National Football League 2013

tomcruise I don't know what planet you were beamed from. You always seem to have a completely different view to everyone else.

It was one of the poorest refereeing performances I've seen in some time.

The penalty we were awarded was a penalty but it was less of a penalty than 3 or 4 others he declined to give. If you have an hour during the week I suggest u watch the game on TG4 in full.

The Brady Bunch

I was at the game and watched it on TG4 and watched the highlights last night. Maybe I am sad or just a big GAA fan. That was no penalty although it does not matter at this stage. Brilliant catch by Flano who was bottled up and miskicked. I am sure he would tell you that himself as he is as honest as the day is long.

Close to odds on for regelation , team wins first three games to secure divsion 1 Football and people are still complaining..

Sam I'm told what is actually feckin us up in terms of capacity is that the toilets are one major neative plus the health and safety issue is that the exits are all down one end of the ground.
I didn't know tis but that wall along the Kilcullen End is listed so we can't et out that way.
Think I'm right there??

That's an aside anywaybut looking forward to the Dubs and Kelly takin on Brogan.Jaysus his slappin with the open hand is fair but I wouldn't fancy takin them in the ribs!

Could'nt Trap Cement wrote:

Close to odds on for regelation , team wins first three games to secure divsion 1 Football and people are still complaining..

That's what you are up against with Kildare. It's always about the other team. They were not interested, they were missing players, they kicked wides, they are rebuilding or the new dub one is it's an experimental side.

The headlines are already written for next week.

"Kildare win beating experimental Dublin team"
"kildare find their level losing to Dublin"

It's guaranteed.

TomCruise, the ref yesterday was terrible. It's not the first time he's been terrible reffing a Kildare team. I refer you to this years O'Byrne cup final.
When Kinsella refs we are -3 points from the start, the man has got Napoleon syndrome. As for the push by Paudie I raise you a more blatant shove in the back of Tomas in the second half in the square as he went to catch a ball. Kerry got a few very handy frees early on to keep them in it, Tomas was getting molested but eddie continued to wave play on. Bottom line he was awful.

Rex

I agree the ref was terrible but for both teams. I did not see an Agenda with him. It will come to a stage when we will be deamnding a ref from Outer Mongolia for our games

tomcruise wrote:

The Brady Bunch

I was at the game and watched it on TG4 and watched the highlights last night. Maybe I am sad or just a big GAA fan. That was no penalty although it does not matter at this stage. Brilliant catch by Flano who was bottled up and miskicked. I am sure he would tell you that himself as he is as honest as the day is long.

tomcruise for someone who watches so much football, you know nothing of the rules of the game.

Firstly Flanagan was tackled with both arms which is not allowed, Only 1 arm is allowed in.

He was also tackled as he was kicking the ball which is not allowed either. The only action allowed when kicking the ball is a tackle on the ball itself, be it blocking the ball or flicking the ball away.

So to say it wasn't a penalty is ludicrous.

The Brady Bunch wrote:

tomcruise wrote:

The Brady Bunch

I was at the game and watched it on TG4 and watched the highlights last night. Maybe I am sad or just a big GAA fan. That was no penalty although it does not matter at this stage. Brilliant catch by Flano who was bottled up and miskicked. I am sure he would tell you that himself as he is as honest as the day is long.

tomcruise for someone who watches so much football, you know nothing of the rules of the game.

Firstly Flanagan was tackled with both arms which is not allowed, Only 1 arm is allowed in.

He was also tackled as he was kicking the ball which is not allowed either. The only action allowed when kicking the ball is a tackle on the ball itself, be it blocking the ball or flicking the ball away.

So to say it wasn't a penalty is ludicrous.

I agree with you there, it was a peno he was pulled back from behind before he kicked it.

Dan Flynn possibly should have had a peno too when he was pulled back as he made that great run through on goal, but it might have been just outside the large square.

Not a penalty, if Kerry got that penalty we wud have been gunning for the ref( its like sky sports there was contact).I thought we were lucky to get out with 2 pts. Its gonna be the same as last year with a dual carriage way up the middle unless the show pony is taken out of the 6 position. Lovely pass for goal some tidy interceptions but he made Walsh look like a player yesterday.
We were cleaned out in mid field again I,m worried that winning is papering over serious cracks. 3 recognised midfielders on the bench and none introduced. What if Darryl doesn't make it back we are in the doo doo then.
Personally if we got our ass handed to us next week and we learned from it we might be better off.

Ref was consistent enough so he was always gonna give debatable decisions unfortunately nor us we didn't benefit from them,80% improvement all over next week is needed if we are gonna beat the dubs

Penno was a bit soft alright / but Flynn was dragged back at start of second half - that was a more blatant penno

Lads there can be no debate on the penalty. It was a penalty.

If it happened at the 21 yard line it would have been a free, why inside the box are things let slide.

http://www.tg4.ie/ie/tg4-player/tg4-player.html?id=2201262558001&title=GAA%20Beo

56 minutes and 40 seconds in. You cannot tackle the player when he is kicking the ball, nor can you tackle wrapping both hands around a player.

Simple as that. It wasn't as blatant as our other penalty shouts but the Kerry lads didnt protest too much.

Thought the tight pitch helped Kerry massively yesterday. They were able to defend more compactly and didn't have to cover a large area. Kildare couldn't play the high tempo game that we seen in Coke Park and Parc Ui Rinn as the space to play into was just not physically there.

If that game was on a larger pitch I think we would have been more comfortable. The small pitch helps defenders, hinders attackers and stops O'Connor running into space as that space is easier defended. It nullifies him to some extent.

Fair point Rex, serious difference between Conleth's and the other two. Granted works both ways and while we are so open down the middle with midfield and six being such an issue, better teams could again open us up when we play on bigger fields.

135 x 80m - Conleth's Park
144.5m x 88m - Croke Park
144 m x 88 m - Pairc Ui Rinn.

Just one point on people saying we can't win regardless of the result, it's about more than a result. When we've won in winter, we've lost in summer. When we've lost in winter, we've lost in summer. So I think people who are perceived as being negative are actually just looking at more than the result, and are looking at areas where we must improve if we are to win some silverware. Thus, despite winning all our games, we could easily have lost them as well and the same areas that hurt us against Cork last year are still causing trouble. That is what is bothering people while being delighted to be on six points.

It was a definite penalty, Flanagan was too honest trying to stay on his feet. You cannot tackle a man when he is shooting unless you make contact with the ball which wasn't the case here.

TommyKeegan wrote:

Just one point on people saying we can't win regardless of the result, it's about more than a result. When we've won in winter, we've lost in summer. When we've lost in winter, we've lost in summer. So I think people who are perceived as being negative are actually just looking at more than the result, and are looking at areas where we must improve if we are to win some silverware. Thus, despite winning all our games, we could easily have lost them as well and the same areas that hurt us against Cork last year are still causing trouble. That is what is bothering people while being delighted to be on six points.

When we've won in winter, we lost in summer.

When we've lost in winter, we won in summer.

We nearly lost our opening 3 games, but didnt.

There was GBH attempted on Tomas twice in the penalty area and Morgan nearly got pregnant in the first half and no free was given....actually it was a free out if I remember

Really looking forward to the two games this week.

Meath will no doubt fancy themselves on their home patch and would love to turn us over. However, if we can match them for intensity and work rate - and I think we will - we will have far too much quality for them all over the pitch.

Midfield is a concern for Sunday. Flynn was brilliant yesterday but it's asking a lot to expect a young guy like that to keep carrying such a crucial area. Apparently Hugh Lynch failed a fitness test yesterday but we could do with him v Dublin. Longer term, as I think Tommy has said, it's a bit of a concern that we're depending on someone as injury prone as Daryl Flynn to anchor this area. We could do with one or two more options in this sector - might Dermot be able at some point to put in a shift in around the half forward line, and maybe play a bit in midfield? It would be a great option to have.

The half backs and half forwards will have to tighten up big time on Sun. If we give Dublin the kind of room we gave Kerry in the second half - a notable reversal of the Cork game - they will destroy us. Thankfully the full back line held firm yesterday but that won't bail us out every day. Dublin are moving well at the moment so I'd expect them to win but I don't think that's the end of the world. Certainly if we lost on Sun and beat them in the summer I won't be complaining.

Winning a Leinster is the acid test this year. As I've said before, anything less than that will be a massive disappointment for me.

Good to get the win. Yes we probably should have made it easier for ourselves at the end but it was still good that the team dug deep in the last few minutes to get the last score.

Said at the start of the year if we could stay in div 1 and give leinster a right good shot then for me it would have being a good year. First part of that looks to be already sorted so now of course we all want more. Yes we have some problems that need sorting but we are winning. You can say what you want about the teams we beat but we beat them. They are division 1 teams and we beat them. Not many gave us much of a hope of doing that and I for one am glad we are doing it no matter how we are doing it.

June is still along way off and lets hope the lads that have injuries are well back by then and can help solve some of the problems that we do have but for now the lads that are there are doing well and long may that continue.

Like many that have posted earlier I was delighted with the win but disappointed in the performance. For me the half back back line was probably our weakest line but we struggled at midfield too. The height of Buckley, Donaghy & Brosnan caused us problems and we didn't pick up as much breaking ball as we usually do. Thankfully, Johnny was able to win some vital ball from kick-outs when it was needed in the second half.

Although I too felt Conway was poor yesterday not everything that's been levelled at him is his fault. Yes, Donnacha Walsh was free an awful lot but under the system we're playing Conway is not asked to pick up the centre forward. He's sweeping in front of the full back line. In previous games that job has been given to the wing forwards / midfield funnelling back to deal with. So the blame would appear to lie elsewhere on that one.

That said Conway made a number of basic errors yesterday and I felt he was lucky to see out the game. However, if he had been taken off a substitute may not have shown the same vision that set up Johnny for his goal, or have gotten back on the goalline to bail out Connolly on the one occassion he failed to get to the ball when he left his line.

Getting back to the defensive system and funnelling players back. Against Cork it looked impressive as we had 4 players fanned out accross the 45 metre line, another 2 marking the inside forwards and 2 more covering the spaces in front. Yesterday we looked less organised. We conceded more ground in the first half allowing Kerry possession in front of the screen but crucially inside the 45. I'm not sure why we looked less secure; was the movement of the Kerry forwards better than that of Cork's or was it that Kerry committed more players to attack ? Whatever the reason and despite us having a lot of players back Kerry players seemed to find themselves in space on too many occasions for my liking. Thankfully they didn't bring their shooting boots.

Times are changing though; 3 wins from 3 and nobody's getting carried away. Still it's great to be possibly just one win away from a League semi-final. Would be great to beat the Dubs again next week. Yes they're the form team and did really well to come from behind to win with 14 men on Saturday night but if we were to nullify Bernard Brogan who scored 1-10 against Mayo, who knows what might happen. Will Ollie come back into the side to do this job ? He did it brilliantly a few weeks ago in the O'Byrne Cup final.

Brogan scored 1-10 but only 1-4 from play. Johnston had 1-3 from play yesterday. I'm not comparing the two but some numbers are deceptive. He did hit a scorcher from the sideline, but most frees were handy enough.

Lyons has the pace and know how to stifle Brogan, when he is subdued Dublin are there for the taking. Not quite a one man team, but not far off it. When you have a player like Brogan who is the go to forward, when it works it works but when he's off or marked out of it, the over reliance issues begin and the players supplying the ball in do not it know who to go then. Result being delayed passes and confusion.

Diarmuid Connolly is available again for Sun so our lads might want to look at some kind of protective neck padding.

I see as well Ger Brennan was up to his old antics against Mayo.

"We're looking to mix it up," said Jim Gavin afterwards. "With Diarmuid back, we have the option of kneeing lads in the back of the head. We will have a menu of different systems of fouling we will be choosing from. And if Cormac Reilly is refereeing we can look forward to a few of those 'phantom frees' the Hill loves so much."

Joe McQuillan

dublin's own in house ref. Marvelous. Luke warm kettle must be laughing.

Some of the decisions that go Dublin's way in Croke Park are absolutely scandalous. It is another element you have to deal with it when playing them. I hope Mr McQuillan can buck the trend but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Actually on the subject of refs did anyone see Rory Gallagher in the ref's ear again at half time in the Donegal-Tyrone match? Have a good nick name for McGuinness and Gallagher - Mr Burns and Smithers.