I think the game is dying in front of us - Manus Boyle

[Captain Obvious]

You didn't answer my question about Kilkenny. How much time did he have against a defensive team like Tyrone? According to Paul there was no marking in the All Ireland but you're telling us Kilkenny was man marked. So you disagree with Paul too, you might even say he was talking nonsense?

No marking on a lot of the scores Dublin got was the point Paul made i think. Kilkenny wasn't man marked against Tyrone he was given loads of time on the ball. Having numbers back is no use if you don't get in the faces of the opposition and give loads time and room to shoot as Dublin got v Tyrone.

[Zulu]

Again, unless you designate defenders to mark one guy at the expense of many other elements of the game then forwards will always get time and space at some points in the game. Mayo clearly had man markers other than Keegan but Keegan had a very specific role and he often focused only on Kilkenny, the other man markers hadn't that strict limpet-like role.

So if you agree with Paul that there was little defending, I don't, please point out what they could have done better and how this wouldn't have resulted in less forward threat. While Mayo could have obviously done some things better, it's hard to accept they got their set up wrong. You yourself said they were the better team on the day and lost to a late free so unless teams shouldn't do anything wrong then I don't see how anyone could say Mayo should have done much different.

In the end of the day, it was an equal hugely intense battle but Mayo made a few crucial mistakes (or had easy misses) and that was probably the difference.

[lenny]

Just imagine each man picked up and stuck with each man on the Dublin team. Call me naive but Surely the system is irrelevant if 14 good outfield players do their individual job well, mark Kilkenny connolly mc Menamen cooper mc Mahon and win the individual battles. The dubs system is a better system than tyrones as proven, but we didn't individually put a bloody hand on them.

That's it in a nutshell. Every Chris Barrett turnover in the All Ireland final was roared to the rafters and are youtube clips you'd watch just as easily as great scores. He and Mayo showed you can defend when isolated and you don't need 101 bodies back to be defensively sound. The All Ireland final had 30+ scores but nobody could say it wasn't intense or that there was no defending. Once the penny drops with a few others we could have a great era of football. Blanket defending is fine for the likes of Carlow as they are just trying to survive, those wanting to win things should be going man for man and coaching their players to be able to do that. The thing is, a few teams could beat Mayo or Kerry in a shoot out and it's your only chance against Dublin so why not go for it? Trying to beat Dublin or Mayo in an arm wrestle is an almost certain loser.

I'm not involved in football, but is the art of one on one defending not coached anymore as a skillset in its own right?

Are coaches so preoccupied with systems that one on one coaching of defending is a thing of the past?

When has it ever been one-on-one? Once a player gets the ball the defence naturally drifts towards that area. Support will always be key to a good defence.

It was always one on one until harte brought in the horrible but effective idea of swarming round a man who had the ball. That is the main reason the game has become so bad to watch. Pat spillane took a lot of stick at the time but he was right - it was puke football and lots of other teams have copied it since. Harte even took it further the last couple of years with 15 players inside his own 45 metre line, with most of them inside of 35 yards from their own goals. Pathetic.

Another falsehood. Why don't you log in as your alter ego?

I've said it before I don't have an alter ego but you're obviously too thick to take that in. I remember everyone being taken aback by the way tyrone swarmed round the kerry players in 03. That was new especially the number of players who quickly got round the man in possession. That was brought in by harte and was and still is horrible to look at. Look at any all ireland finals before that and you won't see that kind of thing happening.  He also brought more men back into defence than any manager had previously. It was successful and led to other managers copying. Mcguinness took it a stage further but harte was the instigator. Tyrone people were happy enough because they were winning but they weren't making many friends along the way. When I go on holiday down south and get chatting to football people down there there's very few who have a good word to say about tyrone in the noughties.

[sligoman2]

Just imagine each man picked up and stuck with each man on the Dublin team. Call me naive but Surely the system is irrelevant if 14 good outfield players do their individual job well, mark Kilkenny connolly mc Menamen cooper mc Mahon and win the individual battles. The dubs system is a better system than tyrones as proven, but we didn't individually put a bloody hand on them.

That's it in a nutshell. Every Chris Barrett turnover in the All Ireland final was roared to the rafters and are youtube clips you'd watch just as easily as great scores. He and Mayo showed you can defend when isolated and you don't need 101 bodies back to be defensively sound. The All Ireland final had 30+ scores but nobody could say it wasn't intense or that there was no defending. Once the penny drops with a few others we could have a great era of football. Blanket defending is fine for the likes of Carlow as they are just trying to survive, those wanting to win things should be going man for man and coaching their players to be able to do that. The thing is, a few teams could beat Mayo or Kerry in a shoot out and it's your only chance against Dublin so why not go for it? Trying to beat Dublin or Mayo in an arm wrestle is an almost certain loser.

I'm not involved in football, but is the art of one on one defending not coached anymore as a skillset in its own right?

Are coaches so preoccupied with systems that one on one coaching of defending is a thing of the past?

When has it ever been one-on-one? Once a player gets the ball the defence naturally drifts towards that area. Support will always be key to a good defence.

It was always one on one until harte brought in the horrible but effective idea of swarming round a man who had the ball. That is the main reason the game has become so bad to watch. Pat spillane took a lot of stick at the time but he was right - it was puke football and lots of other teams have copied it since. Harte even took it further the last couple of years with 15 players inside his own 45 metre line, with most of them inside of 35 yards from their own goals. Pathetic.

Another falsehood. Why don't you log in as your alter ego?

I've said it before I don't have an alter ego but you're obviously too thick to take that in. I remember everyone being taken aback by the way tyrone swarmed round the kerry players in 03. That was new especially the number of players who quickly got round the man in possession. That was brought in by harte and was and still is horrible to look at. Look at any all ireland finals before that and you won't see that kind of thing happening.  He also brought more men back into defence than any manager had previously. It was successful and led to other managers copying. Mcguinness took it a stage further but harte was the instigator. Tyrone people were happy enough because they were winning but they weren't making many friends along the way. When I go on holiday down south and get chatting to football people down there there's very few who have a good word to say about tyrone in the noughties.

I certainly don't have any good words for Tyrone or Donegal's style of play.  Effective? yes to a point.  Entertaining? Absolutely not.  But then again Mickey Harte admits he doesn't care about entertaining fans.

[sid waddell]

I've said it before I don't have an alter ego but you're obviously too thick to take that in. I remember everyone being taken aback by the way tyrone swarmed round the kerry players in 03. That was new especially the number of players who quickly got round the man in possession. That was brought in by harte and was and still is horrible to look at.

Speak for yourself. I found that an absolutely exhilarating passage of play, one of the most exhilarating 30 seconds I've ever seen on a GAA field.

It was fair, it was hard and it was brilliant in the way it was executed. And it happened high up the pitch, so it wasn't a case of just getting 15 men back behind the ball.

[blewuporstuffed]

I think we need to differentiate the football Tyrone play now from the football they played in the 00s. In their pomp that Tyrone team played some fantastic attacking football.

[ONeill]

The game is evolving out of the darkness of McGuinness. It'll be total football by 2020.

[Syferus]

The game is evolving out of the darkness of McGuinness. It'll be total football by 2020.

Totally Dublin, maybe.

[Rossfan]

The game is evolving out of the darkness of McGuinness. It'll be total football by 2020.

Congress 2019 going to abolish the abomination that is the handpass?😆

[ONeill]

Tyrone got the biggest shock to the system this year. Sean Cavanagh even said it was physically impossible to be more prepared for Dublin in terms of S&C. So that means - a change in tactics. I can see a more attacking approach in 2017 NFL. I'll refund anyone if that's not the case.

[rodney trotter]

There should be a restriction on amount of consecutive hand passes. They aren't going to abolish it obviously,  but cut it down. 

[Il Bomber Destro]

Just imagine each man picked up and stuck with each man on the Dublin team. Call me naive but Surely the system is irrelevant if 14 good outfield players do their individual job well, mark Kilkenny connolly mc Menamen cooper mc Mahon and win the individual battles. The dubs system is a better system than tyrones as proven, but we didn't individually put a bloody hand on them.

That's it in a nutshell. Every Chris Barrett turnover in the All Ireland final was roared to the rafters and are youtube clips you'd watch just as easily as great scores. He and Mayo showed you can defend when isolated and you don't need 101 bodies back to be defensively sound. The All Ireland final had 30+ scores but nobody could say it wasn't intense or that there was no defending. Once the penny drops with a few others we could have a great era of football. Blanket defending is fine for the likes of Carlow as they are just trying to survive, those wanting to win things should be going man for man and coaching their players to be able to do that. The thing is, a few teams could beat Mayo or Kerry in a shoot out and it's your only chance against Dublin so why not go for it? Trying to beat Dublin or Mayo in an arm wrestle is an almost certain loser.

I'm not involved in football, but is the art of one on one defending not coached anymore as a skillset in its own right?

Are coaches so preoccupied with systems that one on one coaching of defending is a thing of the past?

When has it ever been one-on-one? Once a player gets the ball the defence naturally drifts towards that area. Support will always be key to a good defence.

It was always one on one until harte brought in the horrible but effective idea of swarming round a man who had the ball. That is the main reason the game has become so bad to watch. Pat spillane took a lot of stick at the time but he was right - it was puke football and lots of other teams have copied it since. Harte even took it further the last couple of years with 15 players inside his own 45 metre line, with most of them inside of 35 yards from their own goals. Pathetic.

Another falsehood. Why don't you log in as your alter ego?

I've said it before I don't have an alter ego but you're obviously too thick to take that in. I remember everyone being taken aback by the way tyrone swarmed round the kerry players in 03. That was new especially the number of players who quickly got round the man in possession. That was brought in by harte and was and still is horrible to look at. Look at any all ireland finals before that and you won't see that kind of thing happening.  He also brought more men back into defence than any manager had previously. It was successful and led to other managers copying. Mcguinness took it a stage further but harte was the instigator. Tyrone people were happy enough because they were winning but they weren't making many friends along the way. When I go on holiday down south and get chatting to football people down there there's very few who have a good word to say about tyrone in the noughties.

Again it's a falsehood, fake anecdotes and nonsense is all you have to fuel your bitterness an envy towards all things Tyrone and Mickey Harte.

I think that Tyrone team of Mickey Harte's will go down as one of the greatest of them all. They deserved their All Irelands, they went out and played a great Kerry off the pitch three times in that period, they defeated a great Armagh team in knockout football 2 times in that period, the 05 game with Armagh happens to be the best game I've ever attended in terms of quality of football.

I'm sure when you go on holiday down South they probably think "He's one bitter Derry b**tard".

In any case I'm sure we'll see you clogging up the Tyrone forum with the exact same nonsense you're spouting here under your alter ego.

[Owen Brannigan]

Tyrone got the biggest shock to the system this year. Sean Cavanagh even said it was physically impossible to be more prepared for Dublin in terms of S&C. So that means - a change in tactics. I can see a more attacking approach in 2017 NFL. I'll refund anyone if that's not the case.

Too easy to make predictions about the past, tell us what you think will happen in the NFL next year.

[Owen Brannigan]

Here's where it's all copied from. McGuinness and Harte openly admit their admiration for basketball coaching:

https://m.imgur.com/t/basketball/QCmS4ze

[sid waddell]

There should be a restriction on amount of consecutive hand passes. They aren't going to abolish it obviously,  but cut it down.

Why bring in a rule that would favour massed defences?

And why make the referee's job even tougher than it already is?

A rule to restrict consecutive handpasses was brought in for the 1994/95 NFL. It was a disaster.