Kildare v Armagh

No enforced changes I hope?.

I hate saying it but I knew it. Way too confident going into this.

We just don't have the bottle for tight games in Croke Park

Same auld shite. Rudderless, ball-less, idea-less when met with a challenge. I'd love to be another county playing Kildare, I have to say. No fight in the dog. Weak, windy and not strong enough mentally to stand up. And if you think that's harsh, you've been watching a different group to me these past few years. How many times must Eamonn Callaghan been part of a team that choked at this stage when the going got tough?

Might go watch Dunkirk. Nice cheery fare to take my mind off this.

Hard to watch this team consistently underperform in big games.
Consistently turning over the ball, and terrible shooting. I mean they go a point up and Conway turns over the ball near the sideline and Armagh score the next 4 points, absolutely braindead stuff. Dowling, Feely, McNally all miss sitters in the last 5 mins : you just can't win these games while making these same mistakes week in week out. It's been the same for as long as my arse has been facing south.

At this stage are they underperforming? Mental fortitude is part and parcel of the make-up of a footballer thus evidence says this is exactly the level we perform at.

I think Kildare are one of the few teams who really seem to synchronize bad individual performances. I mean so many lads just didn´t do it today.
I know Armagh were forcing us into things at times, but for the most part the really stupid shit was of our own doing.
O´Neill should shoulder blame for some things but he can´t account for other things like the wides and simple lack of intent we seemed to have.
8 from 17 scoring chances in the first half and no fluidity at all. Lads on Sky giving out about our defence, but the ball was coming back in on them far too quickly and there wasn´t enough cover.
That is just a fuckin sickener to be honest. MOTM Jamie Clarke too. Who knew he would be so influential...
Geezer is getting praise for today and rightly so as he set up very well. O´Neill will probably get a bollocking, but Geezer´s lads delivered intensity and we had none. We tend to focus on managers too much here and give player´s a by sometimes.
We had the chances to win that in spite of ourselves. What a fucking sickener!

Worst part is from about 20 minutes in you knew how this was going to finish. Players not up for it in the first half. Not the management's finest hour but players need to take a long hard look at themselves. Also need to trawl the county for man markers. Horrible altogether. Shows how bad leinster football is outside Dublin.

Have to say after 10 mins I didn't think we would win. Armagh looked far more up for it than we did.
Some ridiculous comments here about Clarke which I always knew would come back to haunt us. He is a wonderful footballer than would be the first name on my team if I had to pick one from the 75 players on view today.
Just goes to show how much Doyle protects our defense. We looked clueless without him today.
Another 3 defeats to add to our miserable Croker record. Hard to see any positive today.

We're like a Mayo tribute band. Kildare and Mayo in Croke Park on one weekend - it's like a choking festival.

In fairness HG Mayo only choke against Kerry and Dublin. We did against Galway and Armagh!

Shergar wrote:

Worst part is from about 20 minutes in you knew how this was going to finish. Players not up for it in the first half.

Yep. How many times have we seen this movie before... We really didn't need another sequel. The franchise has jumped the shark at this stage.

Made Con O'Callaghan look like an All-Star last day, did same with Clarke today. Nice to know in the age of waterproof defensive systems, we can continue to give stars forwards a platform to showcase their talents. How very noble of us.

murof wrote:

In fairness HG Mayo only choke against Kerry and Dublin. We did against Galway and Armagh!

True... Fully expect Dublin or Tyrone to wipe the floor with Armagh tbh. Spirited team but a long way from the elite level. As are we as this game has unfortunately confirmed.

Comparing Kildare to Mayo is silly IMO. Mayo can win games with their eyes closed against teams we persistently lose to. So many infuriating parts of tonight but one question that baffled me, why did Tommy Moolick only come on with 3 mins left?

Shite sandwich. See you all again next year for the same outcome.

Rex wrote:

Shite sandwich. See you all again next year for the same outcome.

Only 4 Word....Outfoxed outclassed outrun outnumbered

Absolute shit show from a good group of footballers.

Fuck me it's hard to keep a straight face watching them.

Does losing hurt the players badly enough. Where's the raw anger and hatred of losing? Physically mentally and emotionally a number of players play with the hand brake on in tight games.

keep the faith . hard one to take. 4 terrible wides in first half and then we concede a goal when we are 3 on 1 . 7 point swing .

doyle is a huge loss. his leadership cannot be overestimated . bit unlucky too that we had made a change in HB line and then keith cribbin got a black straight away. He was going well too.
few things to sort out but going the right way. even if we did nt perform to our best tonight.
in fairness to armagh they marshalled our main scoring threats well.

That was a very poor performance and while it has been a good year in terms of promotion, these non performances in Croke Park are becoming all to regular, is it a case that the players we are picking just are not good Croke Park players.

I think we are probably one of the most overrated teams in the country when we got one or two good results, see the Sunday Game ranking us as the 5th best team in the country after the Leinster final when we haven't had one result of note against a top team in years!

No excusing it. Mentally wilting to a team two divisions below. Ten of that team suffered not having the willpower and mental fortitude against Monaghan in 2014. Yet they let it happen again. Weak, meek, fragile and in need of a big mirror in Hawkfield.

Very true Tommy... Once we went ahead in second half, a top team would have driven on, but realistically we're still mired in the traditional Kildare mediocrity. Liam Hayes had a very good piece today about the traditional shortcomings of Kildare teams - painfully in evidence again today. Where is the ruthlessness, the killer instinct... It's deja vu all over again etc.

Armagh seemed to win most of the dirty ball when the game was up for grabs in the last 15 minutes. Very disappointing from us.

The last 2 games showed our defending is still nowhere near good enough for this level. Armagh were able to work the ball down the pitch and get a shot in unchallenged a number of times. Armagh were able to get a lot more men behind the ball when they lost it. Are we working hard enough?

Some of the decisions on the sideline were strange. Ollie Lyons was left on Clarke far too long and it was very strange to bring on Tommy Moolick for Daniel Flynn when we needed scores at the end. I'm not a fan of hitting long balls to Kevin Feely when we need a goal. That never looks like working.

Overall, we've probably made progress this season but tonight's performance was very disappointing.