National Football League Thread

MickySticks

Don't see a NFL thread so...

Today's games

Div 1

Donegal v Laois
Cork v Down

Div 2

Monaghan v Kildare
Westmeath v Meath
Tyrone v Derry
Galway v Louth

Div 3
Offaly v Roscommon
Tipperary v Antrim
Sligo v wexford

Div 4
Limerick v London
Fermanagh v Clare
Carlow v Leitrim

Hoping for a Kildare win today after last weekends poor display against Tyrone.

The Showstopper

Good win for Meath today although it was a bore, Westmeath were just awful

MickySticks

Poor again from Kildare, McGeeney has serious questions to answer! Our fringe players are not as good as we thought, Mark Scanlon came in at corner back today and got roasted by Paul Finlay. Ken Donnelly another player that is not good enough to be playing for us.

Emmet Bolton, Mick Foley, Morgan O' Flaherty and John Doyle didn't start today, Why?

Eoghan O' Flaherty needs to be put back into the forwards!!!

Hammer Archer

Good to have 4 points from 4 so far but while Monaghan were poor last week, Westmeath were unbelievably atrocious today. We would have won by more but for Connaughton making two spectacular saves (one from Geraghty near the end).
The Kildare game in 3 weeks will give us a better indication of where we are. If we win, we can look at challenging for promotion but Kildare will have to win or else they could get sucked into relegation trouble. Should be a good 'un.

MickySticks

Maybe fourth time lucky Hammer Archer

Hammer Archer

MickySticks wrote: »

Maybe fourth time lucky Hammer Archer

5th

kilianmanning

The Showstopper wrote: »

Good win for Meath today although it was a bore, Westmeath were just awful

Yes was at the game too, meath seemed to be impressive but you can't really tell how good they are from that because westmeath were so bad:p

StupidLikeAFox

MickySticks wrote: »

Poor again from Kildare, McGeeney has serious questions to answer! Our fringe players are not as good as we thought, Mark Scanlon came in at corner back today and got roasted by Paul Finlay. Ken Donnelly another player that is not good enough to be playing for us.

Emmet Bolton, Mick Foley, Morgan O' Flaherty and John Doyle didn't start today, Why?

Eoghan O' Flaherty needs to be put back into the forwards!!!

Maybe because its the second game of the league and he is still experimenting? We do need to blood new players and there is no advantage of putting out your full side in February and peaking too early. To be honest I would prefer to be winning these games and getting first division league football next year, but you have to develop the panel too and new players need match practice

The main concern for me would be the shooting. Kildare have this every year; our shooting is off and we rack up a lot of wides. I dont understand how its the one area we dont seem to be improving on. It early days yet this season so hopefully we still have time to get the shooting boots on

blackbelt

Interesting to say the least.Armagh and Cork in Division 1 and Tyrone and Meath in Division 2 so far.Think Armagh will have cemented their place in Division 1 with another win which they may get against either Laois or Donegal you would expect.

Kildare in division 3 next year would be an interesting prospect but we all know that Louth and Westmeath are favourites for the drop.Still,Louth could pull a surprise on Kildare like they did against them in 2010 and if Kildare have a bad run of games against the likes of Meath,Galway and Derry,then the pressure will be on McGeeney.

Fireball07

Ian Ryan scored 1-5 for Limerick as they beat London 1-13 to 1-7. Though London were down to 14 for a lot of the game, it possibly wasn't the most convincing win ever. But 2 from 2, still with an experimental side and a lot of players out injured...can't really argue with that.

blackbelt

Fireball07 wrote: »

Ian Ryan scored 1-5 for Limerick as they beat London 1-13 to 1-7. Though London were down to 14 for a lot of the game, it possibly wasn't the most convincing win ever. But 2 from 2, still with an experimental side and a lot of players out injured...can't really argue with that.

London are no pushovers anymore like they were in years gone by.Due to emigration and a good senior club setup over there I wouldn't say they will be waiting so long for their next championship win as they had done before.

keane2097

Great result by Louth, be some achievement if they manage to stay in D2.

MickySticks

blackbelt wrote: »

Interesting to say the least.Armagh and Cork in Division 1 and Tyrone and Meath in Division 2 so far.Think Armagh will have cemented their place in Division 1 with another win which they may get against either Laois or Donegal you would expect.

Kildare in division 3 next year would be an interesting prospect but we all know that Louth and Westmeath are favourites for the drop.Still,Louth could pull a surprise on Kildare like they did against them in 2010 and if Kildare have a bad run of games against the likes of Meath,Galway and Derry,then the pressure will be on McGeeney.

I don't think there's any chance of Kildare been relegated, they have too many good players for it to come to that. If I was asked now I would say Westmeath and Derry, Westmeath are a shambles ATM and looking at Derry in the Mckenna Cup and the last 2 league games they have been awful. Louth are Kildare's bogey team so to get a win against them will be tough alright.

I expect McGeeny to recall JD, Bolton, Foley and M O'Flaherty to the starting 15 against Meath in the next league game.

keane2097

Derry's problem is the number of injuries they've got. With a full panel they'd trouble anyone.

Kildare's inability to kick points is baffling for a side that are supposed to be one of the best managed in the country. If they were to lose an important summertime game due to it tbh that would have to be the ultimate indictment of the backroom and I'd be looking at giving McGeeney the road.

blackbelt

MickySticks wrote: »

I don't think there's any chance of Kildare been relegated, they have too many good players for it to come to that. If I was asked now I would say Westmeath and Derry, Westmeath are a shambles ATM and looking at Derry in the Mckenna Cup and the last 2 league games they have been awful. Louth are Kildare's bogey team so to get a win against them will be tough alright.

I expect McGeeny to recall JD, Bolton, Foley and M O'Flaherty to the starting 15 against Meath in the next league game.

You also have to factor in that Meath have gotten the rub of the green, pardon th pun, in getting 2 of the 3 weaker teams to kick off their league campaign but Monaghan defeating Kildare would seem more of a slipup than anything else.

I guess if Kildare were to be relegated, which is highly unlikely, that it would have implications to the hype that surrounds the county when championship rolls around.A top 8 county in Division 3 would be ironic.

MickySticks

Looking at McGeeney's team selections for both league game so far it's pretty clear he doesn't car much about it.

The league was a disaster for the last 2 years and done well in the championship, in 2010 we were robbed of an All-Ireland final by incompetent refereeing (Coulter clearly in the square for goal) and last year we were robbed of a goal that would have put daylight between us and Donegal in the AI QF, so we aren't a million miles away from the promised land we just need the rub of the green and a little more composure.

I do agree our shooting at times is woeful but we still score very highly in the championship, McGeeney is famous for his shoot on sight policy "if you don't shoot, you won't score".

Another problem is we have yet to beat one of the big teams in the championship under McGeeney, i.e Tyrone, Cork and Dublin. We need to get this monkey off our back, hopefully in a Leinster Final against the Dubs.

J Cheever Loophole

I see Niall McCoy in this morning's Irish News reporting that the CCCC have fined both Cork and Armagh (5,000 euros each) following a scuffle in our recent National League opener.

However, they have also given one match suspensions to two of our best three players to date - Ciaran McKeever and Mal Mackin - meaning that they will miss our forthcoming home fixture with Mayo. Such is the influence of these players for us (centre half back and mid-field) that it is likely that their absence could be the difference between winning and losing what is a very important game for us.

To be honest, I've no objection to what appears to be a new 'get tough' stance by the CCCC, as long as it is applied consistently to all counties and all incidents.

J Cheever Loophole

Sorry - should have added that Michael Shields got a two match ban and Pearse O'Neill has got a one match ban arising from the same incident.

It does seem quite heavy handed and I'm sure has arisen from the hysteria that followed the Derrytresk - Dromid game, but as stated earlier, if this is the start of a new, tougher and consistent approach, then I'll have no objections!

keane2097

Bump for the weekend's upcoming action.

Some interesting games ahead. Be very interested to see how Armagh's form holds up with the break probably having come at a bad time for them. Another creditable performance against Mayo would really force a lot of people to rethink their rankings I'd imagine.

Meath versus Kildare is another good prospect, with Kildare badly needing a win after an abject start to D2, while Meath will be looking to build on their good start. With guys like Mick Foley and Emmet Bolton having taken part in the challenge game against Kerry last weekend we might see McGeeney start to play a 15 more closely resembling his probable Championship team in the coming weeks.

Hammer Archer

I think if the Meath - Kildare game was only a week or even just two weeks after the Westmeath game, we would have won, and possibly easily at that. But the ridiculous three week break between games has pretty much killed our momentum and has probably helped Kildare get out of the rut they were in.
Kildare will 100% win midfield, it'll just come down to how our forwards use the ball we get and how our defence holds up. Whether Graham and Kevin Reilly play will have a big bearing on whether we win or not.
There'll no doubt be a massive crowd at the game come Saturday night and hopefully that's enough to see us over the line.

Edit:Just seen that the referee is Michael Collins. I think it's safe to say we're screwed.

keane2097

Big Joe is a doubt as well I'm hearing.

EDIT: What's the history with Michael Collins that makes you not like him?

Hammer Archer

My dislike of Collins stems from a championship game against Donegal back in 2002. To say he was atrocious is an understatement. It wasn't a dirty game but I think he booked more than half of our players compared to 2 or 3 Donegal players. I still remember to this day Mark O'Reilly being blatantly fouled by his man while running for the ball, and Collins giving Donegal a gimme of a free and booking him.
After the game, Ollie Murphy got suspended for saying to him "They shot the wrong Michael Collins".

He's refereed a few of our games since then (most recent one being Galway last year) and while he hasn't hit the same level of incompetence during a game, he hasn't been far off.
Should be interesting to see his performance on Saturday. Maybe he'll surprise me and referee both teams fairly.

Hammer Archer

Massive crowd in Navan. Perfect conditions for football. Please god don't let us lose to the flourbags again.

MoscowFlyer

Mayo crushing Armagh early.

1-04 to 0-00 after 10 mins

Hammer Archer

8 points to 6 for Kildare at half time. I'm amazed it's not more with the amount of play Kildare have had. We're absolutely terrible in midfield and Kildare seem to constantly have a spare man or three in both attack and defence.
Looks like it'll be 5 losses in a row against Kildare come half past 8.

keane2097

The way Kildare's dominance at MF disappeared the minute Daryl Flynn went off was crazy.

qwerty93

Great win for Kildare, huge psychological blow for Meath..

Hammer Archer

Width of a post lost it for us. If Shane McAnarney's shot towards the end was an inch to the left it would have drifted over and we'd have gotten something out of it.
Absolutely livid with some of our play though. Kildare were by far the better team and only for the goals coming at crucial stages they would have won at a canter. That's what makes the defeat so hard to take. That we played so badly yet in a way were unlucky to get nothing out of it.

kc66

That could be a big turning point for Meath and Kildare. Was almost 3/3 for Meath and 0/3 for Kildare. Great game to watch.

Hammer Archer

Sweet Moses. Westmeath beat Galway. That throws the whole division wide open.

jupiterjack

waterford on a roll..

Fireball07

Limerick lost to Clare by a point but were apparently very poor. Absolutely cleaned out in midfield. Badly missing Galvin, Donovan, Joy and Lee. Playing 2 wing-forwards in midfield is not working.

keane2097

Yeah I heard Clare should have won by a lot more.