Tír Eoghain vs An Cabhán Ulster Semi Replay 4pm 03/07/2016 @Clones

[Give and Go]

Cavan to burst through the back door Saturday v Carlow and get back on track!
What about changes in the team to freshen it up?

[Fuzzman]

Phillip Jordan has his say in the Irish news today.
Interesting to see how much influence Harte seems to let Peter Donnelly have on the team now.

REPLAYS are all about who can learn the most from the drawn game and put the changes into practice out on the pitch.

There's no doubt Mickey Harte and his team showed plenty of improvement last Sunday.

Harte made a few changes to his tactics that proved instrumental in helping Tyrone reach a first Ulster Final since 2010.

Firstly, he returned to his tried and trusted system of using two sweepers in front of the full back line.

In the drawn game, Colm Cavanagh played further forward meaning that there was little cover in front of goals.

I have to say I was surprised at the defensive formation being changed when it had worked so effectively over the previous 18 months.

Colm's positional sense and organisational skills were badly missed closer to goal.

Last weekend, Cavanagh and Justin McMahon positioned themselves in front of David Givney and Eugene Keating, restricting the opportunities for Cavan to get dangerous ball inside.

It was only after the substitution of Cavanagh that Cavan were able to break down the Tyrone defence on a regular basis.

Another area that Tyrone targeted was the middle third. First time out, the platform for Cavan's attacks was their half back line.

They forced the Tyrone half forwards to play on the back foot and played a key part in most of the Cavan scores.

Harte identified this as a vital area and moved two of his half backs to the half forward line ? Peter Harrte and Niall Sludden.

The impact of Harte was obvious as he scored 2-4, with the Cavan defence unable to cope with his ability to run at pace.

Sludden continued to add to his reputation with another display of real drive, pushing forward and putting in tackles all over the pitch.

This time round it was the Tyrone half forward line who dominated, with Cathal McShane also adding two points from play.

The final area Mickey Harte had to counteract was the Cavan kick outs.

He had two choices when deciding how to nullify the impact of Raymond Galligan's brilliant restarts.

The most obvious option was to push up on the Cavan players to force Galligan to kick long.

However, once again Tyrone returned to their tactics of recent times allowing Cavan to take short kick outs.

There was usually only one forward inside the 45 metre line for the restarts and this meant that Tyrone were able to get their defensive shape set before Cavan attacked them.

There has been plenty of focus on the negative side of management getting involved in matches over the last couple of weeks.

From my position in the Pat McGrane stand I was able to see the positive impact management can have during a game.

Peter Donnelly was positioned in front of me for most of the first half and he was constantly providing instructions to the Tyrone players on their positioning within the defensive system.

Tyrone's first goal was a key moment of the game and from then on there was only ever going to be one winner.

Without the influence of Donnelly that first goal would not have been scored.

Tyrone had easy possession in their own half and Donnelly demanded Cathal McShane to go in support of the ball when he was looking to rest back in his own half.

McShane was involved twice in the build up to the goal and provided the final pass for Peter Harte to score.

The contrast between the attacking play of Tyrone on Sunday and the team that struggled in the early rounds of the qualifiers last year is huge.

The pace of their play is so difficult to defend against and combines the power of Mattie Donnelly and Sean Cavanagh, with the agility of Tiarnan McCann and Connor McAliskey.

Cavan will have been massively disappointed with their performance.

Once Tyrone got in front they totally lost their shape and could easily have conceded another two or three goals.

Obviously they needed to do something different to get themselves back in the game, but Terry Hyland would not have asked his players to totally abandon their defensive responsibilities.

Time and again in the second half Tyrone had extra men attacking with Cavan players caught up the field.

The real sign of a team having bought into a tactical system is continuing to play to it when under severe pressure.

Cavan players reverted to playing individual football which left them open at the back.

Hyland will be delighted that his team have a relatively easy qualifier to get them back on the road this weekend.

Carlow should not pose them too many serious questions in Breffni Park and it gives them an opportunity to re-build some confidence.

The aim for Cavan must be an All-Ireland quarter final in Croke Park.

They won't be helped in their cause by the fixture congestion that consecutive wins will bring with it.

If they are to reach a quarter final they will be playing for five weekends in a row which will be both physically and mentally challenging.

It goes to show the craziness of the Ulster Councils decision in waiting two weeks to replay the semi-final.

They should be trying to give Ulster counties the best opportunity for success in the All-Ireland series and they have put Cavan at a distinct disadvantage.

Mickey Harte will down play Tyrone's victory by pointing to the 2-17 his team conceded, after giving up three goals the first day.

The players themselves will be annoyed at the amount conceded, especially the two late goals.

I've been there myself when you are winning a match comfortably and it is extremely frustrating as a defender to not keep a clean sheet.

From a Tyrone perspective I wouldn't be overly worried about the Cavan scoreboard.

With 15 minutes to go, Cavan had only scored 0-10 and the game became incredibly loose late on.

When it was needed the Tyrone defensive system had Cavan looking lost for ideas.

On top of that, it will be used as a means to focus the players on maintaining their concentration for the bigger challenge of Donegal in the Ulster Final.