Ulster Championship - Antrim v Donegal

[quote="Jonsmith"]

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:Cavan should comfortably dispose of Donegal. Hopefully Cavan's forward artists won't be too inconvienced by the negative tactics.

Antrim - that is the worst performance I've seen in years. For per head of population, Antrim must be one of the most under-achieving counties, sports-wise, in Ireland. It certainly dosen't look like they partake in Gaelic Games anymore.

Same old problem with the rules too - nobody knows when the tackle crosses the border into foul. Open to individual referee's interpretation. A free is equally likely to be given to the opposition if they surround a player and harass him into overcarrying, as it is that same player holding out to get a free for agressive fouling. New hand-pass rule, which cost many score when introduced, now seems to have been abandoned on the quiet.

For 2012 opening championship match, RTE should look at televising a Leinster game, happens every year; Ulster championship preliminary round, wet, blustry conditions, two teams looking to not lose rather than win, referee card happy, cries that the state of football is in worst state ever.

Some very silly comments from the Royalist.
"It certainly dosen't look like they (Antrim) partake in Gaelic Games anymore"
Sure didn’t Antrim play Laois on Saturday in the Leinster Hurling Championship? That’s H-U-R-L-I-N-G, not the sort of thing you do when exiting the pub of a Saturday night but a well-known Gaelic game played with camáin and a sliotar. As for "per head of population, Antrim must be one of the most under-achieving counties, sports-wise, in Ireland", I could mention George Best, Alex Higgins, any amount of Boxing champions – Rinty Monaghan, John Caldwell, Jimmy Warnock, Wayne McCullough, Paddy Barnes etc.

A dire league campaign for Antrim's footballers was puntuated by a solitary win over Meath - could this be the real source of your ill-informed rant?

Puke football or defence turned into a fine art? That is the question we should be asking after Donegal’s latest exhibition of the black art of blanket defence. Rather than condemn it, is it not possible to admire such a terrible and gruesome tactical creation as a work of genius.

The end justifies the means in championship football, and with a first win in Ulster since 2007, Jim McGuinness and Rory Gallagher won’t have been dripping tears into their cornflakes this morning.

The wet day, greasy pitch and their players’ mastery of the tactical plan they set out to execute would have made for breakfast smiles all round. The players talked afterwards about knowing exactly what they had to do. That’s the sign of good management.

During the week Baker Bradley tried to get a rise out of Donegal by suggesting their brand of play was Puke Football. Yawn yawn. For Baker to borrow the language of depression from Pat Spillane is bad enough. But his own Antrim team are hardly a swashbuckling outfit. Baker’s known to pull a man or two back. And let’s be honest. He has to.

Donegal always had an intriguing combination of ball players, the likes of Hegarty, Toye and co, aligned with raw-boned big hoors from the hills in the style of Anthony Molloy. A succession of managers seemed to struggle to get the best out of them.

The slightest hint of success seems to send them reaching for a pint glass. Failure likewise, and thereafter the men scatter to the four corners of the county tails between their legs. McGuinness played an artful role earlier in the season constantly pleading injuries and missing players, deflecting attention on to himself as his team progressed. He’s no slouch.

Earlier, during the league I ventured along to Celtic Park to watch Donegal and Derry in the league. It was a dank oul Saturday night and I was quietly intrigued by what I saw. Donegal had already beaten Tyrone by swamping their half forward line. Tyrone had enjoyed ten minutes of dominance, racing away with a few scores. And then they were just stopped. Dead. The Donegal Swamp opened up and sucked them in.

At Celtic Park it became obvious that this was no accident. We’re used to seeing a sweeper pitch up in defence these days. Donegal had two. Sean Leo McGoldrick was Derry’s centre forward and the Eoghan Rua man simply couldn’t get the room to play his normal game.

To get any meaningful ball he would have had to play fifteen metres deeper. And that would have nullified his influence even more. When he did get the ball he was shackled by Karl Lacey. If he escaped him there were two further ‘defenders’ stationed between the half forward line and the full forward line. When Donegal got the ball back, as they frequently did they rushed forward attacking at pace.

To be fair Derry did trouble them by booming in high balls early days, one of which led directly to a goal. But otherwise Donegal smothered them.

The winning of that game wasn’t this two man sweeper system. The moment that broke the game open was when Donegal’s own highball in was fielded by Micheal Murphy who really is a force of nature. He scorched Kevin McCloy and Barry McGoldrick before hitting an explosive shot into the top corner. Twas as good a goal as I have seen. It rebounded off the stanchion out the field faster than it went in.

Myself and a few of the lads left Celtic Park ruminating on this new Donegal Catenaccio.

It made me think of soccer where the fashion these days is for the holding midfielder or two. Two banks of four as they say. Or in Mourinho’s case with Inter last year, banks of four, five and one. That was effective. Against Barcelona and a man down, it was still effective. That’s good coaching.

On Sunday as Antrim attacked late in the game, Donegal went man to man in the half forward line and had two or three boys lined up in front of the full back line and three more man to man in the full back line. Familiar?

There were three in midfield, often including full forward Micheal Murphy who was able to win ball and dictate things at his own speed. When they attacked they went forward at pace. They had the new lad McBrearty holding a very wide position attacking from there, and the likes of Ryan Bradley and Mc Hugh breaking from deep carrying the ball in.

Jose Mourinho talks about the moments in the game when the opposition lose balance and that is when his players must recover the ball. In gaelic football there is no rule that says scoring must be sustained evenly over the seventy minutes. Is it possible to pick your moment?

If you can absorb the punches, tire the opposition and attack in short bursts and score in clusters, is that such a bad thing? If planned it is quite clever. Audacious even. But in every game the opposition has periods of dominance especially in the possession-fixated sport of modern gaelic football. Let them have the ball, if they’re going to and fro across the pitch, they’re winding down the clock as well as the energy reserves.

It is the scores on the board at the end of seventy plus minutes that counts. Not their frequency during the game. Yet pundits are obsessed with boring oul mantras like ‘Donegal went twenty five minutes without scoring.’ If they did and during that time Antrim punched themselves to a standstill, then all the better.

Gaelic football may not be getting better. Every year the pundits brand Ulster football as terrible to watch. But for the likes of myself, it has an absorbing fascination.

I’ll hazard the guess there’s nothing in Jim McGuinness’s arrangement with the Donegal county board that says he has to entertain. Or please O’Rourke and Spillane. Or you and I for that matter. For years Donegal played nice football. And won nothing. As Brad Gilbert the author of the famous tome Winning Ugly said: “always remember, it’s better to win ugly than to lose pretty.’

Gilbert’s philosophy was simple. He broke winning ugly down into three simple steps:

1 Recognize your opportunity
2 Analyze your options and
3 Capitalize on the opportunity using the best option.

I don’t know if Jose Mourinho or Jim McGuinness have ever met Brad Gilbert. But they have at least one thing in common, and it’s not just having the same initials.

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Thank God we don't get that sort of rubbish posted on here RMD! I assume your point was to highlight the superior analysis on this site, as opposed to glorifying Brad Gilbert or Jose Mourinho, men whose philosophy is to suck any beauty and enjoyment out of sport.

Wow, that was a week of abuse! From angry to disappointed to condescending ... I've had the whole lot thrown at me this week. My answer has been the same to everyone. I'm delighted we won the game and that for the first time in 4 years we have won a game in the Ulster Championship. End of story.

Of course it's not the end of the story at all but usually its enough to shut people up. IMO there are several things that made people jump up and down about this ... Anticipation for the start of the Championship raised peoples hopes and expectations ... People were not familiar with the Jim McGuinness school of football and were surprised by it ... People had an (incorrect) impression of Donegal as playing attacking open football ... People were looking for a chance to put the boot into Ulster football ... And lets not forget the fact that it was a poor game. It being a poor game does not give people licence to pontificate as they have though.

Donegal's style of football this year is built on a massed defence. It will be the same in every game. You have been warned! Couple that with a team who also pack their defence and you were never going to have an open game. Throw in a wet day and slippy conditions. I don't know if people appreciate the pressure that was on Donegal for that game. The need to win a home Ulster Championship game was massive and you could tell that a lot of boys were nervous and hesitent.

I was happy with the play of McGrath, McGee, Cass and Kavanagh. Bradley had a great game and like Colm McFadden seems to be performing much better for Jim than he has ever before. It was good to see McBrearty come on too. We'll look after him well and hopefully he has a bright future in front of him. (Did anyone notice that he wasn't wearing gloves? Never does seemingly.)

Anway she's done and dusted now. We're off to Breffni park in a few weeks time and that's all that matters. We need a good bust up or something this weekend to put the attention somewhere else I reckon