Tony McEntee -Armagh Manager

Possibly or probably ?

OMAR wrote:Possibly or probably ?

Not in the short term IMO. Armagh football needs less of Crossmaglen's dominance to enable it reach it's potential (whatever that may be) and the appointment of McEntee mitigates against that. But possibly would be my pick of the options.

The GAA world will probably not see him for a few years as he wants to take a break. He will be Armagh manager at some point though. Like Boxty says and not saying I would have a problem with it, the spine of the team would be Crossmaglen players.

Perhaps this can be revisited.

GAA-Fan wrote:Perhaps this can be revisited.

GF, most Armagh people wanted rid of Peter McDonnell. Then they wanted rid of Paddy O'Rourke. Now Grimley is to blame.

I agree that Grimley was totally lost today, but you also have to look at the players. How many Armagh players would make the Donegal team? Or Dublin? Outside of Clarke, Aaron Kernan and possibly a fit Donaghy, I can't think of any.

The talent isn't there.

Indeed.
I'm all for sticking to principles and vision of the beautiful game etc. but my 8 year old was asking why Grimley was not considering playing someone in front of the two man cavan full forward line. She was asking this after Dunnes second point. After nine even even she had lost heart.

Brolly pretty much had nail on head if you want to play Crossmaglen football being in front of your man is a good place to start, if not put a spare half forward in front, any other manager would have.

Fair play to cavan though, they read grimleys pre match statement and took him at his word a centre half forward and 2 men inside the other 12 behind the ball not rocket science but brilliant in its simplicity.first 20 minutes Nerves cost them 5 points and a few wrong options when one on one, could have been a Mayo. Score with the space they were afforded.

Keating wreaked havoc against Donegal this time last year for 15 minutes and made a fool of the all star full back.but note to grimley - you are allowed change tactics.

Thomas Clarke wrote:

GAA-Fan wrote:Perhaps this can be revisited.

GF, most Armagh people wanted rid of Peter McDonnell. Then they wanted rid of Paddy O'Rourke. Now Grimley is to blame.

I agree that Grimley was totally lost today, but you also have to look at the players. How many Armagh players would make the Donegal team? Or Dublin? Outside of Clarke, Aaron Kernan and possibly a fit Donaghy, I can't think of any.

The talent isn't there.

To be fair TC Grimely lost this game for Armagh. It was blatantly obvious that Dunne and Keating had the beating of their men every time with such an ocean of space in front of them. A better team would have been out of sight at half time and scored 3 or 4 goals. After Armagh got the goal it was criminal by Grimley to not close up some of the space in our forward line. He didn't, Cavan fed Keating and Dunne and they continued to slice through Armagh. Can you imagine what would have happened if they had been playing Donegal today?

Thomas Clarke wrote:

GAA-Fan wrote:Perhaps this can be revisited.

GF, most Armagh people wanted rid of Peter McDonnell. Then they wanted rid of Paddy O'Rourke. Now Grimley is to blame.

I agree that Grimley was totally lost today, but you also have to look at the players. How many Armagh players would make the Donegal team? Or Dublin? Outside of Clarke, Aaron Kernan and possibly a fit Donaghy, I can't think of any.

The talent isn't there.

35 months ago they bet Donegal out the gate. Management and having a plan go a long way before we can blame lack of talent.

I totally acknowledge Grimley's ineptitude. He over-rated his defensive personnel in the same way that others over-rate them. Grimley decided that his backs were good enough to take care of the Cavan forwards 1-on-1. Well, they clearly weren't good enough, and his midfield were too slow to support them, while the half forwards seemed to have been given the day off tracking back.

Armagh do not have great individual defenders, and have fewer still great midfielders or attackers. Brendan Donaghy is a good player. Aaron Kernan is still an excellent half back. Jamie Clarke is a top forward. Outside of that, they have no-one that I would rate.

Omar, Armagh beat Donegal when Donegal weren't fit, organised or motivated. The same year, Armagh were annihilated by Monaghan, and the following year they were hammered by Derry, so it would be wrong to say that Armagh have greatly regressed.

Don't get me wrong, I think that Grimley has been very poor, but he has less to work with than O'Rourke, who in turn had less to work with than McDonnell, who in turn had less to work with than Kernan. Tony McEntee might have produced a side to beat Cavan, but Armagh don't have the players to win a provincial title.

TC

The point I was trying to make was more about importance of management. Reference Donegal side 35 months ago you would say that Murphy, Lacey and maybe Cassidy aside there was nothing there. 2 years later so called journeymen like McFadden, Gallagher, Mcglynn, Durkan, are pickng up. All stars, and clubmen like thompson, bradley, and Kavanagh are in the running.

Im not convinced that in counties with footbaling tradition like Armagh, Down or take today also Galway that suddendly there is a shortage of talent. The conditions Don't exist to maximise the talent.

If the Brian Dooher of 2001 was a fringe player on rhe current Armagh team would he reach his potential. ?

I know what you are saying, but I think that all counties have a talent pool, and Armagh's is currently very shallow. Tyrone's is much shallower than it was 10 years ago, but we are making do due to strong management, culture, organisation and a few very good senior players.

Armagh's talent pool built from the late 90s to c.2005, and has steadily declined since then. No-one can tell me that Stefan Forker, no matter who was his manager, could ever become better than Oisin McConville or Diarmuid Marsden or Stevie McDonnell. Similarly James Lavery in comparison to Paul McGrane, or Paul McKeown to Francie Bellew. Ciaran McKeever and Aaron Kernan aren't as good as they once were either.

McGuinness inherited 2 stars in Murphy & Lacey, both vastly superior to anything Armagh have. He also had a latent talent in McFadden that he could work with. Throw in McHugh and McBrearty (not available to previous regimes) and you have a much stronger hand. McGuinness was also able to add fitness to the players, an element that was lacking desperately under Doherty. For all his faults, Paddy O'Rourke had Armagh fit, so Grimley wasn't likely to see a big improvement there.

Managers can make a huge difference, but sometimes it is overemphasised. To continue with the Armagh example, Brian McAlinden & Brian Canavan are forgotten because Joe Kernan won an all-ireland, yet Kernan had Ronan Clarke and Francie Bellew available to him (the 2 Brians didn't), and he had Stevie McDonnell at 23yrs old instead of 21. That's a hell of an improvement to any manager's hand.

Good article by Tony McEntee from earlier this week. A lot of sense in it to be fair.

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Boxtyeater wrote:Good article by Tony McEntee from earlier this week. A lot of sense in it to be fair.

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He talks a lot of sense indeed Boxty - pity there werent more with the same mindset

It was a very thoughtful article from a fine thinker of the game.  However, I would question his honesty when he says that Galway would be happier than Donegal after last weekend. Tony played on ruthlessly tough Cross and Armagh sides, with the former in particular happy to do what was needed to pick up a win.

Still, the basic principle is a fair one. Winning may be all that matters to the winners, but if you are one of the losers (97% of sides in the football championship), then playing like robots probably doesn't seem very worthwhile after all.