Leinster Club Championships 2014

Best of luck to Straffan and Moorefield tomorrow.

Fair play to Straffan, the wonderfully names Moate All Whites in final I think. As for the senior, sounds like there may be even more than seven shades in Tullamore. An utter massacre.

Sounds from KFM like referee blew it up early before Moorefield lost the plot altogether. 1-15 to 2-4. Six scores in what's said to be a good day. Well, says it all.

Moore field  well beaten, lost rag like they do EVERY time they get beaten. More like thuggery at this stage.

Whats the craic with Daryl Flynn? Why is he not starting for Moorefield anymore? He seems to have regressed a lot since 2011.

It's a combination of factors: persistent injuries, loss of form, mileage on the clock, lack of on field discipline. Shame really because at his abrasive best in 2010-2011 he was as good as any midfielder around.

Didnt take long for a couple of knives to be sharpened and stuck into the guts of Moorefield

We were well beaten on the day. Fair play to Rhode. As good a performance by any team Ive seen in the Leinster club in recent years. No excuses.

As for the comments about a "massacre" and "thuggery"...yeah whatever lads..get it out of yor system..I'd say you were chomping at the bit waiting for Moorefield to fail.

Rhode bursted out of the blocks aided by a load of individual errors on our part contributing to at least 1-2 of that 1-5 that they racked up early on.

We didnt move well and tactically I thought we were stale for the first half and persisted with a gameplan that was failing especially with kickouts to midfield.

However we were an inch from pulling a goal back right on half time. In the 2nd half we got a run on them and got it back to 3 whereby we then kicked a critical wide and on the next possession with momentum on our side we took the ball into trouble , lost it and got sucker punched and that was the momentum shift and the game for Rhode.

Hardly a massacre.

Roly's dismissal was deserved for striking after something was said. He was our best player and gave 110% yesterday and you could see it was pure frustration. Yeah he was goaded into it but hardly an act of thuggery.

No excuses for Daryl. Game was over. No need for it. Again a bit of messing but he didnt need to lash out.

Aside from that there wasnt a bit of dirt in the game apart from the black card for Rhode whereby Ryan Houlihan was cleaned out bombing down the wing. The thuggery accusation can be stuck where the sun dont shine. Wonder were the two lads even at the game to make such fantastic insights into our performance?

It just wasnt going to be our day and its a pity we didnt get our game going like we did against Rathnew.

Best of luck to Rhode...I hope they win it..4 finals in last 9 years without a win. They are due one and if they play like they did yesterday they have every chance.

Finally great support from all over the county for us there yesterday and very much appreciated. Wsa talking to people from larries, celbridge, coill dubh, sarsfields and leixlip......all really rooting for Moorefield. Great to see. Proper Kildare GAA supporters.

Just to point out that this is not an anti Moorefield post, in fact in putting together back to back titles they have had an excellent year regardless of yesterday.
However my concern goes beyond Moorefield to the greater malaise in Kildare football. We just aren't fucking cute or clever enough footballers. All brawn no brain. Yesterday was like Moorefield in Portlaoise last year. Being able to bully and squeeze the life out of teams in Kildare doesn't prepare you for when playing a team that are footballers, know how to throw the ball around and use space. Again it's not a pop at Moorefield. Same can be said of our county minor and u21 teams when they came out of Leinster in 2013 purely on the basis of blowing teams out of the water in terms of pace and power. This came to nothing though when both teams went to Tullamore and lost out badly to Footballing teams.
Coaching seems to be focusing on the wrong things. With the exception of TMH we do not or haven't competed at national level across any level of football, schools, u21 minor senior. It's worrying and one hopes that this has already been identified at development squad and underage club level and work is being done to address this situation so that hopefully maybe in 5 - 10 years time we can take advantage of our young population when it comes to Gaelic football!!

Rhode were better value even than the Final Score, and overall a very dissapointing display from Team and Mentors.. Roly was once again their best Player, and One must wonder where were at as a County, when our Dominant Club has no One good enough to start for the County, and our Player of the Year is a Fella thats past His Best.. Overall probably better off getting beaten, and avoiding a possible hiding from the Dubs... Will Rhode beat Vincents ??.. doubt it.

Rhode at 4/1, worth a tenner ????

Good year for Moorefields adult mens teams, back to back senior titles, won senior reserve 'A' and still in the U/21 championship, most teams in Kildare would take that I'd say.

Gaa1928 wrote:

Rhode at 4/1, worth a tenner ????

Good year for Moorefields adult mens teams, back to back senior titles, won senior reserve 'A' and still in the U/21 championship, most teams in Kildare would take that I'd say.

Absolutely.. and Fair play to them, and they very well might continue to Dominate... But My point was aimed more at where We are as a County.. I would be fairly sure many of those Rhode Boys will play Div 4 for Offaly in the coming Year.. Yet there was a gulf between them and our Best Club Team Yesterday.

No need to be so defensive Sam, teams like Sarsfields, Athy and particularly JTB also seem to come in for an unfair amount of criticism when they lose. Moorefield were representing Kildare so people are entitled to be disappointed when they were well beaten.
It's strange that their style of play and the type of players they have is so suited to winning games in Kildare but not good at adapting to different styles of better teams outside. Portlaoise too seem to suffer from winning internal matches with a very inferior midfield that is inevitably found out against the better teams.
As Umpire stated we seem to have an inability to react to different styles of football particularly against fast skilfull teams. It's a worry for the future.

Hard luck to Moorefield yesterday until one of the other clubs actually stands up and beats them they will win Kildare Championships

Pity their manager didn't have as much confidence - believe he agreed to take over a club in Westmeath next year last week

defensive?...hardly..accusations of thuggery and labelling the result a massacre??..surely worth a riposte on my behalf and my post was hardly defensive. Laid out how I saw the game and took the beating fair and square.

umpireontheditch makes an excellent post and I agree with all he says.

It was a bad performance and we can and have played much better and thats what is so disappointing about yesterday...we just were not at the races. YOu can get away with it like we did in Kildare at times but you have to be on the top of your game for every game in the leinster club.

Still a brilliant year and you cant fault any of the team for effort. Young Ryan Houlihan definately is one to watch.

Beaten by the better team on the day..like Sam said we made a few mistakes(Their Goal), Missed our own before HT and they had one point that was about 5 foot wide given as a point. Need that luck to go with you especially in Semi- Finals.

Ian/James and Colin Lonergan. Jason Philips, David Whyte and Aaron Mullins all to come into that panel next year(about 30 County Medals)...So hopefully that can improve our results next year in a bid for 3 in a row.

I had heard weeks ago that the Moorefield Manager was leaving, but doubt that had any impact on the players.

Listening to Dempsey on the radio he seemed fairly certain he was staying with moorefield next year.

The game reminded me a lot of the county final replay whereby one team got a complete stranglehold around the middle and the full back line of the opposition were left exposed with McNamee and Sullivan making hay in there, surprised Moorefield were so slow to make changes back there.

Overall Moorefield have had an extremely successful year and it is up to clubs like my own Athy and Celbridge and all the other clubs to come up to the mark they have set.

SeamusMurphy wrote:

Gaa1928 wrote:

Rhode at 4/1, worth a tenner ????

Good year for Moorefields adult mens teams, back to back senior titles, won senior reserve 'A' and still in the U/21 championship, most teams in Kildare would take that I'd say.

Absolutely.. and Fair play to them, and they very well might continue to Dominate... But My point was aimed more at where We are as a County.. I would be fairly sure many of those Rhode Boys will play Div 4 for Offaly in the coming Year.. Yet there was a gulf between them and our Best Club Team Yesterday.

Ah I don't think it works that way. If it did, the Carlow team would have been contending for Leinster Championships when Eire Og were at their peak in the 90s - instead they lost by 30 points to Meath. And the Donegal and Mayo champions are both out as well - doesn't mean those counties will struggle.

Unless Darryl gets back to his best in the next few months then Murnaghan will be the only Moorefield player anywhere near Kildare's starting 15. Moorefield dominate in Kildare because they're the best TEAM, not because they have all the best individuals. I don't think they can be used as a barometer for the health of the Kildare team.

Ohtoohtobe wrote:

SeamusMurphy wrote:

Gaa1928 wrote:

Rhode at 4/1, worth a tenner ????

Good year for Moorefields adult mens teams, back to back senior titles, won senior reserve 'A' and still in the U/21 championship, most teams in Kildare would take that I'd say.

Absolutely.. and Fair play to them, and they very well might continue to Dominate... But My point was aimed more at where We are as a County.. I would be fairly sure many of those Rhode Boys will play Div 4 for Offaly in the coming Year.. Yet there was a gulf between them and our Best Club Team Yesterday.

Ah I don't think it works that way. If it did, the Carlow team would have been contending for Leinster Championships when Eire Og were at their peak in the 90s - instead they lost by 30 points to Meath. And the Donegal and Mayo champions are both out as well - doesn't mean those counties will struggle.

Unless Darryl gets back to his best in the next few months then Murnaghan will be the only Moorefield player anywhere near Kildare's starting 15. Moorefield dominate in Kildare because they're the best TEAM, not because they have all the best individuals. I don't think they can be used as a barometer for the health of the Kildare team.

Not for the first time O2, you have hit the nail on the head, except you were being nice by saying you don't think it works that way, when you know it doesn't work that way. The same with the comment about Eadestown losing to a Louth team. And the comment about Roly winning Kildare club footballer of the year. Waterford club in Munster senior football final. Roscommon, Galway, Armagh and Antrim clubs have won senior All-Irelands in the last 10 years. It's apples and oranges.

I take your point OTB.. and wasnt it great to see the likes of Mount Leinster Rangers last Year doing so well...
Not only have the Moores no automatic County Player.. I wouldnt say the Sash have either..
If You look at other Successful Club Teams, no matter from what County they may be from, even Waterford.. I bet they will have a good few County Players involved.

Seamus, surely Alan Smith is an automatic county player and Chalky when fully fit and available not far off?
I think Dempsey will be able to step up in the near future.
A fair proportion of our county team is provided by Celbridge and JTB although sadly we have lost 2 of them for next year.
Hopefully we will have a few decent U 21 teams in the next 2 years.

Im not sure they are Murof.. Smithy when on His Game maybe, but that isnt a given.. Not sure where One would play Chalky ?.. Sean looks like He might be ermarked for Goals.

If Smith shows the form he did last year then I can't see him being left off the team. Particularly with Paddy Brophy not available - we don't have a great selection in the full-forward line.

A big reason Moorefield do so well is because they have by far the strongest panel in Kildare. This makes up for the lack of a couple of really top inter-county players to some degree in the Kildare championship but the standard is obviously a lot higher in the Leinster club.

I don't think the fact that the county champions have no guaranteed starter on the county team has any bearing on the strength of the Kildare team. Clara won the Kilkenny hurling championship last year and they had nobody on the Kilkenny team. Far more relevant is our inability to produce enough players with the football intelligence/cuteness/tactical awareness required - as posted by umpireonditch earlier.

If Moorefield had a few Inter County standard Forwards, would they have Won ?

In short No, Rhode starved Moorefield of possesion and that is why they won the game, the reason behind the margin of 8 was the ability of Niall McNamee and Sullivan to make that dominance count on the scoreboard.

Both of whom are Inter County Forwards..