Tyrone County Football and Hurling

[Redhand Santa]

to be honest lads it wont make a blind bit of difference who we add to the panel if the gameplan stays the same then its irrelevant. be prepared for more of the same shite  next year.

I've said before that we need to go more attacking but you'd think from that comment Tyrone were miles away. They lost to a team that only lost an Ireland final by a point after a replay by a point while playing poorly. If we had a decent free taker or Sean cavanagh had stayed on the pitch there's a fair chance we'd have won that game and got to an all Ireland final whilst unbeaten all year. Find margins.

Just hope next year we push on and go a bit more attacking.

[southtyronegael]

dont get me wrong im confident we have the talent and potential to win and all ireland, i just cant see it happen with harte in charge and our current gameplan.

[southtyronegael]

a few points also redhandsanta. we have plenty of free takers who werent utilised against mayo, and the reason s cavanagh got sent off was because he was putting in silly tackles in his own defence when he should have been playing in full forward where he was lined out. none of this i misfortune or anything else just managerial incompetence.

[Il Bomber Destro]

a few points also redhandsanta. we have plenty of free takers who werent utilised against mayo, and the reason s cavanagh got sent off was because he was putting in silly tackles in his own defence when he should have been playing in full forward where he was lined out. none of this i misfortune or anything else just managerial incompetence.

Which free takers weren't utilised against Mayo?

O'Neill, McAliskey and Morgan all missed frees. McCurry was only on the pitch 10 minutes or so, Brennan has yet to make his Championship debut.

The bottom line is we have pretty much given all the guys who can take a free ago and none of them have shown their worth to be reliable in consistency.

Morgan, Cavanagh, Harte, McCurry, McAliskey, O'Neill - they've all been given the job and they've all failed in that regard. If we had found the right one we wouldn't be discussing this.

Of course we can win under Harte and with the style of play we, the game plan needs small tweaks and adjustments but it's not far off from where it is now.

A complete abandonment of what we have been building in the last two years under Harte will likely see us go backwards and not forward.

[southtyronegael]

my point exactly, brennan, bradley, and mc curry are prob the best free takers in the county. not one of them started against mayo. and by the way morgan is a goalkeeper not a freetaker.

[Il Bomber Destro]

my point exactly, brennan, bradley, and mc curry are prob the best free takers in the county. not one of them started against mayo. and by the way morgan is a goalkeeper not a freetaker.

McCurry bombed in the semi-final against Kerry the year before, he also had a torrid day on frees against Donegal in the opening game of Championship in 2015. He has been on frees before and he has failed to take his chance, I think Bradley to date in his county career has been very wasteful in front of goal.

Brennan has yet to make his Championship bow, he has it all to prove and I think some people expect to much too soon from him. Being involved with the u21s curtailed his involvement in the league this summer and it's always going to be difficult to get into a winning team.

I personally felt McCurry should have started against Mayo after his impact against Donegal and O'Neill having two quiet games in the Cavan replay and Ulster final but I don't see where you're getting the belief that McCurry would have nailed those frees from? Does Morgan not take the long range frees for Edendork in any case?

Maybe Brennan might be the answer but it's a case of maybe. My own personal belief is Bradley would not be in the top 5 free takers on the panel at the minute. He's playing great stuff for Killyclogher at the minute so hopefully he'll get a chance to nail down an inside spot in the coming season but I don't think he'll be the answer to our free taking problems.

[rrhf]

Well the answer certainly wasn't on the field against Mayo.

[southtyronegael]

il bomber ur post is full of contradictions. mc curry bombing out few games but should have started against mayo?. morgan free taker for endordork? so what? bradley not in top 5 free takers? did u not attend any tyrone senior championship games this year? bradley has been impeccable from frees so if he not in top 5 then i dont know who is.

[Il Bomber Destro]

il bomber ur post is full of contradictions. mc curry bombing out few games but should have started against mayo?. morgan free taker for endordork? so what? bradley not in top 5 free takers? did u not attend any tyrone senior championship games this year? bradley has been impeccable from frees so if he not in top 5 then i dont know who is.

My post is not full of contradictions, it's your comprehnsion skills which are lacking.

a) I said McCurry has bombed on frees before in big games particularly Donegal and Kerry in 2015 when he missed a few very important frees. You were stating that we had plenty of freetakers who weren't utilised against Mayo, I'm pointing out that those lads you mentioned have previously bombed when they have been give the task.
b) I stated that I would have started McCurry as O'Neill was on the back of two poor performances while McCurry had a very telling contribution in the Ulster final when he came on.

I did not say McCurry bombed big games, I said his free taking has bombed on big games but I would have started him due to form.

Morgan freetaker for Edendork? So what? I think it's very relevant when his county and club team mate takes the long distance frees ahead of McCurry when you're trying to position McCurry as the best free taker in the county.

Mark Bradley looks like he is really shaping into a fine player at the minute but I think it's a fair point to say that he has been really wasteful in front of the posts for Tyrone. By all means give him a go but I don't think he will be the answer here.

We have plenty of good free takers from a range of 30-35 yards but we don't have a reliable long distance free taker. Our problem is a reliable long distance free taker and I don't think we have one in the county yet. Maybe Brennan could be the answer but Lee Brennan has it all to prove, he's a young lad and he has plenty of time to prove it but I have to laugh at some people automatically state he will solve all our problems when he hasn't even kicked a ball in Championship football.

[Il Bomber Destro]

For instance you can look at the frees we missed on our Championship exits in 2016 and 2015.

The yellow x represents a missed free.

2016


2015


Now out of those frees you can say that we missed one free we really shouldn't have in 2015 which was McCurry. O'Neill missed one he really should be getting against Mayo this year- the rest of the missed frees were in and around the 45 line and this is the range where our problems lie.

Looking at those two games, we missed all three attempts against Mayo from that range and we were 1 out of 4 against Kerry from that sort of range. Morgan was primarily the man who took those frees. He missed two long range efforts against Kerry and two against Mayo with O'Neill and McCurry missing one apiece.

Our lack of a reliable long range free taker is a big problem for us but I don't we have an answer, we have tried a number of players on frees over the past few years and none of them have succeeded. Maybe we need to start letting players know their range and if they don't feel confident of getting the score then we should be looking to build an attack and not just taking Hail Mary shots.

[ose 14]

thats a really good graph and i love the computer whizkids. but it hides the fundamental problem tyrone play a shit brand of attacking football. we have very similar players in our half back forward and midfield areas. they all want the handy free. id love to see a graph from 03-05 when you had mcginley dooher ricey and jordan taking ball beyond the defender knowing your going to get splattered. our current breed all want it off the shoulder and laterally. whens the last time we won frees consistently inside 30 yards. take a look at slaughtneil yesterday and where they won their frees. its not rocket science mickey.

[Il Bomber Destro]

thats a really good graph and i love the computer whizkids. but it hides the fundamental problem tyrone play a shit brand of attacking football. we have very similar players in our half back forward and midfield areas. they all want the handy free. id love to see a graph from 03-05 when you had mcginley dooher ricey and jordan taking ball beyond the defender knowing your going to get splattered. our current breed all want it off the shoulder and laterally. whens the last time we won frees consistently inside 30 yards. take a look at slaughtneil yesterday and where they won their frees. its not rocket science mickey.

Teams have mirrored our style when we've played them and that's why we have struggled to get scores. It's not just Tyrone who played like this but Mayo and Donegal set up the same way against us. Turnovers are a major thing in the game now as teams seem to attack in waves so if you run into bother when you men committed forward you are asking for trouble. If anything what cost us against Mayo was we were too snatchy, we needed to show mire patience and get our shooters in the right places. The wrong guys were taking the shots against Mayo.

[longballin]

I see Corrigan is blaming the ref... I must have been at a different game. Slaughneil played them off the park and I heard no supporters mention the ref after.

[Fuzzman]

What disappoints me the most about the free taking situation is that Harte doesn't seem to be addressing the problem.
I mean we have chopped and changed free takers so much that nobody seems to get a fair run at it and so if you miss one or two the feeling seems to be "Ah let someone else hit the next one".

Morgan seems to hit all the far out ones and so tends to have a poor success rate. It's got to the stage now that we all expect him to miss so when he gets one now we are pleasantly surprised.
Ronan O'Neill looked like the solution early last year but again he missed quite a few when it came to the crunch and his confidence was probably low as he was been easily marked out of games by several defenders around him.

I think the way the game has gone you need to have a reasonably successful free taker as it has become so hard to score from play with the blanket defences in operation and when it comes to the tight matches this could be the difference between winning and losing.

I'd love to see us play the McKenna cup and league with 3 proper full forwards staying in there all the time and the half forward line can come back and sweep when we don't have the ball. With fast players like Mark Bradley & Skeet sitting in at FF wee would have the option to kick long ball in the odd time or at least not be so predictable as we have been the last few years. I fear Mickey won't change it around though and we'll see more of the same as last year.

[Il Bomber Destro]

What disappoints me the most about the free taking situation is that Harte doesn't seem to be addressing the problem.
I mean we have chopped and changed free takers so much that nobody seems to get a fair run at it and so if you miss one or two the feeling seems to be "Ah let someone else hit the next one".

Morgan seems to hit all the far out ones and so tends to have a poor success rate. It's got to the stage now that we all expect him to miss so when he gets one now we are pleasantly surprised.
Ronan O'Neill looked like the solution early last year but again he missed quite a few when it came to the crunch and his confidence was probably low as he was been easily marked out of games by several defenders around him.

I think the way the game has gone you need to have a reasonably successful free taker as it has become so hard to score from play with the blanket defences in operation and when it comes to the tight matches this could be the difference between winning and losing.

I'd love to see us play the McKenna cup and league with 3 proper full forwards staying in there all the time and the half forward line can come back and sweep when we don't have the ball. With fast players like Mark Bradley & Skeet sitting in at FF wee would have the option to kick long ball in the odd time or at least not be so predictable as we have been the last few years. I fear Mickey won't change it around though and we'll see more of the same as last year.

We generally only have a problem with the long range frees, we don't miss too many important ones from expected ones. O'Neill's free taking was fine when it was in his range but once it went outside he struggled. Look at Monaghan for example, McManus would be regarded as one of the top free takers in the country but you don't seem attempting too many out round the 45 yard line. I don't think we have a solution in our ranks to the long range frees, it should now be about players knowing their range and limitations.

Does any team actually play with 3 inside forwards any more? None of the top sides do anyway. The game has changed, players are quicker and stronger and you simply have to limit the open space in front of your goal or teams will run through you. Lumping the ball into a lad like Bradley who is about 5ft6 into congested areas is madness, there's a reason why the game has gone so cautious and lateral these days, even the much heralded Dublin side play football much the same as the rest these days and have done since Donegal showed what happens when they don't.