However many other good and valid points have been made in this thread he notion that any team has come down and played sparkling, passing football in Jackman this year can't be allowed to stand. Longford simply hoofed more effectively than we did, Waterford closed us down brilliantly and squeezed the life out of us and Athlone played a few neat triangles in harmless areas of the field but were garbage in the final third throughout apart from the goal when we switched off. That said we have, on paper, better players than all those teams and it's not good enough for us to play the type of nonsense we do and get dragged down to idealess, brainless hootfball.

Jackman is in some state at the moment but that's only in the last few weeks so not a real excuse for some of the turgid nonsense we've served up ourselves this season. The pitch at Athlone is definitely the worst in the division, Harps was a waterlogged swamp when we were there (weather inflicted that time perhaps) and Deasy/Terryland was of a similar standard to our own. We can't blame the pitch for our performances either but it's a disgrace at the moment too and that shouldn't be overlooked.

Scully is the boss and he has to carry the can for the shaplessness and lack of drive we're seeing on the pitch game after game. We never look like putting teams away, rarely look dominant for long periods and are definitely set out negatively. Some of the players are getting away with murder too though, there's a lack of real commitment out there, we seem very quiet a lot of the time too. Foley has been a loss, both in terms of his experience and ability but we should have the players to compensate for that and still go out there, attack these teams and see games out far more easily than we have been doing to date. I presume Scully is skating on thin ice by now.