Weekend Feb 16th/17th Feb

[outspoken]

Ah here Nigel, you're not implying a Longford fan would be looking for excuses and a scapegoat, instead of looking at his own teams faults?

I think most longford fans accept it was probably the right result regardless. We were stink after the opening 20.

[Town Legend]

Ah here Nigel, you're not implying a Longford fan would be looking for excuses and a scapegoat, instead of looking at his own teams faults?


I think that is one of your own who said they thought it looked offside!!!

[El-Pietro]

Nice win for City in front of a very impressive crowd. Not sure what to make of our performance. We looked decent but didn't exactly dominate, even if Kerry didn't have much going forward.
The biggest positives were obviously two goals for Jack Doherty as well as very good performances by a handful of teenagers including 16 year old Cathal O'Sullivan who would have been man of the match if not for Dohertys goals, and 15 year old Jaden Umeh off the bench who nearly scored a spectacular goal.
Harps next week will likely be a better test.

[Stuttgart88]

Farrugia and Clarke gone in one night. Probably as bad a night at the office as it could have been. Puts to bed any claims that the league is already over anyway. We are very limited without those two. Not having Clarke, Byrne, McEneff, Pico, Grace and Towell ready to start the season will hurt us early doors.
The two players who were most influential for us last season, bar Gaffney I'd say.

Overall very uninspiring. Starting XI quite weak compared to best XI. Very tippy tappy sideways football (dare I say Rodgers-eque?) until Watts came on and showed some appetite and leadership. I thought the second half v Pats showed a change in how Bradley's team was trying to play, high-octane pressing and working the ball forward well but no, we reverted to the worst of previous seasons' "possession football by numbers". And for years under Bradley we have been vulnerable in transition which made it frustrating that the free kick (great strike) came from a stupid and really careless loss of possession in midfield (was it O'Neill?).

That was what annoyed me most: two obvious flaws evident in previous seasons don't seem to have gone away.

Burns looked good early but faded away I think.

Fair result overall as both teams can say they had matchwinning chances.

Only other gripe is that Dundalk's new keeper should have been booked in first half. Once he learnt to stay on his feet and keep the ball in play his kicking was good though!

[oriel]

The two players who were most influential for us last season, bar Gaffney I'd say.

Overall very uninspiring. Starting XI quite weak compared to best XI. Very tippy tappy sideways football (dare I say Rodgers-eque?) until Watts came on and showed some appetite and leadership. I thought the second half v Pats showed a change in how Bradley's team was trying to play, high-octane pressing and working the ball forward well but no, we reverted to the worst of previous seasons' "possession football by numbers". And for years under Bradley we have been vulnerable in transition which made it frustrating that the free kick (great strike) came from a stupid and really careless loss of possession in midfield (was it O'Neill?).

That was what annoyed me most: two obvious flaws evident in previous seasons don't seem to have gone away.

Burns looked good early but faded away I think.

Fair result overall as both teams can say they had matchwinning chances.

Only other gripe is that Dundalk's new keeper should have been booked in first half. Once he learnt to stay on his feet and keep the ball in play his kicking was good though!

Speaking of the new keeper (Shelvey), that was a terrible challenge by Darragh Burns on him to warrant a yellow in the second half.

[Stuttgart88]

It looked wild in real time alright.

[2 Year Contract]

I can’t emphasise enough just how horrendous the pitch in Eamonn Deacy Park was on Friday but the below stat from Andrew Cunneen on Twitter sums it up pretty well. I lost count of the amount of times a high ball would stop dead in the mud when it landed, or the ball bobbled up when a player was dribbling. Easily the worst pitch I’ve seen in the premier division in a good few years


There were 332 completed passes in Galway on Friday night. No game in the entirety of last year had fewer than 350. Conditions were appalling.

[Nesta99]

I can’t emphasise enough just how horrendous the pitch in Eamonn Deacy Park was on Friday but the below stat from Andrew Cunneen on Twitter sums it up pretty well. I lost count of the amount of times a high ball would stop dead in the mud when it landed, or the ball bobbled up when a player was dribbling. Easily the worst pitch I’ve seen in the premier division in a good few years

That'd have Caulfield drooling. Will he manage not to comment on the Oriel Park pitch this week?

[nigel-harps1954]

That'd have Caulfield drooling. Will he manage not to comment on the Oriel Park pitch this week?

Himself and Ollie would have loved every second of a crap pitch.

I remember end of the 2020 season, we played Shamrock Rovers on a Monday night (I think) in Finn Park. The rain was absolutely relentless for the entire day, fixture schedules were already packed, and so the game had to be played. 7 or 8 of us were scraping water off the pitch any way we could, just so the game would go ahead, until the referees landed onto the pitch about an hour before kickoff and told us no matter what, the game was going ahead, orders from the FAI. Ollie and Paul Hegarty ordered us off the pitch immediately, with screams of "leave it as it is". It was some of the worst conditions I'd ever seen a match played in.