A Win’s a win, I suppose?
Not really, here’s my recap.
Standards, Standards Standards.
Sometimes when you are facing inferior opposition you have to set your own.
yesterday as a collective we let them slip.
Venue Changer
Yesterday the nation football league started all across the country apart from a small pocket of land in mid Louth called Darver.
I love Darver as a base and think it serves its purpose excellently but this is the national league!
The game was changed from Drogheda on Saturday afternoon and no explanation was given? fair enough but it set the standard there and then.
Instantly our supporters turned their nose up at the selection of Darver as the venue change. There is no stand, it’s January and the place is a bottle neck to get out of. So whatever chance we had of attracting our very own supporters was lost there and then.
Friends, family and die-hards were there…and they were even tested yesterday morning on whether or not to go…It’s their league too, they live for the football don’t disrespect them…they’re all we’ve got in this county.
They missed out on listening to the national anthem, some of them didn’t even get programs to take home. There was programs there, but you had to go look for them. Starting teams or changes weren’t even communicated either because the venue didn’t have a sound system. The timing of the game too made it feel like a fixture we just had to get over and done with.
This all added up, and as a result there was a complete lack of occasion about yesterday completely.
re-training
On the pitch itself, from the outside looking in the whole lack of occasion seemed to seep into the players.
Can you blame them? They have effectively lived in Darver all winter and they are surely sick of the place!
They have been focused on the first game of the league since they started training and now it is where they train. They were let down too.
The ironic thing was, the game was like a bad training session. We were lethargic and indecisive.
If it was a real training session it would have been stopped midway through and the the lads would have brought into the center and given a bolloxing and then the intensity would have lifted after it.
You know what I mean, we’ve all experienced sessions like it.
We went through the motions.
system failure
I’ll mention standards again, we have to maintain them and keep them high. We are going to face terrible teams. London were awkward and were always going to be but we are much better than we showed yesterday.
Our system seemed to play into their hands, we clogged it up for ourselves and couldn’t get the ball into our two inside men.
Maybe against a better opposition we’ll make the right decisions. We had too much time yesterday and as a result the moves kept breaking down.
The most worrying thing about yesterday was our lack of a cutting edge and directness up front.
We went 24 minutes in the second half without a score!
Matters
To make matters worse, two key in form players went off injured yesterday.
Tommy D hurt his ankle early on and we missed his aerial ability badly. Decky is our key player in this system his long range shooting is excellent both look very doubtful for Dungarvan next weekend.
Positives
We’ve Waterford next….Derek Maguire was effective as a sweeper again, Conor grimes and Paddy Reilly slotted back in well and Darren McMahon was assured and scored a point on his debut.
Still time to sponsor the Waterford build up!
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks Emmet88, yes once we get those two back momentum will start rolling…hopefully we take care of business Sunday and our record will be 100% regardless of our performances!
Great Analysis.
Certainly not a great showcase for Louth GAA both on and off the field. We can be thankful that there was only a minimal number if any London supporters to witness the ‘Darver Arena’!
The performance was far from memorable with little or no passage of play to fill Louth supporters with confidence. Let’s hope that we can put it down as a bad day at the office with the conditions and venue not helping matters. Hopefully we can build some momentum and go into the final 2 big games against Wexford and Antrim with full points and added confidence. Getting Judge and Burns back will certainly help and add to our scoring threat in attack.
Very accurate summary of yesterday’s performance.The injuries could be a major concern for next. Will we get any explanation from the County Board for playing a National League game in Darver ? The Gaelic Grounds in Drogheda were not in any sort of bad condition yesterday morning ! If they persist with playing League games in Darver I think the crowds will only get worse,Darver is a fine training facility but it is not for the Louth Senior team to be playing competitive games. If this is the respect the County Board is showing to loyal Louth fans I think it will end up a very costly mistake !
its 2 points certainly but was definitely NOT a good performance!!London are poor and probably in the bottom 3 ranked teams in GAA football. Louth scored 11 times in total to Londons 9.The 2 goals being the difference. I fear for this team when they face stronger tests as I think a few o Byrne cup wins and yesterdays win is only papering over serious cracks.
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