This has really grinded my gears…
and it happend at the lastest County Board Meeting, the Monday after the piss poor loss against Kildare. Perfect timing lads…
The bad atmosphere was expected, but the timing so close to the game breaths irrational idea’s and statements.
It is one of these irrational idea’s that I’m moaning about today.
After a defeat we always look for someone to blame especially Delegates. Delegate’s love looking for someone to blame.
Because, it takes the attention away from themselves and their Club you see.
One of them had the cheek to publicly call for the Managers head! How irrational is that!?
Aidan O’Rourke and his backroom team has worked 18 months with the squad on a more or less daily basis with a long term approach and Someone comes in on a Monday after the game with a short term view and asks for his head just to make himself feel better. Madness!!
Also, Talk about kicking a squad and Manager when he was down!
Look, I’ve no problem with a fan or an ordinary punter saying this but a Delegate is supposed to give a measured opinion as they are representing not only themselves, but their club and its members.
I’ll leave you with this Question.
If the Nicks were playing the Dreadnots and got hammered by 15 points would the delegate call for the Nicks managers head or would he just say the Dreadnots are a Division 1 side and have been for the last number of years we aren’t at that level and until we put in some serious work at underage this will continue.
I think you know the answer…
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
If you were at the meeting you would know….
AOR deserves more respect than name calling.
Which Leinster counties are we a million miles away from ? Club football wise IMO only dublin are massively stronger than us and all other counties , that said club football in dublin is like the premiership and goes against the ethos along with being very strong to begin with ..
Schools football isn’t where it needs to be at second level any way . Ardee have made progress albeit at a C level .. Dundalk schools has it’s knockers but at least the cream can play at the top and they have won 2 leinsters since it’s inception.
Unfortunately where schools football is concerned we have no “nursery school” in the big towns where kids aspire to go with football a big priority .. Pats in navan and several schools in the north are in this bracket .. This is extremely hard to nurture and traditions like this take years.. Where do you start?
We all knock the priests nowadays but in the 40s and 50s when louth were strong the brothers where huge influences, that day is long gone and the lay teachers don’t often have the heed..
There’s no doubt we have room to improve and lots of it , but it doesn’t excuse AORs record this year , which is abysmal whatever way it’s dressed up.
I left newbridge last July very complimentary of louth and they way they threw everything at kildare that night , they just weren’t good enough in the finish up but give it a huge go. Fast forward 12 months and the performance was negative with no intensity a pure shambles , something doesn’t add up.
Some interesting points there Cicsaor.
I never actually thought about a change in the centre back position. could work.
AOR plucked Conor Grimes out of nowhere and deserves some credit for throwing him in against Westmeath. very risky move to go with.
Some interesting points made there James but I disagree with majority of it….
I’ve explained today the factors behind thedismal league form today in Moanday explained
I think your looking at our underage record and club campaigns through rose tinted glasses
That was the worst Dublin minor team in the last 25 years, we should have beaten them. end of.
so to say well done for drawing with them is just the wrong mentality.
You hit the nail on the head yourself by saying our Leinster club record is full of moral victories
and in fairness We are a million miles away from other Leinster counties.
The sooner we realise this the better…we have the population, we have the training base, commuting wise we are close to Dublin, the interest is there we just need to focus on the long term.
Your out of order Dan, the delegate was only saying what most of the louth supporters who’ve been at games this year have thought
2014 has been an absolute washout, from start to finish which will be next Saturday week in all likelihood
We’ve only beaten one side, a side who’ve been equally as bad all year in westmeath.
The league was awful, the performances in newry donegal and clones were deplorable , inexcusable ..
I don’t buy all this talk about the players not being there, club football, underage bad et etc..
Yes we’ve struggled underage this year but our u21s drew with Meath and the minors drew with Dublin last year.. The minors were very poor this year but have been competitive enough for the previous few under t mcnamee..
Club football? Is it really that bad? Both hunterstown and gers did very well in Leinster and both lost to eventual all Ireland winners.. Blues won a match in Leinster and weren’t disgraced.. Pats ran portlaoise to extra time the previous year and mattock ran garrycastle close too . I know these are all moral victories of sorts but we are not a million miles away from most other Leinster counties.
AOR is not the root cause of all ills In louth ,but the fact is under him in 2014 we’ve regressed massively and the group of players he’s working with are not responding for one reason or another . He can’t be given a free pass on those performances ..
I agree with other posters comment. I don’t know how anyone can defend AOR after 18 months. While I agree we are nor in the same league as Kildare, the manager must come up with a game plan ( which he hasn’t done in 18 months ) like Laois did v Dublin last Sunday. If we had come up with game plan which would have worked for 45 / 50 mins v Kildare anything could have happened, don’t forget Kildare are no Dublin and may have faded away / coped out which they have done before.
The best 25 footballers in the county are on the panel.
We need to start coming up with the following:
1. A partner for PK.
2. A centre half back.
3. A centre half forward.
While I don’t like mentioning names, I feel I need to to get my points across.
PK hasn’t had a proper partner since a much better BW in 2010.
Centre half back is one of the most pivotal positions on team, if not the most important. Derek Crilly may do a job at wing half or wing forward but is certainly no pivotal player. I’ve seen P Reilly play with Brides and he doesn’t stand out for them, so how he could start v Kildare is beyond me. I think Grimes and Burns are two for the future and it was good to see them getting their chance, AOR cant take the credit for Burns as the dogs in the streets know about him for over a year now.
But in fairness all the blame cant be left at AOR door. The County Board present and previous have to take most of this. Darver is the only good thing developed in last 30/40 years. No proper stadium . No proper coaching underage or at schools/colleges, some lip service done with a small bit of coaching and Cul Champs, but where do we think the players are going to come from. I think a lot at the top table just want their All Ireland and Leinster tickets, a few free meals here and there and just let farce continue.
Thanks for the comment Declan
So we win and it flatters us…we lose and it’s the manager’s fault.
That sort of mentality has to stop it’s too irrational and too narrow minded.
Underage Structures, Schools and Club football in this county is not up to scratch, until we get these sorted we can blame a manager every single year for bowing out in the championship.
What happens if we beat Tyrone is it because of the Players or the Manager?
I have to say, I think you are way off the mark here. I read the comments at the meeting from the said delegate, and I totally agreed with them. Having watched us go through one of the worst league campaigns I have seen, the Westmeath win flattered us. Dont forget, Westmeath, apart from ourselves, would have one of the worst forms in the country. And against Kildare, we were diabolical. Yes, they are a higher class than us, but that does not account in any way for the way we played. We never even tried, and the only person that be resposible for this and all the other bad performances is the manager. And I cannot see it changing under his control.
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