In a strange move, Paul Grimley has apologised to the Armagh supporters and county board for last Sunday's Ulster SFC preliminary round defeat to Cavan. An extract from the apology reads as follows:

"we have adopted a very attack-minded approach from the start of the year, a high pressure high risk strategy which was practiced throughout the league with limited success, but we will persist with our plan although we shall address the risk element of our tactic and plan B will arrive when plan A is polished as these need to be worked on over months if not years to get right."

It begs the question, has attacking football any future? All the top teams are now defensively minded teams, and the smaller counties are beginning to follow suit, including my own. I don't get why Armagh are obsessed with bringing the Crossmaglen style onto the intercounty scene, noble and all as it is. The top teams now put 12-13 men behind the ball, crowd you out and leave corner forwards with just a split second to shoot, and if its not taken, they're on you like flies. As Joe Brolly said on Sunday, a good corner forward nowadays is not somebody who can turn and score, its somebody who can win a ball inside and lay it off to an onrushing half back. Is Grimley trying to prove that you can win games by adopting a free flowing style, kicking cross field balls from one end of the pitch to the other? You'll get slaughtered trying to do that nowadays. What baffles me more, is that he plans to stick with it.

Sergeant_Slash (Cavan) - Posts: 2182 - 23/05/2013 21:32:37    1390163

It's all well & good going all-out attacking but you can't do that at the expense of not having a clue defensively. The idea is you create space to attack & close it down at the other end. That's what Cavan did!

keeper7 (Longford) - Posts: 4105 - 23/05/2013 21:55:39    1390187

Sergeant_Slash
County: Cavan
Posts: 1831

1390163 In a strange move, Paul Grimley has apologised to the Armagh supporters and county board for last Sunday's Ulster SFC preliminary round defeat to Cavan. An extract from the apology reads as follows:

"we have adopted a very attack-minded approach from the start of the year, a high pressure high risk strategy which was practiced throughout the league with limited success, but we will persist with our plan although we shall address the risk element of our tactic and plan B will arrive when plan A is polished as these need to be worked on over months if not years to get right."

It begs the question, has attacking football any future? All the top teams are now defensively minded teams, and the smaller counties are beginning to follow suit, including my own. I don't get why Armagh are obsessed with bringing the Crossmaglen style onto the intercounty scene, noble and all as it is. The top teams now put 12-13 men behind the ball, crowd you out and leave corner forwards with just a split second to shoot, and if its not taken, they're on you like flies. As Joe Brolly said on Sunday, a good corner forward nowadays is not somebody who can turn and score, its somebody who can win a ball inside and lay it off to an onrushing half back. Is Grimley trying to prove that you can win games by adopting a free flowing style, kicking cross field balls from one end of the pitch to the other? You'll get slaughtered trying to do that nowadays. What baffles me more, is that he plans to stick with it.


Just because Joe Brolly said something doesn't make it true.If you run through a list of the best corner forwards in Ireland their main attribute is their ability to kick the ball over the bar.They may have other attributes but still basically their job is to get scores , the same as it always was.In Sundays match Cavans 2 full forwards scored 11 points.

Some people seem to think attacking football is just all out attack, it isnt. Attacking football is attacking effectively and getting scores you can be a n attacking team and be able to defend well however some people seem to have forgotten this.If attacking football is dead why are the scoring averages pretty much the same as they were for the last 40 years.Considering defences are alot more organised these days and more emphasis is put on defending well these days surely this means that attackers are better now than they ever were.There is barely an space for forwards these days and still scoring is the same as it ever was.

Attacking football isnt dead what is dead is naive defending and a complete disregard for organisation and good defence.,You can't win an all ireland unless you are well prepared and well organised in defence and you can't win an all ireland these days if you don't have a good attack.Why should you be able to win an all ireland without being good in both defence and attack.

uibhfhaili1986 (Offaly) - Posts: 1296 - 24/05/2013 08:07:37    1390201

Looks like Armagh are now an experimental county- All managers who wish to try out new styles are welcome to test them out with Armagh.Forget about silverware.

THIS ISNT FECKING DRESSAGE THERE ARE NO POINTS FOR STYLE & GRACE !!! TIME TO GET REAL WE DONT HAVE THE FULL CONTIGENT OF PLAYERS TO IMPLEMENT FREE FLOWING ATTACKING FOOTBALL.Put Clarke and a high fielder up front defend with the other 13 - look where it got Donegal.

FairShoulder (Armagh) - Posts: 333 - 24/05/2013 09:18:42    1390223

Attacking football is alive & well, its just that the style of it has changed. The VW Beetle was great in it's day but won't cut any ice nowadays, things move on. Anyone who thinks that man to man is going to get them anywhere is naive.

MuckrossHead (Donegal) - Posts: 5030 - 24/05/2013 09:53:50    1390251

If someone can produce meaningful stats that proves that the average scores in championship matches over the last 4/5 years are down compared to an equivalent period then I might take notice, otherwise the premise of this thread is a fallacy.

brendtheredhand (Tyrone) - Posts: 10897 - 24/05/2013 10:00:00    1390262

brendtheredhand
County: Tyrone
Posts: 7237

1390262
If someone can produce meaningful stats that proves that the average scores in championship matches over the last 4/5 years are down compared to an equivalent period then I might take notice, otherwise the premise of this thread is a fallacy.

Brend, you know well what I'm talking about, there is far more emphasis on defending nowadays, teams are built on the mantra, if you don't concede you don't lose, simple as that. And we have seen games where defending has resulted in farcical performances, Donegal Vs the Dubs two years ago being the main example.

Sergeant_Slash (Cavan) - Posts: 2182 - 24/05/2013 10:58:21    1390317

Scores are not the benchmark of attacking football brend, you can use defend first, counter-attack football and rattle up a good score. This is what tyrone and donegal do, and indeed it was the difference between mayo and dublin in their league encounter, where dublin got a man sent off, crowded their defence and caught mayo on the counter to pull away from them.
I disagree that attacking football is gone though, mayo played very attacking football against galway for example.

TheMaster (Mayo) - Posts: 16187 - 24/05/2013 10:59:00    1390318

I was at a game last sunday, it was beautiful attacking football.

51longago (Mayo) - Posts: 2981 - 24/05/2013 11:00:15    1390320

Is attacking football dead?

Watch the two All Ireland semi finals from last year - Donegal v Cork and Dublin v Mayo and ask that question again!!

supporter (Donegal) - Posts: 205 - 24/05/2013 11:09:38    1390328

Sergeant_Slash, that game was a watershed, look at Donegal last year, they played as good attacking football as anybody I saw and got their just rewards for doing so. Other counties would do well to take note of the Donegal model rather than whinging about the 'demise' of the purists, they might just be pleasantly surprised by end result.

brendtheredhand (Tyrone) - Posts: 10897 - 24/05/2013 11:09:41    1390329

Mayo do play a lovely brand of football. Whether it's enough to win them an AI, we will see.

MourneArmy (Down) - Posts: 1787 - 24/05/2013 11:23:18    1390346

There is no reason why teams cannot attack efficiently. The example given here is a poor Armagh team doing it badly.

seany16 (Dublin) - Posts: 1663 - 24/05/2013 11:32:02    1390357

Its simple. If you leave 3v3 or even 2v2 inside at county level standard when the passer has time and space to pick a pass, its very difficult for defenders. As soon as a player makes a run it takes his marker a split second to follow it and he will always be 5m behind. Its not hard for the passer to spot a run and play a decent pass if hes not being pressured.

Leaving that sort of space for attackers is just naive. When you have a good young player like Dunne who can kick off both feet its asking a lot for his marker to stop him getting a shot away from 20-25m out. Tactical suicide really

benjyyy (Donegal) - Posts: 1450 - 24/05/2013 14:16:37    1390558

There is no reason why teams cannot attack efficiently. The example given here is a poor Armagh team doing it badly.

______________


Exactly.. Football is very entertaining lads.

waynoI (Dublin) - Posts: 13659 - 24/05/2013 14:18:16    1390560

The game is all about trying to score whilst the other team try to stop you. If they aren't trying to stop you score its not really a sport anymore.

tyroneed (Tyrone) - Posts: 753 - 24/05/2013 14:56:33    1390618

dublin won the league playing attacking football.
its a simple game some teams outscore their opponents others choose to try and conceed less then their opponents.
personally id rather out score an opponent as that way you play the game on your terms.
you can always continue to try outscore a team from behind but as has proven with donegal in 2011 and laois in 2012 once you go behind you have to change your conceeding less gameplan or you wont win.

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 24/05/2013 18:56:15    1390823

TheMaster
County: Mayo
Posts: 7115

1390318 Scores are not the benchmark of attacking football brend, you can use defend first, counter-attack football and rattle up a good score. This is what tyrone and donegal do, and indeed it was the difference between mayo and dublin in their league encounter, where dublin got a man sent off, crowded their defence and caught mayo on the counter to pull away from them.
I disagree that attacking football is gone though, mayo played very attacking football against galway for example.

You may be mistaking the total mis-match of Mayo against Galway, as a demonstration of Attacking football by Mayo.
Slack marking and poor decisions on Galway's part allowed a top class Mayo outfit to run riot.
The modern game insists upon tracking back and not leaving a forward unmarked. We seen The Sunday Game pundits single out particular mistakes on Galways part which cost them very dearly.
What we really seen last week was one of the Country's best teams absolutely destroy a team who are not currently at that standard.

I respect Armagh and specifically Paul Grimley for have the balls to trying something different. Had Jamie Clarke's goal been allowed, we may well have seen Armagh beat Cavan and perhaps spark a new debate.

GaryMc82 (Derry) - Posts: 3057 - 24/05/2013 21:05:58    1390883