O'Rourke: McDonnell Needs Support

[stevie06]

O'Rourke: McDonnell needs support

19 July 2010

Paddy O'Rourke accepts that Armagh need to find more forwards in the mould of Steven McDonnell if they are to revive the glory days.

Speaking after Saturday's All-Ireland exit at the hands of Dublin, the Orchard County boss said: "You can't manufacture a player like Stevie. The thing for me is to keep Stevie as sharp as he is at the moment over the next few years.

"And I believe we can do that because he looks after himself well. We need to get Jamie (Clarke) and a few young players around him with that finishing touch.

"If Stevie stays injury-free, there is no reason why he can't play on until he's 34 or 35. There could be another four years in him and that gives us time to get players around him because I believe he will be successful at the highest stage again."

He continued: "We came here today knowing if we won it would put us in a very good place and among the main contenders going into the last couple of months of the All-Ireland series.

"We made mistakes and you'll make mistakes every day you go out, but today we made a few too many."

[AFS]

AUDIO - Dublin 0-14 Armagh 0-11 - Armagh GAA

[sliothar]

Hi guys what about we line out with 6 scoring fwds and go for it these 'defensive' tactics don't work.

And by 6 scoring fwds that means ditch the AK experiment otherwise his best days will continue to be behind him in the backline and also it means drop/ditch any player who has played in our current/past it fwd line who thinks any number above 9 has to play behind midfield????

My reasoning here is that when the sh.. hits it these players have proved continually that they hide behind the half backs in order to 'help our defence' - our big problem is that we need more scores from a wider number of players - these players have never been asked/trained/prepared to attack their default option is defence.

Time to change and give the backline a break by spending time in the opposition half scoring against them not backtracking and inviting them to score against us.

That way Stevie gets loads of support and we might even win a really important game by outscoring the opposition and not worrying about how many we concede - score more and we win - simple really