had i think 11 wides before their first point. In all fairness, had they been able to hit a barn door, Kildare would have been history after about 15/20 mins. I honestly cant see how you could take any positives out of that game apart from that it was a win. Underdog or no, i expect Cork will go over Kildare like a freight train unfortunately. Great to see 3 Leinster teams in the quarters all the same but i fear that 2 of those 3 will be at the end of heavy defeats somehow. Hope im wrong tho.

mfield

Heard a good one today. When John Doyle was just about to hit the first free (I think it was to put the first score on the board) he heard someone in the crowd shout out "Don't wake the scoreboard man now!"

blackbelt

squire1 wrote: »

Blackbelt are you a reporter? Your opinions are very like the gereralisations I have been reading in all the newspapers over the last three or four weeks about Kildare. A bit like McWilliams and the economy, if you say it for long enough, you are bound to be right sometime.

The problem is, most of the reporters in these papers wern't evan attending the games they are apparently reporting on.

John Doyle is different from the above players you mention for one reason: his workrate. Johnny is not the most talented footballer we all know, but the work he puts in is the reason he keeps popping up with vital scores.

The other forwards have all contributed in the last couple of games, most notably Michael Conway just returning from long term injury, James Kavanagh upon whom McGeeney seems to have had a remarkable effect, Alan Smith a very talented U21 player, Paudie O'Neill again returning from a long lay off. To dismiss these players is a mistake that I hope Fermanagh will repeat on Sunday but I doubt somehow that Malachy O'Rourke relies on the Sunday Game or the daily rags for his opinions

Nope,I'm not a reporter although I don't post to the standards of a reporter intentionally as I take every article with a pinch of salt and spot whatever bias I can.I don't take offense to your comments either.I get the feeling you didn't like my post either.;)

Unfortunately for me,Kildare are my worst team in terms of predictions.I dub them the "most inconsistent team in Ireland" and that is no offense intended.Anytime I back them to win,I lose.Anytime I back them to lose,I still lose.So by that theory,they might actually win next Saturday.:)

As for your opinion on workrate,Doyle is not a harder worker than Brogan,Bradley or Gooch.I think he is a harder worker than Mattie Forde in that he looks for the ball and attacks it unlike Mattie Forde who may wait for it to take a lucky bounce.

I've seen enough of Kildare in the last few months to form an opinion of them.I've been to 2 of their games this year already and with a bit of luck come Saturday,I can say 3.So I do go to the games and analyse the players instead of making uninformed judgements.

I was impressed with Dermot Earley.There were moments in the second half where Kildares movements looked like those of Leinster Champions in terms of buildup play.Their defending was good in the second half but the shooting in the first half was abysmal.The Kildare defense and midfield seriously have to grips with playing from the off as Fermanagh had 8 wides in the first 11 minutes and 11 wides before they got their first score.

As has been said,if Fermanagh had better forwards,that match would have been Fermanaghs at half time.Still,credit to Kildare they deserved their win as they took their chances.I'm expecting a big performance from Dermot Earley against Cork but he'll have his work cut out for him against Nicholas Murphy.

manufanu

As promised here is the next song to the tune of Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground.


Johnny, keeps on runnin
Defenders, keep on wonedrin
Croker, keeps on roarin
Cause it wont be too long

The rebels, keep on trying
While the lillies, keep on flyin
Johnny, keeps on turnin
And it wont be too long

Im so damn glad John Doyle is playing with us
Cause he gets the job doen without a whole lot of fuss
Hes impossible to stop when his kickings on fire
Gonna keep on tryin
Till he lifts the Sam Maguire.

Erin Go Brath

cruiserweight wrote: »

If he was pope would he not be unavailable most sundays

He'd have a job commuting from the Vatican for training to i would've thought.

grenache

CyberDave wrote: »

Yeah it worked against poor teams like Limerick and Fermanagh. How many wides did Fermanagh have in the first half? If they had forwards capable of converting half of them, Kildare would have been well behind at half time. Take that long to get into a game against serious opposition like Kerry or Cork and the game will be well over by the time Kildare start playing.

I wouldn't call Limerick or Fermanagh 'poor teams'. But its true that if Kildare play against Cork like they did in the first halves against Limerick and Kildare, Cork will wipe them off the pitch. Kildare have to be within a couple of scores at the break. If the Lillys had a two week break i would give them an even chance of doing over Cork, but 4 games in 4 weeks takes its toll, and i can see Kildare's legs going with 10-15 mins left.

Harpie

Johnny Doyle for pope...not so much..

RSF Cill Dara

One of the best footballers in the country

premierstone

RSF Cill Dara wrote: »

One of the best footballers in the country

Who the pope?? Yeah heard he's in like the top 5 goalkeepers in the Vatican

blackbelt

i also hear he is a top official and prominent figure up in north tipperary.:D

premierstone

sssshhhh thats not supposed to be common knowledge yet